by Lisa Jackson
Alvarez ignored the bite of the wind as she surveyed the crime scene where a naked woman was lashed to a solitary tree. Tree branches rattled and snow blew off the heavily laden branches.
Selena Alvarez had never felt so cold in her life.
Dressed in county-issued coat and pants, she stared at the frozen corpse, and her own blood seemed to freeze in her veins.
The victim was Asian from the looks of her. Straight black hair capped with snow, once-smooth flesh showing bruising and contusions, blood discoloring the snow at the base of the tree. Snow that had at one time been mashed beneath boots and bare feet, then crusted over, was now, with a fresh blanket of white, slightly uneven.
Forensic techs were hoping to take casts of what remained of the prints or gather evidence in the form of soil, hair, fibers or any kind of debris that might have dropped from the attacker’s clothing or the soles of his boots.
Alvarez held out little hope, as the killer, so far, had been either meticulous or just damned lucky.
As in the other cases, a note had been left at the scene, nailed over the victim’s head, and a star hewn out of the bark a few inches above her crown. Though again, the star seemed in a slightly different position, the same being true of its placement on the single sheet of paper.
This time, the note read:
W T SC I N
“What the hell does that mean?” Brewster, who had driven out with Alvarez, asked.
“Don’t know.”
“Is it some kind of warning, explanation?”
Alvarez shook her head. “He’s just screwing with us. Obviously the victim’s initials are W and I, though who knows which is her first name and which is her last.”
“You mean like Wilhelmina Ingles or Ida Wellington?”
“Yeah,” she said sarcastically, slowly walking around the tree, though at a short distance away. “Like Wilhelmina.” Already the forensic techs and ME were examining the body, trying to establish a time of death and maybe a cause, as well as searching the area for any other pieces of evidence, anything at all.
As for the cause of death, Alvarez was willing to bet the cause was the same as the others: exposure. Though this woman’s body had a few more bruises and cuts upon it, Alvarez thought the end result would be the same. Maybe the killer was growing more violent, getting off on torturing the women first. Or maybe this small woman fought harder than the others, or had fewer injuries from the “accident” where her vehicle had skidded off the icy road.
“No car found,” Brewster said, as if reading her thoughts.
“Yet.” She glanced up at him. There was no playful flirting now. “Only a matter of time.” From the corner of her eye, she saw movement coming down the trail they’d used to access this canyon, then her partner, Regan Pescoli, all five feet ten inches of her, appeared and signed in to the crime scene with the road deputy who’d been first to arrive at the site.
Pescoli was wearing sunglasses, though it wasn’t all that bright and clouds were rolling in, and the same unflattering outerwear as the rest of the detectives and road deputies on the scene.
“So we got ourselves another one,” she said as she reached Alvarez and Brewster. Her face was flushed, red hair coiling wildly from beneath her stocking cap, and the smell of cigarette smoke clung to her like a shroud.
Alvarez didn’t doubt for a minute that Pescoli had been partying the night before, hooking up with yet another loser, but she kept her mouth shut. As long as what her partner did off-hours didn’t affect her ability to handle her job, it wasn’t really any of Selena’s business.
“Yep, looks like,” she agreed. She brought Pescoli up to speed about the fact that no vehicle had been found, there were new letters on the same kind of note as left at the previous scenes, there was a slight repositioning of the star and the body had been found by Ivor Hicks.
“Old Man Hicks was up here?” Pescoli repeated, her eyes, behind shaded lenses, scanning the desolate area.
“Walking.”
“Who the hell walks up here before dawn?”
“It was the aliens again,” Brewster explained. “They made him do it.”
Pescoli’s lips twisted into a wry smile. “Was it Crytor, the reptilian genius, who sent him up here?”
“General, the reptilian general. Not genius,” Brewster corrected. Everyone in the department knew about Ivor Hicks’s transportation to the “mother ship” for experiments and tests by the aliens. The story had been written up in the local paper in the seventies, and then again recently, on the thirtieth anniversary of the abduction.
“Ivor been drinking?” Pescoli asked.
Alvarez shook her head. “Doesn’t seem like it.”
“He drinks a lot.”
“I know.”
Brewster snorted. “The aliens who did all those tests on him? Wonder if they ran a Breathalyzer.”
Alvarez smiled faintly.
“Yeah, they probably think all humans run around blowing a point-three-two in a blood alcohol level.”
Pescoli stared at the victim as the paramedics bagged her hands and feet, then cut her free and placed her into a body bag. “I don’t think Ivor has the strength, smarts or wherewithal to be our guy. What’s he tip out at, maybe a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty pounds?” She shook her head. “You talk to him?” she asked Alvarez.
“At length. He’s in Deputy Hanson’s rig, if you want a word.”
“I do,” Pescoli said.
“You know he’ll go to the press as soon as he gets back into town.”
Pescoli pulled a face. “We’ve kept some details from the press but if Ivor shoots off his big mouth—”
“Every nutcase who wants a little publicity will come forward,” Alvarez said, unhappily considering the wasted man-hours that would be spent separating the wannabes from the real deal. The time ill-used sifting through the BS would take away from time that could be spent trying to find the killer.
“He’s all yours.” Alvarez hitched her chin toward the trail they’d all used to make their way into the canyon and Pescoli took off in the hopes that she could jar a little more information out of Ivor Hicks’s alcohol-shriveled brain.
“Good luck,” Alvarez muttered.
“Thanks.” Pescoli’s smile held no warmth. “I’ll radio in to missing persons, ask them about any missing Asian or Amer-Asian women with our vic’s description. I’ll also have them look for anyone missing in the last week with initials that include W and I.”
“Make it more than statewide. Have missing persons check Idaho, Washington, Oregon, Wyoming and California.”
“Got it.” Pescoli was already walking along the trail toward the idling rig where Ivor Hicks was waiting to insist everything he did was because of aliens.
Not exactly the most credible witness.
Alvarez watched as the body bag was carried out. “Guess we’re done here.”
“Yeah.” Brewster shook his head. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Don’t know.” They, too, began walking out of the snow-covered open space. “Before the next storm sets in, we need choppers and vehicles searching all the roads in a two-mile radius from this point. The other two victims’ bodies were found about a mile and a half from the point where their vehicles slid off the road. Pay special attention to the roads that curve sharply over a ravine.”
Brewster snorted. “You’re talking about every damned road in this part of the county.”
“I know.” She looked up at the sky where clouds were definitely gathering. They didn’t have a lot of time, but the longer they waited the more likely the Asian woman’s vehicle would be buried until the spring thaw and any evidence from the car would be lost or degraded. In the meantime she’d go back to the office and chart out each crime scene, see where, if at all, the two-mile radius from each separate area intersected.
Maybe then she’d be one step closer to finding the son of a bitch.
Sheriff Dan Grayson’s day had gone from bad t
o worse.
And it didn’t look like things were going to improve any time soon. With his heartburn acting up, he stood behind the desk in his office and stared out the window at the approaching storm. At five in the afternoon, the lights of the city were already glowing, reflecting bluish in the snow-covered streets. As the sheriff’s office and jail were perched on the top of Boxer Bluff, he had a view of the river and the falls, located nearly a mile downhill, where much of the town, including the brick-and-mortar, hundred-plus-year-old courthouse, was located.
The press, in the form of microphone-wielding television reporters, had come en masse to the heretofore small, unnoteworthy town of Grizzly Falls.
The last big news in the area was the flood of eighty-eight that had wiped out the boat landing and wildlife refuge located on the banks of the Grizzly River.
But now some goddamned psycho had decided to start leaving naked women bound to trees in this section of the Bitterroot Mountains and that had brought the camera crews, with their recording equipment, lights and vans sprouting satellite dishes, descending like Ivor’s aliens upon this sleepy, usually boring town. Freelance reporters and photographers for the local, statewide and even national newspapers were filling the local motels. Armed with pocket recorders, sharp rapid-fire questions and a sense of importance, they, along with their television counterparts, had been mixing it up with the locals.
One idiot of an innkeeper had winked at Grayson over coffee and said, “Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Sheriff, all this press is damned good for business.”
Grayson had wanted to shove Rod Larimer’s cherry Danish down his throat. Instead, he’d finished his coffee in one swallow and said, “What’s happening around here, Rod, isn’t good for anything. Including business.”
Now, Grayson found a bottle of antacids in his desk, opened the plastic lid with one hand and popped a pill dry before settling into his squeaky, old leather chair. Earlier in the day, just after noon, he’d held a press conference, warning the public, explaining the severity of the situation. You would think that’d satisfy them, but when he was finished, the reporters had still clamored for more information. He had given them what he could, had held back only a few vital bits of knowledge, and he’d locked Ivor Hicks up on a trumped-up charge just to keep him away from the press.
Ivor’s son, Bill, had gotten wind of his father’s predicament and had insisted the old man be released. “You can’t hold him, Sheriff,” he’d insisted on a telephone call earlier in the day. “For God’s sake, Dad helped you, didn’t he?”
Grayson hadn’t been able to argue that point and had promised to let Ivor go free as soon as the detectives had interviewed him again and taken his statement.
“I’ll hold you to it,” Bill Hicks had growled before hanging up. It wasn’t the first time Ivor’s son had tried to bail his father out of a tight spot. It wouldn’t be the last.
The truth of the matter was that Ivor’s son had called his bluff. Holding the old man was really a load of cock and bull. Several detectives had interviewed Hicks. Grayson was convinced that the sheriff’s department had learned everything they could from the old man, yet he hated to think what would happen if one reporter offered to buy Ivor a drink. Ivor could very easily give the guy details of the investigation only the police knew, though, if pressed, he would start talking about the aliens prodding him to the killing site and the reporter would rule the old man out as a credible source.
Or not.
“Hell,” Grayson grumbled.
As soon as he figured out a way to keep Ivor from spouting off to the press or neighbors or anyone who would buy him a drink for a good story, he’d release him.
But Ivor Hicks wasn’t his only concern. The Feds were involved, too, though this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Right now, he felt he needed all the help he could get, from the state police to the Feds.
Absently, Grayson tugged on his moustache and stared at the snow blowing in from the north. Predictions were that another blizzard was heading their way. Which was only more bad news. The department was stretched to the limit as it was. Roads were closing, power crews were working double time to keep the electricity and gas flowing, and meanwhile there were some people who didn’t have heat, idiots were still trying to drive and ending up wrecking their cars and, if that weren’t enough, somewhere in the frigid coming night, a psycho was plotting his next move.
Grayson’s jaw slid to one side. “Not in my county,” he said, but even to himself the words sounded hollow. Already three murders had been committed, all within the boundaries of Pinewood County.
He just hoped there wouldn’t be more.
A rap on the door snapped him out of his reverie.
“Sheriff,” Selena Alvarez said as he looked over his shoulder. “I thought you’d like to see what we came up with on the third victim.”
“Just tell me you figured out who the bastard is.”
Alvarez’s brown eyes darkened a shade. “Not yet,” she admitted. She was serious, even more than usual, her mouth drawn down at the edges, her black hair twisted into a knot at the base of her neck, a few thin lines appearing between black, arched eyebrows. Smart as a whip, Selena Alvarez worked at a hundred and twenty percent but kept her private life locked away, as if she had some secret.
Not that it mattered.
He followed her down a short hallway to what had become a special room for a task force that was coming together. Tacked to the scratched green walls were panels of pictures and information on each of the victims, along with details of their deaths. Photographs of the bodies, the wrecked vehicles and the victims’ driver’s licenses were part of the tableau as well. Theresa Charleton’s pictures and info were next to Nina Salvadore’s, and in the third space the name Wendy Ito was written next to a question mark.
“We’ve IDed her?” he asked.
“Not positively, but we think her initials are W and I, or I and W,” Alvarez said, “and in our statewide search looking for a missing Asian woman, we found Wendy Ito. Single hairdresser from Spokane, Washington, missing since the second week in November after she spent a weekend with friends in Whitefish. We’re checking with those friends now, and the parents.” She shook her head. “Still waiting for photo identification from the Washington state DMV.”
She pointed to a large map of Pinewood County on one of the other walls. Pushpins had been shoved into the map indicating where the bodies and wrecked cars had been discovered. Three red pins pointed out where the bodies were found, all in different small valleys of the mountain range. Two yellow pins signaled where the crumpled vehicles had been located. A large circle had been drawn around the area and other marks showed the distance between the existing crime scenes.
Grayson stared at the map. “You’ve talked to all of the people who own property or live here?” he asked, tapping the circle’s center.
“We’re working on it. Pretty isolated country. Some summer homes, but not many. A few full-time residents.” She glanced up at him. “We’ve talked to most of them.” Before he could ask, she added, “No one knows anything.”
The knot that was his stomach tightened. “Keep asking. Have we located the last victim’s car?”
“Not yet.”
He glanced at the map again. “And keep looking.”
“We are,” she assured him and the set of her jaw convinced him she’d leave no stone unturned in her quest. He just wasn’t sure that was going to be good enough.
At six thirty the sun wasn’t quite up in Seattle. Jillian Rivers poured herself a second cup of coffee and nearly sloshed it onto the sleeve of her robe as her cell phone beeped from somewhere in the bowels of her purse. She glanced at the digital clock in the microwave and wondered who in the world would call her so early.
The same idiot who called three days ago at five a.m. and didn’t leave a message. Like it’s a big joke.
She felt an immediate flush of anger before trying to convince herself she was overreacting. The ca
ll might be from someone on the East Coast forgetting how early it was three time zones away. Hadn’t her college roommate made the mistake not once, but twice before?
Digging through her handbag, she found the phone just as it quit ringing, and called “hello” to no one. “Great.” Using the cell’s menu, she clicked onto a list of received calls. The last one appeared with no information.
“Wonderful,” she said with more than a trace of sarcasm as the cat door clicked loudly.
Marilyn, her long-haired calico, pressed her head against the plastic door, slithered through the opening and slunk into the kitchen. Jillian had installed the door herself upon moving to this townhouse on the shores of Lake Washington. “What, no mouse? No rat? No disgusting headless snake?” she asked as Marilyn did figure eights around her ankles, rubbing and purring loudly. “All right, mighty huntress. Even the best mousers have off days.” She picked the calico off the floor and whispered into a pointed, flicking ear, “You’re still the fairest of them all, you know.”
The cat, snow white with only a few patches of orange and black, had been named Marilyn after Marilyn Monroe by Jillian’s mother.
“She’s just so beautiful. She has a Hollywood quality, don’t you think?” Linnie White had gushed upon delivering the eight-week-old kitten to her youngest daughter. “I tell you, I saw her and couldn’t resist. Let’s name her Marilyn.”
“Wouldn’t Norma Jean be a little more…I don’t know…subtle…or intellectual? Kind of an inside joke?” Jillian had offered.
“Well, for God’s sake, Jillian, it’s a cat, for crying out loud. Who needs subtle and intellectual?”
“I’m not sure I even want a cat.”
“Of course you do.” Linnie had handed Jillian the adorable little bit of fluff and the tiny thing had shown the insight to look up at Jillian with wide green eyes and purr wildly, as if Jillian were some kind of savior. Upon being held closer to Jillian’s neck, the kitten had kneaded her with those petite paws and that was, as they say, that. Jillian had fallen instantly in love. Her no-animals decree was null and void. “Oh God, she’s already working me,” she’d said, knowing she’d been snared. Jillian could have protested to the ends of the earth, but she’d begun bonding with the little feline immediately. Even though she’d never been a “cat person,” and even though, after the death of her old, blind dog, another rescued animal from the pound, Jillian had sworn off animals, none of that mattered when Marilyn purred against her neck.