Chapter 43
Chapter Forty-Three
ORPHEUS
Ingrid helped herself to a hot cup of coffee and grabbed a bagel from the communal staff room. She was glad to be back at Salisbury police station, where she knew every face and every corner. She was ready to dive in, instincts sharp, adrenaline humming, back in her element and rearing to go.
She ducked into her office, pulling the blinds down, and changed into a fresh suit. Quickly refreshing herself, feeling sharp, clean, and ready for anything.
She took another bite out of the dry bagel. Despite its staleness—probably left over from the previous morning—it tasted good.
She headed out and strolled with coffee in hand along winding hallways. Lost in her own head, she slipped down to the underbelly of the station before she even realized it.
The sanitized aroma of the morgue caused Ingrid to shudder.
Still eating her breakfast, coffee in hand, she headed toward the autopsy of the Stonehenge victim.
Ingrid passed along the line of laboratories, pausing briefly at the desk directly outside the coroner’s office and recognizing Sara, the pathologist’s assistant.
The young girl rested her legs up on the desk, totally engrossed in a magazine.
“Didn’t start yet,” Sara said.
“What’s the delay?” Ingrid asked.
“We were waiting for you. Ellison’s in there now working on his preliminaries. Oh and FYI, there’s rookie-student policemen who have come to view their first postmortem.”
“Sounds good,” Ingrid said dryly.
She finished the remainder of her bagel and entered the chilly examination room, coffee in hand. A female corpse rested on the cold, stark central table.
The five graduates were dressed in theater scrubs. They viewed Ingrid wearily. Ingrid approached Dr. Ellison, the fifty-two-year-old short and stocky coroner.
Ellison’s eyes crinkled with warmth as he greeted her, radiating his usual spark of liveliness.
Despite everything, the cases, the darkness, he always seemed strangely untouched by it all.
Unbothered by the weight of the world or the frailty of the human condition.
And to her, that had always been quietly inspiring.
“What have you got for me?” Ingrid did her best to avoid the gazes of the eager students.
“Coffee!” Ellison snapped his fingers, taking Ingrid’s drink from her. He gulped it down, handing the empty cup back to her. “Ingrid, you’ll be bringing your lunch in next.” Ellison smiled and placed his small round glasses on.
“It’s just that the smell of the coffee beans helps to . . .”
“Sterility has its disadvantages,” Ellison said and pulled on his exam gloves. He leaned over the corpse and moved the girl’s limbs this way and that, viewing her body carefully.
“Fingerprints have confirmed her identity,” Ingrid began. She faced the police students and addressed them. “Purple highlights are unusual. Such a marker may help with tracking her movements.” Ingrid pulled out her writing pad.
Ellison peered over his glasses. “So my Jane Doe is really a. . . ?”
“Gillian Stewart,” Ingrid said. “Her fingerprints are in the system.”
“What’s her prior?”
“Arrested on a drug possession violation.”
“Figures. Her prelim tox screen was positive for narcotics.”
“T.O.D?” Ingrid asked.
“Judging by lividity and rigor mortis, she died approximately thirty or so hours before we even found her at Stonehenge.”
“So two nights ago?”
“Approximately. With no primary crime scene and no witnesses, it’s an educated guess, I’m afraid.”
Ingrid made a notation.
“Her parents?” Ellison asked.
“Blake’s there now,” she said.
Ellison sighed. “Worst part of the job.”
Ingrid shrugged.
“Look.” Ellison pointed out to the eager crowd. “Track marks on both arms. She was into the hard stuff. Looks like she frequently mainlined. This girl moved in dangerous circles.”
“Are those what I think they are?” Ingrid leaned in to the victim’s neck area.
Ellison reexamined the four deep pinpoint puncture marks on the dead girl’s neck. “And a Goth to boot.”
Ingrid addressed the crowd again. “She’s got what appears to be vampire bite marks, so she’s possibly into role play.”
“And it looks as if it may have been a big factor in her death,” Ellison said.
“From what I can tell, it looks like she’s lost a lot of blood.
We’ll have more of an idea when I open her up and run a few more tests.
There is a slim possibility her blood was drained from these marks.
We’ll take some specimen swabs and a wound cast to see if it gives us an indication of the weapon.
I doubt they’re fang marks, but they certainly look like that.
I’ll keep an open mind for now. No sign of sexual abuse. ”
“What instrument would you need to do this?” Ingrid asked, eyeing the punctures.
“Well perhaps . . . surgical in design, but blood clots quickly in a healthy person so it’s unlikely.”
“Is a drug addict compromised?”
“His or her clotting factor could be off, but . . .”
“Where else could she have lost the blood from if there are no other external puncture wounds other than these?”
“Time will tell. Science is our victim’s advocate,” Ellison said. “Ingrid, as soon as I have something substantial, I’ll call you.” He pushed his round-rimmed glasses back up his nose.
“I wish I hadn’t eaten that bagel now,” Ingrid said.
“I brought those in for the staff two days ago.”
She screwed up her nose.
Ellison placed his sharp knife to Gillian’s chest and cut into her pale flesh.
Ingrid was amused by Sara, who stood close by and revved a small powerful chain saw.
Two of the police officers fainted.
Back at her desk, tucked away on the uppermost floor of the Wilton Road Police Station, she finally allowed herself a moment to breathe.
Sipping on her third mug of coffee, Ingrid scanned the reports once more, readying herself for the Unit briefing.
Focusing in, she analyzed everything, from the psychologist’s early reports to the forensic files, collating data, searching for patterns, and letting her sharp intuition and quiet genius do the work.
After a late lunch at her desk, she gathered all her files and headed to the briefing room.
She didn’t like the reason the case had landed in her lap, but if ever there was a case that could make a career, this was it.
Ingrid entered the conference room and sat at the head of the long table.
“Everyone’s here, ma’am,” Sgt. Blake said, taking the seat beside her.
“How’s Inspector Bradford holding up?” Ingrid asked.
“He’s in ICU. Apparently, he’s lost a lot of blood, and they’re trying to determine from where,” Sgt. Blake said.
“Oh my goodness. What happened?”
“Well he has all sorts of health problems,” Blake said. “So it’s probably his ulcer, but they’re running more tests.”
“Send my regards to his family, will you?”
“Will do, ma’am. Looks like you’re the it-girl. I hear the case is all yours.”
Detective Chief Inspector Vanderbilt began the briefing. Ingrid looked around, confirming the criminal forensic team, the senior forensic psychologist, and her other police colleagues were present.
“So far,” Ingrid raised her voice for the benefit of the crowd, “Dr. Ellison’s findings indicate that both girls were drained of blood.
We’re awaiting test results to ascertain more.
Excessive blood loss is the confirmed cause of death.
We have primary sites, still unknown as place of death, and secondary, where the girls were dumped after death.
“As you are aware, the first girl found at Avebury was nineteen-year-old Tabitha Web. Tabitha left home at seventeen, and as far as we can tell, spent most of her time in London staying with friends until she disappeared from a friend’s flat in Notting Hill three days before her murder.
“She had a history of drug abuse. The drug use is the only connection we have between the two girls.
Gillian Stewart is our second victim, twenty-one years in age with one prior for dealing and using.
Similar story—left home, went to live in London, and then disappeared off the face of the earth until she turned up dead at Stonehenge today.
“Neither girl was sexually assaulted, though they were sexually active. The blood test results also indicated they both took the pill, so we know that they probably visited a doctor’s clinic.
“The blood tests confirm death by hemorrhage. Their hemoglobin had dropped to untraceable, bearing in mind the average female hemoglobin is 12-16 mg/dl. We are looking for small instruments used to make minute puncture marks.
“What’s most telling is that the blood loss is significantly less than what would be expected if it had been manually drained. That alone points to something sinister.
“We have no other leads, no other clues, no fingerprints at the scene or on the bodies. Whoever committed these crimes is astute at covering up their tracks. Any questions?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Sgt. Blake said. “Were there really no footprints at Stonehenge?”
“Blake, I’m as baffled as you all are considering there is so much mud at Stonehenge. It’s difficult to comprehend, but forensics insist.”
With Ingrid’s laptop prepared in case she needed to refer to her notes, she began her presentation.
“To recap, in the last two nights we have had two murders at two separate sacred sites. Two girls drained of their blood. The first strung up, the second laid down, both posed in respectful, somewhat sexual positions, naked.”
She flicked on the computer projector switch, throwing a wall-sized image of the first dead girl tied to the stone. “If you look carefully, she is positioned so that she appears asleep, not dead—her features calm, her long hair covering her body, staged as if in a painting or as an object of art.
“We are presented with images of beauty, indicating the killer’s sick imagination.
Second image, again an ancient monument is chosen, the girl now lying down, perhaps reflecting the first. Positioned arms down by her sides, legs together indicating dignity, but again her nakedness proves her vulnerability.
“These are complex and contradictory images.
They appear as messages, but they are difficult to decipher.
We believe we are looking for one or two males working together.
Their ages probably range from early twenties to late fifties.
They are educated, possibly employed, and have a creative background—someone involved with art.
“Chances are they have no priors. We are looking for individuals with egos.
These are high-profile murders, so the culprits crave the spotlight.
I wonder if this is a cult killing, these sites indicating sacrifices to the gods, or God.
Let us first review Avebury, a Neolithic monument, a large prehistoric tomb on the highest man-made hill in Europe, and with the most extensive hedge enclosure.
“Are the criminals sending us a message, perhaps of both human frailty but at the same time indicating the worth of that human?
Now we move to Stonehenge. This monument predicts the dates of the lunar eclipse.
The principal axis of the monument is oriented in order to take advantage of the direction of the sunrise at summer solstice.
“Incidentally, this falls on or around June 20 and 21. See a pattern here? The first girl was killed on the nineteenth at Avebury, the second at Stonehenge on the twentieth, and tomorrow, June the twenty-first, there may well be another murder on or close to these sites. In approximately ten hours, thousands will try to gather at Stonehenge for the summer solstice. As always, time is an issue. We’re probably not going to let anyone close.
It’s a PR nightmare, but there you are.”
“Interestingly enough, bloodletting was used in rituals up until the early twentieth century.
We saw this with the fossilized remains of humans found in the bogs all over Europe.
We believe that the draining of their blood is also linked to their locations.
Therefore, we are looking for a group of men or women who are perhaps copying these ancient rituals.
They may even practice satanic worship or a form of witchcraft.
“So as you see, we have very little in the way of a refined lead. All I can say is I’m sure they will strike again and the victim will be another young girl, bled out and placed at one of our many places of heritage.
My only suggestions are to place guards on these areas and hope that we get a lead this way.
We also plan to investigate the locations where the young Goths and pseudo-vampires hang out. ”
Ingrid gestured to her colleague. “Blake’s all over the web and Smith is working with the Metropolitan Police.
I will handle the press. We are starting with the girls’ last whereabouts.
As it’s London, the Met Police are on it.
We believe we are looking for a club or group of individuals from London.
Satanic rituals, however, are practiced predominantly in Scotland and Cornwall, so we are sending limited resources to local covens. ”
“Witchcraft is heavily-practiced in these areas,” Sgt. Blake offered. “They tend to be more peaceful in nature, though they may have important information that may assist us.”
“Thanks Blake,” Ingrid said. “There is another possible lead. We’ve had reports from two local hospitals that units of blood were stolen from their laboratories.
The first, the local hospital in Avebury; the second—and just before the second murder—a break in at Salisbury General.
Only blood was taken, blood used in patient transfusions.
“We believe there is a possible connection. Staff have been alerted and hospital security heightened. We are also going to expend some resources investigating these activities. We meet back tomorrow unless something pressing arises.”
Sgt. Blake raised his hand. “Perhaps if we installed security cameras in the blood banks? Who knows, the cult members may be using the blood as part of their ritual.”
“Great idea, Blake, make it happen,” Ingrid said.