by Todd Borg
As it broke over the ridgeline near Genoa Peak, Don said, “So this woman you brought, the entomologist, what does she do?” he asked.
“She takes insect samples. Insects can reveal a lot about when a person died.”
Don looked puzzled. “I understand the abstract concept, but what exactly is she doing back there?” He moved his head toward the tree island.
“I’m no expert at this, but basically, when an animal dies – and of course that means people, too – flies, especially blowflies can sense it from miles away.”
“You mean, they can smell the dead person?” Don said.
Jorge winced at Don’s words.
“Yeah,” I said. “So they come and they lay their eggs on the body.”
Don frowned. Jorge seemed to squirm.
“When blowflies lay their eggs, they focus on any wound where there’s an opening in the skin, or on body orifices, the mouth, the nose, the eyes and ears.”
Don said, “I don’t like the sound of this at all.”
“Me neither,” I said. “If it’s not too cold out, the eggs hatch in maybe eight hours or so. The larval form of a blowfly is a tiny maggot. The maggot’s purpose in life is to be a voracious eater. It burrows into the flesh of the dead animal and eats it.”
Jorge was clenching his teeth and looking like he was about to be sick.
“You want me to continue?” I said, concerned about Jorge.
Don said, “Yes.”
“After a few hours, the maggot has already grown too big for its skin. I don’t remember the details well, but I think it molts its skin and begins all over again, growing bigger. The speed at which maggots eat and grow is related to temperature. They grow faster in warm temperatures.”
I glanced at Don. He nodded as if I should keep going.
“So what Street does is pluck maggots out of the body. Maggots of different species mature at different rates. The problem is that maggots all look the same. You can’t tell which kind you’re looking at. So she kills some of them so she can preserve them at whatever size they had grown to. The others she takes back to her lab where she feeds them so that they can mature, pupate, and turn into adult flies. Once the adult flies emerge, she knows what species it is. Entomologists have data on how fast the maggots of different species grow. So once she knows the kind of fly, then she can look at the size of the maggots she killed and that will tell her how old the maggots were.”
Don was nodding. “Now I get it. The age of the maggots tells her how long it’s been since the fly laid the eggs.”
“Right,” I said.
Jorge looked pale, and Don looked like he wouldn’t be eating any meals for a while.
“What I don’t get,” Don said, “is knowing how long the maggot has been growing doesn’t tell you how long the person has been dead, because we don’t know how long it took the fly to find the dead body and lay the eggs, right?”
“Your question makes sense. But it turns out they do know how long it takes for a fly to find a dead body,” I said.
“How long is it?”
“Almost immediately.”
Don looked confused. Jorge had moved away and was looking out toward the lake and mountains.
I continued, “Street told me that when an animal or person dies, the average length of time before a fly finds it and lays eggs is ten minutes. That’s how sensitive a blowfly’s sense of smell is. They are out there in large numbers, even if we’re not aware of it. When an animal dies, the flies come from all over.”
“That’s gross,” Don said.
“Yeah, it is. The cycle of life has some unsavory aspects to it.”
“Is there any time when flies don’t come?”
“Sure. Any time the body is inaccessible. A body in a tight car or car trunk. A body indoors in a draft-proof house. A body that’s buried right after it dies. Or a body that’s wrapped up tightly in plastic or a rug or a body bag.”
“How long will it take the entomologist to do her work?”
“A couple of hours.”
Don turned and looked back into the trees, which were now lit by blazing sunlight.
“Here comes Sergeant Bains,” he said.
Bains walked across the meadow, lifting his feet in that manner that suggested he was walking through water. In the sunlight, the bottom six inches of his dress browns were dark with moisture.
When he got close, he said, “Why didn’t I think to stop and get rubber boots like yours?”
I nodded.
“Your lady doing the dirty work as we speak?”
“Yup.”
“How long before she’ll have a time of death?”
“I think she can make an educated guess right away, but it’s many days before she can make an accurate determination.”
“Okay,” Bains said. He turned to Don and Jorge. “It’s light enough now. It would be good to start your photographs. Err toward thoroughness.”
“Got it,” Don said. He and Jorge walked back into the trees.
Bains turned to me. “You want to take a look at the scene by daylight?”
I nodded and followed him back into the tree island.
TWENTY-SIX
Street was not in sight. Her sample case was at the door of the tent.
“I’m interested in your thoughts,” Bains said. “Maybe you could take a look around and see what you think.”
So I walked around and through the campsite. Everything was as I had expected to see it, although the distances in daylight seemed shorter than when I’d slowly stepped my way through in the dark. Scattered through the area was camping equipment that I hadn’t seen in the dark of the evening before. The charred remains of some sticks showed that they’d had an illegal campfire, which would have presented a serious risk of discovery had they lit it at night, not so much risk if it was part of an afternoon beer party.
The bodies were far enough from each other that it seemed possible, if unlikely, that the men were unaware as their companion had been killed. The critical aspect would have been how much noise the victims made as they died.
In the daylight, I could now see that the spears were simply ski poles with the handles and baskets removed. These were old ski poles, made of tapered aluminum tubes, no doubt chosen because they had sharp points. Years ago, the point design was changed to circular or squared-off tips with sharp perimeters that would provide grip on slippery ice, but that would be less likely to become a deadly stabbing instrument should someone fall on it.
I wondered how each person could be killed without crying out and alerting the other to the threat. Perhaps a spearing death was so overwhelming that the victim would die silently, any potential vocal reaction smothered in the enormous shock of having multiple organs simultaneously skewered on a cold, metal shaft. Or maybe there were two killers who attacked their victims at the same moment.
The victim at home plate seemed the way I remembered him in the light of my phone, sitting on the ground, leaning against a large tree trunk. His left arm was out behind him, open fingers splayed, revealing a dirty palm. His right arm was in front of him, hand pulled in next to his chest, his knuckles almost touching the ski pole. I squatted down to get a closer look. His hand was clenched into a fist, no doubt his last agonizing spasm from the pain of violent death.
The ME had said that the bodies were past rigor mortis. So the clenched fist was unusual. It was as if he had something precious when he died, something he gripped with such intensity that his hand stayed closed after his body went limp.
I pointed it out to Bains.
“The victim at home plate has his right hand clenched in a fist at his chest. Probably, it’s nothing.”
“But maybe it’s something,” Bains said, “or you wouldn’t point it out. Let’s look.”
Bains pulled a pair of latex gloves out of a cardboard dispenser, tugged them on, walked to the dead body, and bent down to look. “I see what you’re saying,” he said.
Bains put a finger
under the body’s fingertips. He’d barely begun to open the hand when something shiny fell out.
Bains reached under the pine needles, pulled the object out, and held it up. It was golden and circular.
“A coin?” I said.
“No, a button. A brass button.” He rotated it so I could see the other side. Unlike buttons where the stitching holes go through from front to back, this had a little metal arch on the back side. There was an errant thread stuck in the arch as if the button had been ripped from a jacket or shirt. “What’s the pattern on the front?” I said.
Bains turned it over. “It’s that common eagle symbol.”
I leaned in to see it up close. “With the arrows in one claw and an olive branch in the other claw. I forget what it’s called. The United States coat of arms or something.”
Bains pointed at the body. “You notice the spears?” he said.
I nodded. “Ski poles. Old ones with the sharp points. When did they start using non-pointed ice tips? Forty years ago?”
“At least,” Bains said. “Even so, a lot of houses in Tahoe probably have old ski poles in the corner of the garage. It wouldn’t be hard to find ones with the pointed tips.”
I thought about ski pole design. “Ski poles have a metal stop ring about four or five inches up from the tip. The basket slides up against that and is held in place with a grip washer. It would be easy to cut the grip washer off with a wire cutter. But the stop ring would be harder.”
Bains shrugged. “Maybe. I’m pretty sure the stop ring is just friction fit. It slides onto the pole until the increasing diameter of the pole brings it to a stop. If you cut into it with a hacksaw, I bet it would pop off.”
“Without the basket, an old ski pole with the pointed tip would make a good spear. But why take off the handle?”
Bains pointed at the body. “Look at the open end of the pole. It’s been filed into a notch, and the edges have been bent out.”
“As if to hook onto the heavy rubber banding on a spear gun,” I said.
“Or the string on a bow.”
“But arrows need fletching to fly straight.”
Bains thought about it. “Maybe this pole didn’t fly. Maybe it was shot from a foot away.”
“Did you notice the sheen?” I said.
Bains took another look. “That explains why they shined in the light of our flashlights last night. It looks like the pole was wiped with oil. I wonder... ” Bains stopped for a moment, then said. “A slippery, oiled pole would be a lot easier to run through a body.”
“What a wicked image, a killer carefully oiling his weapons. How do you suppose he carried them? If you brought ski poles to the campsite to use as weapons, you’d have to disguise them. So let’s say you put them into some kind of tube.”
“A rod and reel storage tube like the ones fishermen use,” Bains said. “I use one myself.”
I held my fingers together to make a circle and visualize. “I don’t know how big those are.”
Bains shook his head. “They make what they call bulk tubes. They’re a good six inches in diameter.”
“That would fit lots of spears,” I said, “especially with the handles removed.”
“Right. I can see the killer telling his buddies he’s bringing fishing gear and he’s going to fry them up fresh lake trout for breakfast,” Bains said. “When in reality, he’s bringing in weapons to kill them so he can take off with all the money. Except that there were four robbers, right? So either there were two killers killing the other two, or only three robbers came to this campsite. From the gear left behind, there is no clear indication of how many men were here.”
“And why did they come here?” I asked.
“Good question. It took some work to get to this place. We’re close to South Lake Tahoe, and lots of people use Baldwin Beach. But this tree island is like being in the middle of nowhere. So it would give them good cover.”
“Makes sense,” I said. “Another thing to remember is one of them must have got the pine pitch on his boot and then wiped if off on the truck tire during the robbery. So they were camping here before the robbery.”
I looked out at the lake. “Maybe they came by boat. No one would notice them. Or they could come at night and be unseen. Everywhere on the roads, there are traffic cams up on lightposts and at intersections. Vehicles all have license plates. There’s no coordinated, real time data logging for vehicles, and you can drive most places in the country and no one knows where you are in real time. But give researchers enough time, they can find traces of you on traffic cams. Even if you turn your cell phone all the way off so the phone companies can’t track you, the traffic cams will find you. And when you stop for gas or go into a convenience store, those security cams will record you, too. But there are no traffic cams out on the lake.”
“Yes!” Bains said, excited. “You could put in someplace, and once you ride across the lake at night, you could come out someplace where you previously left a vehicle. But there’s still a risk, as boats have license numbers.”
“Human-powered boats don’t,” I said. “Kayaks, canoes, and paddle boards. They’re not even registered with the state.”
Bains frowned. “The armored truck robbers supposedly got off with five hundred thousand. Any idea how much bulk or weight that kind of money takes up?”
“The company’s general manager told me that a half million would be in two reinforced bags, fifty pounds each.”
“Easy to haul in a kayak or a canoe,” Bains said. “But where would the boat be now? Would they have just left it on the beach?” Bains looked out toward the water.
“There’s another possibility,” I said. “Let’s say the robbers got away in a stolen vehicle. They drove it up to the lake to a prearranged location where they knew there were lots of kayaks they could help themselves to. The West Shore, maybe. They could even have stolen a vehicle from an empty vacation home, then brought it back and left it where they found it. No one would know it was borrowed to use in a robbery.”
Bains was nodding as I spoke.
I continued. “From there, they could have found two tandem kayaks. Or a single canoe. Lots of people have vacation homes where they keep an extra vehicle and all manner of boats. It’s not too difficult to paddle south from the West Shore down to Baldwin Beach.” I paused, thinking. “If they wanted to leave here by car, they could have given their borrowed boat a push, and the breeze would have taken it out into the lake. It might be days before it washes up on the opposite side of the lake. It could land in one of the hidden coves south of Sand Harbor.”
“We might never find it,” Bains said.
“I buy that scenario,” Bains said. “It fits with what we have here, and it makes sense from the point of view of the robbers. It leaves them and their money in a hidden, hard-to-track location and near a vehicle they’ve previously left. They probably parked it across the highway at the Mt. Tallac trailhead parking lot.” Bains seemed to think about it. “What doesn’t make sense is that the victims were speared from the front. That would give them a chance to see their attackers and call out.”
I said, “Maybe both victims were killed at the same time. The two killers could have coordinated their timing. The only other explanation I can think of is that there was one killer, and he wanted his victims to know he was killing them. He wanted them to have that be their last thought.”
Bains made a face. “That’s really vicious. By definition, first degree murder is always pretty vicious. But spearing a guy to his face is especially so. Let’s say there was just one killer. What do you think happened to the fourth robber?”
“No idea. Maybe they sent him out on a food run. Or he could have paddled off in one kayak, towing another so he could ditch it and leave less evidence that the four robbers camped here.”
Jorge came over carrying a gym bag. “Found this in the woods,” he said. He held the bag open by spreading the two handles, one in each of his latex-gloved hands.
We looked inside and saw two white hockey masks.
“Good find!” Bains said. “There might be some hair on those. Could be a source of DNA.”
We heard movement coming from the tent. The tent flap moved, and Street came backing out on her hands and knees. She had a surgical mask over her mouth and nose. She paused, reached out, and set her sample case on the ground outside the tent, then continued to back out. She stood up, walked away from the tent, took off the mask, and took a deep breath. I walked over and put my arm around her shoulders.
“Are you okay?” I asked. “You look pale.”
She took another deep breath. It was a moment before she answered. “It’s always a bit bracing. The circumstances. The odor. I can see why Spot is so sensitive to death. With a nose that’s ten thousand times more sensitive than ours, it must be overwhelming.”
“Ready to go?” I said.
She nodded.
“Sergeant?” I said, turning to Bains. “It looks like we’re done here.”
“Okay. We’ve got it from this point. Dr. Casey, please send your report directly to Dr. Sender. Thanks for your help.”
“You’re welcome,” she said.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Street and I walked back out onto the meadow and over to the Jeep.
I put my hand on Street’s leg as we drove away. “How’re you doing?”
“I won’t say it isn’t hard, but I’ve been there before. I’m a scientist. It’s not the bodies and maggots that bother me. That’s just biology. Nature’s recycling system.”
“Yeah, I have a harder time with that than you.”
“What’s difficult,” Street said, “is thinking about the person who did this. I accept that human deviation goes into some very dark corners. But I wonder what could motivate a killer to be so brutal? What could possibly happen that would turn a person into such a monster? Because in the final analysis, that’s what this killer is, right? A monster. A defense attorney may decide to use an insanity defense. And doctors may concur. But he’s still a monster.”
“I agree,” I said.