"Alright," I replied, waiting for more information and eager to discover what the man had in store for me. Inside, I was honest with myself that not much could be trickier than solving the Minot murders, but I knew I could be surprised.
"Well," said Mitchell, "this morning, we, or should I say, a dog, found a body of an unidentified victim. There is not much left but bones, and they appear to be a female. I'll let you look at this person and you'll see the rest. It's obvious that this person died decades ago. I've chosen you for this case because I trust you. I have faith that you will find the killer of this person, no matter how hard it will be. You have already demonstrated your amazing skills to me, so this should be no problem to you."
I was quite annoyed at Mitchell's assumption, because he should not have put that much pressure on me. Sometimes murders are unsolvable, especially cold cases, since there are no leads from the start. It's sad, but unfortunately, Mitchell did not see it like that. He saw me as the God of criminal catching, and I knew I wasn't. Although I was talented at what I did, I could not make any deductions about things if I did not have anything to deduce from, and this case seemed just like that. On the other hand, it was worth a shot, and it was better than working on all of the gang killings all the time, so I was ready for the challenge, leaving others to work on the gang killings for a second time. I predicted they would now be very annoying, but now I had more important things to focus on than whether I was right about that.
I arrived at the crime scene: it was an empty field in the middle of nowhere, seemingly. There was nothing else around except Nature. There were no houses and no public facilities. It was just an empty field. A few hundred feet away, in the distance, I could see several small hills which were clumped together, but that was literally all there was to see. There were no roads around, as the field was connected to other abandoned fields. It was only then that the local forest could be seen.
I approached the forensics team, knowing that the body would still be there. As a matter of fact, what the boss said was right – it was not actually a body, only bones. However, there was something on the body that I noticed quite quickly: a pink dress. The person who was killed obviously wore a pink dress that night, so anybody could deduce that they were out at a social event of some sort.
"Have you got any DNA on this person?" I asked a forensic scientist.
"Unfortunately, we've looked around the area, and there are no fingerprints on the victim's dress, and obviously, any fingerprints that would have been on the victim are gone now, and there are no hairs anywhere on the body, aside from her own. So no, there is no DNA evidence, I'm afraid," he replied.
That was a huge drawback for me. DNA was the easy way out, but it looked to me as though this case was going to be a tough one.
"Do you know how the victim was killed?" I asked the forensic scientist.
"The scratch marks on the bones suggest that the victim was stabbed at least nine times," he replied. "But it is possible that they were stabbed many more times than that."
Inside, I felt sick. How could somebody do this to another human being? I asked myself, although it was no more horrific than any other case I’d worked on.
I took another look at the bones, especially the facial expression. Although there was nothing left except bones, I could clearly see that the victim died in pain. The mouth was open, but there were no teeth.
"There's no teeth!" I cried.
"Yes. That's one of the most horrific parts. The person who did this probably pulled this woman's teeth out, from what I can tell by looking at the mouth," replied the forensic scientist.
I thought I was going to throw up. Why would somebody do that? Perhaps it was to make sure the body was not identified. That was the only explanation I could think of right now. Other than that, torture. Now that the victim had no teeth, I could not even compare the victim's teeth with any dental records. This was going to be a very hard case for me, but I felt a strong connection with the victim, for some reason. I made it my new personal goal to make sure that the person who did this would be caught, dead or alive.
Chapter 15
My first step was to conduct some door-to-door research around the area, to see if anyone knew anything about this mysterious unidentified woman. I hoped and prayed there would be someone old enough to remember the disappearance of a woman in the area. I was not completely certain that the dumping ground was in fact anywhere near the place where this woman lived, but the killer obviously knew the area well, or else they would not be able to find this place, since it was in the middle of nowhere, and it would be virtually impossible to discover this place by accident when looking for a place to dump a body. This murder was planned, and I was sure of that. Somebody wanted this woman dead for whatever reason, and so I desperately needed to establish the woman's name or identity, and I could work from there.
I started with the door-to-door enquiries, but, to my great misfortune, no-one knew a thing about it. For years people had been walking their dogs through this field, completely ignorant of the fact that they were walking over a dead body. It was a shame that no-one had tried to regenerate the field, because if a farmer had found her years before, we would have had perhaps half a chance of identifying this woman. Since the door-to-door enquiries did no good at all, I decided to return to the station, to wait for the post-mortem.
Later that day, the post-mortem came back, and inside it, it revealed that the woman probably died somewhere between the years of 1980 and 1990. That was useful to a certain extent, because if I were to find a lead, I could relate back to this to help identify the woman. However, it did not help me get any closer to identifying the woman at the moment, which was the most important thing. All I needed was one person to come forward and say that they knew this mystery woman. Someone did. I was certain of that. Someone had to know the details about this woman's disappearance. The report also said that she was probably between the ages of twenty and thirty-five. That narrowed it down slightly, but it still did not help much. I was going to go and use the missing person's database to see if I could get a lead on this, but I asked Mitchell (not the boss, the other Mitchell) to go instead, as I was too busy analyzing the report.
The report also contained the grisly details of the woman's death: where on the body she was stabbed, how deep the wounds were, what type of instrument was used, and so on. It proved to be of little use, even though I now knew exactly how she died. I had previously deduced that the person who killed her was a psychopath, though a very clever one, as they had gotten away with it – up until now, at least. I hoped this person was still alive so that they could be punished for what they did. No-one at all deserved to die that way.
Mitchell returned with several files full of details of women between the ages of twenty and thirty-five who went missing between the years of 1980 and 1990 in North Dakota. Finally things were narrowed down a bit, as there were only thirteen reported missing people. For the first time I was beginning to get quite excited, since I now had pictures of people and different pieces of information to go on. Sadly, none of the files gave any details about a woman in a pink dress – some had been out at parties the night they vanished, and others were at home, so I was able to narrow things down even further, but I still had seven women who were on the suspect list for being this woman. I was close, but sadly, not close enough, as I could not come up with a convincing argument, with evidence, that any of the women in the files was actually the dead woman. I assumed that most of these women were dead themselves, but I knew deep down that one of these women was the woman we had found. Although it was possible that the woman was not reported missing, it was improbable, as there was likely to be someone who noticed her disappearance and reported it.
Seeing nowhere else to go, I decided to launch a public appeal in order to see if anyone knew this woman. This was probably (and hopefully) going to be the most challenging part of the case. The television and radio companies stormed in with this story, and they
were eager to report the discovery of this mystery woman. They gave details of where she was found, and the pink dress that she was wearing. I was hoping that someone would be able to recall the pink dress, even though there was no mention of it in any of the missing person's files. I knew that it was a long shot, but worth a try, as I had nothing at all to lose.
I was extremely lucky, because the very next day a visitor arrived at the station wanting to talk to me about the missing woman.
"Hello," I said to her as she walked in.
She was a small woman, aged around fifty, and she wore cheap clothes and she was quite plump. Her hair was greasy, her face full of spots, but she approached me in a friendly manner.
"My name is Lesley Kurtis," she said, quite nervous about talking to me.
"I'm Tammy Williams," I said, eager to see what this woman knew. "I understand that you have some information about the woman we found?"
"Yes," Lesley replied, taking a seat. "And I think it might be very useful to you."
"Go on," I said.
"Well, I think the missing woman was Eve Roberts, if you don't know that already."
I remembered the name from one of the missing person's files. She had gone out for a party that night, but the person who reported her could not recall what she was wearing.
"And why do you think that?" I asked Lesley.
"Because she was wearing the pink dress the night she went missing. I remember it. I am...was a very good friend of Eve’s, and when she went missing I knew she'd been murdered. It was just so unusual of her," Lesley replied in a fairly shaky voice.
I was beginning to get very excited now.
"And why did you not say any of this before?" I asked her.
"Because one of my other friends said she sorted it out. She said she told the police everything and that there was no need to speak to them. I've only just realized that she never mentioned the dress. I know it's Eve. It has to be," replied Lesley, getting fairly excited.
"Right, and can you tell me about the time she went missing?" I asked her.
"I can't really remember," she said.
"Can you remember the last time you saw her?"
"Well, we were at the party just a few miles away from here, in a club. A lot of people were quite drunk. Eve went out for a cigarette, and that was that. She never came back in."
Lesley started to cry now.
"It's O.k.," I said, reassuring her.
I thanked her for the help she gave me, and gave her the contact details should she ever think of anything else. I now had the name of the victim, because Eve went missing in 1988, and she was twenty-eight years old. In a way, come to think of it, she looked quite a lot like the skeleton. I now had the name of the victim, and I prepared for the rest of the journey ahead.
Chapter 16
My first task was to find out if any of Eve Roberts' relatives were alive, other than her friends. I telephoned Lesley again and informed her that the body we had found was indeed Eve's, and asked her if Eve had any living relatives. Lesley told me that Eve had a sister, who was now quite old. She gave me her contact details, and I went out to find her sister, whose name was Evelyn.
When I first met Evelyn, I noticed that she still looked upset. She must have been told the news, I thought to myself. This was confirmed when she opened the door to allow us inside, as she said to us, "I have been waiting for this news for twenty-four years."
She picked up a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her eye clean. I knew she felt like it was a giant weight lifted off her shoulders. However, justice was not yet served, so although Evelyn knew what happened to her sister, and how she died, the killer was not yet found, and that was my main purpose for coming to see her.
Previously, I had done some research about Eve and discovered that she had divorced and filed an official complaint about her ex-husband stating that he had assaulted her on several occasions. However, before any further action could be taken, Eve was killed. This made me very suspicious of her ex-husband, whose name was Kurt Roberts.
"Mrs. Drake," I asked Evelyn, "I know this is hard for you, but I need to talk to you about Eve."
"Of course," said Evelyn, gathering herself together. "Come inside, please."
She invited Graham Mitchell and me inside, and we sat down with her. I decided that I needed to get this out the way for her as quickly as possible, so I asked the questions straight away.
"We need to establish when you last saw Eve, if you can remember," I asked the poor oldwoman.
"Of course I can remember," replied Evelyn. "It was the day she went missing, or died, as we know now. God, I still can't get over it. Deep down, I knew that she was dead, but I had hoped it was a quick and painless death, not one like this. Who can do such a thing?" she asked.
"In time, you will find the answer to that," I replied, trying to reassure her. "But for now, we need to establish a few basic facts about Eve's life, particularly about the day she went missing. Can you tell us if she made any unusual calls, or if she was behaving strangely?"
"No, that's the thing! She was behaving normally. I just don't understand", Evelyn replied.
"Did Eve have any enemies?"
"Well, there was the obvious one," said Evelyn. "Her husband was the horrible one. He hit her a few times, you know?"
"We've read the files about that," I said, trying not to go into any details about it, "but do you really think he was capable of killing her?"
"Well, it's been decades since I saw him last. I saw him just before the divorce, but I don't know where he is now. But he was a very aggressive man, and it was his way or no way. That's what it was like around him."
"Okay," I said. "And is there anyone else who hated Eve?"
"I don't think so. Not with a passion, anyway."
I decided to leave things there.
"There is one more thing," said Evelyn.
I was intrigued.
"Go on," I said to her. Mitchell was ready with his notepad.
"Well, I think Kurt was stalking Eve."
"Why do you think that?" I asked her, rather interested by this revelation.
"Eve carried pepper spray. And another thing – a few days before Eve died she was on the telephone to Kurt. I was round her house, and she mentioned his name a few times."
"What did she say to him?" I asked, somehow thinking that this piece of information could be important.
"Well, I remember a bit of it that's stuck with me for the rest of my life. Eve said to Kurt, 'I know it's you. I know it's you who is standing at my window all the time'."
"Did you asked her about it?" I asked, mildly intrigued.
"I tried to, but she just talked about something else instead. I tried to help her, I really did, but now I realize if I could have helped her, maybe she wouldn't have died!"
Evelyn broke down into tears. I sat her down, calmed her down and left.
The next thing we had to do was trace Kurt Roberts. He was around somewhere, and I knew it. I knew that at this point in the case it was probable that he was the murderer.
We found him. He was living in the next town to us. We approached him as he was standing talking to someone in the middle of the street. We were able to trace him so easily because we went to his flats first, and a neighbor told us that he had gone out downtown. I was prepared for a chase.
Just as we expected, as we approached him he said, "I've done nothing wrong."
"We'd like you to answer a few questions down at the station, if you don't mind," said Mitchell.
He then decided to run off, and he was a fast runner. It took about three minutes before we caught him, and it took twice as long to escort him back to the car.
We entered the interview room later that day. His arms were folded, and he was glaring at us.
"Do you remember a woman called Eve Roberts?" I asked him.
"What do you think?" said Kurt, trying to be clever with us.
"Well, she was your wife. Now, you divorced with
her. Can you tell us why that is?"
He looked at us for a few seconds, remaining quiet, and then he said to us, "well, you're the police officer. You work it all out."
"Believe me, I will!" I said. "And if you don't start talking now we'll charge you with murder!"
"Who the Hell has been murdered?" he said, trying to look confused.
"Your ex-wife," Mitchell told him.
"Which one?" asked Kurt.
Mitchell and I looked at each other. He was clearly a stupid man.
"Eve Roberts was killed almost twenty-five years ago," I replied. "Do you remember her disappearance?"
"No," Kurt replied.
"Well, she was murdered shortly after your divorce, and before she died, she was about to go to court because she claimed you were domestically abusing her!"
I was getting excited, excited to charge this man with the murder, but he was not necessarily the killer.
"I don't know nothing," he said, folding his arms.
"Also, Eve claimed that you were stalking her."
"No comment," said Kurt.
Unfortunately, we continued to talk to him, but he kept saying, "No comment." Although usually that was a sign that the person was guilty of a crime, I thought that Kurt was too lazy to speak to us anymore. So, we looked into his criminal history, and he was clean. I couldn't believe it. We had to release him without charge. I was devastated, but before he left, I warned him I would be keeping a close eye on him.
However, I had something else to be shocked about, as well. In a surprise twist to the investigation, I received a call from the boss.
"Are you sitting down?" D.I. Mitchell asked me.
"I am now," I replied. "Why?"
"Because you're about to be in shock. At the field where Eve Roberts was found, we've discovered another seven corpses."
Chapter 17
It took us five days to identify each individual murder victim, but we got there in the end. It was difficult, because like Eve Roberts, each victim had had their teeth pulled out. I was certainly not expecting this to happen – I was dealing with a complete, utter psychopath.
Mystery: Quest for Justice: (Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Suspense Thriller Mystery) Page 7