CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The hole in the ground was about six feet deep and perfectly rectangular.
At the bottom sat a wooden box with its lid propped open.
Crude construction, maybe pine, the kind of thing someone had built in a garage over a weekend.
It didn't belong here in the middle of the woods, surrounded by oak trees and morning mist.
Inside the box was a dead man.
The body was dressed for an office; black slacks, white button-down, suit jacket, and wire-rimmed glasses sitting crooked on his face.
His hands were behind his back, and his legs were bound at the ankles.
The deceased’s face bore an expression that suggested his final moments had not been peaceful.
Beside her, an excavator idled while its engine coughed diesel fumes into the air. Ripley stood near the machine with Sheriff Bartram and two uniformed cops, all of them watching as the operator maneuvered the hook into position.
'Who the hell found this?' Ella shouted over the hum.
‘Tree surgeons. We got lucky, or this could have gone undiscovered for weeks.’
Ella surveyed the area. Another expanse of woodland, no roads or houses in sight. ‘We’re about three miles from the first scene. Close enough to not be a coincidence.’
‘Nothing here is a coincidence,’ Ripley said as she peered over the edge of the grave. ‘This doesn’t exactly scream funeral burial.’
The excavator's arm extended. The hook descended into the hole, and an officer guided it until the chain caught on the box's metal handle. The machine groaned. The box lifted slowly, swaying as it rose from the earth. The coffin, once hidden in the depths of the earth, now dangled in the open. The poor victim inside was disturbingly visible, and his final pose was disrupted by the excavator’s jerking movements.
'Was the lid open when they found it?' Ella asked.
Bartram shouted, 'No. We did that. Lid was closed but not nailed shut.' He guided the coffin down to the ground, placed beside the gaping hole from whence it came. It landed and displayed its contents to the onlookers.
‘Christ,’ one of the cops said, and looked away.
Bartram asked, ‘Agents, you seeing this? The perp bound his legs so he couldn’t escape.’
Ella felt a wave of nausea as she peered into the coffin.
The man inside looked like he'd been in his early forties.
Wedding ring on his left hand. Clean-shaven.
No visible injuries on his face or neck.
His attire was incongruous with his surroundings, as if he'd been plucked from his daily life and thrust into this nightmare.
‘Buried alive,’ Ella said. The thought hit her right in the stomach, and she gave the nameless victim inside a moment of silent respect. Death, she thought, always deserved acknowledgment.
‘But the lid was unlocked,’ Bartram said. ‘What was stopping this guy from pushing out and escaping?’
Ella guessed there was more to this scene than met the eye.
Was the killer giving his victims a glimmer of hope?
A chance to escape? Or was it just another layer of his game?
She crouched beside the box. Pulled on latex gloves.
Reached inside carefully, slid her hand under the man's torso.
His skin was cold, stiff. She found his wrists behind his back and touched metal cuffs, tight enough to leave marks.
'He's restrained. Hands and feet. He couldn't have opened the lid even if he'd tried. '
‘Your torture theory might be on the ball,’ Ripley said. ‘Eaten by rats, buried alive. Both ancient techniques. Could our guy be some medieval obsessive?’
Bartram saw to the excavator operators while Ella slowly walked the grid.
Now that the picture was becoming clear, her sorrow for the victim began to manifest as a ball of revulsion.
She envisioned his last moments: the terror, the hope, the despair.
It was a psychological torment far beyond physical pain. ‘Maybe, but something is missing here.’
‘Like what?’ Ripley asked, but was then interrupted by her ringing cell.
She held up a finger and then stepped aside to take the call, thus leaving Ella alone with her contemplations.
She tried to see the world through the eyes of this unknown assailant, and when applied the psychopath filter, she couldn’t help but spot the anomalies.
What nagged at her first was the lack of dirt shoveled onto the coffin.
A mission-oriented offender like this, especially one reenacting ancient torture techniques, would seal the coffin with earth to maximize the victim’s terror.
He would have a very specific fantasy he would want to address, and wouldn’t go to these kinds of lengths only to not address every single need.
He would engineer the reality as close to the fantasy as possible.
This unsub had left the coffin unsealed. Was it a mistake, or a conscious choice?
The second anomaly was victimology. This man, whoever he was, seemed similar in age to Julia Dawson, but that seemed to be the only characteristic they had in common. If not for the timescale and the proximity to the first scene, Ella would think these murders were the work of two different unsubs.
Ella took a moment to sort through the details.
The unsealed coffin, the seemingly unrelated victims, and the staged scenes.
Yet, as Ella stood there, enveloped by the quiet of the woods, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was missing a crucial element that would tie these disparate strands together.
What did the unsub see in these victims? Was it random selection, or was there a deeper rationale behind the choices?
As Ella continued to ponder, Ripley returned. ‘That was Doctor Sanchez. She’s got the toxicology report from Julia Dawson.’
‘She find anything?’
‘Yeah. She found traces of GHB in her system.’
The comment hit Ella like a tsunami, crashing into her and sending her theories down an unexpected path.
GHB, or gamma-hydroxybutyric, was a date rape drug that could sedate someone within ten minutes of it entering their system.
‘But why? Why go through the trouble of drugging them?
If he's trying to torture his victims then drugging them just makes them less responsive.’
‘Sanchez said there was only a mild trace in Julia’s system. Maybe not enough to completely knock her out.’
'So the killer had access to them before the abduction,' Ella said.
'Which means they trusted him. Or didn't see him as a threat.'
‘We need to find out who this man is,’ Ella said as she turned her attention back to the victim. ‘See if he has any connection to Julia Dawson.’
She crouched again and started going through the man's pockets.
Jacket first, but both sides came up empty.
Pants pockets next. Nothing. No phone, no wallet, no keys.
Lastly, she dug her hands beneath him and reached into his rear pockets.
Her fingers brushed against something. Carefully, she raised the victim and removed the contents.
‘Got something?’ Ripley asked.
Ella presented her findings.
A pile of business cards.
‘Looks like our killer missed something.’ She stood up and rifled through them, all the same. The details said: Thomas Barker, Production Manager, Kreative Solutions. ‘Thomas Barker. We got him.’
Ripley took the cards off her partner, retrieved an evidence bag from her pocket and dropped the cards inside. Before she zipped them up, she said, ‘Wait a minute. The one at the back is different.’
Ella got back to her feet. ‘Different?’
Ripley pulled it back out. She peeled the last card off the pack and turned it over.
Not a business card.
A church membership card.
‘St. Augustine's Episcopal Church,’ Ella said. ‘Good spot.’
Ella took the anomaly card, looked it over. Plain white, silver text. Certificate of Church Membership. If we walk into the light, we have fellowship with one another.
'Religious,' Ripley said.
‘I need to look into Thomas Barker’s life. He’s married judging by his ring, so we need to speak with his wife. Then dig into every aspect of his life, see if there's any connection to Julia Dawson.’
‘You want to go now or wait for me? I’m on orders to watch the scene until forensics arrive.’
Turning back to the grave, Ella's gaze lingered on the coffin and the lifeless soul within. Somewhere out there, a wife was wondering why her husband never came home, and it was her responsibility to deliver the crushing blow.
‘I’ll go now. We can’t keep the family waiting.’
‘Alright. Meet you back at the precinct in a few hours?’
‘Done. See you soon.’
‘Good luck,’ Ripley said.
Two victims. Two nights. Both were killed in ways that mimicked historical torture, and both were drugged beforehand. The killer wasn't improvising or jumping at opportunities. He'd been planning this for a while, and this was the culmination of his fantasy.
Ella reached the car, climbed in, and started the engine.
Thomas Barker's wife was about to have the worst day of her life.
And Ella was the one who had to deliver the news.