A Child Shall Lead Them (A Joe Burgess Mystery, Book 6)

by Flora, Kate;

  “Two things,” Aucoin said. “He had a dog with him. And says he stepped off the trail to take a leak.”

  “I didn’t see a dog,” Kyle said.

  “Guy had his wife come and pick it up.”

  “Did it disturb anything?”

  “Can’t say. Nothing seemed disturbed, but you’ll have to ask him. He’d already gone out to the trail and made some phone calls by the time I got here. I guess he didn’t call us until he was back out to the parking lot.”

  “That a guess or something he told you?” Kyle asked.

  “What he said.”

  Burgess studied Aucoin. Not because he didn’t believe what the young officer was saying. He just wanted to see how Aucoin was. Aucoin had been one of the Portland officers shot by an angry sniper who had lured three officers into a trap at an abandoned warehouse. He’d only recently come back to work. The kid looked good, though a little pale and thin.

  Aucoin caught the scrutiny. “I’m doing great, Sergeant,” he said. “Getting married soon. I hope you all will come.”

  “I hope so, too, Remy,” he said. “Unless I’m called out like this. We were all at a picnic.”

  “Well, this is going to be no picnic.”

  Abruptly, Aucoin turned and walked away. The three of them followed while Officer Simmons, a rookie who was looking slightly green, stayed back by the tape, ready to repel anyone who found their way past the officers out in the parking lot.

  The three of them studied the naked white body laid out on last year’s damp brown leaves. The jagged red tangle of skin, veins, tendons and bone where her neck ended, the abrupt ends of both arms where her hands should have been. It was ugly and disturbing. It was also disturbing—and telling—that no effort had been made to cover the body. It had been arranged there, legs spread, the girl’s private parts waxed free of any signs of a mature woman’s body hair. One arm was heavily decorated with a sleeve of elaborate body art.

  She was a small girl, thin arms and legs, but with full breasts. Where her skin was visible, on her stomach and legs, and on the untattooed arm, there were numerous large, dark bruises.

  “She was just like this when you found her?” Kyle asked.

  The flash of anger Burgess saw on Kyle’s face wasn’t about Aucoin. He was thinking of Lexi just as Burgess was thinking of Nina. Of young girls and how vulnerable they could be. How much evil there was in the world. Cops absolutely believed in evil.

  “Well, you can be sure I didn’t have to disturb this body checking for signs of life,” Aucoin said gruffly.

  “It’s okay, Remy,” Burgess said. “It’s all right to be disturbed. We’re not supposed to get used to scenes like this.”

  He looked at Kyle and Perry, who had moved to his right and his left and were making their own assessments of what they were seeing.

  “Somebody beat the hell out of her,” Perry said. “ME will have to tell us whether the amputations are premortem…” He hesitated. “The hands, I mean. Obviously. She wasn’t killed here.” He looked around at the trees, the tangle of vegetation, and back toward the now invisible trail. “This is one sick fuck, Joe. Ballsy, too. Takes something to kill a girl, chop off her hands and head and then carry her from the parking lot down the trail and out into the woods. Too many chances to be seen. Unless he did it at night?”

  He continued, wondering aloud. “Why put her here, far from the trail, then display her like this? And unless he wrapped her in something to transport her, guy must have gotten covered with blood. Maybe even if he did. It’s awkward, transporting a body”

  “So you think it was a guy?” Burgess said.

  “Can you see a woman doing this?”

  Burgess agreed, but said, “I’ve been surprised before.”

  “Joe Burgess always says ‘Don’t let your speculations get ahead of the evidence,’” Kyle intoned. “And Burgess is always right.”

  “Could be a first time,” Perry said. He swung toward Burgess. “It could.”

  Despite the time they’d worked together, there was often still something of the defiant child about Stan Perry, though he had a great facility for pulling rabbits out of hats just as Burgess was getting ready to kick him off the team. So Burgess let it go. Perry had been seriously stressed about Lily’s pregnancy, and that had been affecting his mood, but it was time for him snap out of it and settle back down. Burgess was just about out of forgiveness.

  “Right now, we don’t know a damned thing, except this poor girl has been butchered,” Burgess said. “This is only where it begins.”

  “Hello? Is there anybody out there?”

  Burgess recognized the voice of their chief evidence tech, Wink Devlin. “We’re over here, Wink. Follow Remy’s yellow line.”

  There were muffled voices and then Wink and Dani Letorneau, Wink’s right hand woman, appeared.

  “We followed the yellow road,” Wink said, “but I am quite sure this isn’t Oz. Where is our client?”

  Burgess and his team stepped aside so they could see the body.

  Their reactions were immediate, and different. Wink said, “Oh, shit!” and Dani said, “Oh the poor girl.”

  “I was at a family baby shower,” Wink said. “Mrs. Wink wasn’t pleased when I got the call, but I’d had enough of silly games and women squealing with delight. I got to miss decorating a onesie.”

  “I had a hot date,” Dani said. “Luckily, he’s a cop, so he understood.” She gave them all a cryptic smile, leaving them to speculate about who the lucky guy was.

  Without further comment, Wink and Dani went to work, taking pictures and measurements and all the details that went into making a thorough record of the crime scene.

  Three

  The day of the Fourth had dawned soft and sunny, perfect for enticing people out for ball games and outings and family picnics. Now, as the afternoon wore on, the morning’s lovely blue sky had turned a clotted gray, the thickening layers of clouds beginning to look like a dirty down comforter. A wind had come up and it carried the suggestion of rain to come. While Wink and Dani worked, Burgess, Kyle, and Perry spread out and began to search the crime scene. There would be more searching after the body was removed, but for now, they searched the surroundings as they waited for Dr. Lee, the medical examiner, to arrive.

  The department’s call to the ME’s office had probably found Lee on the golf course. It was where he could usually be found on a lovely day. There was a Mrs. Lee, and some little Lees as well, but the ME rarely mentioned them, and Burgess didn’t know what they did while the Doc decompressed from his day job by hitting a small white ball around.

  They were also waiting for Vince Melia. He’d been called, but Burgess didn’t know whether Melia had been reached or whether he was out of touch. Melia was still recovering from a gunshot wound that had nearly taken his life. He was supposed to be driving a desk and avoiding crime scenes, but he wouldn’t miss a bad one like this. Still, the clock was ticking. There was no sign of him. And Burgess and his team weren’t waiting. The last thing any of them wanted was to lose some potentially useful piece of evidence because they stood around and waited for the rain to start.

  He also realized it was probably a waste of manpower for all three of them to hang around here. One of them, probably Kyle, should go back to headquarters and interview the jogger who’d found the body. Kyle was an intense and skilled interviewer. Something about those cold blue eyes made bad guys want to give it up. Burgess was very curious about how he’d describe finding the body. No one needed to go this far off the path to take a leak. He wanted to know whether it had been the dog and not the man who’d found it, and what kind of dog it was. Was it looking for food or did the dog have some search and rescue expertise?

  He smiled at the thought of sending Kyle back to police headquarters at 109 Middle Street, known to all of them simply as 109, to interview a dog. Even though he was the sergeant and they theoretically worked for him, that would not go over well.

  He’d given St
an Perry the trail of broken and disturbed branches that was likely the killer’s mode of entry when bringing in the body. It was worn enough that he suspected this was not the first time it had been used. Perry was still a kid, with sharp young eyes and endless energy, while Burgess was a slow moving old dinosaur, and Kyle wasn’t so far behind him. It was tiring work, demanding painstaking concentration and close attention, and he’d sent Remy to ask Simmons to get them some bottled water. Burgess was a big guy. He’d skipped breakfast in anticipation of the picnic, and three bites of a burger and a forkful of Chris’s delicious potato salad weren’t enough. He wished he could send for food, but seasoned though they were, none of them could eat at a scene like this. Even if they could, the optics of a cop carrying takeout to a crime scene would be terrible. He knew it was the one photo that would make the front page.

  He had cleared his area, then searched beyond the body, thinking the killer might have overconfidently discarded something in that direction, assuming the cops would stop at the body. So far, he’d found nothing, not even the usual litter of cans, bottles, tissues, and food wrappers that followed humans wherever they went. Now he was waiting for Dr. Lee and using these few quiet moments to study the scene. The vegetation, the size of clearing, the placement of the body. Anything could be information about the perpetrator’s experience, mindset, attitude.

  He’d long believed that if he stayed still and listened, crime scenes would tell him things. This place was just beginning to speak. It told him that this wasn’t the first time the killer had been off the trail in these woods. It was too obscure a spot, and too far down the trail. He didn’t yet know why. He was wondering what a search dog might tell them, what it would scent that they wouldn’t see. The scene was also telling him that the killer was a cold, manipulative bastard. He didn’t yet know whether the display was meant to manipulate them, or someone else. Perhaps another young girl. The perpetrator’s colleague. Or to shock someone into keeping quiet.

  As he stood waiting, he began the list of questions to be asked once they were done here. The investigative avenues they would pursue and what priority they’d be given.

  Perry and Kyle were still snuffling through the bushes. He could hear the occasional snort, or exclamation, but so far, neither man had summoned Wink or Dani to record any evidence. Burgess was surprised. Criminals almost always left something behind, even the most devious and careful ones. The removal of identifying body parts and the time taken to display the body suggested confidence and preparation, but still, he expected something. Organized killers like this were often overconfident. There was something to be found here. He was sure of it. If they didn’t find it today, he’d come back.

  He’d have to come back anyway, once the body had gone to the Medical Examiner’s facility. It was something he always did—taking a photo of the crime scene without the body in it. That empty space represented the problem he needed to solve. It was his job to fill it with answers.

  They were all thoroughly frustrated, worn out, and unpleasantly cooled by the chill in the rising wind, when there was the rustling of feet and Simmons appeared, leading Dr. Lee.

  Dr. Lee was sharp as a tack, Asian, and moved faster than other humans. His crisp, efficient method of working was so different from the ME Burgess had worked with for years, a man who approached the dead with deep reverence, that it had taken Burgess a while to develop a relationship with Lee. The two of them still did a cautious dance around one another. But Lee often spotted things another ME might miss, and those findings had proved invaluable in sending overconfident killers to prison.

  “I was golfing,” Lee announced. “First a family picnic with Mrs. Lee and three small Lee children. Very pleasant if you like sandwiches and don’t mind bugs. Only then could I escape to the golf course.” He eyed Burgess. “I know you don’t ‘get’ golf, Detective, but I find it a very soothing activity. Then I get a call that there’s a body, and my assistant is on a boat somewhere on Moosehead Lake.”

  He produced one of his rare smiles. “I did those last four holes at lightning speed. It was almost amusing to ask other golfers to let me play through because I had a murder victim waiting. They seemed not to know what to make of it.”

  He stared at Burgess uncertainly. “I do have a murder victim waiting, right?”

  “Well, Dr. Lee,” Burgess said. “She certainly didn’t do this to herself.”

  Realizing his bulk was keeping the smaller man from seeing the victim, he stepped aside to let the ME get a look at the body. “She’s all yours.”

  Dr. Lee stared silently at the body, seeing, Burgess knew, beyond the breasts and the tattoos. Finally, he spoke. “Don’t let things fool you, Detective. Those breasts are fake. They’re implants. See how they stay upright and perky, even though she’s lying on her back? I’ll know more when I have her on the table, but I can tell you this—she’s hardly more than a child. A child someone has used as a sex toy or has pimped out. Someone victimized in life and then victimized again in death.”

  The smiling golfer was gone, and the man Burgess knew was back. A man who, like himself, was especially committed to bringing to justice people who hurt children.

  Burgess flashed on Nina again. And on his niece, Cherry, with a woman’s curvy body and an innocent, almost childlike world view. Cherry, who wanted to work for the FBI. Both were hardly more than children, with their mature appearances thrusting them into a world of men’s advances, catcalls, and risks that they didn’t deserve.

  This wasn’t the time to be thinking about other kids. He brushed his thoughts away like annoying cobwebs and followed Lee closer to the body.

  As he watched Lee kneel to examine the girl, Stan Perry’s muffled yell came from ground level behind some bushes. “I’ve got something!”

  Watching Dani Letorneau headed off to document Perry’s find, Burgess almost missed hearing Lee say, “Something else I can tell you. This was not done by a professional. It’s a total hack job. Literally. See how the skin is shredded? Looks like the killer used a saw.”

  Four

  Total hack job didn’t sound like something Dr. Lee would say, but that’s what Burgess heard. Then Dr. Lee repeated his earlier statement. “I’ll know more when I get her on the table.”

  “What’s your schedule like?” Burgess asked, knowing he would have to be at the autopsy, and not wanting to be there. He figured he might as well get it settled now, before he went back to 109 and immersed himself in the details of the investigation.

  “Pretty open. Barring catastrophes overnight. How does ten a.m. sound?”

  It sounded too early and too soon, but experience had taught him that if he questioned the good doc, resentment might cause the autopsy to be scheduled at seven a.m. or not for days, and he needed the information they’d learn there. “Sounds fine,” he said—as if there was anything fine about this situation.

  He might hope they’d get back to 109 and learn that a frantic parent had filed a missing person report, giving them the girl’s name and people to interview about her. Hope springs eternal in a homicide detective’s heart, but he already knew that wasn’t going to happen. The kind of parents who’d file a missing person report weren’t the kind to allow a child this young to get all those tattoos or breast implants. More likely, no one would claim her and they’d have to knock on doors, scour DHS and school records, and see how they could find a way into Portland’s dark underground of those who trafficked young girls and boys.

  The killer had been clever. He’d taken away three primary sources of identification: fingerprints, facial recognition, and the possibility of leads from names or labels in the clothes. What he hadn’t taken, and what might give them a good chance for an ID, if Dr. Lee was right, was the implants in her breasts. Implants had numbers, and those numbers led to records. Even if those records were falsified as to the identity of the patient, with luck, and good old detective work, they could lead to the surgeon who’d done the implants. Even a reluctant surgeon might
have some useful information, and Burgess and a search warrant could be very persuasive.

  They also had that tattoo sleeve. It was still a work-in-progress, with much of the picture yet to be filled in. Much like this case. If the tats were local, which seemed likely, they might find the artist, which might also lead to further information, like a name or description of the girl, whether she’d come alone, and whether she, or someone else, had paid for the work. That would be a job for Super Stan, who had a few tats of his own.

  “Any idea how long she’s been dead?” Burgess asked. He knew Dr. Lee wasn’t one of those TV cowboys who gave exact times or very narrow windows. He thought this body was very fresh, and was curious about what the ME would say.

  “It’s July,” Dr. Lee said, “and despite this afternoon’s cooler air, it’s been hot. If she’d been here long, decomp would be rapid, and it’s barely begun.” He lifted an arm, then slowly lowered it. “Rigor is dissipating. So a twenty-four to thirty-six hour window, perhaps. And she hasn’t been here long, or she’d be crawling with maggots and flies.”

  Burgess nodded. Made a note. Everything was ballpark, but it gave them something to work with. Unless she’d been in someone’s freezer. He wondered what the killer had done with the head and hands. Put them in a dumpster somewhere? Buried them in the garden or in a compost pile? Or was there another clearing somewhere along this trail, and the rest of the body was there?

  “She can go now,” Dr. Lee said.

  For a moment, lost in speculation and list-making, Burgess didn’t understand what the ME meant. How could she leave without her head and hands? He rubbed his forehead, trying to clear the fog, then told Aucoin to go out to the end of the trail and tell the Medical Examiner’s van to drive down the trail so they could load the body away from the prying eyes of what was likely a pretty big crowd in the parking lot by now.