CHAPTER FIVE
Deputy Carlos Martinez pulled his patrol vehicle off the dirt road and parked behind the pickup truck that belonged to the hiker who'd called in a gruesome discovery that had kicked off the morning.
The man stood about fifty yards away, his back to Martinez, looking down at something on the ground.
All around him, the Mojave Desert at dawn was painted in shades of pink and gold, the low sun casting long shadows across the sand and scrub brush.
Martinez grabbed his radio and water bottle before stepping out into the morning heat. It was already pushing eighty degrees, and the day had barely started. By noon, this place would be an oven.
"Sheriff's department," Martinez called out as he approached. "You're the one who called about a body?"
The hiker turned around. He was in his forties with a weathered face and hiking gear that looked expensive. His hands were shaking slightly. "Yeah. I was doing my morning walk and almost stepped on... on that."
Martinez followed his gesture and saw what had brought him out here.
The body lay in a crater of disturbed sand, the impact site clearly visible in the otherwise flat terrain.
Martinez had seen plenty of death in his fifteen years with the department, but this was something different.
The body had hit the ground with enough force to create a depression nearly three feet deep.
He tried to focus on that first and foremost rather than the ruined state of the body.
He approached slowly, already pulling out his phone to take photos.
He was pretty sure the victim was female based on what remained of her features.
She was wearing athletic clothing, shorts and a tank top that had been shredded by the impact and the drag across the desert floor.
A harness was still strapped around her torso and legs, the kind used for climbing or industrial work.
Strips of white material that looked like balloon remnants were tangled in the harness straps and a bit of wiring hung loose from the debris.
The injuries were catastrophic. Martinez had seen bodies from car crashes and falls from buildings, but nothing like this. Up until this very moment, the worst he’d ever seen was a suicide—a jumper that had swan dived from eighteen floors up.
But this was worse. The force of impact had broken every bone as far as he could tell.
Her limbs were bent at angles that shouldn't be possible.
The sand around the body was dark with blood that had already started to dry in the heat.
What was left of the head reminded him of pumpkins in December, discarded from porches on Halloween.
"Did you touch anything?" Martinez asked the hiker.
"No. God, no. I saw what it was and called 911 immediately."
"How long ago?"
"Maybe twenty minutes. I've been standing here making sure nobody else came across it before you arrived—or wildlife, you know?"
Martinez nodded and moved around the perimeter of the impact site, taking photos from multiple angles.
The harness was definitely not skydiving equipment.
No parachute pack, no altimeter, no reserve chute.
Just the harness and those white material strips that looked like they'd come from weather balloons if he had to make a guess. It made no sense, but that’s what it looked like.
He zoomed in on the remaining portion of the victim's face with his phone camera and took several photos despite knowing they'd be difficult to look at later. God, but it was awful. Her head had been shattered upon impact, so her eyes were…well, they weren’t where they were supposed to be.
Her mouth was frozen in what might have been a scream, but it was hard to tell because of the completely destroyed jaw.
Martinez had to turn away for a moment and take a breath.
"What do you think happened?" the hiker asked. "Some kind of skydiving accident?"
"I don't know yet. Did you see or hear anything just before you found her? Any planes or helicopters?"
"No. Nothing like that."
“You come out here often?”
“Maybe three times a month. I run the trails here. And yeah, I know I’m a little off the trail but this is sort of a shortcut and—”
When he noticed Martinez wasn’t listening anymore, the hiker went quiet.
Martinez walked a wider circle around the body, looking for any other evidence.
He found several more pieces of white material caught on Joshua trees and sage brush.
Definitely balloon fragments. Whatever had happened, the victim had been attached to balloons that failed at altitude.
Just what in God’s name she’d been doing strapped to weather balloons…
well, that seemed to be the grand-prize question.
He pulled out his phone and called the station, not quite sure how he was supposed to explain this. His sergeant answered on the second ring.
"Martinez, what have you got?"
That’s a good damned question, Martinez thought.
"Female victim in the desert about eight miles east of Palmdale.
Injuries consistent with a fall from…well, from an extreme height.
She's wearing a harness but no parachute or skydiving gear.
There are fragments of what I think might be a weather balloon at the scene. "
His sergeant was quiet for a moment. "A weather balloon?"
"Yes, sir. Looks like she was suspended from them and they burst or failed somehow."
"Is this…Jesus, is this some sort of new thing extreme sports idiots are doing now?"
"No sir, I don't think it is."
"All right,” his sergeant said with a heavy sigh. “Secure the scene and call the coroner's office. I'm going to contact the feds."
Martinez felt something cold settle in his stomach. "FBI? Why?"
"We got a bulletin last week asking to be notified about any unusual deaths that might be connected to those Elementalist cases that have been all over the news. And if you ask me, a woman suspended from weather balloons and dropped from altitude sounds pretty unusual."
"Understood. I'll wait for the coroner and FBI."
Martinez ended the call and looked back at the body in the sand.
The Elementalist cases. He'd seen the news coverage and read the bulletins.
Each killer had used a different element from the periodic table as their murder method.
He tried to remember what elements had already been used.
Oxygen, nitrogen, mercury. Others he couldn't recall.
He supposed it only made sense that something that weird and morbid would pop up near LA.
What element would this be? Helium, maybe? The gas used to fill weather balloons. Or maybe it was about atmospheric gases in general. He didn't know enough about chemistry to make an educated guess.
The hiker had moved back to his truck and was sitting in the shade of the open tailgate, drinking from a water bottle. Martinez walked over to him.
"I need you to stick around a bit longer. The FBI is going to want to talk to you."
"FBI?" The hiker's eyebrows rose. "Why would the FBI care about a hiking accident?"
Martinez didn’t want to reveal too much so he simply said, “Just…stick around, would you?”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
Martinez pulled out his phone and started typing up his initial report while the details were fresh.
Female victim, early thirties based on appearance.
Athletic build. Harness with weather balloon fragments.
Impact site consistent with terminal velocity fall from extreme altitude.
He stopped for a moment and looked up at the sky, clear and blue now that the sun had fully risen.
The victim had fallen through that sky sometime in the night.
Had she been conscious? Had she known what was happening?
Had it hurt when she hit or was it an instantaneous sort of thing?
Martinez shook his head and went back to his report. Those weren't questions he needed to answer. That was for the FBI and whoever they sent out here to take over the investigation.
All he had to do was secure the scene and wait.