Chapter 3
The next morning dawned unapologetically hot. And the humidity was going along for the ride.
I’m a person whose moods are strongly influenced by weather. Give me high temps and sunny skies and I’m happy as a lark. Let clouds gather or the mercury edge toward freezing and I’m grumpy as hell.
And, for the record, I’m not big on the white stuff. Unless I’ve gone seeking it deliberately—to ski, sled, or ride a toboggan—I’m good with snow for about twenty-four hours. Which is roughly the lifespan of the occasional dusting we get in Charlotte.
But the forecast would be irrelevant that day. I’d be spending every minute inside the sterile walls of the MCME.
Still, I was feeling upbeat as I left the Annex. Until I rounded the building and saw an driver drop a package on my neighbor’s front porch. Literally. Drop it with a loud thud.
“Gently, please,” I admonished, smiling. “That box could contain her grandma’s crystal goblets.”
“Yeah, lady? I could leave it at the curb.” The guy was pale and lumpy, with limbs that might have worked well on a spider monkey. A short roll-your-own bobbed on his lower lip as he spoke.
“There’s no need to be rude,” I said.
“There’s no need for you to be telling me my job.”
Removing, crushing, and dropping the butt into his uniform shirt pocket, the man strode to his truck and roared off.
I stood a moment, offended and angry. Debating whether to report the incident. Knowing I wouldn’t.
Then I got into my car and drove away.
By eight-thirty I was in an autopsy room outfitted with a razzle-dazzle ventilation system designed to combat the most pugnacious of odors.
There is a similar setup at the lab in Montreal.
On both ends, the specially equipped space is referred to as “the stinky room.” In different languages, of course.
But the razzle and dazzle are never fully effective. Nothing is. The stench of putrefied, decomposed, bloated, or scorched flesh always manages to outwit the blowers and fans and disinfectants.
A stainless-steel table occupied the center of the room, surrounded by glass-fronted stainless-steel cabinets overhanging stainless-steel countertops. Tile floor. Overhead mic and video camera for recording every move and observation.
Since many employees opt to vacation in summer, August can mean reduced staff at the MCME.
That day, one autopsy tech was in the mountains harassing trout, and another had taken a personal day to tend to a sick goat.
Expecting to encounter nothing more complicated than a squirrel or a rabbit—nonhuman remains, case closed, specimen sent for incineration—I’d offered to work unassisted.
While I’d changed from street clothes to scrubs, the thing from the tree—now designated MCME-701-25—had been wheeled from the cooler to the stinky room. Upon entering, I took a quick look.
Lying on the gurney was a black plastic bag concealing a relatively small bulge. The size of the bulge squared with my recollection from the Frog Pond oak.
I began by dictating contextual information—the case number; the day’s date; the name of each transporter; the name of the analyst performing the examination; the name of the assisting technician; the condition of the remains upon recovery; the location at which the remains were found.
All the tedious details that could later become relevant in a court of law.
When finished, I shot a few backup pics. Then I secured the ties of a plastic apron behind my neck and waist, pulled on latex gloves, and raised a mask to cover my nose and mouth.
Properly garbed, I stepped to the gurney. Using a pair of heavy shears, I cut the bag with four smooth strokes and laid the segments of plastic flat. Splayed out on the stainless steel, they brought to mind the unfurled petals of a rose.
Au contraire, the smell slowly filling the room was far from floral. My olfactory lobe registered moldy fabric with a hint of something organic. Feathers? Fur? Traces of degraded tissue or blood?
On a scale of autopsy aromas, this one wasn’t all that rank. That, too, was consistent with expectations. Mummified flesh can be relatively odorless.
The fabric was some sort of heavy cotton or canvas duck. Its color, once bright and probably called “royal” blue, was now soiled and bleached by exposure to the elements. The material was nothing special. Except that it was so very familiar.
I took another round of pics, feeling the usual prickle of heat in my chest. Sadness for the helpless dead animal victim. Fury at the perpetrator. Anger at the existence of such cruelty.
Focus, Brennan.
Do your job so the cops can nail this fruitcake.
Peeling back the final layer of wrapping, I had my first good look.
As anticipated, the skull wasn’t human. And it wasn’t large. I estimated cranial capacity similar to that of a cocker spaniel.
Also, as anticipated, the skull had been converted into some peculiar animal version of a death mask.
I ran a quick mental inventory of details.
Patches of desiccated and discolored tissue adhered to the bone.
The eyelids had been stretched wide and stitched above and below the orbits.
Wadded tinfoil filled the hollows where the eyeballs had been.
Specks of glitter still adhered to the ectocranial surface.
A bundle of feathers projected from each ear opening.
The mandible had been rearticulated and glued in place, leaving the mouth agape in a rictus snarl.
All four canines had been removed.
The same bizarre motif had been observed on the other creatures turning up in Mecklenburg and the surrounding counties.
I’m no expert on mammalian cranial anatomy. Far from it. But I know the basics. Something about this specimen looked off.
Leaving the skull on the gurney, I swiveled to the terminal behind me and entered a number into the MCME computer system. A few more keystrokes, then I opened a file and began running through a series of images.
Rat. Squirrel. Rabbit. Skunk. All mutilated and decorated in the same manner as MCME-701-25.
All missing at least one body part.
I was viewing a close-up of the base of a rabbit cranium when I heard the door open. Curious, I turned.
Officially, Erskine “Skinny” Slidell is no longer a cop. But Skinny spent decades with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg PD Felony Investigative Bureau/Homicide Unit, and leaving the “murder table” wasn’t easy for him.
Apparently, the parting of ways wasn’t easy for the CMPD, either. Skinny is often called out of retirement to lend a hand with his extensive, though not always orthodox, investigative skills.
I’ve worked with Slidell over the years. Frequently. My take? The guy’s got the personality of moldy gouda, but good instincts.
Slidell was standing at the open door, one hand on the knob, as though prepared should a quick getaway prove necessary.
His cheeks were flushed, his Brylcreemed hair damp at his forehead and temples and separated into oily clumps on his scalp.
Having experimented with a crew cut for a while, Skinny had gone back to his signature pompadour-ducktail arrangement of late. It wasn’t a good look.
Slidell hates hot weather. Almost as much as he hates autopsies and the rooms in which the cutting takes place.
His overheated face radiated displeasure at having to cross from the administrative and office area to the scientific working area of the MCME.
From the facility’s “clean” to “dirty” side.
“Doc.” Slidell greeted me in his usual indolent way.
“Detective.”
“I hear you collected another one of these critters.”
“I did.”
“All decked out like the others?”
“Yes.” Thinking the same could be said about Skinny. Today he was wearing a tan-and-yellow plaid jacket over a mint green shirt with blue top stitching. Polyester black pants.
“We got us one weird sonofabitch out there.” Delivered without venturing across the threshold.
“We do.”
“What the hell is his thinking?”
“Or her.”
Slidell made a noise in his throat to acknowledge the point.
A moment of silence, then,
“I read an article about Mexicans decorating dead human heads.”
“Calaveras,” I said, hiding my surprise. Not at the fact that Skinny knew about “sugar skulls” as they’re also called. At the fact that he read.
“Yeah.” Jabbing the air with the index finger of his free hand. “Those.”
“Skulls were a prominent feature in pre-Columbian societies and cultures,” I said, wanting to encourage Skinny in his literary pursuits. “And calaveras—crania decorated to reflect the beauty of life—are still created for the annual Day of the Dead celebrations in November.”
Skinny looked unimpressed with this ethnographic morsel dredged up from my grad school days.
“But this is different,” I added, gesturing toward MCME-701-25.
“Different how?”
“The skulls being nailed up are forest creatures or stolen pets.”
“They’re from animals.”
Duh. I didn’t say it. Didn’t matter. Skinny was lost in thought and had tuned me out.
I resumed studying my screen.
A full minute passed, the only sound the click of the keys as I enlarged or reduced an image. Slidell’s hot breath on my neck suggested he’d approached and was leaning forward viewing the pics, too.
“What kinda animals we talking, here?”
“They’re all mammals.”
“What kinda mammals?”
“Once I determined that the remains weren’t human, I didn’t spend more time on them. I’d have to do research to identify exact species. Why? Do you think that’s significant?”
Skinny called on one beefy shoulder to give a “who knows” shrug.
A beat, then he asked,
“How do you know how big these things are?”
I pointed to a flat, L-shaped object lying to the right of the specimen filling the screen—a gizmo I’d explained to Skinny more than once.
“That’s an ABFO ruler. It’s marked off in centimeter and millimeter gradations and is placed in every forensic shot to provide scale.”
“And the others?”
“The others what?”
“Jesus on a pogo.” A sharpness to Skinny’s voice indicated waning patience. “How friggin’ big were the other skulls?”
“Not big. But they were animal remains, so I didn’t take measurements.” Feeling a prickle of unease. Where was Skinny going with this? Had skipping that step been a mistake?
Again, Slidell made that glitchy noise in his throat.
“I’m viewing a master file that I created. It contains a shot of each specimen,” I said. Again defensive. “Would you like to see the whole series?”
“Yeah. Show me that.” The terms “please” and “thank you” don’t figure prominently in Skinny’s lexicon.
I exited the current image and went to the chronologically earliest case. A date was penciled onto the associated ABFO ruler.
“So this asshole began his little hobby at least three years ago,” Slidell mumbled under his breath. Then, to me, “Keep going.”
More keystrokes, more images—frontal, lateral, and basal views of mammalian crania showing variations on a common evolutionary theme, the bones and dentition modified over eons for adaptation to varying niches.
Before photography, each skull had been cleaned of the curious embellishments recently adorning it.
“The shitpot’s going bigger.” Again, Slidell seemed to be talking more to himself than to me.
“Sorry?” I asked, not sure of his meaning.
“Run back through. Check your ABFO thingy.”
I did.
The skulls had been photographed full frame. Each was relatively small, so size differences weren’t glaringly obvious in the close-ups.
But Slidell was right. Each skull in the series had come from an animal larger than its predecessor. MCME-701-25, which I guessed was from a canine of some sort, was the biggest so far.
“Do you think the increase in body size is significant?” I asked, basically reframing the question I’d asked about species.
“Hell if I know. Could mean the perp’s getting bored. Could mean he’s getting better at catching game. Could mean fuckall.”
“Or maybe,” I said slowly, considering an idea, “targeting bigger and bigger prey indicates an escalation in whatever twisted impulse drives the guy.”
Slidell just looked at me.
“Maybe he needs increasingly larger kills to satisfy whatever fantasy he’s acting out.”
“Or maybe the sick bastard just hates animals,” said Slidell.
“So he decorates their skulls, sticks feathers in their ears, and nails them to trees?” A bit strident on my part, but, as usual, Slidell was starting to annoy me. “Oh. And one other thing. I think the guy’s keeping trophies.”
“What does that mean?”
“Something’s missing from each set of remains. You might ask why he’d do that.”
“Sounds like a question for a shrink,” he said.
I couldn’t disagree with that.
We both fell silent as I rolled through the images a second time.
“Or maybe the bastard’s got a hard-on for certain animals.” Again, Slidell was thinking out loud.
“Might identifying species or breed of dog help nail the guy?”
“Couldn’t hurt.”
“I know a local veterinarian who does forensic consults,” I said.
“Yeah? Who’s that?”
“Ralph Balodis.”
Slidell snorted, surpassing any volume Katy had ever achieved. “You talking about the guy down in Weddington?”
“I am.” I didn’t really know Balodis, had exchanged a few words with him at a charity event in Charlotte several years back. You also do forensic work? You must know so-and-so?— that sort of thing.
“Balodis won’t do it,” Slidell said.
“Why not?”
“The guy’s a friggin’ train wreck.”
“What makes you say that?” Cool.
Slidell brought a thumb to his lips and pantomimed chugging from a bottle.
I said nothing.
“Way I got the story, Balodis screwed up and killed a horse,” Slidell added. “Quit practicing and lives like a goddam hermit now.”
“Balodis has a reputation in the forensic community as an excellent vet.”
“The guy could be Doctor Doolittle, but he wants nothing to do with nobody.”
“Fine,” I said. “I’m about to change that.” I resisted saying to Slidell what I was thinking.
What if the sicko creating these grisly displays decides animals don’t satisfy anymore? What if the next kill is human?