The Girl in the Woods

by Gregg Olsen

  “The court order indicates that you are collecting tissue samples in conjunction with your case in Washington,” Deputy Anderson said. “Will we need to transport to our county morgue?” She glanced at the funeral administrator. “We won’t charge you for the ride.”

  Birdy smiled.

  “Or will you be able to do it here?” the deputy asked.

  “We do have an embalming room where we prepare our clients,” Stephan Santos said.

  His boss shot him an angry glare.

  “We don’t have any clients there now.”

  Birdy scanned the large, green expanse that ran to the edge of the cemetery. “I think that will do,” she said. “Let’s get started.”

  The group, minus the annoying penny-pinching administrator, walked across the lawn past the rows upon rows of markers. Most were flat, set into the lawn for easy mowing. A few, Birdy thought maybe belonging to the more wealthy “clients” or maybe from a time when memorial parks were less a business than a place for remembrance, jutted to the cloudless blue sky. One, a big white dolphin of all things, almost scared her.

  “Founder of Sea World,” Santos said.

  “Pretty,” Birdy said, as they walked toward a tent that had been erected over the gravesite. A backhoe and two employees in jeans and dirty T-shirts stood there with shovels.

  “I’m sorry about Mr. Mundy,” Santos said.

  “That’s all right,” Birdy said. “I understand.”

  Santos squinted toward the sun. “I know you have a job to do. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree, if I’m allowed to say.”

  She looked at him. “Of course. Why?”

  He turned to the older of the two men.

  “Carlos, cut a window in the lawn. Peel it back. Then use the backhoe. I’ll tell you when to stop. Be very careful.”

  The man motioned to his partner to start.

  “You were saying?” Birdy said, trying to keep him on track.

  “I know there’s been a lot of talk about Jenny being a bad person. She wasn’t easy to take.”

  “You knew her?”

  He dried his upper lip, now sweaty, with a tissue from his pocket. “Oh no. I mean, not in that way.”

  “But you were friendly with her?”

  “This isn’t coming out right,” he said, looking embarrassed again.

  Birdy persisted. “What are you trying to tell me?”

  “Just that I worked here when we buried Donald. I helped Jenny with the arrangements. She was an emotional basket case. This wasn’t some Merry Widow kicking up her heels at the thought of her husband’s death.”

  He stopped and watched a javelina run across the southern edge of the memorial park. The wild pig’s tusks were visible even at a distance. He noticed Birdy looked wilted in the heat. “Deputy Anderson, I know you’re not here to run errands, but do you mind going back to the office and getting Dr. Waterman some water?”

  “No problem,” she said, turning to leave. “It took me years to get used to our weather.”

  “I thought I was holding up pretty well,” Birdy said as sweat ran down her back.

  “As I was saying,” he went on. “In my business, I actually have seen those kind of women. Husbands too. The kind that actually bring travel brochures to the chapel to plan what they couldn’t wait to do once the loved one was buried. One woman even brought her iPad last year to surf the Internet during the service.”

  “Right in front of the client?” Birdy asked, testing him.

  “That’s Mr. Mundy’s stupid word, by the way,” he said. “It makes me cringe whenever I say it.”

  The two workers finished the removal of the sod. Next, the younger one stretched out a dark brown tarp and the older one got into the cab of the backhoe and turned it on.

  “Take it slow and easy,” Santos said. “Be gentle. This isn’t a race.”

  “Jennifer Lake wasn’t like that,” Birdy said, once more refocusing the conversation.

  “Absolutely not,” Santos said, his tone surprisingly indignant. “She had those two little kids and, God, she was just beside herself with worry and grief. She actually threw herself onto the casket and wouldn’t let go. I had to get her brother-in-law to help me pull her off. She was absolutely out of control. She kept saying over and over that she couldn’t live without him. She couldn’t raise those kids alone.”

  The dirt piled up on the tarp.

  “All right, guys,” Santos said. “Let’s use shovels now. Don’t want to mess anything up.”

  “I saw her brother-in-law today,” Birdy said. “He sure didn’t paint a picture of a lost love like you just did. He couldn’t stand her.”

  Deputy Anderson returned with the water.

  “Thank you,” Birdy said, unscrewing the top. “You’re right. I’m not used to this heat. What is it about ninety now?”

  Lucy Anderson looked at the temperature on her phone. “About ninety-four to be exact. Did I miss anything?”

  Santos shook his head. “No, the guys are about to get to the vault. We’ll need to lift the lid and see what the doctor has to work with.”

  “I’ve never been to an exhumation before,” Lucy said.

  Birdy wore a grim smile. “It’s a little like opening up a present that you know you’ll hate.”

  “Back to the brother, Dr. Waterman. There was some family discord. That’s for sure. I wouldn’t trust anything he had to say.”

  “What kind of discord?” she asked, taking another much-needed drink.

  “He wanted Donald buried in the cemetery up in Star Valley, Gila County. I understood his reasons. Family plot. His dad was there. His mom, she’d probably be there by now too.”

  “She isn’t,” Birdy said. “So why was he buried here?”

  “Jenny wanted him here. She wanted him to be close to her. She told me she fought with everything she had to get out of Gila County and she sure wasn’t going back there to visit her husband’s grave.”

  The workers signaled that the vault was open.

  “Looks intact,” Santos said, peering into the hole.

  “Another happy client,” Birdy said.

  Santos managed a smile.

  “We aim to please,” he said.

  The last stop before anyone is wheeled out for a viewing was behind the chapel. It wasn’t like Birdy’s makeshift lab in the house on Sidney Avenue. It was probably closer to what she was going to have when she moved offices to Bremerton, something she still dreaded. It was bright, with banks of fluorescent tubes overhead. Two embalming tables set up to drain fluids into a medical disposal system commanded most of the space on one end of the room. Next to that was a walk-in closet with row upon row of makeup, wigs, and the rubber and silicone plugs that are used to keep bodies from draining where they shouldn’t.

  Donald Lake’s casket was high end, no doubt about that.

  “It’s number eight-nine eight-nine, but we call it by its marketing name, the Castle Keep,” Santos said.

  It was dark brown with a pattern relief of doves repeated in a wide band down the center. Some of its surface was streaked with verdigris.

  It was impressive as it surely had been meant to be.

  “Solid copper?” she asked.

  “Sheeted, but thank you,” Santos said. “I’ll tell the manufacturer that you inquired.”

  “I’m going to be cremated,” the young deputy said. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” he said. “We do that too. You can even pay in advance, you know, as a hedge against inflation.”

  Anderson made a face. There was no hiding that she didn’t like the idea of a layaway plan for the dead.

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” she said.

  “Where’s your boss?” Birdy asked Santos.

  “Gone,” he said. “He only came in because you two were going to be here. He almost never bothers unless a celebrity croaks and then he’s Johnny-on-the-spot.”

  Birdy pulled a clean pair of scrubs, gloves, digital recorder, and camer
a from her purse.

  “I came prepared,” she said. “Any place where I can change?”

  Santos gestured across the room. “The makeup room all right?”

  “That’ll be fine.”

  Birdy didn’t expect a real need for the scrubs. There wasn’t any concern that there would be any fiber transfer or that any biologicals would splatter her. It was by-the-book protocol. The makeup room was cool, the air conditioner piping in enough breeze to move the hairs on a blond wig closest to the vent. She put on the mint-colored scrubs over her street clothes.

  The casket was opened and there he was. Or rather a mummified version of Donald Lake. A musty, but surprisingly not too horrible, smell wafted into the room. The deceased was in surprisingly good condition for a man who’d been dead so long. He wore a blue suit, white shirt, and a tie with a small ruby tie tack holding it in place.

  As if the tie would go anywhere.

  Birdy wondered if the gem on his tie tack was a nod to his daughter.

  The dead man’s features were desiccated, of course. His skin was the color and texture of the salmon jerky she and Summer had sold to tourists during one of their spurts of entrepreneurship on the reservation. But even in all of that, there was still a resemblance to the man he’d been. Certainly a resemblance to his brother, so many years older now.

  Birdy took some pictures.

  “These aren’t going to end up on the Internet, are they?”

  Birdy ignored him as she concentrated on what she was doing.

  “Well, are they?” he asked again.

  She looked in his direction with an irritated, hard stare. “No, I can assure you they won’t.”

  “Good, because we have a policy about that.”

  “Can I look?” It was Deputy Anderson.

  Birdy stepped back and the younger woman approached. She didn’t lean over to get a close view. Just enough to gasp and then return to the other side of the room.

  “Can I use that tray?” Birdy asked Santos, indicating a cart on wheels she’d noticed next to the door to the makeup room. Without a word this time, he complied.

  The forensic pathologist removed some gloves, glassine envelopes, and a pair of scissors from her purse and arranged the items on the table.

  Next, she took four photographs of the casket, the deceased, the room, and the table with her supplies.

  While the others looked on, Birdy spoke into her recorder.

  “The subject is Donald Albert Lake, aged forty-one at the time of his death, here in Maricopa County. I’m in the presence of Stephan Santos, the funeral director of this location, Pinnacle Peak Memorial Park. Also observing is a representative of the Maricopa County sheriff’s department, Deputy Lucy Anderson. My name is Birdy Waterman and I’m the forensic pathologist for Kitsap County, Washington. I’m here under a court-ordered exhumation related to a case under our jurisdiction. I witnessed the removal of the casket from the cemetery plot and am about to conduct my examination.”

  She put on a pair of gloves, picked up the scissors, and started cutting the deceased’s suit up the right pant leg.

  “Do you have to do that?” Santos asked.

  “Yes,” she said, cutting the other. He was not wearing a belt and that was a relief. She opened his jacket, undid the ruby tie tack, and set it on the table. She carefully snipped the fabric along the button line of his dress shirt.

  Next, she opened his clothes. It was as if she’d peeled an orange. Some of the tissue had stuck like a dried membrane onto the back of the fine cotton fabric of his shirt.

  When Birdy made her way to his chest, she let out a gasp.

  “Something’s wrong here,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” Santos moved closer.

  So did Anderson. She was disgusted by what she’d seen, but it was like a car accident. If someone was going to gasp at something, then she had to see too.

  “Look at his chest,” she said.

  The deputy and the funeral director hovered over the Castle Keep containing the body of Jennifer Roberts’s first husband.

  “I don’t see anything. I mean, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be seeing,” Stephan said.

  Birdy looked up at both observers.

  “Exactly,” she said. “There isn’t anything to see.”

  “I still don’t follow you, Dr. Waterman,” Lucy Anderson said.

  “There’s no incision here,” Birdy said, locking eyes with the deputy, then the funeral director. “This man was not autopsied.”

  “But he was,” Santos said. “I looked it up before you came. Dr. Drysdale did the autopsy. It was a heart attack.”

  “Really?” Birdy asked.

  “Well, that’s what I was told.”

  “Do you have a saw?” she asked.

  Stephan Santos didn’t like the sound of that one bit. He went pale.

  “No,” he said. “Why in the world would we?”

  Birdy persisted. “A good knife with a serrated blade?”

  Deputy Anderson spoke up. “In the kitchen maybe. I saw some kitchen tools in there when I got the bottled water.”

  “What are you going to do?” Santos asked.

  “Deputy, go get the best knife you can find.”

  Her mouth agape, Anderson hurried off.

  “I have to cut him open,” Birdy said. “I have the authority to do that, though I was not thinking in terms of having to do so. I need to get samples of his organs for toxicology reports we’ll conduct back in Washington. You know that.”

  Santos looked agitated. “Yes, but I expected you’d take . . .” His words trailed off. “I don’t know, maybe a finger or something.”

  Even though she was going to have to use a cake knife to open up Donald Lake, she thought it sounded barbaric to suggest that she would remove a finger.

  “I would never extricate a finger,” she said. “I had hoped to collect samples more discreetly from the body, but that’s not going to happen. I’m going to have to go inside.”

  Birdy finished her work in less than an hour. She took her time, but there was little to be done other than collect the tissue samples to see if there were any traces of toxins—something that had never been done. If he had heart disease, that wouldn’t advance Kendall’s case. She thanked the deputy and the funeral director for all they had done. They had been helpful in a difficult situation.

  If she’d ever taken a finger, however, she’d like to have given it to the cheap administrator, Richard Mundy.

  He deserved it.

  CHAPTER 29

  Birdy ate alone after the tissue collection. Even though it was a barbecue place, she ordered a salad because the idea of any kind of meat turned her stomach. It had been that kind of a day. She’d wrestled with the desiccated insides of a man in the hopes of proving that he’d been murdered.

  Kendall had told her what was going on back home, and she was sorry that she wasn’t there. The thought that Darby’s killer might be caught brought little comfort. Not when she still couldn’t testify in court as to the cause of the girl’s death. She hadn’t been shot or stabbed. Her eyes showed no signs of petechial hemorrhaging—the tiny spider web broken blood vessels—so it was doubtful she’d been strangled. In addition, there were no indicators that she’d been strangled by way of a broken hyoid or marks on her neck. She hadn’t been drugged. Tox screens were all clean. She just died.

  The waitress returned with a dessert menu.

  “No thanks,” Birdy said. “I’ve got to run.” She passed the young woman her Visa card.

  While the waitress went off to run the card, Birdy turned her attention to Dr. Drysdale. She looked at the address. The doctor’s house was in a gated community not far from the barbecue place.

  “You know how to get to Mesquite Heights?” she asked the waitress when she returned with the check. “My rental doesn’t have GPS.”

  “Easy as pie,” the woman said. “You’ve got friends up there?”

  Birdy signed the check. “No
. Not really. Just someone that I need to see.”

  “Take a right on Arroyo and go about five miles. The entrance is on your left. You can’t miss it. Big dumb fountain there.”

  Birdy thanked her and went to her car and called Elan.

  “Aunt Birdy, when you coming back? There’s nothing to eat here.”

  “Is that all you care about?” she asked, turning the AC to a full, chilly blast.

  “How did your day go?” he asked. “I already heard on the news you were down there poking into Ruby and Micah’s dad’s case. They are so pissed off at you.”

  “It was on the news?” she asked.

  “Yeah, the paper too. Hang on.”

  She put the car in drive and turned right on Arroyo.

  “Okay, I have it right here,” Elan said. “The headline is a classic.”

  Silence.

  “Well what does it say?”

  “Right, sorry. You’re breaking up a little.”

  “As you would say, the cell service sucks here.”

  “The headline says ‘Is Kitsap Woman a Black Widow?’ ”

  “I guess that’s not so bad.”

  She braked as a coyote ran across the road. The connection was poor and she was having a hard time hearing him. He, it seemed, was having the same problem.

  “What?” he asked.

  “It could be worse I guess. I’ll be home tomorrow.”

  “Good,” he said, cutting out a little more. “Stuff happening with that Darby girl case too. You there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Aunt Birdy?”

  “Elan?”

  Despite the fake saguaro cactus replica cell towers that dotted the area and fooled no one into thinking they were anything but cell towers, the cell service was abysmal.

  An American Beauty red 7 series BMW darted in front of her, zipped up to the gate, and waited as the enormous steel partition slowly slid open. Birdy knew just what to do. As soon as the BMW passed through and made its turn, Birdy tucked in right behind. She agreed that the fountain had been dumb, but inside was impressive. Mesquite Heights was a neighborhood of mini and not-so-mini mansions that blended in to the desert landscape.

  She looked down at the back of the DONDANS business card: 824 Candlewood Lane.