I nodded. “There was a girl in my class who was a member, but I never asked her about it. She was pretty quiet, but had a nice, small group of friends.” I did a visual sweep of Ms. Doe. “If she was a Switzer, she let her hair down for some reason. It’s possible she had dementia.”
“She’s not wearing a locator bracelet that so many of the folks with dementia in our county have. And no one’s reported a missing woman the last couple of days.”
“True. She looks like she should have been in the hospital, but she’s not wearing a hospital wristband ID, that I can see.”
“And no hospital that I know of would release a virtual skeleton to care for herself.”
“If she was in the last stages of cancer, she’d be in hospice with people caring for her twenty-four hours a day.” I pointed to her hands. “I see there’s some dirt under her fingernails.” Smoke leaned in for a closer look.
Zubinski and Weber returned from their mission. “Someone broke a small branch on one of the maple saplings, maybe thirty feet from here. It coulda been anybody. Like the hunter who found the victim. No fibers stuck to it to compare with our victim’s clothing here,” Weber said.
“Yeah, Kevin Lionel’s blaze orange jacket had a shiny surface, so that would make sense that he broke it, but didn’t leave a sample behind. Way less likely for that material to leave trace than it is for wool. Our victim here would likely leave some, if her sweater got caught on a branch,” Smoke said.
“No vehicle tracks, not even a bicycle. And there’s no indication there was any kind of altercation in the surrounding area,” Zubinski added.
Smoke shook his head. “Or here either, for that matter. We’re how far from the nearest home? Lionel lives about half a mile, and he’s the closest. His nearest neighbors are probably a mile to the east, or about that. Maybe a little closer to the west. How in the hell did she get here? And why here, in particular?”
I leaned in closer to Ms. Doe’s face and squinted for better focus. “She must have been a beauty—high cheekbones and what looks like large eyes, given the size of the sockets. Longer straight nose, full lips.”
“If there was even one ounce of meat on her,” Weber said.
“Let’s collect the dirt from under her fingernails. And some from the floor of the woods here. We’ll compare them, see if they match. If not, it might help point us in the right direction,” Smoke said.
Zubinski got a nail scraper and evidence bag from the mobile unit. Weber took the clipper from her, kneeled down, unfolded the woman’s right hand from the left, and gently gripped her knuckles. Zubinski knelt beside him and opened the small evidence bag she was holding. She positioned it to catch the scrapings while Weber swiped under the nails with his tool.
“Should be good,” Weber said then released Ms. Doe’s hand.
“I’ll get a soil sample,” Zubinski said as she sealed the evidence bag.
“I got it.” Weber pulled an evidence bag out of one pocket and a stainless steel tablespoon-size scoop out of another. He collected about a cup of soil from an area a foot or so from the victim’s body, put it in a bag, and then sealed it.
The four of us turned at the sound of an approaching vehicle. The Midwest Medical Examiner’s van turned onto the field road and continued to where our mobile crime van sat. Her van stopped next to it. A short, stocky woman with gray hair moussed into a spikey do got out and walked toward us with deliberate steps. “Bridey Patrick,” she announced before the rest of us had a chance to greet her. Her small brown, not-quite-beady eyes narrowed on Smoke. “Detective Dawes.”
“Doctor Patrick. Thanks for making it out here so fast. Team, introduce yourselves.” The three of us gave her our names and got a quick nod in return. Then the doctor turned her attention to Ms. Doe. Whatever she thought, she kept to herself.
“You photographed the deceased?” Dr. Patrick asked.
“Yeah, from all angles,” Weber said.
Dr. Patrick pulled on protective gloves then leaned down and touched the inside of Ms. Doe’s wrist. “She’s as cold as the earth she’s lying on.” Her initial examination was brief as she ran her hands over the body, searching for obvious signs of what had caused her death. Her hand stopped in Doe’s middle back section. “There’s something underneath her.”
“We didn’t see anything—” Smoke said.
“No, her sweater’s covering the part that’s sticking out. Could be a large knife, or some sort of tool. Let’s turn her over.” Zubinski and Weber moved in to help Dr. Patrick. Any one person could have completed the task alone, but Zubinski and Weber carefully slid their hands under Ms. Doe’s shoulder and hip, and rolled her on Weber’s count of three.
“What the heck? She was laying on a garden trowel?” Weber said.
Smoke and I took a step closer, and almost bumped heads when we both leaned in. “The ground is disturbed under the leaves,” he said.
“She was digging something? Weber, where’d you put your camera?” I asked.
“Back in my squad. Front seat, on top of the pile there.” I left to retrieve it.
“Grab an evidence bag while you’re at it,” Smoke called out. I didn’t know what supplies were in the trunk of the squad car I had driven. Since I’d been assigned to office duty, I’d been driving my personal vehicle back and forth to work. The squad car I had previously shared with two others had picked up a third deputy in my absence. I wasn’t sure what would happen after today. Only God knew that.
I found the camera where Weber said it was, then popped open the trunk of my borrowed squad car, and dug through a box of evidence bags until I located one large enough to accommodate the trowel. I returned with the camera, and handed it to Weber who snapped photo after photo from various angles. Zubinski took the evidence bag from me and waited for Weber to finish. When he handed the camera back to me, Zubinski opened the bag. Weber reached down, lifted the trowel, and dropped it in the bag. Zubinski sealed it, and then carried it over to the crime lab van where she would date it, and give it a number.
“Do you need the deceased while you conduct the rest of your investigation here, Detective? She’s been out here alone for two days, by my estimation. I’d like to take her to the office,” Dr. Patrick said.
“No, we’ve got what we need from her. I’ll help you with the gurney.” He followed Dr. Patrick to her vehicle.
“I don’t want to know how uncomfortable that was for her, laying on that thing,” Weber said.
I stared at Ms. Doe’s face again, but her blank expression hinted at nothing. If anything, she looked at peace. “For sure. Something went terribly wrong somewhere. We just have to figure out what.”
“Yeah, that’s what we’re here for,” he said.
Is that what I’m here for? I’ve missed having that strong sense of purpose these past months. The belief, the assurance, that I used to take for granted.
Smoke and Bridey Patrick rolled the gurney to about four feet from Ms. Doe’s body. Patrick unzipped the bag as Mandy returned from the mobile crime van. “We’ll get her for you; she can’t weigh eighty pounds,” Zubinski said, and nodded at Weber. Ms. Doe didn’t protest in the least when they scooped her up and laid her in the body bag. Patrick zipped her in, unlocked the brake on the gurney, and Smoke pushed it to the back of the van.
“Put her clothes in paper bags and we’ll pick them up later,” Smoke said.
“Right. I’ll call you when they're ready,” Dr. Patrick said.
“She's as serious as Melberg. Seriouser,” Weber said after Patrick drove away.
“I love it when you make up words, Vince,” Zubinski said and frowned, negating her statement.
“Patrick's like Melberg at crime scenes and autopsies. They are both extremely focused. Some guys can joke, release some steam to break up the tension. Others can't, I guess. Or won't. Melberg and Patrick fall in the latter category.” Smoke got on his hands and knees. “Let's scoop up the leaves she was lying on and bag ’em up. There may be some kind of
trace evidence or transfer from her clothes. Or somebody else’s.”
Zubinski retrieved a small shovel from the van and Weber waited with a large evidence bag open at the top, as far as he could stretch it. Zubinski bent over, scooped a small amount of the leaf matter, dropped it in the bag then scooped another, taking some dirt with it.
“What have we here?” Smoke asked. He bent over for a closer look then used his pen to push a few leaves aside.
“She buried something here?” I asked as I leaned in myself.
“Photo man, we need some more shots,” Smoke said, needlessly pointing at the ground.
Weber sighed as he handed the leaf-filled bag to Mandy, and then lifted the camera that hung from a strap around his neck.
The disturbed area on the floor of the woods was about twelve inches by eighteen inches. The dirt appeared to have been dug out then put back, and patted down.
“Curious,” Zubinski said.
“And curiouser,” Weber said. “And I didn’t make that up. It came from something I read as a kid.”
“You read Alice in Wonderland?” Zubinski’s eyebrows squeezed together.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” he mumbled and hitched a shoulder up.
Zubinski smiled and I shook my head.
“Let’s see what might be in this rabbit hole,” Smoke said. He held out his hand for the shovel—which Zubinski handed over—and then set about carefully digging around the edges of the “rabbit hole.” After he’d dug a little trench around the perimeter, he knelt down and started brushing away some dirt from the surface. He stuck his pen in the ground a few places. “There’s something here.”
Mandy, Vince, and I leaned in even closer, growing curiouser by the second.
Smoke stood then used the shovel to scrape thin layers of dirt from the site. “I got something.” He uncovered a gallon-size plastic bag then bent over and lifted it from its burial plot, shaking off the bit of soil that clung to it.
“What the heck?” Weber said.
“There are bags of money inside?” Zubinski said.
“That’s a little on the strange side. But I have heard of people burying money before,” I said.
Smoke gave a quick nod. “We’ll need two of you to take these bags, one by one, and count to see how much is in each bag. First, let’s see just how many we got here.”
“I’ll get another evidence bag so we can transfer them as you pull them out,” Zubinski said. She was gone and back in a flash.
Smoke reached in and withdrew one sandwich-size baggie after the next then handed them to Zubinski who kept count, and then dropped them in her bag.
“We should be able to get fingerprints, find out if there are any other ones on them besides our victim’s,” I said.
Altogether, there were nine bags of varying thicknesses, depending on the stack of bills in each one of them. On the bottom of the gallon bag was a single picture in its own baggie. It was the last one Smoke removed. He studied the front of it for a long moment. “I’m guessing it’s our Ms. Doe, but she has a whole lot more muscle and tissue on her body. She’s with two little kids.” He flipped the bag over and read out loud what was written on the back. “Looks like M-A-I-S-A, Maisa, L-E-L-A, Lela, S-E-S-E, Sese. And Georgia. Georgia, I’m guessing that’s where they were when the picture was taken.” Smoke looked at me then handed the photo over. “Those sound like Swiss names to you?”
“Could be I guess. I really don’t know.”
“Swiss names?” Zubinski asked.
“Our sergeant here thought maybe Ms. Doe was a member of the Swiss Apostolic clan in Kadoka.”
“Huh. Are those the ones who wear those kinda drab-colored dresses and have those head coverings?” Weber wondered.
“Yes,” I said.
He jutted his chin out. “Oh. I thought we had a little group of Amish around here somewhere, but never asked nobody about it.”
“I think they’re mostly in southern Minnesota, near the Iowa border. Around Harmony,” Zubinski said.
“Peace-loving people that they are, they musta picked that town for its name,” Weber said.
“There’s a fairly large population northwest of here too, in Todd County,” I added, my eyes fixed on the photo.
Weber shrugged. “Had no idea.”
“Any of you guys been to Georgia?” I said.
“When I was a kid,” Zubinski said.
“I’m trying to remember my geography. They have mountains there?” I said.
“Sure, the northern part of the state,” Smoke answered.
I admired the setting. “Picturesque. Woman holding a toddler, another little one at her side, standing in front of some trees with the leaves about a hundred different autumn shades of green, and red, and orange, and gold. The mountain peak behind them in the distance.” I handed the photo to Zubinski who held it up so Weber could look at it with her.
“Kids have regular clothes on, shorts and tee shirts, but the woman looks kind of old-fashioned in that dress,” Zubinski said.
“How old do you suppose she is?” Weber asked.
“Twenty-five, maybe younger,” Smoke said.
“The little girl can’t be two. The boy maybe four, five?” I said.
Smoke reached for the photo and nodded. “I’d say that’s about right.”
A small wave of sadness rolled over me. “They look happy.”
“It would’ve been nice if she had put the year on it, too. It’d give us some idea of how old the kids are now,” Zubinski said.
“They might not be hers. I wonder if they’re from Georgia, or if they were on vacation, visiting someone there?” I said.
“It’s a puzzle, all right. And we still got the question of why she had all these bags of money,” Smoke said.
Weber elbowed Zubinski’s arm. “Speaking of which, let’s go count, Mandy, see how much she was hiding when she died.”
Zubinski gave me the baggie-protected photo and I reread the names. “Maisa, huh? And Lela and Sese. Unusual names, all right. Maybe they are Swiss.”
“We’re a melting-pot nation,” Smoke said.
Smoke’s phone rang. “Dawes. . . . Okay, Doc. I’ll have someone from our office there, too. . . . Right, goodbye.” Smoke closed his phone. “Doctor Patrick. She’s got Ms. Doe scheduled for autopsy tomorrow afternoon at two. They’re going to work on a computer sketch of what she might have looked like at a normal weight.”
“How’d she get that done so fast?” She can’t have gotten to Anoka yet.”
“I’d venture to guess she was conducting business over the phone on the drive over. Let’s check on our team.”
Smoke and I went to the doorway of the crime lab van and watched them work. “These stupid gloves slow down the operation,” Weber said as he fumbled to lift a five dollar bill from one pile to set it on the waiting pile on the narrow counter.
“One hundred and sixteen,” Zubinski said and wrote that down on the outside of an evidence bag. She was the one who spoke the numbers out loud as she and Weber finished counting the bills in each bag. She wrote the agreed-upon total on the outside then replaced the bills in the original baggie, slipped it inside the larger evidence bag, sealed it, and put her initials over the seal. “Two down, seven to go.”
“A hundred forty-three bucks in that bag. How much in the first?” Smoke asked.
“One hundred thirty-six smackeroos,” Weber said.
“Different amounts, so not consistent that way,” Smoke said.
“Nope.”
“Largest denomination was a twenty in the first bag, a ten in the second,” Zubinski added.
“And what would be the reason for all the smaller bags inside the big one? They weren’t marked, like the one forty-three was for the electricity bill, and the one thirty-six was for groceries,” I said.
“Yeah, huh,” Weber agreed.
“Until we can find her family and/or identify her, I think we’re stuck with way more questions than explanations,” Smoke s
aid. “Vince, Mandy, carry on here. Get your evidence taken care of, but I’ll keep the photo to show some folks. Aleckson and I will start talking to the neighbors in the area.”
2
“Who was the guy that found her? The hunter?” I asked Smoke as we walked to our cars.
“Kevin Lionel. This woods and the surrounding property belong to him.”
“Do you think we should talk to him, first off, see how he’s doing?”
“Sounds like a plan, little lady.”
I followed Smoke’s Crown Victoria back out to the county road, then north. He turned left into a driveway, about 100 yards down on the west side of the road. We pulled up close to the house, parked, and met at the front door. A chill ran through me as I pondered whether I even knew how to interview a witness after all those months behind a desk.
“Like riding a bike. Nothing to worry about,” Smoke said.
“You can read my mind now?”
“Prit’ near. You get a little crease close to your left eyebrow when you doubt yourself.”
“Really?” I’d have to make a conscious effort in the future to keep that little crease ironed flat so I didn’t give myself away to Smoke, or anyone else for that matter.
He rang the doorbell. “Like falling into a soft pile of snow.”
“More like jumping out of an airplane.”
A lumberjack of a man opened the door. He had several inches on Smoke’s six feet, and was a foot or so taller than my five five. He had a full, dark beard that gave an impressive contrast to the blaze-orange stocking cap and matching flannel shirt he was wearing. The man I presumed was Kevin Lionel looked from Smoke to me then shook his head. “Did you find out who she was?”
“No, we haven’t made an identification yet.” Smoke waved his hand into the open doorway. “This is Sergeant Aleckson. Mind if we come in for a few minutes?”
Lionel gave me a curt nod. “Hi. Forgot my manners. Sure thing, come in.” He moved out of the doorway, and we stepped in. Lionel shrugged his shoulders. “I haven’t gotten around to taking a shower and changing yet. I hope the buck scent isn’t too strong and stinky. I can’t even smell it anymore.”
A Death in Lionel's Woods Page 2