Chapter 5
FIVE
Katie’s cell phone rang, jarring her out of a nice deep sleep. She grumbled until the ringing stopped. Then it started up again.
“No,” she murmured. “It’s Saturday…” She grabbed her phone. “Hello?”
“Detective Scott?” the caller said.
Katie immediately sat up, recognizing the voice as her watch commander. “Yes.”
“We have a situation. A body has been found.”
Katie was confused. She worked cold cases. “A body?” she repeated.
“Yeah, of sorts…”
“Of sorts?” Katie wasn’t following. “I’m sorry, but—”
“Another dismembered body part was found on Heritage Road near the fire department’s training area.”
Katie’s thoughts went into hyper-speed. “You sure?”
“Yes. Two deputies are there now maintaining the scene. The sheriff requested you since it might be related to what happened last night.”
“I’m on my way. Thank you, Commander.”
The phone disconnected.
Katie sat thinking for a moment. Was there a note? Was it going to be directed at her? The department? She jumped up to get ready and head out to the crime scene.
Before she left she checked on the cat and then sent a text to her neighbor with a photo to see if someone in the area was missing a pet.
It took Katie almost a half hour before she arrived at the scene.
It was actually farther than she had anticipated and likely strategically located in an area where it would have been difficult for anyone to witness anything—a vehicle parked, someone dropping something off, or a suspicious person.
There were no security cameras nearby. It seemed to be well thought out, suggesting that whoever was doing this was organized.
Katie pulled to the side of the road and parked.
She saw there were two patrol cruisers, one unmarked sedan, and a fire investigator’s vehicle.
She got out of the car, and decided to shed her jacket, leaving her in a short-sleeved blouse and her usual pantsuit.
She heard the unmistakable barking of a German shepherd, and remembered the Pine Valley Fire Department arson investigator, Luke Ames, and his K9, Blitz, from a murder-arson case.
She wondered why he might have been called. Questions flooded her mind. Was there any indication of a fire, or bomb-making paraphernalia?
She stood a moment next to her police sedan surveying the area, taking a slow three-hundred-sixty-degree vantage. It instantly hit her how much she wished McGaven were investigating with her. They had developed a routine whenever they entered a new crime scene—and it really worked well for them.
Pausing for a few seconds and shutting her eyes, Katie listened. It was quiet, no birds chirping, no sounds of cars in the distance. It was a perfect location to leave a body—or body parts.
“Detective Scott,” said a deep voice.
Katie snapped open her eyes and saw Luke Ames standing in the middle of the street, staring at her with his hands on his hips—apparently annoyed for some reason.
“Taking a moment?” he said.
Katie noted some sarcasm to his voice.
“Is there something bomb- or explosive-related?” she asked.
“No. Why would there be?”
“Well, you’re at my crime scene.” Katie didn’t have time to banter back and forth. She wanted to get to work.
“It’s your crime scene?” He took two steps closer to her, almost like a swagger, and then fixed his stance, his body facing her.
Katie kept her cool, remembering the investigator’s loud alpha-male style from the last time they’d met. “I’m the police detective and you’re the arson investigator.”
“Thanks for clarifying that.”
Katie remained calm. “Why are you here?”
“I’m the one who found it.” He smiled slightly.
“What brought you here?” she said.
“Sometimes I take a longer run up this way. The fire training facility is close by—about a mile or so.”
Katie glanced at his vehicle with the K9 decal. She could see the outline of his dog inside.
He chuckled. “After I called it in, I jogged back to get my vehicle.”
Katie began walking toward the taped-off area. “Thank you. Did you give your statement to a deputy?” she said, not looking at him.
“Of course.”
Katie heard him, but didn’t respond. She was keen to meet up with Deputy Anderson.
“Detective, we took the investigator’s statement,” said the deputy. “Then we cordoned off the area as best we could.”
Katie liked dark-haired Officer Chris Anderson and the fact he was quiet as he watched and learned. She recalled McGaven had been his training officer.
Katie looked at him now. “What do you mean, the best you could?”
“It will be easier if I show you.”
The first thing she saw was an overgrown area with vines covering an old, dilapidated fence that had been once painted white. The surrounding environment was dense with several large pine trees and climbing foliage. There was dead undergrowth where the new vines had begun filling in like a blanket.
Katie stopped and looked past the hidden fencing.
The land was slightly hilly, resembling a meadow, and the weak growth was less than a foot tall, giving the impression it had been mowed down less than a month before.
She jotted notes in her small field notebook, which was what McGaven would normally do when they were encountering a new scene.
She turned to Anderson. “Widen the crime scene area, double it.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He went to retrieve more official yellow identifying tape.
The other deputy manned the street area, making sure no one entered the scene.
Katie looked down as she walked to make sure she was approaching the body part on the same trail.
Quickly slipping on a pair of gloves, she moved carefully.
It wasn’t that it was dangerous, but she’d experienced more than her fair share of traps and other unusual circumstances and she wanted to move with caution.
As Katie moved toward the crime scene she saw there was indeed a human body part—an arm. She watched her step once more but couldn’t see a clear track of someone walking up to the deposit site. This struck her as odd.
She stopped about three feet away, not able to take her eyes off the display. It was both horrifying and interesting. Her gut told her it had been placed in the perfect location, according to the killer.
Her boots sunk in the deep climbing plants, where there was a slight moldy smell.
Taking a deep breath and leaning closer, she saw the dismembered arm, bent at the elbow, which gave a slight crook in the middle that had been positioned in between two fence slats to keep its staged arrangement.
It was directed to the west with the hand clearly in a pointing pose—without the index finger. It stopped her cold.
Katie looked closer at where the arm had been severed from the shoulder and it appeared to be a similarly clean cut as on the index finger in her Jeep.
It almost gave the appearance of a mannequin’s arm rather than an actual human’s.
Her instinct told her it was from the same woman.
It also didn’t mean the woman was necessarily dead, and that realization in itself gave her a greater sense of urgency.
She took a brief moment to scan the surrounding rural and remote area. There was an eeriness that unsettled her. She glanced up and down the property—everything appeared serene.
Katie backed away and headed to her vehicle, where she called in on the police radio. “Dispatch, this is Detective Scott on location near Heritage Road and Sullivan. Please send forensics and a medical examiner.”
“Copy that, Detective.”