by Elaine Viets
It was a warm spring morning and I went for a walk on the Du Pres estate to clear the cobwebs out of my head. The air smelled like flowers and green things. New plants were coming out so fast, I could almost hear them growing.
I was still on call that day, and I hoped I didn’t have a death investigation. At least, not another one like yesterday’s.
I kept my office cell phone on all day, taking it with me everywhere. Most death investigators go into an office when they are on call, but not me. I lost my office spot because Evarts Evans, the ME, wanted a state-of-the-art shower. I still had a desk in the office, but it was too small to use. And a computer, but it was too old and unreliable.
But good ol’ Evarts had a spa with rain shower sprays, six pairs of body jets custom-designed to target his shoulders, middle, and knees, plus a spray for his head, and steam, lights and music. Yes, music. The ME never forgot the case of the woman who was accidentally electrocuted when her radio fell into her shower. He had a set of JBL wireless waterproof speakers.
A spa like this required extra space. The ME and I had an unspoken agreement – I got my freedom (as long as I stayed in touch with the office), and he got his stone-clad shower.
Don’t get me wrong. Evarts wasn’t a bad guy, but he was a bit of an operator. He convinced the Chouteau County Commission that this luxury shower was necessary for his job and they bought it – both his argument and the spa. He also had a practice putting green in his office. He was a scratch golfer, unless he was playing an important member of the local gentry, when he knew how to lose gracefully.
In the name of compassion, he justified politically smart decisions. He’d rule that a bigwig’s suicide was an ‘accidental death.’ He gave the tricky cases to his hardworking assistant ME, my friend Dr Katie Kelly Stern.
I couldn’t drop by and see Katie this morning. She was doing Dr Bob’s autopsy.
Instead, after I ran some errands, I wanted to go to the site of the body dump. I had to find out if there was anything to help our case against Briggs Bellerive. The investigation had been dubbed the Women in the Woods by the press. They still swarmed the area like blowflies on a corpse. Each day, a passel of reporters were sent out to the scene in case the investigators found something – or someone.
Dana Murdoch, the forensic anthropologist from City University, had to run this gauntlet every working day, keeping a tense silence as the reporters lobbed questions at her. I knew she usually forgot her lunch, or got by on snacks, so I stopped by Gringo Daze, my favorite Mexican restaurant, and ordered two lunches to go. The grease-spotted bags smelled heavenly, and it was only out of friendship that I resisted attacking them.
It was eleven-thirty by the time I got to the entrance of the site, way back in the woods. I politely pushed through the throng of reporters, then showed my ID to the uniform on duty. By then, it was another sweltering spring day. Once again, I admired the newly green trees and flowering redbud and dogwood as I trekked to the site, but I was sweating by the time I got there.
Dana was excavating under a white tent, to keep the press from seeing her work. Helicopters flew over daily, hoping to see her unearth the dead women.
Dana was tall and sturdy with short red hair and shrewd brown eyes. Not much escaped her notice. Unlike many redheads, her skin was tanned a golden brown. She came out of the tent carrying a trowel and a small brush. Her boots, khaki shorts and T-shirt were all liberally smeared with mud. She wiped her sweating forehead, left a brown streak on it, then pulled off her work gloves.
‘Angela!’ she said, her face lit with a smile. ‘This is a surprise.’
‘I brought lunch.’ I held up the bags.
‘Even better. I was about to dine on a pack of peanuts and bottled water. What else brings you here?’
I told you she was shrewd. ‘I did the first body inspection and I wondered what you’ve found so far.’
‘Pull up a chair,’ she said, dragging out two lawn chairs from alongside the tent. She carried over a foam cooler, put it between our chairs, pulled out two bottles of cold water, and put the lid back on. ‘That’s our table.’ She looked into the brown bag of food. ‘This smells good. What did you bring?’
‘Guacamole, fish tacos and flan,’ I said. ‘Let me bring you up to date on what I know.’ I didn’t worry that Dana would tell anyone. She was as silent as the graves she worked. She crunched chips and guacamole while I filled her in on what we had.
I told her about the note the victim had tucked in her shoe, and Dana whistled. ‘Briggs Bellerive? She named him? I don’t live in the Forest and even I know his name. That guy’s at every local charity event between here and St. Louis. He gave major money to both the senate and governor’s races. Definitely rich and famous.’
‘Also connected,’ I said.
‘You’re going to have a hard time pinning these murders on him.’
‘We know. We’ve found some things when we searched his estate and now we’re waiting for word on whether it’s enough for an arrest.’
We ate our slippery fish tacos with our laps full of napkins. Another reason I was glad we were out in the woods – this lunch was a messy business. Tacos are best tackled in the company of good friends, with no other witnesses.
Over flan, we talked about Dana’s findings. ‘I started with the oldest body,’ she said. ‘My guess is it’s been in the ground about three years, but don’t quote me. There was some plant growth over the grave, and fortunately, the plants were annuals.’
Unfortunately, I wasn’t as keen a gardener as my mother.
‘That means they grow back every year?’ I said.
‘Right. A biologist took the plant stems and roots. She said they had at least three rings. That usually means three years.’
‘What kind of shape was the decedent in?’
‘Not bad. She was almost totally skeletonized, but the victim was buried deep enough that the scavengers didn’t get to her and scatter her remains. Some remnants of her hair and clothing survived. We know she was a blonde.
‘Judging from the clothing, I’m guessing the woman was either a runaway with little or no money, or a sex worker, probably a streetwalker.’
‘A streetwalker? In the Forest?’
‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘The cops would chase her off. But the Stroll in St. Louis is only forty minutes away. The killer could have picked her up there.’
‘Series killers often start with sex workers,’ I said. ‘They’re the most at risk.
‘What was she wearing that makes you think she was in the so-called oldest profession?’
‘It appears she had on black plastic boots, a short skirt made of some sort of synthetic material, and a fur-like jacket,’ Dana said. ‘The good thing about those fabrics – polyester, rayon and plastic – is that they last for years. Not as long as silk and wool, but long enough to help us.’
‘What was her age?’
‘Late teens, early twenties, but don’t hold me to it. I’d like to get her on my table in my lab. I want to get a look at her sternum, where the ribs join. That’s a good indicator of age. But judging by the teeth and the lack of arthritis, she was definitely young.’
‘Oh.’ I felt a stab of sadness. ‘She’d barely started her life before it was over.’
‘And a hard life it was. This wasn’t a rich girl, not judging by those clothes.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I think she was right-handed. That’s just a guess right now, but the upper arm bones on the right side are wider.’
‘What was her race? Can you tell?’
‘Caucasian. No children. She’s never been pregnant.’
‘I’ve heard you can tell that in a skeleton. Is it easy?’
‘If she’d had a child, there would be a series of pockmarks about the size of shotgun pellets along the inside of the pelvic bone. Those are caused by the tearing of the ligaments during childbirth. It’s a violent process. Mind you, we can’t tell how many children a woman has had by looking at her bone
s, but we can tell if she’d been pregnant, and this woman wasn’t.’
‘Any tags on her clothes or name tags?’ I asked.
‘None. Those were deliberately cut out. The killer also cut off her fingertips – the distal and intermediate phalanges on both hands are missing. The killer used a saw.’
I shuddered. ‘I hope the cuts were post-mortem.’
‘The killer thought he was so smart. He did everything to hide this woman’s identity. He cut off her fingertips, cut out any clothing labels, threw away any ID. But he missed one thing.’
‘What?’
‘She had breast implants,’ Dana said. ‘Most implants have a lot number and a serial number. The manufacturer compiles this information into a data registry that can be accessed in order to track down the patient about a safety concern or product recall. But it’s a big help to law enforcement. We’ll know her name soon. Funny, isn’t it?’ Dana said. ‘How many men look at a woman’s chest and never see her?’
FOURTEEN
Chris called me twice that day, but I didn’t pick up his calls. The same for the next day. Each time he asked me out to dinner. I was too confused to answer. I didn’t know how I felt about him. His kiss caught me by surprise.
On the third day, when I continued to ignore his calls, he drove to my home. I peeked out my window and saw him parking in the driveway about six o’clock on a warm spring night.
He pounded on my door. At first, I didn’t answer. I was in no mood for visitors.
‘Angela,’ he said. ‘I know you’re in there. Do I have to break down the door for a police welfare check? No one’s seen you in three days!’
‘I’ll be down in a minute!’ He wasn’t going away. I might as well get it over with.
I’d been mooching around the house for the last three days in a sweatshirt and jeans. Now I ran a brush through my hair, put on a slash of lipstick and changed into a clean white blouse. I didn’t know whether to be pleased or angry that he came to my house. Did I want a so-called ‘masterful’ man in my life? Or was Chris a controlling bully? Whatever was going on, I was going to find out right now.
I flung open my front door, prepared to give him a piece of my mind.
Chris handed me a big bunch of daffodils, the color of spring sunshine.
‘Angela!’ he said. ‘I’m so glad you’re all right. I was worried about you.’
‘Nothing to worry about,’ I said. ‘I just like to be by myself.’ I sounded snippy, but I didn’t care.
‘Since you didn’t want to go out to dinner with me, I’ve brought you dinner.’ He held up a foam cooler and burlap tote bag and smiled. ‘May I come in? Please? I don’t want to be a stalker. If you don’t want dinner, I’ll go away and never call you again.’
Dinner. Hm. That was tempting. When I went into hibernation, like I did for the last three days, I lived mostly on tea, toast and scrambled eggs. And speaking of tempting, Chris looked damned good in a starched white shirt and jeans. Smelled nice, too. Coffee and Old Spice.
‘Well …’
‘Good,’ he said. He was in my living room, examining my bookshelves. ‘I like this room,’ he said. ‘It has a good feel.’ He was right. It did. I liked the leather couch and the worn Oriental rug.
‘My father built those bookshelves,’ I said. ‘This used to be my parents’ home. I grew up here. The kitchen is this way.’
He carried the cooler into my kitchen and set the cooler on the round oak table. I was still carrying the bouquet of daffodils like a demented bridesmaid. I quickly found a vase, cut the stems, and put the flowers in water. Their springlike scent filled the kitchen.
‘The kitchen,’ he said. ‘That’s the heart of the house.’
‘That’s what my mother always said.’ I was glad I’d put three days of coffee mugs and dirty plates in the dishwasher and turned it on. The kitchen was presentable.
‘I wasn’t sure if you ate red meat,’ Chris said. ‘I hope you like wild salmon.’
‘Love it,’ I said.
‘How about honey-grilled salmon?’ He took the top off the cooler. Inside were four salmon fillets, small covered plastic dishes, and a cast-iron skillet. ‘I have all the ingredients and I can make it quickly. The grilled vegetables are ready to go into the oven.’
He took out a large glass dish with broccoli, cauliflower, new potatoes and red peppers in neat rows. They’d been drizzled with oil. ‘May I put them in your oven?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Thank goodness I hadn’t stuffed any unwashed pots in there. One advantage of staying home for three days was I’d done the housework and laundry.
He set the oven on broil, then said, ‘And last, but not least.’ Chris produced a chilled bottle of Clos du Bois 2006 Riesling.
‘It’s a crisp wine. Not too sweet. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take over your kitchen for a bit.’
‘Fine with me,’ I said. ‘I’ll set the table.’
I got out my new white place mats and napkins, then used my mother’s best flowered china and silver. I polished the water and wine glasses with a towel, and set them out. With the bouquet of daffodils and the thin, shining crystal, it was a good-looking table. I didn’t bring out any candles. Those would be too intimate. I was glad Chris didn’t bring me roses. Donegan always gave me roses.
I sat on a wooden stool and watched Chris cook. The peppered salmon steaks were on a plate. He’d added butter to the cast iron skillet, and it was nicely browned. He sautéed the chopped garlic, and added honey, soy sauce and lemon juice with small, expert movements.
‘That smells delicious,’ I said.
‘That’s what I intended.’ He deftly added the salmon, then put the whole skillet in the broiler. ‘It will be ready in five minutes. The veggies are about ready, too.’
Meanwhile, he uncorked the wine and poured two generous glasses. ‘Sit down and relax,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring your dinner over.’
So I sat and let myself be served. From the tote bag he produced a bag of crusty rolls and two ramekins of fresh butter. He plated the salmon and vegetables and set them down in front of me. I enjoyed the fragrant smell. Chris brought his own plate to the table and sat down.
I lifted my wineglass. ‘To the chef!’ I said.
‘To the hostess,’ he said, clinking my glass. ‘Thank you for letting me barge in and have dinner with you.’
I decided to ignore that comment. Instead, I took a forkful of salmon. The honey, garlic and soy blended perfectly. ‘This is heavenly. Where did you learn to cook?’
‘My mother,’ he said. ‘She was a single mom, and didn’t believe in what she called “gender-associated stupidity.” So I had to learn how to cook, clean house and do laundry – all those things many men are never taught. My sister, Julie, had to learn how to change a tire and the oil on our car. Once, Julie shrieked when she saw a furry spider in the kitchen and asked me to kill it. Mom put Julie in charge of home wildlife removal – ants, spiders, roaches and mice.’
He paused for a moment to try his own salmon, then said, ‘I don’t mean that our home was overrun with bugs.’
‘Every house has a few critters,’ I said. ‘Your mother sounds like quite a woman.’
‘She was,’ he said, and his face was suddenly sad. ‘She died of breast cancer a year ago. I still miss her.’
‘My mom went that way, too,’ I said. Over the warm food, we talked about our families.
‘We were both lucky to grow up in good families,’ I said. ‘I need that reminder for my job. Especially after encountering people like Samantha Scott.’
‘What I don’t understand,’ Chris said, ‘is why she didn’t just divorce the bastard.’
‘Money,’ I said. ‘It’s at the root of so many marriages in the Forest. Some people will do anything to keep their comfortable lives.’
‘Until they can’t take it any more,’ Chris said. ‘That’s when I get a call – or you do.’
We were off the topic of our happy families before the stor
ies turned too sappy. I was relieved. Now we swapped stories about dysfunctional families we’d known – and they were many.
‘I had to do a welfare check on a family,’ Chris said. ‘Nice, suburban family. Big new house. Well-cared-for. The father worked for a bank. Mom didn’t work outside the home. The school said the little girl hadn’t been to classes in four days. I went to the house and found the front door open, and the mother passed out in the front hall. Turns out she was addicted to oxy. The seven-year-old girl – a sweet little thing – had stayed home from school to take care of the baby because “Mommy was sick.”
‘Daddy was on a business trip in San Francisco. When I called him, he said he knew his wife had a “little problem with pain pills” but told me “she’d get over it.” He was outraged when I had his wife admitted to the detox ward and called child protective services for the two kids. He screamed at me that “this doesn’t happen to people like us.”’
‘Except it did,’ I said. By this time, I was mopping the last of my sauce on my plate with my roll.
‘How about coffee and dessert?’ Chris said.
I rose to make coffee. ‘I have some vanilla bean ice cream in the freezer.’
‘And I have homemade chocolate truffles,’ he said. He pulled a blue dish out of the tote bag, and there were a dozen round truffles.
‘You made these yourself?’
‘They’re not that difficult,’ he said. He tried to look modest, but it didn’t work. I quickly made us coffee.
While it brewed, Chris said, ‘These four are coated with pecans, these have chocolate sprinkles. These four have espresso powder and the last group have Dutch process cocoa.’
‘What’s Dutch process cocoa?’
‘It’s sometimes called European chocolate. It has a more intense chocolatey flavor than natural cocoa. It’s also darker. Oreo cookies are made from Dutch process cocoa.’
The coffee maker was giving its final blurps and burbles. I poured us both coffee and brought dessert plates and forks for the truffles.
With that, my phone rang.
‘Sorry, Chris,’ I said. ‘That’s my work phone. I have to take this.’