Skye took hold of his shirt with both hands, pulled him closer in front of Leo. She smacked his lips with hers in a fierce kiss. “Besides, we make such a good team and you’re my right-hand man,” she cracked. “How could I go out at night without you to protect my back?”
“’Bout time you realized it.”
Assembling the team was the easy part. Skye had a long list of people willing to help. Longtime friends like Velma Gentry and Lena Bowers had become staples. There were others on standby that could be counted on when the foundation needed to rally ground troops for searches or make phone calls.
Getting down to the nitty-gritty was a piece of cake. But reaching out and touching base with moms and dads who were still hurting from a disappearance was another matter entirely. Some of the couples hadn’t even stayed together. Divorce often occurred after the traumatic loss of a child. Statistics proved that. But these particular instances when a daughter went missing without a trace could put a different kind of pressure on a relationship. No closure, nothing to latch onto, meant it was easier to go their separate ways than to deal with the pain together.
On top of separation and strain, it was a sad fact the families of the missing were often pushed aside by members of law enforcement. The same could be said about the media. Once the case grew cold, interest tended to evaporate on both fronts. Unless a family member took matters into his or her own hands and kept the case alive by giving TV interviews, becoming a regular contributor online, or establishing a website or Facebook page, or became a pest in general with detectives, the file, more than likely, sat in a box somewhere gathering dust. After all, it rarely fell into the “homicide” category because without a body, cops often felt they had no reason to pursue the case. Investigators could only follow available leads. If no leads materialized or didn’t pan out, there wasn’t much more they could do except wait for tips to come in from the general public. Which meant many case files fell into their own abyss, that special circle of hell with no answers.
By early afternoon, reinforcements showed up—Judy, Velma, Lena, and Travis arrived to pitch in. As they mulled over all the names on the list, Velma commented, “Oh, wow. It’s for sure that making these phone calls will be a lot tougher than waitressing. These stories just break my heart.”
Skye agreed. “I know. The families want so much for someone to talk to them, to find them any kind of resolution. They’re usually very cooperative, but tread carefully with the prickly questions.” Skye went over the same spill with these volunteers she’d had with Leo earlier.
Once Lena had gone over all the names there was disbelief. “So many victims. Are these ages correct? Some of these are just kids.”
“Kids are the most trusting and vulnerable,” Skye said. “But let’s face it, any age is susceptible to falling victim to a clever killer. Predators are good at coming up with the perfect ploy to fit the occasion.”
“If the phone numbers the team gathered still work and you get to talk to a family member, suggest a meeting, either at their place or coming in to the foundation,” Josh directed. He glanced around the room and into the faces of the group. “We don’t expect the ones out of state to make the trip here, but any who are close, bring it up in conversation. Let them know our volunteers are here for them if they need to talk.”
“You need to mention to the volunteers that many families have already resigned themselves to bad news,” Judy added. “So when the phone rings in, let’s say Spokane, and you start talking about their case, prepare for a lot of emotion.”
“Good point,” Skye noted.
“If nothing else, maybe stirring things up, we’ll rattle some cages in law enforcement,” Travis said as he looked over his portion of the list.
Skye glanced at her father. “That’s one reason I think it’s time we bring in Emmett Cannavale.”
Travis shifted in his chair, stared back at his daughter. “You know he’s part Chinook. He has an interesting heritage and ties to the area.”
Josh rounded into the room from the little kitchen area catching the last part. Holding a freshly brewed pot of coffee in his hand he toured the room, refilling cups. “I read something about that in his bio. His Chinook mother married an Italian farmer who’d settled here after the war to start a farm, grow olive trees.”
“I can’t wait to ask him about that,” Skye retorted.
The door opened and Harry popped his head inside but stopped short of walking in. Instead, the detective looked around the front office, saw the crowd there, and motioned for Skye and Josh to come out into the hallway.
Sensing a problem because of the look on Harry’s face, Josh made it to the hall first. “What gives? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
“I’ve got a report of bones washing up on the beach at Alki Point. I’m headed there now, decided you guys might as well ride along. So I swung by, took a chance that you’d want to see what’s what for yourself. Get your gear and let’s go.”
It was on this same strip of Alki Beach that Chief Seattle waited on its shell-strewn shore to greet the first white settlers, arms open in hospitality, heart full of hope for a long, enduring friendship. The year was 1851 when he first shared the food he had on hand, taught the newcomers how to build the huts that would keep them dry and warm during winter and showed them how to make the best use of the vegetation and surrounding prairie land.
Members of Seattle’s tribe—a mix of Suquamish and Duwamish—were practiced farmers who tended the land, making sure it yielded a generous bounty of fruits and vegetables each season. The Natives willingly shared whatever they had on hand. Since the coastal land around Puget Sound gave up enough steelhead and game and berries for everyone, Chief Seattle never concerned himself overmuch about the future of his people.
But he should have.
Inevitable progress forced the area tribes to give up their canoes, their villages, sign treaties that would take away their rights, and break up families. Distraught parents learned their children would be packed off thousands of miles away to boarding schools in other parts of the country. Many were never reunited. Missionaries were determined to indoctrinate what was left of them into a new world they neither understood nor wanted.
A short twenty years later in the 1870s, expansion of the land became the primary goal. Railroads, electricity, and settlements popped up, even an amusement park. A steady stream of people from back east took advantage of a circus-like atmosphere in a new frontier and the new technology to get them there. Advertisements enticed the adventurous to leave home and seek out new horizons. Given the idea of owning the land that had once belonged to the Natives, easterners invaded the area in droves. Ultimately development caused the generous beach to shrink in size to what it looked like today, a smidgen of pebbly shore.
The area resembled any other small, bustling community that sat near the water. Traffic bogged down stretches of the roadway. During good weather, tourists flocked to the seashore. A string of businesses—cafes, coffee shops, trendy boutiques, art studios—did their best to attract new customers.
Giant cedar and spruce grew next to cottonwood and towered over the grassy slopes where older bungalows lined the winding neighborhood streets alongside larger, newly built, modern houses.
Today when they arrived on the scene the place looked deserted.
Yellow police tape marred the beauty and the view across the bay and its surrounding wetlands. Crime scene techs milled about the roped-off area with cameras while Roger Bayliss knelt on the ground, feet from the lapping water.
As soon as Harry pulled his SUV to a stop, three car doors flew open, each person taking in the scene before them. It seemed death had touched this serene, peaceful setting where families like to picnic in the summer.
Even from twenty feet away, Skye could see the scattering of bones littering the sand. She’d never seen the medical examiner quite as pale as he was today. She didn’t blame his bark when he warned everyone to stay back.
“Before you come any closer, I should tell you we have at least seven vertebrae and five pieces of various jawbones. Small ones.”
Everyone there knew what that meant.
“Those bones belong to kids,” Skye said in grim realization. “Five jawbones is a lot of children to go missing at the same time.”
“How long do you think they’ve been here?” Josh shouted to Bayliss.
“I can’t answer that,” the coroner snarled. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a little busy here.”
Josh spun back to Skye in solemn understanding. “Bayliss may not be willing to discuss it but… Those bones are from a long time ago.”
“How… How are you able to tell that from here?” But even as she asked the question there was acceptance. It had been almost two years since Josh had acquired the uncanny ability to pick up on certain details about a crime scene, not unlike that of a seasoned member of law enforcement routinely used investigating the worst of the worst. Pros referred to it as a gut instinct. Never mind that Josh had been a gamer for most of his life rather than a veteran cop. “How far do they go back?”
“I don’t know exactly. But there’s no flesh left on them, no tattered clothing anywhere in sight.” Josh scanned the businesses up on the hill and the cross-traffic on the street. He studied the ridgeline down to the seawall. “Nor does it appear that they’ve been unearthed recently. See, there are no holes anywhere on shore, no massive grave to excavate. No indication the bones were dug up, or planted here at some point, or thrown out in containers or cartons, at least not from the highway, too far to toss them out like that—busy section of street, too busy not to attract attention from all the businesses nearby. If a vehicle stopped to unload that kind of cargo, for the time it would take, someone would see that kind of dump. That only leaves one conclusion.”
Skye shifted her feet, considered the factors in his theory. “They came in from the sea, washed up on shore, recently, perhaps even overnight.”
Josh rubbed his chin in thought and looked out at the water. “You got it on the first try. I’ve lived in Seattle all my life, made so many trips back and forth across the Sound that I couldn’t even begin to count all of them. There’s a marker not far from here commemorating the loss of the Dix, a ferry that sank in 1906, carrying millworkers and their families. After spending the weekend in Seattle, the lumber company had a habit of transporting their employees back to Bainbridge for the work week. But that Sunday night the Dix hit an Alaska freighter heading to Tacoma. The Dix went down within minutes, taking forty-five people with it to a watery grave.”
“I remember reading the history. If memory serves, the marker’s around that curve in the trail near Duwamish Head. Didn’t they finally locate the wreckage of the Dix several years back?”
“I think so. As far as I know there were no plans to raise it. But the bodies were never recovered.”
“You aren’t suggesting these bones could belong to the children from that maritime disaster, are you?”
Josh shook his head. “I’m not suggesting anything. I don’t know exactly where they came from. But I intend to do my own research until I find out.”
Chapter Seven
At the downtown Seattle Marriott, former FBI profiler Emmett Cannavale, took center stage at the law enforcement seminar to talk about what he’d learned over the years about serial killers.
The fifty-five-year-old retired Fed wasn’t all that tall, maybe five-eight, but he had a presence that surpassed physical traits. That Chinook heritage Travis had mentioned earlier was evident in his black hair and dark brown eyes. He regaled the crowd with anecdotes, an easy smile, and could be charming at times to make his point.
The conference room had already filled to capacity by the time Josh and Skye found a seat. They sat among cops from across the state who had gathered to go over stacks of cold cases, hoping to get their chance at hearing the famed profiler’s take on a variety of serial homicides with one common characteristic, a sexual overtone to each crime. Each case competed with the other for a resolution. They’d brought their own three slim file folders that held the few facts they knew about the murders of Carrie, Taylor, and Lisa.
Cannavale held court like a professor in charge of his classroom. The crowd, eager and attentive, listened as he went over the usual characteristics of a serial offender. The speaker rattled off his points by citing the list of traits serial killers most often exhibit beginning in early childhood. From abusing animals to going through psychological or physical trauma, such as a head injury, to developing an odd or embarrassing fetish, including voyeurism, to compounding their problems by using alcohol or drugs, Cannavale warned that society invariably faced the making of another Ted Bundy if it failed to recognize the problem in youth.
“Maybe this was a mistake,” Skye whispered to Josh from the back row. “This isn’t really new info.”
“Our goal is to get Cannavale one on one. That’s why we came. Right now he’s hitting the high points.”
“He’s going over repetitive ground,” Skye grumbled, that stubborn bent to her tone clearly evident. “Look around. There are at least two hundred cops here who brought tough cold cases. Every single one of us in attendance knows serial killers don’t stay choirboys forever and the ‘expert’ is wasting time spouting off about how they got started. Who cares?”
Josh recognized impatience and squeezed her hand. “Down girl. He’ll get to us as soon as his speech is done. If necessary, we’ll pounce on him during the afternoon break.”
Their first shot at talking to Cannavale came during the working lunch when everyone drifted to tables set up in the back to pick up their cold sandwich and chips. The no-nonsense meal suited Skye’s mood. But for the first time all day, she did feel bad for the guy who was just trying to grab a bite to eat while he could. Her sentiment, however, didn’t prevent her from interrupting his ham and cheese on wheat.
She introduced herself and Josh before making her brief presentation. Getting down to the bottom line, she said, “Today we brought three recent cases that are remarkably similar. We think our killer is making a statement for a specific reason. We just don’t know what it is yet.”
Without a word, Cannavale picked up his paper napkin and wiped his mouth, opened the first file, then the second, then the third.
“Much of what I say, you probably already know. But for what it’s worth, your guy is highly organized, likes to use his hands, and keeps trophies. He has no problem dismembering. By that I mean he’s comfortable with a knife. He fixates on the breasts, probably because he has a thing for that particular body part.”
Skye didn’t try to mask her disappointment. Her face showed all the frustration she felt. Why had she thought this former government guy held all the magical answers?
“Take a seat,” Cannavale said, looking up at the couple. “I can see you’re both disillusioned. But profiling isn’t an exact science no matter how many TV shows present it as such. Why don’t you tell me what you think?”
Josh pulled out a chair for Skye before sitting down across from Cannavale and picked up Lisa’s folder. “We think he’s cutting out the implants because he sees them as intrusions to what he considers the perfect body. What we can’t figure out is why he made the girls get them in the first place only to cut them out.”
“Maybe he didn’t. You might be dealing with a guy who hears voices.”
“A schizophrenic?”
“Sure. Ed Gein, Berkowitz, Richard Chase, they were all diagnosed as such. There’s also the possibility he’s fractured into more than one personality.”
“That would be a new one,” Skye said to Josh.
“Add in the fact that serials are usually proficient at masking their real self, their true feelings to the outside world, especially with family and friends. I’d say you have a disturbed man, probably white, between twenty-five and thirty-five. He gets off on the suffering your three victims felt. That tells me he’s proficient at what he do
es. Translation: He’s killed before these three.”
“Which means we’re looking at the tip of the iceberg,” Josh stated.
Skye nodded. “On that we all agree. He wanted us to find these.”
“That sounds like a reasonable conclusion. But keep in mind what I said about the trophy thing. Remember, when they keep the bodies close to them, bodies are considered trophies.”
“You think he doesn’t like letting go of his other victims,” Josh stated in understanding.
“That, or he’s like Ridgway, and puts them where he has access, where he is able to go back and forth whenever he wants.”
Skye scrunched up her nose. “Yuck, you’re inferring that he practices necrophilia on a regular basis. You should probably know the coroner has yet to find semen on, or in, any of his victims.”
Cannavale arched a brow. “That’s interesting. That suggests this isn’t a sexual perversion but something else.”
Josh let those two things sink in before adding his own distinctions. “I don’t think this guy handles conflict very well.”
The profiler picked up the photographs Skye had included in the files and studied them, taking his time with each frame. “You’re probably right. Little things could cause him to go off the rails at the slightest provocation when he doesn’t get his way. Let’s say, for instance, he’s walking down the street and decides he wants a cup of coffee. He goes into a coffee shop, stands in line with everyone else and when it comes his turn he places his order. He takes his first sip and realizes they had the gall to get the order wrong, maybe too much milk, or too much cinnamon, whatever. This incident would be enough to send him over the edge, piss him off enough to want to exact revenge in some way.”
“So he sees any slight as a personal affront?”
“Exactly. He also sees women as inferior, having only one purpose in life. That probably stems from childhood, and a shameful or embarrassing sexual experience. He made that into an excuse to turn violent. Even if it isn’t during his sexual acts, something triggered his serial killer instincts.” Cannavale smiled. “I can see by the look on your faces that you’d already figured that much out on your own.”
His Garden of Bones (Skye Cree Book 4) Page 9