3
Noelle watched the Oregon State Police tech slowly push a contraption that resembled a lawn mower across the small clearing where Thor had alerted. The machine used ground-penetrating radar, which could locate disturbances in the soil that possibly indicated something had been buried.
“They’ve been using the GPR on a case outside of Redmond,” Deschutes County detective Evan Bolton told Noelle as he watched beside her. “I knew they were about to take the equipment back to OSP in Salem, but I caught him in time. Convinced him to come up here and take a look before heading back.”
Evan was the county detective who’d responded to Noelle’s phone call.
They were good friends and frequently partnered on cases.
Evan had also brought along Abby, a county forensics tech, who would do a cautious preliminary dig if the GPR indicated human remains were belowground.
The tall woman waited with them, already clad in Tyvek coveralls.
Thor watched the machine with curiosity, his tongue lolling as he sat at Rowan’s feet.
“I’m feeling déjà vu,” muttered Rowan.
Sympathy shot through Noelle. She’d forgotten that not long ago Thor had alerted on a murder victim during one of Rowan’s hikes in a different wooded location.
Noelle and Evan had been the detectives to respond to that call, and they’d discovered a nearby burial ground.
“But eventually it turned out okay for you,” Noelle said quietly.
Rowan had been on a solo hike that day, searching for the remains of her murdered older brother.
“Eventually,” agreed Rowan. Unknown to her and her family, her brother had been alive.
Evan discreetly reached for Rowan’s hand and gave it a small squeeze.
“Don’t let it stop you from hiking,” joked Noelle, making Rowan snort.
Noelle had spotted the hand squeeze, which made her think of Max, and her lips curved upward. She and the FBI agent had officially been together for four months, and they were still learning about each other, but Noelle had yet to see any red flags.
Unless a motorcycle obsession is a flag.
But she loved to ride with him, so she didn’t count it.
Max Rhodes was one of the good ones; she had been lucky when he walked into her world.
The man operating the GPR left his “lawn mower” and approached.
“You’ve definitely got something right there.
” He pointed at the shallow depression Thor had first alerted on.
“And over there,” he added, pointing to the left.
“The ground there has recently been disturbed. Someone appears to have stomped it down and then scattered pine needles and debris over it. Did a good job hiding it.”
Noelle took a closer look. The man was correct.
How did we not notice that earlier?
“I’ll move on to the other locations you marked, and then I’ll check out the rest of the surrounding area.”
Thor had alerted in five spots.
Noelle had faith in Thor. If he said there were five locations, then there were five. Rowan had walked him in a spiral pattern, cautiously moving out from the original location. He hadn’t indicated any other places. Everything appeared to be grouped in an area of about twenty square yards.
“You’re up,” Evan said to Abby. “Start where he said the ground was recently disturbed.” The woman had brought several different shovels and rakes, along with buckets and screens for sifting the dirt and debris from the forest floor.
“If what’s down there is human bones, I’ll get a forensic anthropologist up here,” he said.
“I already told you to call Dr. Peres,” Rowan told him, reviving an earlier discussion. “Thor says it’s human.”
“No offense to Thor, but I need an opinion from a human,” said Evan, narrowing his brown eyes.
“It wasn’t an opinion,” Rowan said pointedly. “It’s fact. The only question is how many bodies are there?”
Thor suddenly pawed at the ground and looked up at Rowan.
“Sorry, big guy.” She scratched his head. “He doesn’t like it when we argue,” she told Noelle.
Noelle’s brows shot up.
That was an argument?
Abby started to gently shovel shallow layers of leaves and dirt into one of the buckets. If there were remains under there as Thor believed, the dirt would be shaken through a screen for evidence.
“Odd that no animals appear to have dug at it,” said Noelle. “And I know other people hike up that old road. Surely someone had a dog that would have smelled remains.”
“The dog might have smelled them,” said Rowan. “Maybe even tried to direct their owner into the woods, but the owner wouldn’t have known why and probably kept going.”
“Thor is the only telepathic dog?” asked Noelle, sort of joking but not really.
Rowan grinned. “I wish he was. Sometimes it looks that way to people because we can read each other really well.”
“Right,” muttered Evan. “I swear they have full-on silent conversations sometimes. The other night she told me he was asking for peanut butter ice cream—which we didn’t have.”
“Did you go buy it?” Noelle asked Evan, catching Rowan’s dancing gaze.
It wasn’t Thor who wanted the ice cream.
“Of course,” said Evan. “He knows how to lay on the guilt with sad eyes.”
“Sounds like you’re a good dog dad.”
Thor started to whine, and Noelle was abruptly hit with a strong stench of decomp, which triggered her gag reflex.
“Ugh.” Rowan darted away, leading Thor from the scene.
“Detectives?” Abby was on her hands and knees at the site. “I think you’ll want the medical examiner here instead of the forensic anthropologist. These remains have quite a way to go before they’re skeletal. And they’re definitely human.”
Breathing through her mouth, Noelle pulled out her phone and dialed.
She met Evan’s gaze. “Looks like our day just got a little longer.”
As it turned out, the forensic anthropologist was also needed at the scene. Abby and the man operating the GPR found five sets of remains. Some fully skeletal, some not.
“Five victims. You were right. Both of you,” Noelle told Rowan. And Thor.
His ears perked up, and he wagged his tail.
“I’ll take him home,” Rowan told Evan as she planted a kiss on his cheek. “And see you later.” She glanced around at the mass of law enforcement and investigators who’d appeared over the last two hours. “Probably much later.”
“Five bodies,” Evan murmured to Noelle as Rowan left. “Someone’s been busy.”
“We’ve got a serial killer.” She rolled her shoulders in a stretch. “Someone considers this to be ‘his place.’”
“But we aren’t on the lookout for a serial killer,” Evan said. “No agency in the state has said that they’ve linked together some related disappearances.”
“Once we identify the bodies, we’ll figure out how they’re related.”
“Which will point us at our suspect.”
“Easy peasy,” Noelle said, tongue in cheek.
Evan grimaced.
No murder investigation was easy peasy. And five victims made it five times more difficult.
Among the people who’d responded to their scene in the forest, the forensic anthropologist, Dr. Victoria Peres, and her assistants had commandeered the two body sites that had fully skeletal remains.
Noelle had worked with Dr. Peres before.
The woman was particular about her crime scenes and had laid down the law immediately as she directed her assistants to put up more crime tape and start creating a grid across the first site.
“To keep your crew from tramping through my scene,” Dr. Peres had said, giving the group of county deputies who’d also joined a hard stare.
A deputy rolled his eyes at the forensic anthropologist and then caught an elbow in the ribs from an older officer.
“Give some respect,” the deputy said in a whisper that reached Noelle’s ears. “She’s the best there is. Pay attention and you’ll learn something.”
Maybe they’re finally dropping the Ice Queen nickname.
The moniker had followed Dr. Peres for years.
She was tall with rigid posture and long black hair in a perfect low ponytail, and her command of a crime scene was inflexible.
Her scene; her rules. And woe to the person who tried to bend her rules.
In the past several deputies and officers had been immediately sent to their vehicles with orders not to return.
The medical examiner, Dr. Joshua Ruiz, was about to look at the other three victims. Noelle hadn’t met him before, and he seemed very competent, but he spoke so rapidly, she had to concentrate to keep up.
He looked fresh out of undergrad, but she learned he’d been working for the ME’s office for five years.
He’d originally been based out of Portland but had covered a lot of the coast. He’d recently transferred to Bend to help the current ME, Dr. Lockhart, who had been working nonstop to keep up with Central Oregon’s need.
Starting with the first uncovered body, Dr. Ruiz knelt beside it, and a forensics team hovered around him.
One snapped photos while the others entered records.
The first body had dark hair, and her breast implants were obvious under a pink tank top. Excitement bubbled in Noelle.
Implants have serial numbers.
They could quickly identify her.
This victim appeared to be the most recently buried of the bodies. Her skin and flesh were decomposing, but not to the extent of the others’. Noelle had steeled her stomach and taken a brief look at each set of remains. She couldn’t guess at the sex of the others.
Five lost souls. Silently waiting for us to find them.
And to find justice.
She directed the deputies to start a careful search of the outlying areas, looking for anything that could be related to the victims. Evan watched over Dr. Ruiz’s shoulder as a forensic tech removed more dirt from around the first body and dumped it in a bucket.
Noelle studied the victim from a distance, wondering how she’d been killed.
Who would do this?
Evan helped the doctor roll the victim to get a look at her back, and then the doctor palpated her limbs and skull. “She’s got an entry wound in the top of her head,” said Dr. Ruiz. “I don’t feel an exit.”
At least we might have the bullet.