Chapter Six #5
“I do. I’ll get it,” he said, ignoring the two Feds, and talking to his boss only.
The man trotted away, leaving the three of them crouching there with the victim.
Well, he absolutely didn’t like outsiders. Gene didn’t doubt why, and it had everything to do with his ethnicity. If they were lucky, the pile of bodies would NOT be Native.
When Callen went to touch one of the limbs, Ethan grabbed his wrist.
“Trust me. You don’t want to do that. Then, a forensics team is taking your DNA, your fingerprints, a hair sample, and your clothing to eliminate you from the suspect list. They won’t let me give you a pass since you’re my brother.”
At his words, Callen retracted his arm and understood what his brother was saying.
“I see five legs,” Gene admitted. “So, we either have two and a half people, or three.”
Ethan saw the sixth leg.
“There’s one bent under this victim. I think it’s a leg. There’s snow all over it, but it’s definitely shaped like a leg. I think the deputy might have been right. I think we have women.”
As the deputy came back, he had gloves from his first aid kit and the ice scraper.
They gloved up.
Then, and only then, they began by the heads. There was long hair, but that didn’t help since most Natives here ALSO had long hair. Three of the four men standing there fit the bill.
As Ethan brushed a face off, and Callen shined his flashlight at the face, he saw the skin.
In a way, all of the Natives were relieved.
“This victim is Caucasian,” Blackhawk admitted, staring down at the form. “A her, I believe. Eyes are cloudy, so she’s been dead almost twenty-four hours. It looks like this might be a body dump off a deserted road that is rarely traveled.”
Callen let out a sigh of relief.
Well, that made his life easier. As far as he was concerned, the FBI and local law could come pick the women up, and do what they needed to do.
“Uh, I see something,” Gene admitted.
Gene touched a leg to brush it off, and that’s when he knew he was right.
“Uh, EJ, there’s no skin on this leg. I see the muscle and tendons that are under it.”
What?
That didn’t sound good.
“Check the other legs.”
Ethan kept brushing, and that’s when he saw that Gene was correct.
They had stripped flesh, revealing everything underneath, and it wasn’t done well. It was done hastily, like someone had skinned a deer in a hurry.
Oh, boy.
He hoped this wasn’t going to be a Native behind this for Callen’s sake. He’d have to deal with the council, and so would he.
“Three women,” Gene offered. “The deputy was right. It’s not bones. It’s whole people, but they’re missing their skin.”
Ethan knew this was going to be an interesting one.
“What’s on her face?” Callen asked, pointing at the one head.
The deputy chimed in.
“That’s what I saw, but I didn’t want to touch her!” he said. “Something is on her lips, like it’s crisscrossing them.”
Yeah, there was.
Ethan took his brother’s flashlight and got a closer look.
Well, shit.
This was going to be a wild case. He could already tell by what he saw.
“Her mouth is stitched shut.”
Callen gasped.
This was definitely some sicko fun for the FBI. It appeared that he had gotten lucky.
This wasn’t going to be anything they needed to concern themselves with, UNLESS it was a Native doing the deed.
Hopefully, that was not the case.
“The second body is also a white woman,” Ethan said, brushing more snow from the next head in the pile.
That’s when he saw it.
“She’s missing her eyes.”
Oh, and already, he had an inkling as to where this was being taken. They’d seen variations of this before, just none where the victims were skinned, too.
That was new.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Ethan asked his partner.
Gene nodded.
“Yep. See no evil. Speak no evil,” Gene said. “Want to take bets the next body has no ears or they’re mutilated in some way to convey that?”
Ethan was NOT taking that bet.
“This is a hand,” Callen said, gently brushing the snow from a lump that was beside him. “Uh, and there’s no skin on it either.”
Yeah, this was a new one.
“They’ve been degloved,” Gene said, staring over Callen’s shoulder. “The hands, the feet, and the bodies, too. They were peeled free of their flesh, and not well. Someone did a rough job of it.”
Well, that was gross.
“Like, there are people out there who do a good job?” Callen asked.
Unfortunately, there were.
“It’s an acquired skill. Like how you can skin a deer better than I ever could. You do it more often and have the skill. I don’t.”
Callen went there.
“Uh, I hope you don’t think this was someone Native doing this.”
Honestly, he didn’t think anything yet. It was too early in the process, so he gave his brother an iota of reassurance.
“Probably not. It’s a bad job. Natives tend to do a good job at skinning once-living things.”
Who would have seen that as a plus for Callen and the other Natives?
To keep this moving, so they could get people here at some point to preserve what was remaining of the scene, Ethan got to the third head in the pile of bodies, and he cleared the snow on the side of her face.
Know what he didn’t find?
Ears.
And there it was.
Three female victims.
Three bodies with altered or missing parts. This was going to be a serial killer, and from the hatchet job on the skinning, he was hoping it would be a new serial killer.
The last thing they needed was fifty bodies in a different location.
“We have hear no evil, too. Looks like we’re going to that specific rodeo,” he stated. “They tend to be religious in origin, or about revenge.”
Yeah, Gene didn’t like this.
“Are you one hundred percent sure you want to do this. I’m on desk duty, EJ. If you take this one, I can’t carry my sidearm in the field. I’m a pencil pusher,” he reiterated, as they stood over the three dead women.
His fingers were crossed.
Literally.
Only, Ethan was definitely taking this one. What he needed was to get back to work so he could regain his footing. Having Gabe take his job had dinged up his ego, and he needed to get back to the grind.
“I’m sure,” he offered.
Then, Ethan profiled it.
“Three women, missing their skin, and the telltale signs of the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil trope signifies we should be relatively safe. We’re not women, and if this isn’t religious, it will be about revenge. I’d bet on it.”
Yeah, well, that could go awry at any time, and Gene knew it. He didn’t like that he’d be basically a paperweight.
They didn’t have gear here, other than Ethan’s guns, and their badges.
Hell!
They barely had clothing.
He sighed.
“Okay, EJ. We’re working it.”
His partner stared up at him, and he was grateful that Gene wasn’t going to make him argue for this one.
“Can you call it in? I’m not talking to Gabe. Please? Then, reach out to the local police to see if they have any cases that might match the three women. We don’t have a team nearby, and Salt Lake City is almost two hours away. We’ll have to use the local facilities and staff.”
He nodded, but he knew one thing.
“The shit you do for love,” he muttered under his breath so only he and Ethan heard him.
Once he heard him, his boyfriend winked at him.
Yeah, tell him about it.
Callen glanced over at the deputy so that they could help the Feds out until the bodies were removed. At some point, word would travel from the hunter who came across this and then went for a beer at the bar.
Before Callen knew it, the reservation chief would be here to stick his nose into it. The last thing he wanted was Tom Redbear on this scene being racist toward the outsiders. The man didn’t like people who weren’t Native.
Then, Timothy would be here to defend Ethan.
It would be a shitshow.
“Go get some crime scene tape from your trunk and block off the whole road back about fifty feet on each side of our cars. The FBI is taking this one.”
The deputy minced no words.
His face said it all.
It was clear that the deputy didn’t like them.
“Fucking FBI. I can’t wait to see how they fuck us over with this,” he said loud enough that Ethan, Gene, and Callen heard him.
Talk about not knowing how to use an inside voice, or better yet, keep it in your head.
Callen sighed.
“Suddenly, I have a headache. To think, this would have been so much less stressful having dinner with Ethan and Timothy,” he stated to Gene.
That was funny.
Sort of.
As for a headache…
Yeah, well, that was the norm for them.
And it was about to be bigger for the Feds.
Bet on it.