“Of course.” Rowan takes a seat next to me.
Hodges takes his cue. “Miss Magda Rose Teru was found by a couple of deer hunters out in Carbon County in December 1999, in a touristy, yuppie-type village that attracts hunters and people visiting the parks farther along I-80,” explains Hodges. “Teru lay spread out on a path just waiting for someone to come along and find her.”
With the laser pointer, Hodges highlights in neon red an overgrowth of bushes around Teru’s body in the photograph. “At first glance the scene looked like nothing had been manipulated. Our team later found evidence that some of the debris and shrubbery that surrounded the victim was carried in from other areas of the woods.” Hodges circles clumps of vegetation surrounding the body. “The staged crime scene indicated a good deal of time had gone into the planning of it. We checked for fingerprints and DNA but found none.”
Hodges clicks to the next photograph. It’s a split screen of Klosenova’s Crossed photograph paired with another photo of the crime scene. Identical. Klosenova’s features a naked middle-aged woman with long dark hair, parted in the middle. Strands rain down across her eyes and face. Her mouth hangs slightly ajar with the tips of her lower teeth visible as she lies flat on the thick grass. Unlike the other victims, both Teru and Klosenova’s model have their legs spread out in a long, wide V with their arms tucked against the body. The image of the cross has reversed itself. A crown of roped vines and thorns has been shoved into place around the victim’s head. No one can deny the strong relationship between this image and the crucifixion. Twisted lines of blue veins road-mapped just under Teru’s skin’s surface. Around her body, a thick shrub functions as a sort of nest into which a space was carved out for her. Everything down to the placement of the leaves and the lighting matches the original Klosenova photograph.
“We couldn’t identify her for almost a year,” Hodges says. “A sketch artist came in and drew her from the neck up without the crown and with the hair out of her face. We had her picture in the paper and sent it out to all the police stations in the region. Eventually we sent the photos out nationally.” Hodges passes around copies of the drawing. With all the dark hair out of her face, Teru’s large eyes gaze out at me.
“We buried her in an unmarked grave. Jane Doe of Carbon County. One day, clear out of the blue, a man came to us from Alaska where he’d just gone to file a missing persons report for his sister. He saw the drawing of Teru hanging on a bulletin board in the police station.” Hodges switches the screen to a smiling photograph of Teru next to an overdecorated Christmas tree.
“Random.” Davis whistles.
“Or fate,” Ainsley grumbles.
“Why did it take the brother so long to file?” I ask.
“She made a living as a prostitute since the age of nineteen. A wanderer her whole life. She started out as a runaway and in adulthood disappeared for weeks on end. The family rarely spoke to her except on Christmas, and the brother lived in northern Alaska while the rest of the family stayed in Anchorage. The family had no cause for worry until Christmas rolled around and Magda Rose was nowhere to be found. I guess it was her favorite holiday and she never missed it.”
“Any idea why this woman was older than the rest?” I ask. “The others were no older than midtwenties. She’s almost fifty.”
“Convenience,” Ainsley says. “The killer probably picked her up for a quickie and realized she had the same body type and hair as the original photograph.”
I’m not convinced. Something had to have made this woman different than the others. With her dark hair strewn across her face, Teru did match the model in the Klosenova series, but the viewer cannot tell the age of the original model because of the covered face. He could have taken any woman with long dark hair and modeled her to match Klosenova’s photo.
“Rowan, do you have any way to find out the age of the original model?” Davis asks.
“I can search the art databases and see what comes up. Klosenova wasn’t very popular in his day, so not many scholars choose to write about him for papers and dissertations.”
“Picasso has picked an obscure artist to emulate for a specific reason,” I say. “He’s sending us a message.”
“Message or not, we need to get one step ahead of him.” Davis sighs.
“I have an idea that might help.” Rowan waits for Davis’s approval before she flips the slides to the sixth and seventh photographs in the Klosenova series and takes over the laser pointer like she’s been doing these presentations her whole professional life. I hide a smile behind my fist. That’s my girl.
She uses the red neon laser pointer to circle long columns of what looks like dead vine on both sides of the photograph. “Because he’s so particular to match everything, locating a place that has this type of foliage will help you stay one step ahead.”
She enlarges the slide of Klosenova’s number six. The pointer circles the stone grave marker featured behind the model in the original photograph. She enlarges it even more and zooms in on the gravestone. Only the letters SHE are visible above the model’s right shoulder.
There’s an audible exhale in the room. We all missed the obvious clue. “If he’s going to copy this exactly,” Rowan says, “he’ll need to find an engraved stone.”
“I’ll alert all the funeral homes in the state,” Davis says.
“Our guy’s sneaky,” I add, making a note on my to-do list. “He could swipe a stone from an existing grave. Look how worn and old that stone appears.”
Davis agrees. “Just in case he does try to purchase one, let’s talk to Chad Eldridge. He would also be able to tell us where old graveyards are in the county. Get right on it after this meeting, Hansen and Ainsley.”
I swallow down the urge to argue the pairing.
“Art critics have argued about the possible connection between photos six and seven.” Rowan zooms in on the corner of the photograph, enlarging a tree stump. “Both photographs feature this stump and the very similar way the snow drapes across the surroundings. There is also the connection of light. In number six, the sun has gone down with daylight fading, possibly early evening, but in seven, night has fallen and he used special lenses to capture the image in the dark. Critics argue the photos were taken the same day in some sort of frenzy to finish the series.”
“If he follows Klosenova’s pattern, these last two murders could happen in rapid succession,” I say. “Where were the original pictures taken?”
“A few different locations around the Kansas City area,” Rowan says. “As far as I could find, none of his work was shot in Ohio or Wyoming. And he mainly worked in Northern California and Arizona.”
“For some reason, your quarry speaks to the killer,” Hodges says. “The change in location for the Teru murder must have been out of his control. Maybe a military posting or a job transfer.”
Davis assigns tasks to each detective and urges Hodges to stay in Willow’s Ridge and become part of our team for a few more days. Hodges agrees and we all feel the pressure of this mounting case, sense that we are so close to the edge and that everything will soon collapse around us. We hope to emerge from the wreckage with the killer in handcuffs.
Davis also thanks Rowan for her help with a genuine handshake and smile. “Hansen can drop you off at the hotel on the way to the funeral home.”
“I’m glad I could help, Captain. Anytime.”
It seems I’m the only one who is not all smiles. Signaling to Rowan I need a minute, I sidle alongside Davis. “I need to see you, sir. Privately.”
With a nod of the head, he leads me into his office and closes the door. “I already know what you’re going to say, Hansen.”
“I’m still going to say it. I cannot run interviews today with Ainsley.”
“It’s one interview, Hansen. We’ll see where it goes from there.”
“Davis, I can’t. Not after last night.”
Davis sighs and sits on the corner of his desk. “You’re too close to this whole thing
to work alone in any sort of an interview. Everyone else has an assignment.”
“Eldridge isn’t a suspect.” I can feel my jaw muscles working overtime in a clench that could take a finger off. I know what Davis is trying to do; he believes that if Ainsley and I are together today, we’ll work it out in our own way.
“No, he’s not, but you two need to give him a heads-up. Sambino is going to cause a shit storm for Eldridge’s business. Fill him in on the charges. I’ll meet with him later today.” Davis leans toward me. “Look, the FBI will be here tonight. Let’s show them we can solve this thing before they get here. None of us wants to lose this case.”
His pleas soften my resolve. “I’m taking one for the team here, Davis.”
He shoots me a quick wink. “You are stronger than you realize. And Ainsley is a good man despite his mouth.”
I roll my eyes and push out of his office door.
Chapter Twenty-one
Ainsley beat me to the Eldridge interview despite direct instructions to enter and run the interview together. Eldridge’s daughter, a dainty, young teen with the body of an anorexic ballerina, meets me at the front door. With a swish of her waist-length dirty-blond hair, she directs me to the end of a long hallway and her father’s library. As I watch the young girl depart, I’m reminded that I’ve never seen Eldridge’s wife.
Rowan planned to go back to Dublin again once I dropped her off at the hotel. I want Rowan to stay—selfish on my part, certainly, but at least we’re in a better place now than before. What would I do without Rowan in my life? She’s been my anchor since we met, and now I see this as clear as my own hands.
Inside the library, Ainsley and Eldridge speak in hushed tones. I catch snippets of the conversation, veiled hints of words like God, respect, and not like us. Words that smack of Ainsley’s retelling of last evening’s events. The forced smile on Eldridge’s mouth tells me I’ve interrupted. Eldridge pushes a mug across the large oak desk to me. “Homemade hot chocolate from my wife.”
I wrap my cold hands around the mug and lightly blow over the top of the dark liquid. “Does your wife help out with the funeral business?”
Eldridge gives me a broad smile and shakes his head. “This is my world.” He points up to the ceiling. “Her world is upstairs with the kids.”
“Happy wife, happy life,” Ainsley chimes in and chuckles at Eldridge’s agreement.
My eyebrows arch at Eldridge’s stringent gender roles. He might just surpass Ainsley on the conservative scale, something I thought would be next to impossible to achieve. Eldridge, I notice once again, has a fastidious appearance. Not a hair out of place, not a spot of his clothing wrinkled. His navy suit looks custom-made, every detail fitted to his body perfectly. The cuffs of his white Oxford have hand-stitched CAE, and a heavy, large-faced Rolex rests on his left wrist. Eldridge’s showy overcompensation suggests to me that he was probably the small kid in school everyone endlessly teased, the one who was nearly invisible unless he was the butt-end of a joke. Growing up in a funeral home couldn’t have helped matters. Even though those early years are long gone for Eldridge, I imagine these memories are never too far from his mind.
The deep maroon and gold rug that covers the library floor looks like it cost more than all of my paychecks put together. Eldridge already has a fire roaring in his handsome office, and there are rows of shelved books along the walls. A mounted deer head hangs behind the desk along with a grandfather clock that’s so polished, it shimmers. Despite the heat from the fireplace, there is the distinct icy chill of Ainsley beside me.
Even though there’s flamboyance in Eldridge’s tastes that have an element of femininity, there is also the purposeful display of masculinity that surrounds him, with the deer head and the deep colors of the room. Mr. Metrosexual. I feel frumpy once again in front of Eldridge, my worn black pants and button-up on another go-around for a case I hoped wouldn’t hold me in Willow’s Ridge for more than two days.
Chad Eldridge clears his throat. “The fire should help to shake the cold off.”
“I wish my hotel room had one,” I say. “It’s darn near freezing at night.”
Eldridge’s gaze looks out beyond my right shoulder and through a large window. “When this cold spell finally breaks, we’ll soon forget all about it.”
“Forget?”
His focus comes back to me. “Isn’t that how it seems? We’re relieved of the cold and never consider it again until the next winter, the next time we drop to that same temperature again. It’s what we do with everything that make us uncomfortable.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Since we got Miss B-C-I here,” Ainsley interrupts Eldridge, “I’ll let her take the lead even though I know this case like the back of my hand.” He chuckles the way he usually does when he digs a knife in deeper with his words.
Ainsley’s presence sets my teeth on edge. I take a long sip of my hot chocolate. “Thank you, Mr. Ainsley.” My voice is as sweet and calm as if I am a genteel woman out for afternoon tea. “As always, I appreciate your help.”
The loud grandfather clock chimes the half hour and its sound echoes against the paneled oak walls.
“Where do customers purchase headstones?” I ask Eldridge. “Are they included as part of the services for a funeral?”
“Most buy the headstones through us,” Eldridge says. “We order them from a company in Washington. Occasionally we get a family who has purchased a stone somewhere else that features something specific for the deceased. They ship the stones directly to the Willow’s Ridge Cemetery.”
“Is it possible to order a new headstone that appears weathered?”
“Sure.” Eldridge nods. “We went through a fad about ten years ago where it was the big thing to do. People wanted stones to appear a century old. There’s some kind of acid wash they can put on the stone. Then they chip away the edges.” He drums his fingertips across the top of his desk. “Hand-crafted headstones are an art form,” he tells us. “One that is dying. We have all these molds and machine-made headstones now. There’s a distinct difference.”
“Do you keep detailed records of which customer has bought which stone? Could you go back the last couple of years and search for any gravestones you’ve sold that had SHE anywhere near the top of the stone?”
“Of course.” Eldridge leans back in his oversized leather chair. “I’ll pull the records today. Forgive my questions,” he says, his voice dimming a few octaves, taking on a conspiratorial tone. “Not that we can ever take him back on as an employee, but has Nick been cleared?”
I give Chad Eldridge my own forced smile. “Sambino’s awaiting his court date.” I explain the charges. “He’s still a suspect in the murders, of course, but we’re also looking at others.”
Either Mr. Eldridge is a fantastic actor or he truly doesn’t know about the photographs we found in Sambino’s apartment. I’ve been worried about hints of necrophilia leaking from the department—it’s the sort of detail that tends to pour out fast no matter how tight we try to keep things. People, law enforcement or not, can’t keep their mouths shut about freaky stuff like this. Sambino’s photos are the gritty details the sensationalist media would keep in the rotation for weeks, to pull in the ratings. I’m not ready to broach the subject of Sambino’s photographs and activities with dead bodies just yet.
“Have your daughters ever reported any unusual behavior from Sambino?” I ask.
Eldridge shakes his head. “They have no contact with him. He clocks in when they’re going to bed. I lock the connecting door from the downstairs when I go up for the night.”
A faint rose tint blooms on Eldridge’s handsome cheeks from the heat of the fire. From the side, it’s hard to ignore Eldridge’s chiseled jawline and the smoothness of his polished skin that hints of professional facials. “My wife is so worried, that she drives the kids to school and even walks them into the door of the building. The kids used to walk the three blocks on their own every day. Not now.”
His breath escapes him in slow exhalation. “It’s hard for the kids to understand why we have to make the changes.”
“How many do you have?”
Eldridge hands me a frame from the corner of the desk. “Two. Seven and fourteen.”
My fingertips outline the little blondes lined up outside the funeral home.
“We need to ask a few more questions about Nick.” Ainsley’s tone tells me I’m moving too slow for his tastes. He’s chomping at the bit to get to the photographs. “Has anyone been down in the prep rooms with him, other than your staff?”
“No.” Eldridge laces his fingers across his trim belly. “What exactly is going on?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine,” I say. Damn Ainsley for jumping the gun and spooking interviewees before I can get anywhere with them.
One by one, Ainsley positions the pictures of Sambino with the naked corpses across the desktop. Thankfully he has the brains to withhold the final photo with the shadows of Picasso.
Eldridge’s hands shoot up to his mouth to cover a loud gasp. He touches the corner of one picture with only the edge of a fingertip. “My God, that’s Mrs. Woolensted.” He averts his eyes as if it’s disrespectful to look.
“I wish I didn’t have to ask, Chad. These photos were found in Sambino’s apartment. Someone had to have been with him. He didn’t take these pictures alone.”
“He works alone at night,” Eldridge protests. “It is possible he brought someone in the building, but I have never been aware of it.” He drops his head into his hands. “My God!”
“Sambino’s been charged with desecration of a corpse, and we want to make the charges stick,” Ainsley says. “We have to find this photographer.”
The color has drained from Eldridge’s face, leaving him looking haggard and thin. His skin is so pale that I can see the tangles of blue veins above his left eye. “He’s ruined my business.” Tears swim in his eyes.
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