Buried Page 13

  Proud smiles appeared on their faces.

  “They truly are. I’ll update you as those results roll in, but it could take a while. Since this is being considered a cold case, we’re at the back of the line. Come check this out.”

  Dana led Sayer over to a different table. Two charred and tattered straitjackets were laid out, surrounded by scraps of faded red and gold fabric streaked with ash and rust-colored splotches.

  “You found two straitjackets total? Why is the rest of the material shredded like that?”

  Dana nodded. “Two straitjackets, and this”—she gently lifted a long strip of bright red material—“isn’t shredded material. I think it’s rotting ribbon. Hundreds of pieces of red and gold ribbon.”

  “Ribbon?” Sayer leaned in. “Ezra literally just showed me an ancient Greek vase with a picture of a woman being sacrificed. The victim was bound in a heavy cloth and then decorated with ribbon. You think this is all blood?” She waved her hand over the dark splotches.

  “That would be my first guess. Ancient Greek human sacrifice, eh? Well, nothing is ever boring around you, Sayer. We’re lucky that most of the fabric was trapped down in the mud so the fire didn’t damage it, but it is waterlogged and delicate. I sent samples up, along with the bone samples, for DNA and analysis, but I’m not optimistic.” Dana led Sayer over to a table covered with bones. “In better news, despite how beat-up the bones are, my team has already managed to reconstruct quite a bit.”

  “That’s great.”

  “It is, though my definition of ‘quite a bit’ might not be the same as yours. We have seven skulls, seven sets of pelvic bones, so it’s easy to identify how many victims we have. But the next step is a lot more difficult. For example”—Dana held up a tiny finger bone—“figuring out which phalanges go with which body is a challenge.”

  Dana rolled her neck but then forced a smile. “Oh, and I’ve sent teeth off to be radiocarbon dated. We can at least figure out how long they’ve been in that cave.”

  “I thought radiocarbon dating was only for ancient bone,” Sayer said. “Doesn’t it have to be really old?”

  “Normally that’s correct, but a colleague of mine has developed a new technique based on the fact that nuclear testing sent up a ton of radiation in the 1950s. There was a spike in environmental radiation, then a steady drop after the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which she can apparently measure. As long as these bodies were deposited after the 1950s, she should be able to get an approximate date.”

  “Great.” Sayer was impressed. She surveyed the bones, momentarily overwhelmed by the sheer number of dead. “Seven. At least we know how many people we need to identify. Have you had a chance to see if any of these remains matches Cricket Nelson?”

  “That’s what I just finished doing when you walked in. I’ve compared the dental records to all seven skulls and I’m confident that none of these are the remains of Cricket Nelson.”

  Sayer’s shoulders fell a bit with relief. She had definitely not looked forward to telling Kyle Nelson that they found his sister’s remains. Now she could put his mind to rest that Cricket wasn’t among the dead here. Though perhaps not knowing was worse than finding her body.

  “Any thoughts on cause of death yet? We did find a big old sword in the cave with them.…”

  Dana picked up one of the skulls, absentmindedly turning it over in her hands as she spoke. “Yeah, looking for blade strikes on the bones will be tough. They got so beaten up in the cave, there’s a lot of chipping and general damage which might cover cut marks or bone breaks. We’re just starting to look for consistent damage that might reflect cause of death.”

  “And what about gender?”

  Dana led Sayer over to another partial skeleton. “This one is clearly a young woman, eighteen to twenty years old. The other possibly female skeleton is in much worse shape. I’m having a hard time even determining age. Look at this.” Dana held up a long bone so charred, bits of the ends were burned away. “I originally thought some of these bones took the brunt of the fire in the cave, but as we separate them out, I actually think this one skeleton had already been previously set on fire. Maybe an attempt at cremation.”

  “But just one skeleton?”

  “Yes, and if I had to guess, I’d say it’s female, but I won’t be completely confident about gender until we finish sorting them. So right now I’m thinking we have five men and two women.”

  “Whoa, male victims. That’s a huge departure from our modern case.” Sayer flopped into a chair. “So maybe these two cases really aren’t connected.…”

  Dana flopped into the chair next to her. “I dunno. That’s your job.” She flashed a vulpine smile at Sayer. “What I do know is that this case cries out for a beer sandwich.”

  “A beer sandwich?” Sayer perked up. “I have no idea what that is, but it sounds like something I want.”

  “Holy hell, woman, how do you do this job without a nightly beer, then shower, then another beer—a beer sandwich? Essential for survival in the Congo … or during cases like this.”

  Sayer smiled at the juxtaposition of Dana’s appearance—small, older, almost pixie-like—with her frat-boy demeanor.

  “I will definitely have to try that,” Sayer said. “Only problem, I forgot to bring beer and I’m certainly not driving down to town in this rain.”

  “Ha, ha! That’s why you need me.” Dana jumped up and strolled over to a cooler that Sayer had assumed was some kind of equipment.

  She popped open the lid. “Behold, beer for everyone. Once we’re done for the day, of course.” She slammed the cooler shut. “Now get out of my way so I can get back to my bones.”

  SAYER’S TOWN HOUSE, ALEXANDRIA, VA

  Adi struggled to carry the dusty cardboard box across the apartment. Old tape began to peel away from the bottom, threatening to dump Sayer’s books onto the floor. She just barely managed to thump the box down. Her fingers, still sore from assembling five bookcases, protested as she pried open the box top.

  Sayer had moved into this place right after her fiancé Jake died, and she’d been living half out of boxes since then. It had seemed like a genius idea to unpack everything while Sayer was away. But that was before Adi realized that most of the boxes were full of books.

  She glared down at the textbooks and sighed.

  “Won’t it be a nice surprise when Sayer sees all her old boxes unpacked?” Adi said out loud. “Way to go, genius.”

  Hearing her voice, Vesper got up from his nap on the futon and came over to investigate. Tail wagging, the silvery dog gave her a quick hand lick before settling down at her feet.

  From the apartment below, Adi could just barely hear Tino singing, no doubt while cooking something delicious for dinner. Her stomach rumbled at the thought. He would be expecting her in a few hours so they could go out to the garden to eat and chat while Vesper played.

  She looked around the sparsely furnished apartment, down at Vesper, to the pile of now-empty cartons and almost-full bookcases, and realized that this felt like home. The thought set off a swell of emotion that she almost shut down. Then she remembered her therapist told her that it was normal to feel out of control of her emotions once in a while. But this felt different. Unlike the fear that sometimes overwhelmed her, this was gratitude. She felt loved and cared for. She felt safe.

  Adi wiped sweat away from her forehead and went back to unpacking with a renewed desire to do something nice for Sayer.

  As she shelved the textbooks, she got lost in the subjects indicated by their titles. Criminology, abnormal psychology, neurophenomenology … whatever that was. She got to a well-worn textbook with tattered corners.

  “Rewiring the Killer Brain: The Latest Research on Neuroplasticity.” Adi read the title out loud. Unable to resist, she flipped it open. The title page was signed.

  Dear Sayer, You’ve checked this book out from the library so many times, I figured you should have your own copy. To the horizon together, Jake.

  As A
di fanned through the pages, an envelope slid from the bottom. In the same handwriting, it read Sayer across the front. The envelope was still sealed. Adi wondered if she should call about the note from Jake, or just wait until Sayer got home.

  SOUTHERN RANGER STATION, SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK, VA

  Sayer stepped out of the bone room and stood in the darkened hallway of the ranger station. At the end of the hall she could just see the park ranger guarding the front door. The ranger sat with her nose in a book, oblivious to her surroundings. Something about the young woman in the midafternoon light, lost in her reading, made Sayer long for something indefinable. She seemed so at peace. So content.

  Instead of dwelling on her own lack of inner peace, Sayer replayed her day so far. A killer mom. A Greek sacrificial sword. A monstrous snake beast. Beatings and fire and broken fingers. And none of that even touched the seven older skeletons, victims yet to even be identified.

  Barely two-thirty on the second day of this investigation, and she felt simultaneously buried under information while also left without any clear leads.

  Head buzzing, she entered the main conference room. Ezra and Piper looked up from what they were doing.

  “I took a quick look into our illustrious UVA psychologist,” Ezra said.

  Sayer came over to the computer and looked over his shoulder. “And what did you learn about Dr. Beaumont?”

  Ezra shrugged. “She was a star student, grew up in Boston. Harvard for undergrad. Moved to California for graduate school at Stanford. Distinguished research career leading to her position as a professor at UVA.”

  “Any sense of her reputation?”

  “Well, she gets asked to speak at conferences all over the world. And she’s published half a dozen books. She seems pretty darn fancy to me.”

  “All right, thanks, Ezra. So, Dana’s autopsy suggests that whoever beat our two victims to death was the same size as Jillian Watts.”

  “You think she’s really the UNSUB?” Piper asked. The word UNSUB fell awkwardly off the park ranger’s lips.

  “It looks increasingly possible. But we’ve also got a presumably good profiler suggesting this is a lone male UNSUB. I figure there are a few explanations for the discrepancy. One, Jillian Watts is working with a male partner. Or two, our profiler is dead wrong and Jillian Watts really is our sole killer. Despite my reservations, all the evidence so far says that Watts is it. Ezra, have you dug up anything new on her?”

  “I’ve done a deep dive into her background and haven’t found anything. She’s studying child development at UVA. Works part-time at a coffee shop a few blocks from her house. She and her husband are active members in their church. By all accounts a great mother.”

  “Who’s a great mother?” Max stood in the doorway holding an unwieldy stack of plastic-wrapped sandwiches. Kona stood at attention beside him. He held up a sandwich. “I know it’s late for lunch, but I ran to town for some grub, figured our soldiers need fuel.” He tossed one to Sayer.

  She caught the sandwich. “Jillian Watts is apparently a great mom.”

  “Ah, our possible killer.” Max passed sandwiches to Ezra and Piper.

  “Possible … yeah.” Sayer hated when the evidence didn’t quite make sense. Not that mothers couldn’t also be killers, but something about this just didn’t fit. “Dana did an analysis of the injuries to the two women beaten to death and concluded that they are consistent with a woman the same height as Jillian Watts.”

  Max whistled and then took a massive bite of sandwich. “Well, that’s no bueno.”

  “No, it’s not.” Sayer thought about Hannah Valdez. Was Hannah being held somewhere, about to be murdered by Jillian Watts? And where was little Grace? “Oh, and Dana says that Cricket Nelson is not a match to any of our skeletal remains.”

  Max fell into a chair and let out a long breath. “Well, thank god for that. So, maybe she really did just run off all those years ago. Have you told Kyle?”

  “Not yet. When we’re done here, I’ll call the chief to let him know.” Sayer walked over to the murder board and stared briefly into Grace Watts’s eyes. “All right, we need to bring this little girl home.” Sayer felt her heart constricting at the sight of the girl’s bright smile. All she could imagine was that face contorted with fear.

  “Let’s review leads. What’ve we got?” Sayer began to pace.

  No one said anything.

  “Yeah, that seems about right,” Sayer muttered. “Okay, no matter how much I don’t want to buy it, I’m pretty damn convinced at this point that Jillian Watts beat our two victims to death. Which makes Jillian our best lead right now. Let’s approach our next move based on that assumption. Why would a quiet college student, mom, and wife suddenly start killing people?

  “Ezra and Piper, you two look into her associations. See if you can find anywhere Jillian could be hiding these women. Any landholdings in her family? Any ties to the mountains here? Anyone who could be her partner in all this? After that, give them a few hours for analysis, then see what Quantico comes up with on our Greek sword. I’m pretty sure it’s associated with the skeletal remains instead of our modern case, but let’s follow up just to be sure. They should be able to tell us how old it is, where it’s from. It’s unusual enough to be a potentially good lead.”

  Ezra’s computer pinged. “Speaking of the sword, we’ve got DNA results from the swabs you sent up. Oh, there’s a match.” As he read off his screen his mouth fell open with surprise.

  “We have a DNA match from the kopis?” Sayer asked.

  “We do. There were multiple blood contributions found on the handle, but only one DNA hit.” Ezra paused. “It’s a match to Catherine ‘Cricket’ Nelson.”

  “Cricket Nelson? But I thought her remains weren’t in the cave. That doesn’t make any sense.” Max’s voice rose slightly.

  “Sorry, man.” Ezra leaned back away from Max’s accusatory tone.

  “I’m just … I mean, was Kyle right? Does this mean Cricket is dead?”

  Sayer held up a hand. “The only thing this tells us is that Cricket is somehow connected to one of our cases. We didn’t find her remains in the cave, so we don’t actually know if she is alive or dead at this point.”

  “But, I mean, her blood is on the sword,” Max pressed. “And I will swear till the day I die that she was terrified of something the night she showed up at my house.”

  “You said she had a cut on her hand that night? Maybe she came into contact with someone wielding the kopis. That would explain her blood on it. Maybe that’s what she was running from.”

  “That makes sense. So maybe her blood was deposited on the sword before she ran and she really did get away,” Max said.

  “Uh,” Ezra said tentatively, “I didn’t say anything earlier because I didn’t think she was connected, but now that she’s clearly connected … I’ll admit I’m a little worried that I can’t find any evidence of Cricket Nelson beyond that day. It’s pretty hard to totally cover your tracks and create a new identity without leaving some kind of trail. It’s like she fell off the face of the earth the morning you dropped her off.”

  “How easy would it’ve been for someone to grab Cricket from the bus stop after you dropped her off?” Sayer asked.

  “Easy. It’s on the edge of town, pretty far from anything. You thinking she was nabbed that morning?”

  Sayer rubbed her temples. “I think it’s possible. Clearly someone attacked her the night she fled. Maybe they caught up with her that morning at the bus stop. It would explain how she disappeared so thoroughly. Though that doesn’t explain why her remains weren’t found with the others. We also can’t dismiss the possibility that Cricket’s blood is on the handle because she was the one wielding it.”

  “Wait, you think Cricket Nelson could be the murderer?” Max turned to face Sayer.

  “I don’t think anything yet,” Sayer said firmly. “Right now we don’t have any idea if Cricket Nelson is a victim or a killer.”

  “I
t’s like the Schrödinger’s cat of murder.…” Ezra smiled.

  Max flashed him a dark look. “None of this is funny. Because it’s starting to sound like, seventeen years ago, I either left a young woman alone at a bus stop to be kidnapped, or I helped a killer get away.” Max put his head down in his hands. “Fantastic.”

  “Though if Cricket was kidnapped back then and her remains weren’t in the cave, where has she been for the last seventeen years?” Sayer said softly.

  Sayer, Max, Ezra, and Piper sat in silence for a few moments, letting that thought sink in.

  “All right, well, this adds a new twist to our old case. But, assuming this sword is associated with the bones, it’s just that, a cold case. We need to keep our attention on the people missing right now. Ezra and Piper, keep digging into Jillian Watts. Max and I will head down to interview her husband.”

  The sound of hurried footsteps from the hall interrupted Sayer.

  Dana hurried in, eyes bright with excitement. “One of my techs just brought something back from the cave. You need to come see this.”

  * * *

  Sayer, Max, Ezra, and Piper hurried after Dana into the bone room, where a small, ornately carved wooden box sat on one of the tables. Stylized flowers ran along the edges, caked with thick streaks of mud. A rusted brass latch held it closed.

  “It was buried in the muck, which protected it from the fire. Considering the fact that it’s been encased in mud for quite a while, it’s in pretty decent shape. I thought you might want to see what we find when we open it,” Dana said.

  “I think it’s safe to open…,” one of the evidence techs said.

  “Let’s try, but don’t force it if it doesn’t open easily. I’d hate to destroy anything,” Sayer said.

  They anxiously gathered around the table.

  The gloved tech gently pulled at the latch. “It’s not sliding easily, but let me…” He increased the pressure and it scraped open. “Got it!”