by Alan Russell
“I hope your murderer isn’t as naturally elusive as Gray Parker,” she said. “There was one detective who called him ‘the man of a thousand faces.’ He was wrong: Parker didn’t disguise himself; he knew how to be invisible. Most of the time he passed himself off as a college student. That gave him license to keep odd hours. It also gave him a certain anonymity, with people seeing him as a student more than as an individual.”
She didn’t want to overload her audience with too many details, and yet there were so many things she wanted to say.
“What distinguished Parker’s first three homicides from those that followed is that there was significantly more posing involved. By this I don’t only mean his signature—his postmortem ritualized writing of Shame on their flesh—but his purposely situating the victims in specific spots.
“The first placement was in White Sands. Parker was a regular visitor there and knew the area well. He was fixated on how ephemeral life was and how White Sands showcased that. ‘Until the next dune buries them,’ was a favorite expression of his, words he had lifted from one of the White Sands exhibits. In a convoluted leap of logic, Gray decided he was that next dune and that his calling was to take life. The very act of placing Alicia Gleason’s body inside the monument revealed the extent of his compulsion. The road into White Sands is closed at night, and to get her body to the preselected spot, he had to carry her for two miles.
“Parker was similarly obsessed with the posing of his second victim, situating her at the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site. He was fascinated by the rock drawings. I suspect he saw them as tablets with messages as clear as the Ten Commandments. His fascination with Indian drawings wasn’t anything new; whenever he was at his wife’s home in Eden, Texas, he always visited the neighboring community of Paint Rock to look at its renowned Indian pictograph site. It’s a pretty spot, a half-mile bluff that overlooks the Conchos River, a place where a number of Indian tribes have left artifacts for over a thousand years. Some have even offered up their stories in relatively modern times. In 1865 Apache warriors kidnapped a fourteen-year-old girl named Alice Todd. They were fleeing pursuit but took the time to paint symbols of what they’d done on the rocks. They drew two crossed lances, which is the warpath symbol, and next to that they painted two long-haired scalps, which depicted the killings of Alice’s mother and a black slave girl. A third drawing showed a girl posed horizontally, a typical depiction of a captive. What ultimately happened to Alice is not known. Her body was never discovered, and she was never seen by the white community again. The last evidence of her existence is that drawing.”
Elizabeth paused in her telling. They didn’t need to hear about Parker’s fascination with Alice Todd. It would be more helpful to them to hear about Kathy Franklin. Elizabeth had extensively toured the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site, had spent two full days walking up and down the ridge and studying the area where the Franklin girl’s body had been posed. Anthropologists had documented more than twenty-one thousand rock carvings at Three Rivers, drawings more than a thousand years old. Many of the petroglyphs told stories; the bighorn sheep pierced with three arrows; the representations of mountain lions, bears, and game birds; the staring faces and masks; the mysterious crosses, circles, and patterns—all believed to have religious significance.
She had never felt exactly alone at Three Rivers. It was an easy place to be spooked. The weather always seemed to be changing, and the wind constantly tugged and talked. Even immutable objects never looked the same. From one moment to the next the Godfrey Hills to the north, the Sacramento Mountains and Sierra Blanca to the east, and the San Andres and Oscura Mountains to the west seemed to alter in stature and color. And below, looking northwest to the Chupadera Mesa, Elizabeth always thought she was on the verge of seeing visions.
She had hinted to a BLM ranger how she felt, how the spot seemed to her to be alternately holy and eerie, and he told her he often felt the same way. He took her down the trail and showed her what he called The Little Man but what he said others called the God of the Petroglyph.
“He’s the watcher,” the ranger said. “He’s the holy man looking out for this site. I’ve come up here some nights, and I’ve seen these weird lights in the area, sort of bluish and green. The Little Man puts on quite the light show.”
Something else the detectives didn’t need to hear about. “Parker didn’t leave a drawing at Three Rivers,” said Elizabeth, “no picture of Alice Todd. He left Kathy Franklin’s body.”
Back then, there had only been a dirt road out to the petroglyph site. Gray had brought Kathy at night, had laid her down beneath a petroglyph of one of the goggle-eyed beings. The figure looked alert, even afraid, its hands raised in alarm and its eyes wide open. Elizabeth wondered if that was how Kathy had reacted as Parker had put his hands around her neck. She coughed, not sure if it was out of reflex or sympathy, and remembered her audience.
“It’s clear the recent homicides have somewhat paralleled the original murders. I don’t have an opinion as to whether the San Diego homicides are copycat killings, ritualized murders based on the Shame MO, or whether the killer is staging these homicides for as-yet-unknown reasons. At this juncture, though, I think it’s important that Parker’s third murder be examined. Looking back might give you the opportunity to plan ahead.”
Elizabeth stopped talking, ostensibly to take a sip of water, but in reality to gather her thoughts about Heidi Ehrlich, another name from her personal memorial wall.
“Heidi Ehrlich was a woman who liked to help others. She was a college student who chose to be a Good Samaritan to the wrong person. She met Gray Parker in an Albuquerque park late one afternoon. She heard him calling out, ‘Anubis, Anubis.’ Then he approached her and asked if she’d seen his dog. Heidi helped him look. When she ventured into some brush, he strangled her with a leash.
“For those who know their Egyptian mythology, Anubis was the jackal-headed god who escorted the dead to judgment. Perhaps that had some bearing on where Parker transported the body. He took Heidi to the El Santuario de Chimayo, a famous shrine, sort of the Lourdes of New Mexico. For almost two hundred years people have been taking pinches of clay from a small well there, believing it has healing properties. And during Easter weekend a few tons of local dirt are brought in and blessed by the priest. Miracle dirt, people call it. They take it home in plastic bags.”
Elizabeth remembered the room at the church that was overflowing with crutches, braces, and medical equipment, items left behind by those who thought the clay had cured them. She had visited on a warm summer day, had gone inside and marveled that there were so many lit candles in such a small shrine. Then, as now, there was no shortage of people looking for a miracle. Inside and outside were signs of heartfelt offerings: beads, makeshift crucifixes, photos of loved ones, cut-out pictures of the Baby Jesus, and drawings of the Virgin Mary.
“Breaking into the church would have been easy, Parker told me. He had considered laying Heidi beneath one of three large reredos, antique paintings that look much like orthodox icons, but instead he placed her upon a cement altar in the amphitheater behind the church. It’s a beautiful spot, with a canopy of oak trees and a stream running behind it.
“I’ve often wondered if Gray was asking God for the ultimate in miracles, bringing Heidi back to life. He found holy places for all of his New Mexico victims, shrines of nature and man. It was as if he were giving his victims a chance to recover. All they had to do was get up, or better yet, tap into the holiness around them and overcome their circumstances.”
But the women disappointed him, Elizabeth thought, as women always had. They deserted him, or so Gray thought, and then compounded that treachery by not coming back to life.
She lifted up a copy of her book, covering her youthful picture with her hand. “I hope there might be something in this book that can help you in your current cases. For those who prefer to skip the reading and go right to the source, I’d be glad to answer any questions.”
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sp; The bodies in the room shifted. Elizabeth looked around the table. The silence seemed condemning. I didn’t reach them, she thought. I should have dug deeper and said more. Then, to her relief, a hand was raised. She acknowledged the questioner with a nod.
“I was wondering, ma’am, if you had any theories on why Mrs. Sanders’s body wasn’t moved like the Franklin woman’s.”
The speaker, in his late twenties, was younger than everyone else in the room. Elizabeth decided she could forgive him for calling her “ma’am.”
“I haven’t had a chance to read the case files, Detective. That said, I’ll hazard a guess. There was a nine-one-one call, I understand. It’s possible the murderer was disturbed by the caller. It’s also possible there wasn’t an appropriate petroglyph site in San Diego. From what I know, the murderer appears to be picking and choosing how he emulates the original Shame homicides. It’s possible he didn’t feel compelled to move Mrs. Sanders’s body and also possible he didn’t want to assume the risk of such a move.”
Another sheriff’s detective, the one lying on the sofa, spoke. Both his words and bearing were contentious. “Jennings and Sanders don’t match up physically with Gleason and Franklin.”
“No, they don’t.” Elizabeth’s response was firm. “And I’m sure there are other differences in the two sets of murders. But those might be clues in themselves.”
The woman detective spoke, not to Elizabeth, but to the group. “If this guy’s out to get college students, he’s not going to have any shortage of targets. The county has over a dozen major colleges. Last figure I heard, there were more than fifty thousand women enrolled in college courses in the San Diego area.”
The number hung in the air, daunting them.
“We could run some decoys at popular college hangouts,” said Lieutenant Borman, thinking aloud.
Nothing was said, but faces were openly skeptical. Borman read the expressions around him. “Lottery odds, I know,” he said, “but we can’t be passive in this. We also can’t be unrealistic. Let’s stake out the local shrines.”
It was the next logical grisly step, but Borman looked none too pleased at having to concede another murder.
“We got any local shrines?” one detective asked.
“My wife would tell you Nordstrom’s,” said another.
Much-needed laughter swept through the room.
6
SERGEANT DEAN EICK was the case agent for the Lita Jennings homicide. Because the same murderer appeared to have killed Teresa Sanders, Eick had also been made the lead investigator for that homicide. As the case agent, he had responsibility for assembling what all the investigators referred to as “The Book.” Most case agents no longer compiled The Book and instead stored case information in a computer file. Eick was old school. He still believed in keeping a paper version of the investigation.
The sergeant was short and stocky and had the figure of a fire hydrant. When Eick was instructed by Lieutenant Borman to allow Elizabeth access to The Book, his suddenly red face made him look that much more like a fire hydrant. Allowing outsiders access to The Book just wasn’t done. Sometimes consultants were brought in on cases, but they were only given access to that part of the investigation they might shed some light on.
“I’d also like the crime scene photos,” said Elizabeth.
Just short of breathing fire, Eick said, “You would, would you?”
Elizabeth nodded.
Eick’s foot pawed the ground—a bull wanting to charge. His complexion turned even redder, if that was possible.
“Follow me,” he finally said.
The two of them walked over to a nearby office. A woman looked up from her computer keyboard. “Louise Coleman,” Eick said as way of introduction, “Elizabeth Line.”
The women nodded at one another.
“Ms. Line is going to be confined to your office, Louise. She will have access to The Book. She may take notes, but there is to be no photocopying and no photographing of material. The Book is to stay in your office the entire time, and when Ms. Line is finished with it, I want it secured in Evidence. While in possession of The Book, Ms. Line is not allowed to leave the confines of this office unaccompanied. Is that understood?”
Louise didn’t look intimidated. She gave the sergeant a wink and said, “You can count on me, Dean.”
Eick pointed to a vacant chair and desk, then reluctantly relinquished The Book. With a disgusted shake of his head, he left the office.
Louise craned her neck, making sure the sergeant was out of hearing range, before saying, “Confined to my office. That’s a first. Old Dino spent too many years in the marines. Word is that he even starches his boxers.”
Short, stout, and gap-toothed, Louise was on the long side of middle age but still quite certain she was irresistible to all the sheriff’s deputies. In that she might have been right.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” asked Louise.
“No, thank you.”
“So you’re the one who writes about all this murder stuff?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Elizabeth had to laugh. It was a question she had asked herself many times but not one she could remember anyone asking her.
“You want the short answer,” Elizabeth asked, “or the long answer?”
“I’m a civil servant,” Louise said. “Let’s go with the long.”
“I write because it helps me to understand. I write because it fills my own needs, as well as the needs of my readers.”
Elizabeth paused for a moment, “I write the books to bring a certain justice to the dead, to show that their lives were more than the brutal act that ended them.”
A bad cause requires many words, Elizabeth thought. Noble sentiments or not, her explanation had been windy. Louise apparently thought the same thing. She gave Elizabeth a sideways glance.
“What’s the short answer?”
“I’m nosy,” said Elizabeth.
“Thought so,” Louise said.
Elizabeth repositioned The Book on her desk. It was at least three inches thick. Heavy reading, literally.
“If you need anything, just ask,” said Louise.
“Thank you.”
Louise went back to her typing, while Elizabeth immersed herself in The Book. Lita Jennings had been a junior at the University of California at San Diego, the daughter of well-to-do parents, her father a surgeon, her mother an interior designer. The twenty-year-old had been strangled outside her Del Mar apartment, but her body had been driven to the Anza-Borrego Desert, some two hours away. Elizabeth traced the distance on a map. San Diego County was larger than some states. Del Mar was in the north county on the beach, while Borrego was inland. What the two areas had in common was no witnesses and that forensics had come up empty at both locations.
In the beginning, Gray Parker had taken the same pains to remain invisible, Elizabeth remembered. She had been the first big break in the case. The eyewitness. When he was finally captured, a year after their encounter, Elizabeth was still the only person who could definitively place Parker at a murder scene.
Water under the bridge, Elizabeth tried to tell herself. She needed to direct all her attention to the current cases instead of getting mired in the past. All indications were that Lita Jennings had been taken from behind, surprised on the doorstep of her apartment after coming home from a study group. She had been subdued with a sleeper hold.
Elizabeth knew the same hold had been used on Teresa Sanders, though she hadn’t been surprised in the same way. Apparently she had opened her front door to the murderer. The house had an elaborate alarm system, one she had deactivated at 8:37 a.m. According to her husband, Teresa would have looked through the peephole before opening the door. Investigators wondered if she had been expecting someone or if the murderer was someone she knew. It was also possible the murderer had been wearing a costume or disguise.
Elizabeth knew that manual strangulation was usually a personal crime
. It wasn’t the way in which a stranger usually killed, but the copycat aspects of the crimes didn’t rule out these women being unknown to the killer.
No, Elizabeth decided. These women weren’t random victims.
She was certain of that even without the evidence to back up her theory. You work with pitch, she thought, and it rubs off. She had studied the criminal mind until it had become second nature for her. Or maybe even first nature. Gray had warned her about that, yet had been all too willing to show her the way.
He had surprised Elizabeth by agreeing to be interviewed, especially as he’d allowed the media very little access to him. Elizabeth had written him to say she was writing a book, and would like to do a series of interviews with him, and he had replied, “Come with your questions. I do not give lectures or a little charity. When I give, I give myself.”
She hadn’t known it at the time, but he’d been quoting from Whitman’s “Song of Myself.”
He was on Death Row at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, Florida. Going there the first time frightened her; that was something that never changed. What Elizabeth remembered most about her first meeting with him was how she felt like a little girl wearing grown-up clothes.
The guard closed the door of what everyone called “the lawyers’ room” behind her. She hadn’t thought she would be alone with him ever again. The officer had tried to reassure her that he’d be just outside, had pointed out where he would be watching. The interview room had glass on three sides to allow ample observation by both the security staff and personnel of the assistant superintendent of operations. The booth was soundproof so as to provide for lawyer-client confidentiality. She wondered if the prison officials, sitting at their nearby desks, would be able to hear her screams.