I COULDN’T SHAKE THE HEART-POUNDING MOMENT when I thought I was looking at Aynslee’s dead body. The drive from my place to here was just five minutes. Five minutes from my daughter. Maybe I should go home, pick her up, and bring her here. I could keep an eye on her, make sure she was safe.
No. Bringing her to a crime scene would be a big mistake. The press usually showed up and she could inadvertently be photographed. To keep her out of sight, she’d have to sit in the car, doors locked, windows up. That would last about two minutes before she’d ignore everything I would tell her and start roaming all over. She was safer at home.
I shook my head to clear it, then joined Dre. He was pulling on white protective coveralls over his lanky frame. “Hi. I’m Gwen.” I put out my hand.
“Hey, Gwen. Andre Arceneaux, but call me Dre.” He took my hand and gave it a quick shake. “How are you feeling?”
“Great.” Dave must have told him I was in remission from cancer. How are you feeling? was the first question everybody asked me. Maybe I should make a cardboard sign and wear it around my neck, tied with a shoelace. I feel fine today. Thanks for your concern.
“Do you need to borrow some coveralls to keep clean?” he asked.
“Nope, I’m set. I couldn’t get much messier. Besides, they make my butt look big.”
He raised his eyebrows, then leaned back to study my rear end. “Looks right as rain to me.”
“Never mind. The building first?”
“I’ll start there. You can measure and sketch the gravesite, then work your way over toward the house.” His soft, Southern drawl deepened. “Scene’s contaminated from tryin’ to save the girl, but if she pulls through, we’ve got a witness. We’ll catch ’em.” He grinned. “Dave said departments haven’t been sending you work, but this here’s the case to put ya back on top. I heard Wes Bailor’s been doing all the work over in Missoula and with the state crime lab.”
“Wes Bailor?” I clamped my jaw tight. No wonder I wasn’t getting calls. Wes moved to Copper Creek two years earlier and immediately caused all the single women to have heart palpitations with his flawless olive skin, black wavy hair, and Paul Gauguin mustache.
“But I’ve seen your sketches,” Dre said. “Compared to you, I didn’t think he was good enough to draw his own conclusions.”
I smiled. “Thanks for the attaboy. Wes is a decent artist.”
“If you like that kind of art.”
“The Thomas Kinkade–like oils are popular.” I smiled over clenched teeth. Wes had asked me a lot of questions about forensic art, then offered his services to the local agencies.
Dre gave me a wide, boyish grin. “You’re in Ravalli County, Dave’s jurisdiction, so no Wes to horn in here. If the girl survives, you could develop a composite. You can reconstruct that skull your dog found. Dave said you have a motto.”
“I have a pencil, and I’m not afraid to use it.” I touched Dre on the arm. “We have to find this guy.”
“Yeah. He’s definitely a snake in the grass. But Dave says you’re the best. You’re needed here.”
Needed. I nodded, placed my kit down, and crouched next to it. Needed, wanted, desired. Turn the clock back and make the past two years go away. Before cancer and divorce. Before someone almost killed me. A burning in my throat made speech impossible. Some days it was just plain irritating to be a woman with all these hormonal emotions, not to mention my early menopausal problems thanks to the anticancer drugs. Enough of the pity party. I tugged out a clipboard loaded with a sketchpad and pencil, then rummaged for a sharpener.
“Ron, get over here and help Gwen.” Dave’s voice stopped my search. He pointed at the remaining deputies. “You four will do a grid search of the area. There’s a metal detector in Dre’s van. All set?”
Dre slipped a digital camera around his neck, picked up his forensic container, and moved to the house.
I placed a compass in my pocket, added an evidence scale, slung a camera over my shoulder, and tucked a clipboard under my arm.
Ron loped over, shoving his red hair off his forehead. A smear of dirt outlined his nose.
I sighed. Was it just me, or in the past year did they start hiring teenagers for the department? I stood and shoved a tape measure and a bag of stand-up evidence markers into his hands.
“What’s this for?” Ron stared at the tape measure. “Don’t you just take photos?”
I glanced at my camera. “I could take measurements off a picture if I had to, but, just for the record, all crime scenes are measured. It’s not glamorous work, so it doesn’t make it on the cop shows.”
Ron blushed. “I knew that.”
“Sure you did.”
“What about lasers? You know, I saw something on television—”
“There’s a reason we call it the CSI effect. Tape measure”—I held it up—“$15.99. Ace Hardware. Laser scanning station, $200,000 plus.”
“Oh.”
I followed the yellow tape until we reached the grave, a natural clearing surrounded by cedars and bracken fern, between the creek and the farmhouse. I nodded to the old house. “I did a plein air painting here once.”
“Plane air?” Ron asked.
“P-l-e-i-n. It means outdoor or on location. It’s a beautiful . . . ugh.” The breeze shifted and I revised my opinion. Downstream, a patch of reeking skunk cabbage made my nose twitch.
Ron gazed at the other deputies, then nodded toward Dre. “Isn’t Andre Arceneaux the crime-scene guy for Ravalli County? I mean, uh, shouldn’t I be helping him? Aren’t you just the artist? Don’t you just sketch stuff?”
I snapped some photographs, then studied the young man. “I don’t think he wants you to call him Andre. It’s Dre. This is small-town Montana’s version of CSI. We’re a lot closer to the Andy Griffith Show than Forensic Files.”
Ron wrinkled his forehead. “Andy who?”
“Never mind. If we lived in, say, San Francisco, I’d just draw composites and maybe dead people. Here, I record the scenes, prepare them for court, take the photographs—whatever’s needed.” When they could afford me. I quickly drew a rough map.
“What about computers?”
“Useful, but programs are obsolete almost before an agency can buy them, and the best computer programs still need someone with an understanding of forensic art.” I took the tape measure from Ron and handed him the stupid end. I got a reading from the compass and aimed him toward a cedar. Moving south, I let out the tape until I reached a second tree, this time a Douglas fir. I sketched the location and direction of the two trees. After taking a small hammer out of my case, I nailed a bottle cap into the base of the pine. I ambled over to Ron and did the same to the cedar.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Watch and learn. We don’t have any fire hydrants, sidewalks, or streets to use as reference points. No GPS reception. I need to establish a north-south line, and I can’t just say it was a cedar or Doug fir. There are lots of trees around here.”
“Why not use plastic ribbon like they do when they survey roads?”
“’Cause it’s easy for someone to remove the tape. But bottle caps are hard to pry out, and difficult to find if you don’t know where to look.” After taking a second tape measure from my pocket, I measured the distance to the edge of the grave and wrote the number on the rough sketch. Strange. The killer wasted a lot of time digging a wide grave. He should’ve spent it excavating a deep hole if he didn’t want anyone to discover the body.
“So where did you learn that?” Ron shifted his weight.
“What?” He looked like a little kid with a full bladder.
“About the bottle caps.”
“It’s an old trick I learned from Ned.” I moved the tape measure over and recorded the number.
“Ned?”
“Dave’s dad. I’m surprised you haven’t heard the story. He was murdered on duty. Dave left college to help out. Ended up with his dad’s job.” And probably all before Ron’s birth. He really was a child wearing a uniform and a Glock. Should I tell him about emptying a bladder before showing up at a crime scene? Maybe just point to a thick patch of bushes?
“Ned must’ve been smart.” He shuffled from foot to foot, then glanced toward the woods.
“Yeah, he was one of the big reasons I went into forensic art. He also taught me to ride a green broke horse, or at least stay on for the first few bucks. He collected things. Strays.”
“Stray what?”
“Dogs, cats . . . kids.” I swallowed hard. “He was quite a guy.” The closest I’d ever had to a dad. And Dave the closest to a big brother. I nodded left. “Do you want to check out that thicket of snowberries?”
He scampered off, moving faster as he approached the bushes.
The killer dug the grave a short distance from the creek, but heavy runoff from melting snow flooded the stream, undercutting and collapsing the bank. The spring rains rinsed loose dirt from the slick plastic and into the rushing water.
“He didn’t bury the body very deep,” Ron said.
I jumped. “Yeah. I was just pondering that. If Winston hadn’t retrieved the skull, we wouldn’t have found it. The coyotes, maybe a bear or two, or even those wolves we’ve been hearing so much about, would’ve finished carting off the bones in another month or two.” And Mattie would have joined the other body.
“Do you think there are wolves here? I mean, like, right now?” His hand touched the butt of his gun as he glanced around.
“No.”
“I heard about an attack last night, though, and this morning. Someone’s poodle was torn to bits. I think the ranchers are going to lynch the Forest Service for reintroducing wolves into the wilderness.”
“Fish, Wildlife, and Parks.”
“What?”
“If there’s going to be a lynching, they need to hang the right government agency. In Montana, it’s Fish, Wildlife, and Parks.”
A high, warbling howl echoed off the mountains. Ron spun toward the sound, grabbing his firearm again. “So what’s that?”
“A coyote. Where are you from, anyway?” Carefully circling the disturbed earth, I snapped several digitals. What looked like a femur lay partially covered at the edge of the grave.
“Jacksonville, Florida. That can’t be a coyote. They don’t come out in daylight.”
“They can and they do. Bring me those markers,” I said. No reply. “Ron?”
Ron slowly released the grip on his pistol. He handed me the stack of fluorescent numbered tags. I placed one beside the bone. After taking a picture, I knelt and examined it. Interesting. I slipped a magnifying glass from my pocket and lay on my stomach to scrutinize. Pine needles, fresh earth, and old bone filled my nose. A rock jabbed into my rib. I shifted and squinted through the glass. That’s weird. I knew I should’ve taken that class in college on forensic anthropology. It looked like something chewed the victim’s leg while she was still alive, or started feeding on the body immediately after death. The edges of the bite marks on the bone were curling somewhat, rather than jagged and sharp.
The brush next to me moved and a branch snapped.
I dropped the glass.
Ron moved closer, stepping on another limb. “What else should I be doing?”
“You scared me to death! Why don’t you go help Dre for a bit.”
He trotted off before I could finish speaking.
I changed the camera lens to a macro and photographed several more angles, then stood and worked my way into the forest to my right, following a thin game trail. The branches drooped behind me like a net curtain, veiling the grave and house. A good thinking spot.
Sitting cross-legged facing the clearing, I cleaned up my rough sketch, making sure all the measurements were complete, then attached a blank piece of paper to the clipboard. Drawing a line from top to bottom, I divided the paper. On the left side I wrote known and unknown on the right. Tapping my lip, I stared blankly at the ground before writing my thoughts.
I closed my eyes, then opened them. In front of me, an odd pattern emerged from the ground cover. After tucking a pencil behind my ear, I reached forward and brushed aside some pine needles. Two rounded pebble shapes surfaced. I snapped a quick photo, then pulled on some latex gloves and carefully scratched away the dirt. A human mandible appeared, teeth intact, with several fillings.
“Yeesss,” I whispered as I continued to free the jaw. Once removed from the earth, I photographed it next to an evidence scale, a small white ruler with inches marked out on one side and metric on the other. I placed a marker beside the jaw and extended the tape measure through the brush to the grave. Snapping off the gloves, I flipped the paper over and recorded the location and measurements on my rough drawing before returning to the list of knowns and unknowns. I removed the pencil from behind my ear and added animal activity scattering the bones under known, then doodled a wolf head, teeth stretched into a snarl, eyes narrowed.
The rumble of an approaching vehicle rose above the rush of the stream. I peered through the tree branches as a tan Crown Vic pulled in next to Dave’s truck. Following close behind was a settling-pond-green Forest Service pickup. I recognized the wiry shape of Detective Jeannie Thompson from the Missoula Police Department as the driver of the Crown Vic. The driver of the pickup had a familiar appearance. I squinted. Him! He’d shaved his mustache, but I knew that expression. Wes Bailor.
My face burned as my pencil gouged a trough through the paper. What was he doing here? Bottom-feeder.
Dave strolled to the pair standing outside of the taped-off perimeter. “Long way from the metropolis.” His voice carried clearly.
Jeannie put out her hand, and Dave shook it. “Hey there, Dave.”
“Well, now, what brings you city cops all the way out here?”
“We heard about the excitement. Seems your attempted homicide is our kidnap case. Mattie Banks, but calls herself Cherry on the streets. We’re here following up.” Jeannie produced a small photo from her purse and handed it to Dave. “She’s fourteen. Already has a record for robbery and hooking. Wears a copper bracelet for juvenile arthritis.”
Dave glanced at the picture, then handed it back. “It’s her, but no bracelet. Maybe he took it as a trophy. That could be important.”
“We’re hoping to work with you on this.”
“Sure.” Dave jerked his thumb at Wes. “But we won’t need him. We have our own artist.”
I grinned. That’s telling them. I wrote Wes’s name under the wolf sketch.
Wes flushed slightly. “Of course. Gwen Marcey’s the best. Everything I learned in forensic art came from her.”
I snapped the point off the pencil. In a pig’s eye I’ll teach him anything else. I jumped to my feet, startling a chipmunk that chattered his anger. I reached for the branches, but stopped and smoothed my hair. My jeans were beyond straightening, but I rolled Pyrenees fur off my shirt, bit my lips to bring some color to them, then pushed through the trees. “Hi, Jeannie.” Wes had disappeared by the time I emerged from the forest, so I didn’t need to think of something nice to say.
“Gwen! I can’t believe it!” Jeannie waved. “How are you feeling? We heard you were—”
“Dead?” I forced my smile to stay in place. “No. I’m doing great. Working, as you can see. And ready to work any cases you have for me.”
Dre stepped from the house and handed Ron a bag sealed with red evidence tape. “Put this in my van. We might get something off that blanket. Working this crime scene is like trying to poke a cat from under a porch with a rope. Half the stray cattle in the county must’ve taken shelter in there. Hi, Jeannie.”
Wes joined us. He’d taken the time to put on blue nitrile gloves. “Hi, Gwen. I haven’t seen you since your one-woman show. Still cranking out those landscapes?” His gaze drifted to my chest.
I contemplated stabbing him with a dull pencil, but that would be a waste of a perfectly good drawing tool. I turned to Dave. “I’m done with my measurements, so if you’d like to do some digging?”
“Good. Jeannie will need a copy of any reports, so remember to insert a carbon between the pages,” Dave said to Dre, winked, then turned to Jeannie. “We’ve got another body.” He nodded at the grave.
Jeannie’s eyes widened as she turned in the direction he’d indicated. “A dump site?”
“Could be.”
Yellow crime-scene tape fluttered in the slight wind, oddly resembling the cheerful streamers at a carnival. A thickset deputy holding a clipboard wrote the names of officers and the times they entered or left.
With Dre leading, we tramped single file to the grave where Dre shifted the loose soil to uncover more of the plastic tarp. No one spoke. The breeze chilled the air, the rushing of the icy stream providing the only sound until the soft clicking of my camera joined in.
Ron and Dre exposed the plastic and then peeled it open, revealing the contents.
Not a body.
Two. In different stages of decomposition.
I felt light-headed and tried to breathe through my mouth.
Dave’s face paled, his lips pressed in a thin line as he tapped his finger on his bushy mustache. “So, we have a serial killer.”
The bodies jumbled in the ground like carelessly tossed dolls. Both appeared to be women, if hair and clothing were any indication. The one nearest the stream lay facedown, the red hair sloughed in a tangle from the skull. Little flesh remained on the arm raised above the head. The top corpse was the most recent, minus the skull.
“What happened to that one?” Wes asked.
“That’s what brought me here,” I said. “The cranium’s in my car. Her mandible, or the probable mandible, is over there.” I slowly circled the grave, photographing it from all angles.
“I’m going to need the state crime lab on this,” Dave said, “and what’s-his-name, the forensic pathologist. We can’t afford to miss something because we damaged the bones. Dre, you get that portable tent in case it rains again. Gwen, finish your notes and diagrams and get them to me. Bring me that skull your dog found. Jeannie, I appreciate your help—”
A shout came from the nearby trees.
I flinched. More bodies?
A deputy loped over waving an evidence container. It held a cell phone.
“I found it over there,” the deputy said. “Where the snowberry bushes stop and the driveway starts. And, yes, I did photograph and measure first, Gwen, before you jump all over me.”
“Sweet,” I said. “A sloppy serial killer.”
Dave examined the phone through the clear plastic before carefully handing it to the deputy. He swiftly walked to his truck, looked inside, then returned. “That’s my cell phone.”
I rolled my eyes. “You were giving me a hard time about acting like a rookie. Anything else you want to confess to? Did you smoke a few cigarettes and drop the butts? Perhaps ran your fingerprints over a few cans? Toss your business card on top of tire marks?”
“I guess I didn’t make myself clear.” Dave’s voice was grim. “I was never near those bushes. I didn’t drop it.”