Mac walked down the hall and through the squad room with Nate and Dana, wading through the crowd of SWAT team members who were making preparations to serve the warrant with Russ and Philly. The officers were assigned all over the state, most working uniform patrol when not involved in tactical team duties.
“Hey, Mac.” One of the troopers in the black-and-gray camouflage utility uniforms looked up from his automatic MP-5 rifle.
“Danny? Daniel Revman?” Mac peered into the face covered in ash-colored paint.
“In the flesh.” The young trooper shook hands with Mac. “Hey, Mac. I haven’t seen you since the academy. Looks like you’re doing pretty good for yourself.” Daniel eyed Mac’s sport coat. “You look like the brass.”
“Not hardly. Been working detectives for some time now. I just moved to violent offenders crimes about a year ago. You still working the road?”
“That’s right; don’t plan on leaving it either. I’m down in Medford, and I’ve been on the SWAT team for about four months.” Daniel motioned around the room at his stonefaced peers. “You married, Mac? Any family?”
“Not yet. Working on it, though.” Now why had he said that? He glanced up, relieved to see Dana and Nate walk out the door.
Daniel grinned. “The family or the wife?”
“Both, actually,” Mac admitted, though he wasn’t sure why. Wishful thinking, Mac decided.Was he still seeing Kristen or had he made a mistake getting close to her too? “The woman I’m seeing has a little boy. How about you?”
“Been married for four years now, and we have one in the oven. I’ll be a daddy in about two months. A little girl.”
“Congratulations.” Mac shook Daniel’s hand again. “So are you and the team hitting that biker house this afternoon?”
Daniel nodded. “We’re waiting on the paperwork and the detective briefing.”
“OK, people, let’s get started,” the barrel-chested SWAT sergeant barked from the front of the room. “Get your weapons and equipment check going.”
“We already checked, Sarge,” a trooper yelled from the back of the room.
“Then check it again!” the sergeant yelled back.
Daniel gave Mac a nod and fell in line with his squad. Mac handed him a business card. “Give me a call when you get a chance so we can catch up.”
“Will do.” Daniel placed the card in his breast pocket while keeping a close eye on the sergeant.
By the time Mac got to the door, Dana had pulled her car around which was now back in service, and Nate was sitting in the backseat.
“You don’t have to sit in back, Nate,” Mac offered. “I could have jumped back there.”
“No, I’m good. Besides, you’re taller. I fit back here just fine.” Nate smiled. “And I wouldn’t want to break up the team.”
Mac folded himself in and snapped on the seat belt. “Sorry I kept you waiting. Ran into an old friend I went through the academy with. We ended up working a few hundred miles apart, and I lost track of him. He’s on the tactical team now, has a baby on the way.”
“That’s nice.” Dana feigned interest. She didn’t have much to do with the guys on the SWAT team. Those guys were the jet pilots of the outfit, enjoying the fast pace of their assignment. Dana found them to be a little too fast for her liking, having been the object of taunts and inappropriate jokes while she was in their company. They were pretty good one-on-one, but together they could be a little over the edge with their frat house antics.
When they arrived at the M.E.’s office, Dana grabbed her plastic evidence tub from the back of the car and handed her camera equipment to Mac.
Nate offered to carry the evidence kit for Dana.
“Finally, a gentleman in the bunch.” Dana grinned at both men, softening her insult.
“Don’t get used to it,” Mac teased.
He turned toward the brick building and noticed Kristen’s silver Volvo in the parking lot. Had she come home, or had she just left her car there? The thought of seeing Kristen brought a measure of excitement pulsing through his veins. The idea of seeing her shouldn’t have him reacting like a teenager with raging hormones.
Careful, he told himself. She just went to Florida to see her ex. She might not even be interested anymore. Besides, she’s not your type. Mac had been telling himself that for months, but it didn’t wash.
Appearances aside, she was very much his type. He just hoped she hadn’t opted out of their tenuous relationship.
The three signed in at the back of the morgue, setting their supplies on the exam room floor and evidence shelf. The two-table autopsy room was warm and humid—probably from all the hot water running through the exam tables to wash the stainless steel equipment. Condensation clung to the small outside windows, evidence the room had been used earlier this morning for autopsies.
“You ready for Doc Thorpe?” Henry asked, poking his head inside the room. Henry, a medical assistant at the morgue, had worked there for years and was one of the best.
“You bet, Henry. We’re the only ones coming,” Dana answered.
Mac wanted to ask Henry about Kristen, but he didn’t trust himself to speak just yet. Too many emotions had his heart rate doing double-time.
“All right, then; I’ll get our customer. Doc Thorpe is on her way down.” Henry entered the cooler and, seconds later, wheeled the gurney with their victim on it to the examination room. The body was still covered with the rubber and plastic body bag that they’d enclosed it in last night, the red body tag giving evidence that the zipper had not been tampered with.
Mac made note of this formality in his notes, in the event a defense attorney tried to claim the body had been accessed and evidence planted. The tag was clipped around the special zipper with metal tabs to ensure the body would not be disturbed until the post. He snipped off the tag and secured it for evidence. As he was bagging the item, Dr. Kristen Thorpe entered the room. His stomach lurched.
“Hello, gang.” She gave each of them a friendly smile, her gaze skimming from one to another without meeting Mac’s eyes.
“I thought you were in Florida,” Mac said, ignoring Dana’s questioning look.
“I was.”Without elaborating, Kristen grabbed her rubber apron from a hook on the wall and tested her dictating system.
Mac’s stomach felt as though it had been filled with lead. She clearly didn’t want to talk about her trip, and she didn’t seem pleased to see him. Mac wouldn’t press it. Not here, and certainly not now.
With none of her usual gallows humor, Kristen pressed the metal foot pedal on the floor and gave a test count into the microphone hanging from the ceiling. Once she was satisfied it was in working order, she jotted the time and date on the grease board to use for a reference while dictating her autopsy. As she progressed, she would add elements to the board: height, weight, age, and eventually the weight and mass of the organs she removed from the body.
“Who might you be?” Kristen turned to Nate, offering a wooden smile.
“Sorry. I should have introduced you,” Mac answered as Kristen moved in to shake Nate’s hand. “This is Officer Nathan Webb from the Warm Springs Police Department. He’s working the murder with us. Nate, meet the infamous Dr. Kristen Thorpe.”
“It’s a pleasure.”
“I’m pleased to meet you, Nathan.” Instead of regaling them with a grin, she turned back to the body bag. “Is this a tribal member?”
“We don’t think so,” Dana answered. “We have a visual identification, such as it is, and believe our victim is Sara Watson, Senator Wilde’s niece.”
“Oh. Sorry to hear that.”
“Us too,” Dana sighed. “We recovered her body up by the Warm Springs Reservation, and due to the proximity of the body dump to the tribal lands and in case there is a tribal connection, Nate has agreed to help us out.”
Kristen nodded and unzipped the body bag to reveal the corpse, still coated with dirt and apparent lime residue. She collected several samples of the soil from the victim and from within the body bag before requesting Henry’s help in hoisting the body onto the examination table.
Dana and Mac secured the possible evidence items as Kristen handed them over, while Nate photographed the autopsy. Kristen somberly dictated her findings, or lack of them, into the micro- phone. Sara’s case had been in the paper for some time now, and it always made it a little more difficult on all of them when they knew something about the victim and the family. She made note of the caesarean scar on the victim’s abdomen, consistent with what she expected to find on Sara from childbirthing. Kristen also documented a substantial scar on the left knee from a previous surgery. Mac confirmed from the reports that Sara had knee surgery after a skiing accident.
After the initial examination of the feet, legs, and torso, Kristen turned her attention to the head and neck area. She noted some purple and blue striations on the neck, making a verbal note into her dictation device that she needed to check the esophagus for evidence of ligature strangulation.
“See these marks?” Kristen pointed, stopping her dictation. “Looks like there was something wrapped around her neck and face. Grab my blue light, Henry.”
Henry shut off the lights and handed Kristen a simple-looking light with a special blue bulb on the end, covered by a red plastic shield on one side. Kristen waived the wand over the body, finding nothing other than soil until the special lighting reached the head and neck area. The striations took form now, showing wide, structured patterns on the neck. She shut off the light after taking measurements and recording the information on the Dictaphone. Henry turned the lights back on while Kristen stood back from the table and thought for a moment.
“What do you think?” Mac asked, knowing the look on Kristen’s face.
“Duct tape would be my guess, something that was tightly wrapped around her face and neck. You guys better take some scrapings from her face, hair, and wrists. I wouldn’t be surprised if we found evidence of some type of resin or glue on her.”
Kristen examined the hands of the victim more closely, this time with a magnifying glass. “Her nails are trimmed down to the pad under the nail. They are cut right into the dermis. No woman would keep her nails like this.” Kristen raised the right hand for Dana to view.
“You’re right. First of all, it would be too painful. Look how uneven they are; I’m surprised they aren’t bloody in spots,” Dana added.
“Probably because she was dead when they were cut,” Kristen noted. “No heartbeat, no blood pumping. Her killer apparently took great care to remove the bindings and trim the fingernails, along with all the clothing. Too bad. We might have found forensic evidence on her clothes. This creep put quite a bit of thought into it.” Her jaw clenched. “He knew exactly what he was doing.”
Kristen moved up to examine the eyes and the nose, noting some hemorrhaging characteristics on the whites of the eyes that evidenced lack of oxygen. “I can’t say for sure if she was choked or strangled, gang, but there is evidence of oxygen deprivation.”
Doc Thorpe put her left hand on the victim’s forehead and her right palm on the chin, forcing open the jaw with a crack. “We have something inside the mouth. Give me some light here, Henry.” She held the mouth open while Nate photographed the object and moved aside so Kristen could remove it. “It’s some kind of leather pouch or something.”
Kristen set the object on the table, turning over the small brown leather object to reveal the same kind of intricate beadwork they’d found on the object they’d recovered near the body.
Dana told her about the find. “The leather and bead coloring look like a match. What do you guys think?”
Nate took several more photos. “Hard to tell. But I’d say it’s a good guess.”
“I have the piece we found so we can compare.” Mac retrieved the evidence bag. The beaded leather piece the dog had unearthed looked like it had been a flap over the pouch and had been torn away. Mac pulled the item from the evidence bag, smoothing the wrinkled leather with his gloved hands. He examined that piece alongside the larger section that Kristen had pulled from the victim’s mouth, comparing the beadwork and leather. “It’s a match, all right.”
“There’s something inside the pouch.” Kristen pulled open the leather string and withdrew a small round stone, which she set on the examination table. “There’s something I haven’t seen before.” Kristen stepped back so Nate could photograph it.
Mac moved in for a closer look. Carved into the face of the stone was a crude image of a catlike face or possibly an image of a raccoon.
“Tsagagalal.”Nate peered down at the image. He looked back up at the others, stunned and obviously disturbed. “The leather pouch is a talisman of some sort. According to Native American tradition, it has many uses. The image on the stone is that of Tsagagalal.”
“Which, in English, means what?” Mac asked.
“She Who Watches. It’s one of the Indian stone idols.”
“Do you know this for sure, Nathan?” Kristen bent down to examine the object.
“Yes, I’m sure.” He stepped back. “There is a well-known legend behind the image. I don’t know if it has anything to do with the case or not.”
“Spill it.” Kristen smiled, and this time it was genuine. “I love this stuff.”
“I would have to go to an elder for the entire story, but I can tell you what I know. This is the story told by the Wishram people.
“A woman had a house where the village of Nixluidix was later built. She was chief of all who lived in the region. That was a long time before Coyote came up the river and changed things and people were not yet real people. After a time, Coyote in his travels came to this place and asked the inhabitants if they were living well or ill. They sent him to their chief, who lived up on the rocks, where she could look down on the village and know what was going on.
“Coyote climbed up to the house on the rocks and asked, ‘What kind of living do you give these people? Do you treat them well or are you one of those evil women?’
“ ‘I am teaching them to live well and build good houses,’ she replied.
“ ‘Soon the world will change,’ said Coyote, ‘and women will no longer be chiefs.’ Then he changed her into a rock with the command, ‘You shall stay here and watch over the people who live here.’
“All the people know that Tsagagalal sees all things, for whenever they are looking at her, those large eyes are watching them.”
“Fascinating,” Kristen said.
“Yes.” Nate smiled. “She Who Watches has also been called the stone Owl Woman Who Watches. Indian women sometimes go to the stone and kneel before it. They say something like, ‘You who watch, please look into me and see my problem and help me to solve it.’ A ray of light comes down to shine on the stone face then. After the woman goes to her teepee to sleep, a dream comes, telling her how to deal with the problem. That woman may go again to the stone, and the ray of light comes down again on the stone, and the next dream gives her even more details as to how to solve the problem.”
“Wow. So the original stone is still around?” Dana asked.
“Yes,” said Nate. “The original stone is ten thousand years old, and it is sacred to our people.”
“Where is it?” Mac asked.
“On the Washington side of the river across from The Dalles. It’s both petroglyph and pictograph, which means it is both carved and painted. I’ve actually been there with my grandfather. It’s amazing. The image of She Who Watches is a symbol of protection for many of our people and for neighboring tribes in the Northwest. I could only guess what meaning it has here. I’ll take some photos back to our tribal elders so they can confirm my initial impression, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure that’s the correct image. I’d also like their opinion on the authenticity of the piece, see if they have an opinion on the artist.”
“That is wild.” Kristen looked back at the body. “How does a professional woman like Sara Watson get tangled up in a mess that ends up with this type of ritualistic message, whatever that message is?”
“That’s what we’re going to have to find out, I guess.” Dana’s gaze moved back to the beaded pouch.
“I have an idea,” Mac said.
“Let’s hear it,” Dana and Kristen said in unison.
“Sara is Senator Wilde’s niece. He’s the majority leader who could swing the vote on the Native American casino in the gorge.”
“That’s right.” Dana’s eyes lighted up. “There was some speculation that the tribe was behind Sara’s disappearance. Maybe those articles weren’t as bogus as the federal agents led us to believe.”
“You think one of my people killed this girl to put pressure on her uncle to vote for a casino?” Nate asked, sounding insulted.
“Maybe they didn’t intend to kill her,” Dana replied. “Maybe it started out as a kidnapping to scare the senator into doing what they wanted.”
“No offense intended,” Mac added. “You have to admit that finding her with that pouch in her mouth is highly suspicious. It’s an idea that bears checking out.”
“You’d think the feds would have told us if they thought there was anything to the articles suggesting Native American involvement.” Dana eyed the pouch and stone again.
“Would they? You and I both thought they were holding out on us.”
“I don’t know, Mac.” Dana bit her lip. “They saw that torn piece of beaded leather out at the body dumpsite. You’d think they would have said something then.”
“We better pay a visit to our agent friends when we’re done with the post. I want to see if anyone’s holding out information, so we don’t put our foot in anything we aren’t supposed to.”
“Don’t you think we’d better contact the husband first?” Dana asked.
Remembering last night’s argument, Mac agreed. He was getting ahead of himself. A visit to Scott Watson was in order for a number of reasons. “You’re right,” Mac said. “We’ll head over from here and take a black-and-white photo with us for ID.”
Kristen completed the autopsy in less than two hours, finding little of value in the internal examination of the body. She extracted body fluids to forward to the OSP lab for toxicology screens, in the event Sara had been poisoned. Though there was bruising on her throat, and some ligature marks, Sara’s windpipe was intact, lending no physical evidence to point to strangulation as the cause of death.
Kristen had no comprehensive evidence to make her call, which was often the case. She finally gave them a tentative cause. “I’m going to rule the death a homicide due to asphyxiation, guys. The probable evidence of the duct tape remnants and the airway obstruction are pretty compelling items. I’ll wait for the crime lab results before typing out the death certificate, but this is enough to give you a start.”
“Thanks, Kristen,” Mac said.
“Sure.” The tone was decidedly cool.
Mac hung behind the others, hoping for a chance to talk to Kristen alone. She, however, showed no indication she wanted to talk to him. With Henry still in the room, he decided not to wait around. Maybe he’d call her later. He wanted to know where he stood with her. On the other hand, maybe he didn’t. “Women,” he muttered under his breath and headed outside.