Skye Cree 03: The Bones Will Tell

by Vickie McKeehan

  “If that happens, then perhaps we could find a forensic artist to do a facial reconstruction for a missing person flyer. Maybe identify her that way,” Skye suggested. “If we get no DNA match we should at least try to find out who she is.”

  Hennings nodded. “If that turns out to be the case, then I know an excellent one we could use. Only problem is she’s in Hawaii.”

  “What about the hand?” Skye persisted. “It seems to me that it’s been kept in a different kind of environment entirely than the other bones.”

  Hennings eyebrows darted up. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because there’s no dirt on the hand like there is the rest.” Skye reached in her pocket for ballpoint pen, used it as a pointer. “You can see the dirt around the eye socket and the femur. Plus, I think the hand indicates our killer must’ve parted with a treasured trophy to make his point. It was never buried.”

  Clearly impressed, Hennings said, “Very observant.” He moved over to a forensic compound microscope, an ultraviolent light where he could inspect the skull even further. He adjusted the lens, punched in several strings on a keyboard so that the image appeared on a digital monitor for everyone to see.

  “Why use the ultraviolet light?” Josh asked.

  “So we pick up any other type matter clinging to the bone. As Skye’s already pointed out there is no flesh left on the skull, just dirt, no skin or tissue. Proof that at one time there was a major difference in where the bones from the first box were kept versus where the hand was stored. See the dirt particles embedded in the teeth. Your sender didn’t bother to clean the skull up too well before he packed it inside the box. It definitely shows that at one time the bones he mailed spent time underground. We might be able to do a study of the soil found on them, but we’ll save that for later.”

  Hennings picked up the mummified hand, slid it under the light. “As you can see there are no particles like that on the hand. In that regard, it’s fairly pristine for a macerated specimen. Using this, we can also detect skin or hair or other matter more readily under ultraviolet light and get DNA from it. And see, right here is a piece of skin tissue. This’ll make an excellent source to find usable DNA. Let me show you what I mean.”

  Hennings picked up another bone, this time the femur. “I’ve already measured the thigh bone. The length is forty-one centimeters or a little over sixteen inches. Because of the size, I’d say this person was no more than five feet, four inches in height. Now in the event the femur and the hand are from two different victims, I can take a small sample of bone from the femur, grind it to a powder, extract DNA and try to piece together as much as I can from this person’s genetic profile.”

  Hennings scanned the femur under the light. “See how thin the bone is. I’m going out on a limb here and say female. Males tend to have thicker thigh bones than this.” Just as he was about to remove it from under the microscope and pick up the tibia, something on the bone caught his eye. “This is highly irregular.”

  “What’s that?” Skye asked. Focusing on the area in question, she stared up at the magnified image on the screen overhead. “Wait. It looks like there’s something crudely etched into the bone. Any chance of making that area in the middle any larger?”

  Hennings nodded and then complied by magnifying the small area until the numbers and words jumped off the monitor.

  5/8/93 #1 Catch me or let me continue to walk free.

  Skye exchanged looks with Josh. “This is what he wanted me to see,” Skye reasoned.

  “Gotta be the date of the first victim,” Josh said half aloud. “I don’t see it as anything else.”

  “That’s my guess, too. Busy boy. If his first victim was 1993 then we’re looking at over two decades worth of victims. How many do you suppose, Harry?”

  “I’m getting too old for this,” Harry groaned in frustration. “Come on, Hennings. Let’s see if this bastard left us anything else?”

  As instructed, Hennings began to inspect the rest of the bones under the ultraviolet light. After several minutes, he uttered, “There’s nothing here.”

  “Sure there is,” Skye determined.

  Josh nodded. “He wants Skye to know that he’s able to pick and choose. Dr. Bayliss already addressed the fact he sent specific bones of one victim he knew wouldn’t yield a cause of death, the hand of another. This guy is far from stupid.”

  “He’s gone all this time flying below anyone’s radar. He used the hand for shock value, nothing more. Since it’s likely from another victim it tells us there are more out there, which is why he sent it. He’s showing off,” Skye muttered.

  “So what have we got other than the fact he’s a serial and he dismembers his victims?” Harry asked.

  Dawson cleared his throat again. “But you’re under a misperception, detective. Your killer didn’t dismember the first bones he sent Skye.”

  Skye’s smile faded. “He didn’t?”

  “No. He simply waited until the bones had been in the ground long enough time for the soft tissue to breakdown and decomposition was complete. The bones were all he has left of this victim. He simply utilized what he had on hand.”

  “But I thought…we all assumed…”

  “Now the hand, the hand was dismembered from the arm. See the cut marks. He nicked the wrist bone, here.”

  There wasn’t a lot of room to pace, but Skye did her best. She turned to the high bank of windows, walked there and back again and retraced her steps.

  “Okay, so he keeps them for a period of time, days or perhaps weeks, tortures them while he has them bound and at his mercy before he decides to end their life,” Skye advised. “At some point, depending on his mood, he cuts them up or not. Is that about right?”

  Hennings nodded. “He wanted to show you the disparity from one victim to the other.”

  “Sick bastard,” Josh muttered. “Could I touch one of the bones? Anyone of them will do.”

  “Sure, you have your gloves on so it should be okay,” Hennings agreed, handing Josh the shinbone.

  The minute Josh held it in his hand, the montage of images blitzed through his head. “He doesn’t live alone. He has family, has people close to him. His personal torture chamber is isolated which means he probably has access to a second home.”

  “You mean like a cabin with a cellar, or something like that?” Skye asked.

  Josh shook his head. “I don’t know, not exactly. I don’t know,” he repeated. “But something major has recently triggered his need for attention. Whether it was something he saw in the news or something else, he’s blown away by the fact that he’s never gotten his just due. He’s fed up at the cops for not connecting his numbers. For some reason he’s decided his ego needs stroking. He wants to play.”

  “BTK did that. It’ll be his downfall,” Skye surmised.

  “Let’s hope,” Josh sent a distressed look at Harry. “In your favor, the cops may never have connected his victims because he may not have left many in a location where you could easily find them. Plus, he grabs them from various jurisdictions. The good guys don’t connect the dots and he keeps doing what he does best. And if he ever did leave a victim where she could be found, it had to be in the early years. He’s kept on killing and evolved. But now I think he’ll change his method.”

  “You mean abandon his own special place, his own dumping ground for high visibility, start leaving his victims where he wants them found? He wants his numbers to go up.”

  “Exactly.”

  The banter went on. All the while everyone in the room picked up on the dialogue, between Skye and Josh that showed an unmistakable intuitive insight into the killer, almost paranormal-like.

  “Will all this unconventional stuff help catch this guy?” Hennings wondered to Harry.

  “Sometimes with no crime scenes it all comes down to this. Law enforcement has to rely on the unconventional. And these two are about as unconventional as you could get.”

  Chapter Six

  That weekend th
e unconventional pair contacted a realtor and went looking for a house.

  Behind the wheel of his Ford Fusion, Josh angled his way in and out of traffic on the I-5 under foggy conditions. So far the heavy pea soup prevented any real buildup of speed. That’s why they sat back and made the most of their morning together and the prospect of going on the hunt for the perfect house.

  “I’m not sure I want out of the city. I like the loft,” Skye admitted. When she noted the beginnings of a smile form at the corner of his mouth, she added, “Believe it or not, it’s grown on me, although I do draw the line at liking that French provincial crap in the lobby.”

  He picked up her hand, turned it over to kiss the palm. “I knew it would if I gave you enough time. Think of it this way, if we find a new place we both like, I guarantee you won’t have to put up with that French provincial crap at all.”

  “Hmm, not having to look at those marble-topped tables with the ornate gold legs might be worth it.”

  “So no furniture with cabriole legs? Got it.”

  “I don’t mind the look of country French but all that gold crap is just ugly.”

  “Somewhere I’m sure Louis the Fourteenth is heartbroken to hear that.”

  Skye put her hand over her mouth to muffle the snicker.

  Josh cut his eyes to hers in an amused look while watching the Dodge truck in front of him. “A place in a nice wooded area similar to what Travis owns would be great, something with an acre or two of land to go with it. That way you’d get to putter in a real garden of your own.”

  “The idea of replanting my little garden balcony into a real plot of ground is…tempting. But I don’t really spend that much time ‘puttering’ as you so aptly put it. In case you haven’t noticed I usually stay busy with Foundation stuff. Your fault,” she reminded. “And now with this butcher roaming around our little enclave snatching women at will, I’ll be hard pressed to find any time to putter.”

  “Protest all you want, but going on the hunt for a child creates tremendous tension. You do it every single night. Even cops are sometimes forced to take downtime. Face it. You need a place to unwind when things get stressful. Tending to your herbs and flowers is a big part of what you do to relax.”

  When he said it like that, it did make sense. “Josh, what I do isn’t a formal job but more like a—”

  “Don’t you dare compare what you do to a hobby. It’s much more than that. As it is, you don’t get paid for Foundation stuff because you refuse to take any of the money. But that doesn’t make it a hobby. The very least you should do is get to putter and dig in the dirt whenever you want.”

  “Taking money doesn’t feel right to me, Josh. Besides, it leaves more in the bank to go for more important things like essential state-of-the-art equipment I can use to track predators better. Cracking databases make it a tad easier if I have the right software, the right hardware, and the right access. That all takes major bucks.”

  “Does Harry know you have military-grade, night-vision goggles?”

  “No. And Harry doesn’t need to know my complete inventory list. In fact, no one needs to.” She looked east toward the Cascade Mountains in the distance. “Where are we going? Any particular reason we’re headed south instead of north?”

  “I thought we’d use today to do some exploring, take a little time to see some different neighborhoods from those we already know about.”

  “Ah, so we’re researching our options? Great idea.”

  They came out of the Rainier Valley, passed Sea-Tac Airport to the right and watched for the first time since they’d left the loft as the marine layer began to burn off. Streams of sunlight burst through the low-hanging clouds, enough that she could almost see across the choppy waters of Puget Sound to the tips of Quartermaster Harbor. The scenery changed from inlets and islands to the distinct area around Commencement Bay and the Port of Tacoma.

  Josh drove past commercial docks, past downtown in the distance, and the busy railroad yards.

  By the time they reached the turnoff for Lakewold Gardens with its Georgian-style mansion and stately Japanese maples, Skye began to feel ill.

  She suddenly felt a chill move down her spine. Looking to the left, she spotted the line of vehicles waiting to get into what was now, Joint Base Lewis-McChord. A sense of déjà vu hit her so strong it caused her breath to hitch, her pulse to race. Her heart seemed as if it stuttered in her chest.

  “I know this area around Fort Lewis,” she blurted out.

  From the driver’s seat, Josh’s instincts kicked in. He could hear her heartbeat quicken, picked up on the fear emanating from her body. “What’s the matter, Skye? You look pale. Are you okay?”

  “No. This is the same way I felt every time I’d come out here to look for Ronny Whitfield in Tacoma.” She flipped down the visor, studied her reflection in the mirror, felt her own forehead. Just look at me. My face is white as a sheet. All of a sudden I’m perspiring like I ran up four flights of stairs. My palms are even clammy.”

  “Skye, there’s no reason to be alarmed, nothing to be afraid of. Ronny Whitfield’s dead. He can’t hurt you,” Josh reminded her.

  “I know that. I’m not a child,” she snapped. “But she had to admit she was reacting like one—more specifically, a five-year-old scared of the dark. “There’s something here, Josh, something malevolent maybe. Don’t you feel it, too? It’s a feeling of old souls and they’re pissed off about—not being around anymore.”

  Josh frowned and shook his head. “Most of this land used to belong to the Nisqually Indian tribe. Eminent domain confiscated more than three thousand acres in 1917 for the military installation, which turned into Fort Lewis. Over the years the place has seen a lot of soldiers come through its gates. It has a lot of history, which I’m sure includes violent deaths over the years. So yeah, I guess it could feel like old souls wanting a few answers.”

  She wasn’t sure the way she felt now could be attributed to anything that took place a hundred years in the past. “My father spent years working here as a civilian contractor. He had an apartment near here. I used to go there to visit him on weekends. Sometimes there was a woman with him. They might’ve been living together.”

  “You act as though you just thought of that, like a childhood memory or something.”

  “It’s so vivid. The picture of the apartment, the two of them like a couple. A childhood memory, huh? Yes, that’s exactly what it seems like. Strange.”

  “How so?”

  “That I would feel this strongly about something so insignificant from that time of my life when I’d never thought of it before today. Why do I remember it in such detail?”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “She was the woman my father spent time with after he and my mother separated, after he found out about her affair with Travis.”

  “Why would you remember that now, today?”

  “I have no idea. Now you tell me something. Why are we really out here driving around the military base? We didn’t drive all this way past Tacoma to look for the perfect home in the country.”

  “I keep getting pulled here, Skye. Since the day you received that box of bones I keep getting images from right here. Since this is the only base in the area, and since you’re getting weird vibes from the past, too, we might have a link to this place—you and I. Put it all together—I think there’s a chance you might have a connection to this guy. What exactly it is, I don’t know, could be nothing.”

  “Interesting. What kinds of images? What kind of connection?”

  “Images of soldiers on maneuvers, typical training exercises that sort of thing. They may not mean much at all. As to the link, I’m picking up on ties through your father.”

  “So the way I’m feeling right now might be an indication I sense this tie to our killer. Is that what you’re saying?”

  “There is one thing about the images.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They’re from a long time ago. Cir
ca early nineties.”

  “The same timeframe as our killer,” Skye determined. As they passed the base, she studied the terrain, the barracks, even the chapel, trying to pick up on anything else. But when she tried, she got a blank.

  “Exactly. I’m not sure what I thought I’d accomplish coming out here today. We can’t even get on base. How about we try this another day? Go look at those houses.”

  “You said it yourself. This area has a colorful history, soldiers passed through here in droves. Next time, how about we do our research first before we decide to storm the gates?”

  Josh found a place to turn the car around to head north again as Skye’s phone dinged with a text message. “Is that from Harry?”

  “Yes and it’s just as we guessed, the guy used a phony name to place the delivery order. But I doubt the killer takes a chance like that again. Even though I don’t think he’s particularly tech savvy.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He printed the address on the packages in his own hand.”

  “Or got someone to do it for him.”

  Skye frowned. “Anything’s possible. Anyway, my point is that while the address might be handwritten, the note itself was typed. Apparently he used an old Optima typewriter so the note was not computer generated. Harry told me that much.”

  “So they have a starting point.”

  “Only if we find this guy and end up comparing the note to the typewriter.”

  “What’s troubling you then?”

  “Other than the obvious murderer we have on the loose?” She sighed into her hands then rubbed at her temple. “Do you realize how many people go missing without a trace every single year? Just up and vanish?”

  “No, but hopefully you’re planning to tell me.”

  She grinned. “Sure. I won’t even make you guess. It’s in the neighborhood of six-hundred-and-seventy-thousand who go missing each year.”

  Josh’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding?”

  “Nope. The majority of that number is resolved, of course. But those that haven’t ended with a resolution, the number is staggering. It still leaves about three thousand cases across the country.”