Violet Darger | Book 7 | Dark Passage
Page 5
When Tyrone had finished removing the clothing, he bagged it as evidence while Dr. Fausch took a few more photos. Then he set the camera aside and used a tool like a kitchen sprayer to hose down the body. The colors of the tattoo became more visible as he worked. It was much more vibrant than Darger had first realized: bright turquoise, neon yellow, deep purple, and pitch black. Beneath the colored shapes, each one of the man’s ribs was clearly visible, the pitted skin dipping and puckering between the bones. Darger shuddered.
She and Loshak approached the table for a better look. The most obvious shapes were yellow lightning bolts, but there was also a triangular purple shape and something round and turquoise.
“What am I looking at? Darger asked.
“You can’t see it?” Loshak asked. “Come over here.”
She moved from her position next to John Doe Two’s head to a spot closer to his knees. She’d been looking at it upside down and now the tattoo made sense to her eyes. It was a skull-faced wizard in a pointed hat, with flowing hair and beard. He grasped a crystal ball in one skeletal hand.
Darger pulled out her phone and started going through the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections database, which listed known identifying marks of anyone with a criminal history. She typed in various combinations of “wizard,” “crystal ball,” “magician,” “lightning bolts,” “skeleton,” and “skull” with no luck.
Loshak peered over her shoulder.
“Try ‘sorcerer,’” he suggested.
Darger nodded and tried it. A moment later, she shook her head.
“Nothing.”
Dr. Fausch directed their attention to the screen of the iPad he’d been using to take photos during the exam. He cycled through a few of the pictures he’d taken of the man’s chest.
“If you’d like, I can email these to you right now.”
“That’d be great,” she said. “We should send these over to Detective Ambrose so he can start circulating them among the jurisdictions in the area.”
“Let’s see if we can get some people to start canvassing the tattoo shops county-wide, too,” Loshak said. “See if anyone recognizes the work. If we can figure out who did the ink, they should be able to give us a name.”
Darger looked at the body of John Doe Two laid out on the table.
“And if we can identify one victim, that might lead us to the identities of the others.”
Chapter 9
After the completion of the autopsy, Darger and Loshak were due for a meeting at the headquarters for the 5th District of Philadelphia PD. They drove through the Roxborough Manayunk area, a part of Philadelphia that looked older and more small-town-ish than the rest of the city. A Jiffy Lube and an Auto Zone were nestled among the modest homes and apartment complexes along their way.
They parked across the street from the building, a pale brick affair that looked like an old middle school from the outside. Inside, an officer led the agents down a narrow hallway to a small conference room with four tables arranged in a square-shaped ring.
Detective Ambrose and Agent Zaragoza stood at one side of the square, ready for the meeting to get underway. Ambrose introduced the other two men in the room — Mayor Gelardi and Captain Dalton, his boss.
Darger craned her neck toward the door, realizing only after she did that she was looking for others to arrive, a stream of various uniforms and detectives flowing into the conference room. None was forthcoming. She was used to bigger meetings with dozens of people from different jurisdictions. But given the fact that all four bodies had been found on the 5th District’s turf, she supposed it made sense that it was a smaller group this time around.
They’d had just enough time to stop for Loshak’s usual donut offering on the way, but he was turned down by everyone except for the mayor, who chose a French cruller and didn’t seem to notice that he was the only one eating, glazed flecks trailing down to dapple his necktie. Darger figured everyone else had been to the dump site and probably didn’t have much of an appetite, especially not if they were convinced the stink was still clinging to them the way she was. She had to resist the urge to sniff her jacket again. In front of Loshak was fine, but not here.
“I think we’re waiting on Marcia, then,” Captain Dalton said. “She’s on her way, but she’s stuck in traffic. All that damn construction they’re doing around the airport. Anyhow, I think we ought to get started without her. She can present her findings on the soil sample analysis when she arrives.”
Dalton nodded at Detective Ambrose who cleared his throat.
“OK, well… I guess I’ll start by giving a brief update on where we stand at the present moment,” he said, smoothing his tie. “We’ve got some high-res photos of John Doe Two’s tattoos, which we’re hoping we can use to ID him. I sent Kimmel, Richards, McGill, and Prost to canvas tattoo shops in the city. On top of that, I have our interdepartmental liaison officer getting these photos to the other Philly districts as well as the departments in the greater metro area.”
“And how close are we to being able to figure out where the bodies came from?” Dalton asked.
“The waste facility manager thinks we’ll be able to narrow it down to a specific location by the end of the day.”
Captain Dalton scribbled something down in a notepad.
“Excellent. And what else did we get from the medical examiner?”
Detective Ambrose swept his hand in the direction of Darger and Loshak.
“I’ll toss this one over to our friends from the FBI, since they talked to Dr. Fausch in person and observed the exam on our second John Doe.”
Loshak gave a nod to Darger, the indication that she should give the summary.
“Well, I’ll give the bad news first, which is that Dr. Fausch wasn’t able to pinpoint a cause of death on any of the four bodies. He can’t even say for certain that the emaciation was caused by starvation, but he was willing to hedge that it was the most likely cause.”
“What about all the wounds?” Mayor Gelardi asked, wiping cruller crumbs from his fingers with a paper napkin. “From the sound of it, the bodies were in rough shape, right? Sounded to me like someone did a number on these folks.”
“John Doe Two had a contusion on the back of his head, and the other three had broken bones. But given the manner of disposal, Dr. Fausch can’t determine whether the injuries happened before or after death. Most of them, anyway.”
“There’s an exception?” Captain Dalton asked.
“Jane Doe Two had ligature marks on one wrist,” Darger explained. “And since there’s not much reason to restrain someone after death, we can reasonably assume she was tied up beforehand.”
Darger waited to see if there were any more questions. When no one spoke up, she continued.
“There was also spermicidal residue found on both Jane Does.” Darger glanced down at the notes she’d jotted during their talk with Dr. Fausch. “Coupled with the fact that the female bodies were in various states of undress, there’s a high likelihood they were sexually assaulted.”
“But we can’t say for sure,” Ambrose said with a sigh. “Like pretty much everything else we’ve found so far.”
Darger turned to Loshak.
“Why don’t you give them the good news?”
Loshak leaned against the side of one of the tables.
“Right. Jane Doe Two had some old injuries that required cosmetic surgery,” he said, gesturing at his own face. “Dr. Fausch thinks that will help our chances of getting an ID on her.”
“Ahh, that is good news,” Captain Dalton said, rubbing his hands together.
The mayor raised his hand.
“Hold up. Are we really throwing a parade over some plastic surgery and a tattoo? I mean, I expected to come into this meeting and finally get some answers about who these people are and what the hell happened to them. Where are the facts? The hard evidence?” He stabbed a finger into the table. “Four bodies appearing in the local dump? People expect an explanation.”
“Oh, I’ve seen the kind of overtime man-hours your district logs. The question is, with all the running around, with all the people I saw swarming the dump site in their little white suits in the morning news footage, how are we still at zero? Because I wouldn’t allow that kind of inefficiency in my office. It’s unacceptable.”
Detective Ambrose straightened.
“I’ll tell you what’s unacceptable: some little pissant pencil pusher coming in here and telling us how to do our job. You want to talk about man-hours? About inefficiency? Let’s have a conversation about you calling me up every hour demanding an update. But then I guess you don’t have anything better to do.” Detective Ambrose narrowed his eyes down to slits. “And when you start lobbing accusations, I know you’re not talking about Agent Zaragoza or her crew, because her people have been knee-deep in filth for going on thirty-six hours.”
“I wasn’t saying—” Mayor Gelardi started to say, but Ambrose cut him off.
“Do you have any idea what kind of forensic nightmare it is to process a garbage dump? We’d be in the weeds even if we had IDs on the bodies. Because they just keep coming. I keep waiting to get a call that two more corpses rolled out of the trash of their own volition.”
The mayor shifted from foot to foot. All the bluster seemed to have gone out of him.
Captain Dalton’s voice rang out like a middle school gym teacher trying to referee a heated game of dodgeball.
“That’s enough!” When he had the attention of both Ambrose and the mayor, Captain Dalton went on. “Why don’t we all take a step back, OK? Tensions are running high. That’s understandable. But this isn’t productive.”
The mayor wore a sour expression on his face, like a kid bitter at being put in the timeout chair. And Darger could see Ambrose’s jaw muscles grinding so hard she worried he might break a tooth.
She wasn’t sure the dispute between the two men was entirely put to rest, but she was glad that for once, she wasn’t the one getting in a spat with the higher-ups.
Chapter 10
A somewhat awkward silence followed Captain Dalton’s plea for peace, the conference room taking on a hush that made it seem bigger and emptier. It was Loshak who stepped in to fill the void.
“I’d like to point out that nothing about this case is normal. We’re all playing it by ear.” Loshak thrust one hand into his pocket. “I know it seems like we’ve got next to nothing to go on right now, but identifying the victims is exactly the kind of thing that will get this investigation rolling. If we have a positive identification, we can talk to family, friends, coworkers. Find out who the person was, where they hung out, who they knew.”
Darger backed him up, nodding.
“There’s also a good chance that IDing even one of the bodies will cause a domino effect that leads to uncovering the identities of the others,” she said.
Loshak went on.
“I hate to use the word ‘traditional’ in this context, because one thing I’ve learned in my career is that there’s no such thing, but in a more ‘traditional’ serial killer case, it might take months or even years before anyone even realizes that a handful of separate cases are related. So in that sense, you could say we’ve got a massive head start.”
Mayor Gelardi’s eyes stretched wide.
“Excuse me. Did you say serial killer?” He turned and stared at Captain Dalton. “Did he say serial killer?”
“We don’t know that yet,” Loshak said. “I was only using it as a frame of reference, to better put things in perspective. We’re talking about being able to identify a group of victims in a matter of days, and that—”
The mayor sputtered and held up his hands.
“And now we’re calling them victims? Didn’t you just get through telling us that the medical examiner can’t confirm the cause of death as homicide?”
Loshak sighed.
“Mayor Gelardi, I was only trying to explain that we have plenty to be optimistic about.”
“If that’s your idea of optimism—”
Whatever the mayor said next was swallowed up by the commotion of a round-faced woman with curly hair bustling into the room with her arms full of papers, file folders, a laptop case, and a gallon-sized water bottle.
“Ah, Marcia,” Captain Dalton said, noticeably relieved for the interruption. “Welcome.”
“Oh, I hope you’re not waiting on me!” she said, dumping all of her things on top of one of the tables. A collection of pens scattered over the surface, one of them dropping to the floor. “So sorry. I got lost. I’m a bit directionally challenged.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is Marcia Blatch from the state lab. She’s going to present her findings on the soil samples from the first three bodies.”
“I need a minute to get set up.” Marcia held up the cord of her laptop. “Is there somewhere I can plug this in?”
While Marcia fiddled with connecting her laptop to the projector, Darger replayed the look on the mayor’s face when Loshak had said the word “serial killer.” She let out a snort that was thankfully only loud enough for Loshak to hear.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.”
He glared at her.
Marcia brought up a series of charts and graphs on the projector screen.
“I have the exact chemical analysis here if we’ve got any mineral geeks in the room, but I’ve found you law enforcement types generally want more of a practical summation of findings, so here goes.”
She brought up a photograph of three samples, side by side. Two of them looked the same. They were pale and almost chalky looking. The third was darker and brick-colored.
“Samples one and two are from the two Jane Does, respectively. The third is from John Doe One. You’ll no doubt notice the increased chroma of the sample from John Doe. That’s a result of a high mineral content, iron oxide mostly. In the geology biz, we call that illuviation.”
“How does that happen?” Detective Ambrose asked.
“It’s a natural occurrence that happens as water percolates from the surface through the various soil layers, bringing organic and inorganic matter from the upper layers to the lower layers.”
Marcia pointed at the paler samples.
“The two samples on the left are highly eluviated,” she said, stressing the ‘e’ sound at the beginning of the word, “which means the soil has been leached of a significant portion of its organic and mineral content. That’s why they’re paler in color.”
“So they’re essentially opposites?” Ambrose asked. “Eluviated and illuviated?”
“Mmm… not opposites. More like two conditions that influence one another.”
“Is it significant to find the two different types together?” Darger asked. “Or at least on three samples we expected would have the same soil conditions?”
“That’s hard to say without knowing how these people came to be covered in the soil in the first place. All I can say now is that this soil,” she pointed at the darker sample, “came from a different horizon from the other two. And it was likely at a greater depth.”
Darger turned to Loshak, and they frowned at one another.
“Any ideas?” she whispered.
“Well, we talked about the possibility of gardening or maybe working somewhere that mixes soil with Dr. Fausch.”
“But if they were mixing soil, wouldn’t we expect the samples to be nearly identical?” Darger asked.
“Yes,” Loshak agreed. “So then maybe we’re back to gardening. I don’t know.”
Marcia had continued with her presentation and the image on the projector was now some sort of topographical map with different patterns and labels that Darger couldn’t make heads or tails of.
“The soil is a mellow brown silty loam with a very smooth texture, almost buttery. The parent material is made up of gneiss
and schist, so I can say with a fair amount of certainty that the soil came from this area here, in the central part of Chester county.” She pointed at one of the patterned areas on the map. “It’s a rather larger area that extends in a general northeast-southwest direction and is known for having this particular type of silky subsoil, which can extend down a number of feet.”
Mayor Gelardi perked up at that.
“Chester county… so you’re saying the bodies didn’t come from within the city,” he said, looking positively delighted.
“Well, that’s not necessarily true.” Marcia quirked her nose. “I’m saying the soil very likely came from outside the city.”
“But… I mean, isn’t that the same thing?”
“No. The source of the soil can’t move,” Marcia said. “But people can.”
Mayor Gelardi stared at her blankly.
“I think what Marcia is trying to say is that the soil doesn’t necessarily tell us where they died,” Detective Ambrose explained. “Our stiffs might have picked up the soil from Chester county when they were still alive and then come into the city where they… met their demise. Is that right?”
Marcia nodded.
“My analysis can only say for certain where the soil came from. How they came into contact with it and when they came into contact with it… that’s beyond my capabilities.”
“Sounds like splitting hairs to me,” the mayor said.
A phone began to ring, and Agent Zaragoza immediately pulled it from her pocket and headed for the door.
“I’m so sorry,” Zaragoza said. “Please excuse me.”
Ambrose raised a hand and redirected their attention to the soil analysis.
“So the best we can say is that they were… digging or otherwise coming in contact with topsoil and subsoil from central Chester county?”
Marcia folded her hands together.
“Exactly.”
Detective Ambrose turned to Darger and Loshak.
“What do you think? Does this give any insight from a profiling angle?”