“Please just call me Circe.” The woman’s voice was quiet and pleasant. In fact she was pretty and gentle looking, and not at all what Diana expected to see in a K9 handler who dealt exclusively in recovery searches.
Diana nodded. “Circe it is. So, tell me what you found?”
Something in Circe’s body language must have alerted Zelda because she popped up from her sprawl and sat next to her, leaning into her leg. Circe’s hand dropped to her dog’s head and she absently began to stroke it. “Pretty much a routine search, with Zelda alerting on the first body fairly quickly. At that point I figured we’d found all we were going to, but since we’d only covered a small portion of the area, we continued to be thorough. That’s when Zelda alerted two more times. A fair bit of a surprise.”
Many thoughts were racing through Diana’s mind as she listened to Circe. “Could she have alerted on parts from the first body?”
It was a morbid but necessary question. True, this area was on the fringe of the downtown core and rather urban. At the same time, around these parts wildlife was always hanging near the river. The city didn’t seem to intimidate deer, skunks, or raccoons. Last year just a mile down the road in Riverside State Park a cougar was scaring the crap out of runners, hikers, and cyclists. Sometimes cougars or coyotes scavenged human remains, so her question had a great deal of merit.
Circe was shaking her head. “I can see where you’re going with this and why. As much as I hate to say it, we’ve seen it happen before, and any other time I might say it’s a probable theory. Not this time. I’ve watched Zelda enough to know the difference between a small source and a full body. This was most definitely full body. Three full bodies,” she added quietly.
Diana stuck her hands in her pockets and studied Circe’s face for a long minute as she bit on her upper lip. Bottom line: she believed her. Not just because of everything she’d heard about this exceptional K9 team but because her gut told her to. She put a lot of store in gut instinct. It had saved her ass more than once.
“Okay then, three bodies it is.” She cut her gaze over to Paul. “Well, let’s take a look at what they found.”
He nodded, and she could tell he was already working through the investigation they were about to embark on. One thing about Paul, he was always thinking. He was a good guy in so many ways, she wondered for probably the hundredth time why he was still single. Though she knew he dated, he was pretty tight-lipped about his personal life, especially lately. She sensed something was up with him on the home front. Given enough time he’d let her in. For now, he needed space, which was fine. They had a lot of work in front of them and not much time for personal issues.
Zelda, as it turned out, wasn’t going with them to look at the body locations. Circe walked with her back to the SUV with the stickers and motioned for her to jump in. After a quick “stay,” Circe shut the back and then turned to them. “This way,” she said and began to walk briskly.
“You’re not bringing her?” Diana asked. She couldn’t help it, she was curious.
Circe shook her head. “No. She’s done her work and was rewarded. She’s entitled to her rest now. I don’t want to work her through a scenario she’s already covered.”
“Would she alert again if she came with us?”
Circe nodded. “Yes.”
“Interesting,” Diana said softly.
“Very.”
Diana didn’t miss a step as she followed Circe from the parking lot to an area defined by yellow police tape stretched between five spindly pine trees. Techs were already on task, carefully moving dirt from the first spot where Zelda alerted earlier. By the time the four of them arrived, the meticulous work of the techs had uncovered the unmistakable form of a human being. Judging by the slim build and feminine clothing, it was a woman.
At the sight, Diana’s heart grew heavy. It didn’t matter how many times she saw something like this; she always experienced the same wash of emotion. She hated the feeling of being too late. No one deserved to be treated like this, and what made this one even sadder was the fact that two more bodies were buried in shallow graves nearby. It was wrong on so many levels.
After studying the makeshift grave, Diana turned full circle and swept her gaze over everything, taking in the trees, the grass, the pine needles, and the streets. For at least a moment, she tried to be inside the head of a killer, to see what he saw, to understand why he decided to bring his victims here. Why this spot? It was beautiful in this place, natural and wild. Close to the high-use areas but far enough away to provide a bit of privacy. Only a little, though, and that was the element she found most disconcerting. If he wanted to be away from prying eyes, this was definitely not the place to be. The observation led her to only one conclusion: someone liked a bit of danger.
Circe touched her shoulder and inclined her head toward the west. Time to go survey the others, Diana gathered from her look, and so she nodded. It was important to study those locations as well to see what the killer saw and try to understand why the killer would come here to conceal his heinous deeds.
Dry grass crunched beneath their feet as they walked away from the first marked area, and the low murmur of voices floated on the air. Every crime scene was marked by solemnity and sorrow. This one was even more so. It was as if all of them felt the travesty of the three deaths personally. She sure knew she did and vowed to find the sonofabitch who did this.
The two makeshift graves of the other victims were mirror copies of the first. If she had any doubts the same person committed these murders, they evaporated. At each site, she went through the same motions, studying the grave itself and the surrounding area. Again she had the same sense that whoever did this liked to flirt with danger. Yes, each grave had a bit of privacy, but the risk of exposure was always present. The cover that the sprinkling of bushes and pine trees provided wasn’t that deep. If a single cyclist had cruised through, everything would have been out in the open. That made her nervous, because it meant the bastard had balls of stainless and would be hard to catch.
“I hate this,” she said under her breath. It was her job to investigate murders, and she’d gone into this profession willingly knowing what she’d be faced with. Despite her father’s best efforts to shield his family from the work he did, Diana had always known and admired how he tried to make the world a better place by catching killers and putting them away. She wanted to follow in his footsteps.
Day in and day out she faced the dark side of the human condition, yet this shook her up. It took darkness to a level that frightened even someone conditioned to it. From firsthand experience, she knew what staring into the face of the devil could do to someone. Her father’s eyes were still haunted even after he’d put a serial killer away for life. She worried that someday that same look would stare out from behind her own eyes.
Paul put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Yeah, it’s screwed up, that’s for sure, but we’ll find out who did this and why. We got this, D.”
She shook her head as she let out a long sigh. “We haven’t had a serial killer working here since Yates.” Her hand in her pocket, she fingered the small stainless whistle on the end of her keychain. When Yates was leaving bodies around the county, her father had given her the little whistle just in case. She’d had in her pocket ever since.
“He was one messed up motherfu—”
She gave him a look. She certainly shared his assessment of the captured serial killer. Even so, probably best not to voice that sentiment in mixed company. It was the kind of thing they could say to each other inside the confines of their car but not out here.
“Yes, he was,” she said and patted his hand where it still rested on her shoulder. She let her gaze travel down to the techs who worked with infinite care and respect to extricate what was now clearly the body of another woman from her earthen casket. “With Yates locked up for life, I really hoped never to use the words serial killer again.”
*
Rage broiled inside his
chest volcano hot. It surprised him that those crowded outside the yellow length of police tape didn’t pick up on his rage. Then again, when it came right down to it most people were clueless.
That’s what made it all so easy. Stupidity was a sickening epidemic that made him weary. How people could be so dense baffled him. The world shouldn’t be like this. So much potential for greatness existed if someone could clear the path of the clutter and the junk. Or perhaps more accurately, the fools and idiots. Good thing he was the man for the job.
The work was easy if one had the skills. It was a bit like manning a snowplow: put the blade down and plow forward. He had done the job and buried the trash in this meadow, leaving the ground above clean and renewed. Or it would have been if not for that woman and her dog. They were destroying all his good work. Besides, it wasn’t like he hadn’t rewarded these women for their contribution. On the contrary, he’d buried them with care and a prayer of thanks for their sacrifice. In life these three did nothing of value. They polluted their bodies and the world around them. In death, they joined with him to create something magnificent. How could that possibly be wrong? It was a win-win all the way around, at least until these assholes dug them up.
One by one, black body bags were removed and put into the back of the van from the medical examiner’s office. He could barely resist the urge to scream “NO.” Labor such as this deserved to be honored for what it was: righteous. To remove the evidence of the work he’d done to better this world wasn’t just wrong; it was almost criminal. Why couldn’t they leave well enough alone?
He couldn’t do a thing. Once the police stepped in like this, the control rested with them. No argument to the contrary could change a thing. The mindset of law enforcement barred them from seeing the big picture or the good work of those who did it. They were only interested in the letter of the law. They failed to understand the existence of higher laws.
In some respect, the fault was probably partially his. His time away made him sloppy. When he left so long ago, the good folk of the city rarely traversed this area. Vagrants and druggies had gathered here, to be certain. The kind of people who would call cops wouldn’t have been caught here in broad daylight. Clearly that had changed, so shame on him for not checking first. The assumptions he made when he chose this place were based on outdated information and ultimately turned out to be wrong. He would be more careful from here on out.
His work had to continue, and so he had to eliminate discoveries like this. He knew only one way to make sure that happened. A plan began to reveal itself, and as it did, the feelings of rage began to fade. As usual, he found a solution to the problem. There was always a solution if one was smart enough to think of it and brave enough to carry it through.
*
By the time they made it home, Circe was exhausted. It was always this way when they found a body. It was as if the spirits of the departed drew strength from her in order to make their appearance. The fact that three of them came to her today was overwhelming. She felt like she’d been through a prize fight and lost.
Zelda was obviously tired too. Though she couldn’t see the departed like Circe could, her skill at detecting the odor of the deceased took a toll on her just as it did on Circe. She firmly believed her dog felt each find as deeply as she did. Zelda hit her water bowl for a long, loud drink and then crawled up on the end of the sofa and promptly went to sleep.
Some people took exception to animals on the furniture, but not Circe. They both lived in this house, and they both had a right to enjoy the comfort of cushioned furniture. Her one concession to sharing her home with a large dog was to choose leather for the sofa and the chairs. It was an expensive route to take, but the cleanup was a hundred times easier than if she’d opted for cloth. Because she got black leather, it rarely looked like a dog had just slept there for hours. Worked for her and, judging by the dog now snoring softly on the sofa, worked for Zelda too.
In the kitchen she pulled a bottle of wine from the fridge and poured herself a glass. She just wanted to sit down, put her feet up, and enjoy the lovely dry Riesling she’d picked up from a local winery owned by an old high-school buddy. It seemed to flow through her veins and quiet the buzzing that had started when the first woman appeared to her. There were other ways to relax like yoga or mediation, and she employed those methods on occasion. Wine, on the other hand, was a quicker and more satisfying route that called loudly to her at this moment.
With the remote she picked up from the end table, she clicked on music and smiled as the strains of a blues song by Susan Tedeschi filled the room. This was what she needed to decompress after a search like the one today. Good wine, great music, and a comfortable chair. Circe closed her eyes and let her body relax.
It wasn’t easy. Intellectually she understood that what she could do was important. But finding a way to work without people realizing that she, not Zelda, was the one locating the dead was a daunting challenge. Once she had discovered a way to use her special talent, it kept her sane yet at the same time wore on her because it took her to the dark side of humanity too often. To come face-to-face with that horror hurt all the way to her soul.
Today was one of those days that seemed to hurt just a little more. Every time a murder victim was discovered she wanted to break down and sob. How could a person do something like that? Why would they do something like that? Life, all life, was precious, and to steal it from someone and then toss them aside like garbage was nothing short of pure evil. Whoever did this, who took not one life but three, surely sat at the right hand of Satan.
How much she wanted to see only the bright side of humanity: the people who helped the less fortunate, mentored children, and rescued animals. She wanted to watch parades and smile, sing in choirs and dance with wild abandon. That was the world she wanted to live in and couldn’t. It had been denied to her from the day of her birth.
For whatever reason, she hadn’t been given the option to live in the world of her dreams. Most of the time she reconciled herself to the fate she’d been handed. She took what she couldn’t escape and used it to try to do some good. Usually it was enough. Today it made her sad. Something about those three women pulled at her heart. She hoped the police would track down the monster that did this and make sure it never happened to another. Sometimes, though, the monsters slipped through the cracks, and she hoped this didn’t turn out to be one of those times.
The wine was doing its job and the muscles in her shoulders relaxed. A movie might be what she needed to take relaxation to the next level. She clicked through the list of recent releases, settling on a movie featuring a favorite comedic actor who, no matter how many times she watched him, always made her laugh. She was seconds into the film when her doorbell rang.
Chapter Three
Diana sat at her desk with her head in her hands. Paul was long gone, as was most everyone else in her squad. Identifying the dead from the three shallow graves hadn’t taken long. Whoever killed them must not have been too concerned with identification, because beyond the fatal injuries, their bodies were unmolested. Taking their fingerprints was quick and effective. From there, it was just a matter of routine. All three were in the system, so tracking down their names and next of kin had turned out to be relatively easy.
Notifying the families wasn’t quite as easy. It didn’t matter if a victim came from the wealthy upper South Hill or the poverty-laced West Central area, loved ones lost at the hands of another brought pain and sadness to those left behind in equal measure. In her line of work, it was clear that tragedy came to everyone regardless of their station in life. In situations like this, it was even worse. No one deserved to be murdered and then buried in the hopes of never being found.
Together she and Paul had delivered the news as gently as possible under the circumstances. The mother of Anna Sorto, the first victim, was so high Diana wasn’t certain she even grasped what they told her. Her bottle-blond hair with black roots didn’t look like it had come close to shampo
o in weeks, and a couple of missing teeth hinted at her drug of choice. She wanted to get pissed off at these people who threw their lives away to drugs and street life, except she never quite got there. Always in the back of her mind was the tiny question that kept anger away: why? Until she walked in their shoes she could never really know how or why they ended up at the sharp end of a needle or in a cold, dark grave. Until she did know, she wasn’t about to cast the first stone. And so, she gave this mother what comfort she could, hoped it would break through the drug induced fog, and left her card on the cluttered coffee table just in case. Chances were she’d never hear from this woman, but then again, stranger things had happened.
The grandmother of Kathy Kane, the second victim, was the only family she had, and the news seemed to crush the life out of the woman, who had to have been at least eighty. The house was tiny, the furniture old and worn, yet it was clean and smelled of cinnamon as if she’d just baked an apple pie. The walls were adorned with photographs of a woman who must have been Kathy’s mother and at least six more of Kathy at various ages. The face in the pictures was cute and alive with fun and laughter. What had happened to the little girl who smiled out at them from the frames of those pictures? Worried about leaving the grieving woman, Diana called social services to make sure someone could come be with her.
The third victim’s family members were quite a surprise. They were far from the low-income housing of Anna’s family or the small Shadle area home of Kathy’s grandmother. The final house they pulled in front of was at least twice the size of Diana’s own and solid ruby-red brick. The long driveway was also made of brick laid out in an intricate pattern and lined on either side with elegantly trimmed shrubs. It screamed old money.
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