by L. T. Vargus
The man adjusts a little in his seat. Continues.
“So I peel the tape away from her cheeks. I’m careful and all, but she doesn’t try to bite. She barely moves at all except to breathe.”
The wood pattern of the laminate goes blurry in Emily’s eyes, but she doesn’t dare blink.
“When I finally get the sock out of her mouth, she looks at me, and she says…”
He pauses a moment. Licks his lips again. When he speaks her words, his voice is just louder than a whisper. Gritty and reverent.
“God forgive you. God have mercy on your soul.”
He’s quiet for a long time. His chest rises and falls with his breathing. Eyes still tracing invisible lines on the ceiling.
“That was it. That was the moment. For the first time, it kind of hit me. The weight of it. All of it. All of what was happening in that little cabin. It became real. What a fucking thing for her to say.”
He leaned back. Let his head thump against one of those logs veining dark lines in the white wall.
“But nothing happened. I killed her daughter, and I killed her, and nothing happened. The sky didn’t open up. No hand reached down from the heavens to stop me. No spirit of kindness or mercy possessed me to change my course. No divine force swelled in the vicinity. Nothing.”
The man lets out a long sigh.
“When they were both gone, I went outside and smoked a cigarette. Looked up through the pines at the moon and the stars hung up there. Heavenly bodies so far away. They held no sway here from what I could tell.”
He shakes his head a little, almost seeming disappointed.
“And whatever I was doing, it was what I had to do. It was fate.
“All of it could only happen that one way.”
Chapter 15
Darger, along with Loshak, Corby, and three other LVMPD officers, armed themselves with flashlights and began a sweep of the terrain along the desert road.
“Watch out for gopher burrows,” Corby said. “And rattlers.”
Darger turned to Loshak, who was only a shaft of light in the blackness to her right.
“Rattlers? As in snakes?”
“What’s the matter, Darger? You afraid of snakes?”
“Only the ones that bite,” she said.
A wheeze of laughter filtered through the darkness.
The beam from Darger’s own flashlight skimmed over the dusty ground and through the dry spines of prairie grass and tumbleweed, illuminating a single column for her to walk through.
They moved away from the constant diesel growl of the two fire engines. Aside from the chirping of the crickets and the swish of sand under her feet, the desert was as quiet as a graveyard.
One of the men coughed, interrupting the eerie peace, but eventually the desert closed in on them once again. Swallowed whole by the darkness, Darger felt like she was walking alone on a distant planet. When the light from her flashlight hit just right, she could see her breath fog in the cool, dry air.
There was a skittering sound like someone had kicked a stone over the hard ground and then a muttered curse.
Corby’s voice cut through the night.
“We should call it off for now, come back out once it’s daylight. Maybe call in the K-9 cadaver team if it seems necessary, but if we keep this up, someone’s liable to snap an ankle. ”
Darger just stood and stared up at the stars for a moment, frustrated. He was right. It was too dark out here for any kind of search on foot, but she hated giving up. There had to be something out here. The burning car was left for a reason. It was a breadcrumb. They were meant to find more. But what? It was a clear night, and the stars shone like shards of glass on black velvet. She waited, but they had no answer.
She pivoted on her heel and started back toward the road.
Skirting around a clump of prickly pear, she felt the skeletal branches of desert shrubs clawing at the legs of her pants.
Her flashlight flicked off.
Darger gave the end a forceful tap. It flickered on and off again.
“Stupid piece of…,” she hissed, whacking it with the heel of her hand.
The light came back, and she was momentarily satisfied, but she took another step and tipped forward, the bottom of her boot finding nothingness where the ground should be.
Falling.
A panicked thrill ran through her belly at the sensation of not knowing where she was in space. She lurched into the abyss, arms flinging out to her side.
The ground slammed hard into her right knee, and the flashlight flew from her grip, tumbling end over end.
“Shit!”
A different flashlight — held by someone off to her left — sliced through the night like a glowing sword and came to rest on her half-crumpled form.
“You OK?”
It was Loshak. He jogged a little closer, but she held up a hand to stop him.
“I just lost my footing. I’m fine.”
Her light had skittered ahead of her about a yard. The wedge of illumination still glowed at one end, lighting up an oddly-shaped rock lying in the sand. Darger crawled forward on her hands and knees, grasping for the cylinder of metal with her fingers. It was still warm from where she’d held it before.
As the beam of light shifted, new features of the strange rock became discernible. Her breath caught in her throat, but it was still a few moments before her brain caught up with her eyes.
“Hey, Corby?” Her voice sounded odd in her own ears. Deadened and distant. “I think maybe you should call the cadaver dog in right now.”
“Why’s that?”
Darger stayed on her knees, not trusting her legs to hold her weight at the moment.
“Because I found something.”
The footsteps of the other men drew closer, but Darger’s eyes never left the place where her flashlight shone.
The strange rock wasn’t a rock at all.
It was a human skull.
Chapter 16
The K-9 cadaver search team arrived just before dawn. The hills in the distance — normally a rusty red — were tinted blue and purple in the morning twilight. On the horizon, a soft pink haze announced the coming of the day, but the air still held a chill.
Detective Castellano became the savior of the morning when she showed up with coffee and donuts. They gathered around the food with the lid of the bakery box flapping in the cool breeze blowing in off the mountains.
It was chilly. Darger sipped at her coffee and danced from foot to foot, trying to keep her blood warm. She found herself glancing back into the wilderness every few seconds, trying to find the place where she’d discovered the skull. They agreed that it was best to leave it where it was found, with the hope that the rest of the skeleton would be nearby. And now she couldn’t stop looking for it, as if it would disappear — roll away — when she wasn’t paying attention.
Corby’s phone blipped, and he stepped away to take the call. The rest of their party remained clustered around the donuts and coffee, shivering and waiting for the search team to say they were ready to start.
After a few moments, Corby rejoined the group, fastening the phone to a clip on his belt.
“That was your fingerprint lab back at Quantico,” he said.
Loshak perked up. “Yeah?”
“No usable prints from the Travel Stop.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah,” Corby agreed, pawing at the stubble along his fleshy jawline. “Must be nice to get forensics back so quickly, though. I usually have to wait at least 48 hours for prints.”
“This was a special circumstance. Had to call in a favor.”
“Well, we appreciate it all the same. Even if this does end up to be a waste of time.”
Darger ground her back teeth together. How could he possibly think they were still wasting their time after she’d found the skull?
But it wouldn’t help things to get into a spat with him before the search had even started. She glared down at the gentle swirl of
steam coiling above her coffee. Besides, the lot of them had been up all night. She probably wasn’t the only one feeling irritable. Maybe he was just venting a little.
To ensure her mouth stayed shut, she grabbed a second donut and tore off a piece of fried dough with her incisors.
Her partner sniffed and squinted into the distance.
“Can’t be total waste,” he said, managing to keep his voice cool. “What are the odds of finding a lone skull in the desert? The rest of the skeleton is probably somewhere close-by.”
She sipped her coffee to cover a smile and silently cheered Loshak on.
“Not necessarily. The carrion birds can do a hell of a job scattering bones over a good bit of land,” Corby explained.
Castellano nodded her head in agreement. “And then once the coyotes get into it, you can have a skeleton spread miles in every direction.”
Now Darger was the one scanning the endless desolation. Miles? How could they hope to find what they were looking for if that was true?
She dusted powdered sugar from her fingers and watched as the first sliver of sun peeked over the mountains off to the east. The golden rays hit the line of clouds above, changing them from puffs of cotton candy to strands of sticky caramel. Instantly she felt a little warmer. She couldn’t tell if it was an actual shift in temperature or some kind of placebo effect from seeing the sun rise.
Tara, the search dog’s handler, approached. She was a small, muscular woman, built like an Olympic gymnast. Her black Labrador retriever, Hiro, followed just behind. When Tara stopped in front of the group, Hiro sat without command.
“We’re ready when you are, sir,” Tara said. “Just give the word.”
Corby popped the remainder of his half-eaten donut in his mouth and tossed back enough coffee to wash it all down in a single swallow. Then he wadded the paper coffee cup into his fist and tossed it through the open window of his vehicle.
“Let’s get this show on the road, then.”
Tara kept Hiro on a leash as they trudged out into the desert, back to the place where Darger had found the skull.
The dog gave two short barks when Tara let him sniff the skull.
“Good boy.”
Tara bent to unleash the dog, held up one hand, and gave the signal.
“OK, Hiro. Find it.”
Hiro loped away, tail whipping to and fro.
Now the rising sun cast a flaming light on the land, turning the already orange hued rocks a bloody shade of crimson.
“Do you get a lot of false positives?” Darger asked. “Finding animals instead of people, I mean.”
“No, ma’am. Hiro’s trained to only find human remains.”
Darger noted the ma’am and remembered that she’d called Corby sir earlier. Military background, most likely.
“Really?”
“That’s right.”
“Impressive.”
Tara didn’t exactly smile, but something about the short nod she gave in response told Darger she was appreciative of the compliment.
Instead of a straight line, Hiro took a weaving, zigzag path through the scrub, pausing here and there to smell a rock or shrub more intensely. He kept his nose to the ground, better to inhale whatever trace scents his Sherlock of a nose was capable of detecting. She didn’t know how the dog could sense anything over the fragrance of sagebrush that permeated the air.
Darger peered back at the cluster of parked cars they’d left behind. They were entirely surrounded by the vast emptiness of the desert, and it was difficult to fathom that they’d find anything out here but dust and stones and scratchy-looking plants. The starkness was overwhelming.
And already the heat of the day was making itself known. Darger slid off her jacket and pulled her hair up to keep it off her neck.
They crossed back and forth over the same ridge twice before Hiro stopped and pawed the sandy ground next to a lone Joshua tree. The dog barked once and laid down.
“He’s got something,” Tara said.
The two-legged members of their group picked their way through the brush slowly, gravel crunching underfoot. No one wanted to disturb a potential crime scene. Darger brushed at the little patch of sweat forming at her temple with the back of her hand.
They approached from behind, Hiro’s body blocking their view of what he’d found. Overhead, the twisting limbs of the Joshua tree looked like spined serpents. It cast a tangled shadow over the ground where the dog still lay, panting happily.
Tara closed in on Hiro and gave him his reward: some kind of purple ball with a tail. She tossed the toy, and Hiro bounded after it.
The rest of them fanned out around the spot in a lopsided circle, keeping a short distance.
No one spoke.
All eyes were on the jumble of bleach white bones partially buried in the sand.
Chapter 17
They heard the helicopter before they saw it. Corby scowled up at the news chopper as it came into view.
“Someone must have tipped off the media already. Damn it to hell.”
From up there, Darger figured the forensic anthropologist and her team of graduate assistants looked like ants crawling over the dig site. It couldn’t make for very intriguing news footage.
Even down at ground level, it was an agonizingly slow process. Dr. Siskin’s world was one that utilized tweezers and brushes over shovels and pickaxes. She hovered over the bones with one of her students, using a brush to loosen the sandy earth. Another assistant fastened rows and columns of twine in a grid pattern to keep track of where each bone was found, while a third sifted through the loose dirt removed from the makeshift grave to make sure not so much as a stray tooth was missed.
Corby dabbed the leathery skin at the back of his neck with a handkerchief and tugged at the brim of his hat. He was getting antsy now that he knew the story would be hitting the news sometime today.
He waved a thick hand at Dr. Siskin, who indicated with a raised index finger that she’d be over in a moment.
Darger heard him mutter under his breath.
“Goddamned eggheads.”
Dr. Siskin issued a few instructions to her student before brushing the dust from her fingers and rising to her feet.
“I know it’s early, but can you tell us anything about it?” Corby asked. “Age? Sex? How long it’s been out here? I mean, how do we know we didn’t stumble upon some ancient Indian burial site?”
Dr. Siskin signaled to a student cleaning the skull Darger had stumbled upon the previous night. Watching the white, bony orb change hands made Darger think of a macabre game of bowling.
With the skull in hand, Dr. Siskin flipped it upside-down, revealing an upper jaw with most of the teeth intact. She prodded at one of the molars.
“Well, to begin with, the skeletons found in a Native American burial ground wouldn’t have had fillings.”
Darger smiled a little at that. She wasn’t sure if Dr. Siskin was being wry or just matter-of-fact, but she liked her either way.
“The only other thing I can tell you without a full examination is that this skull belonged to a female."
"You can know that this early? Just by the skull?" Castellano asked.
"Once I have the full skeleton, I can be certain, but there are several clues in a skull that can tell me whether it's male or female. The size, to begin with. Male skulls tend to be larger and thicker than female skulls. Also, the temporal line here."
She traced a gloved finger along a curving arc just above where the victim's ear should have been.
"It's not as thickly ridged as it would be on a male skull. And then there are the eyes."
She rotated the skull in her hands until the empty, black eye sockets were staring up at them. A latex fingertip tapped the lower edge of one of the sockets.
"The lower orbit here has that sort of sharp ridge to it, see? That edge is much blunter on a male skull. The opposite is true with the superciliary arches here."
Dr. Siskin gestured at the forehead a
rea.
"Male skulls have a little of that heavy, Neanderthal brow line left over from our archaic human ancestors. This one has no ridging. A few other signs are apparent: the less pronounced mastoid process, the zygomatic arch when compared to the external auditory meatus. All of these factors lead me to believe this skull is most definitely female."
Darger and Loshak had exchanged a few meaningful glances during Dr. Siskin’s explanation. The skeleton was female. And while they had no proof at the moment that she’d been a victim of Leonard Stump, the fact that the remains were the correct gender didn’t rule it out, either.
The local police and forensics team had set up several folding tables and some tents near the excavation site. One of the tables was dedicated to laying out the skeleton piece by piece. After a bone was cleaned, logged, and labeled, one of Dr. Siskin’s students set it in a semi-anatomically correct position.
Darger scooted closer to the table and studied the bones of this girl in the sand. They’d assembled most of the right arm and a few of the ribs and vertebrae, but without the skull, Darger might have walked past the table and thought the collection nothing more than a jumble of ugly rocks. It was hard to reconcile that this was how every living person ended up.
Dust to dust, indeed, she thought.
She stared at the bones for some time, wanting to ask them questions and wishing they could answer.
Who are you?
How long have you been out here, alone underneath the fierce desert sun?
And lastly: Who put you here?
It was a sad fact that they’d spend more time on that question than any other. If they could match these remains to a missing person through dental records, the first two questions could be answered quickly. But after that was known, the who and the why of how the bones ended up here would become the primary focus. This girl would become just another victim.
Everyone knew Dahmer and Bundy and Stump by name, but how many could list the names of even one of their victims? There was something unfair about that. And unavoidable, she supposed.
A commotion near the partially excavated grave startled Darger from her reflections. She crept out from beneath the tent, abandoning the lonely bones and moving closer to the dig site.