Too Close to Home (18 page)

It was difficult to know when the huge section of ravine wall had collapsed, but the tumble of jagged rock—easily double Chad’s height at its peak—cut the width of the ravine by more than a third. From the base of that rock pile, Chad spotted what looked like little more than a heap of dirty rags.

I was lighter and more sure-footed than he was so, despite his objections, I climbed up solo to take a closer look. Stretched as far as I could to shove my fingers into a narrow gap between rocks, found a narrow ledge where I could step up with my right boot, then levered myself upward. Found a place to wedge my left boot, stretched to find the next handhold, and moved upward again. Until I was just able to look across the top of the rock mound.

I looked into a face long dead. One that still sported a fringe of curly, close-cropped beard and a parchment face with a third eye in the center of the forehead.

“Got another one,” I called down to Chad, amazed at how quickly the macabre had become almost commonplace. “If the bullet hadn’t killed him, the fall certainly would have.”

Once back on the ground, I joined Chad in tying bright loops of crime-scene tape around a few large rocks. A reminder that another victim had been discovered here. As we worked, we did a head count. Literally.

“There was a head on the one back by the cave,” Chad observed. “You found a skull in the tree.”

“And the bearded guy up there.”

“The one by the sandbar? Do you think the body’s intact?”

Briefly, I thought about the shape and length of the mound on either side of the exposed rib cage.

“Yeah, I suspect it is.”

“Four victims for sure, then,” Chad murmured, tying off a
final knot in the ribbon of plastic. “Five counting the Jane Doe on the ledge.”

As our eyes met, I nodded, agreeing.

“All within a few hundred yards of each other,” I said.

If I hadn’t been looking right at him just then, I doubt I would have seen the flash of emotion, quickly hidden. But in that moment, I saw a reflection of my own feelings. Unexpected feelings that had nothing to do with love or lust.

You know you’re a cop if…discovering a killing field excites you.

A
n old skeleton didn’t get much attention.

Four more victims found in the same area of the forest did. Especially when their remains were discovered in multiple jurisdictions. Most especially when two turned up on federal land.

Within a few hours of Chad’s call to dispatch, representatives from all of those jurisdictions held a joint press conference. Me, still in blue jeans and a grubby pink shirt, representing the Maryville PD. Chad’s politically savvy boss speaking for Hardin County but having Chad—in his jeans and grubby
orange
shirt—stand by his side. Joining us was a middle-aged man in a city suit and a Harvard haircut who looked more like a Beltway politician than the FBI agent he was. When he’d arrived at Camp Cadiz from Chicago, he’d taken just enough time to be briefed by a field agent—and to learn that two more bodies had just been discovered—before organizing a press conference.

Guarded barricades had been set up to limit access to Camp Cadiz and the forest beyond. One such barricade and several uniformed county deputies confined the press—its cars and satellite trucks and camera operators and reporters—to a corner of the gravel lot. As we approached the press area, reporters with microphones in their hands and camera operators hanging over their shoulders swarmed like locusts. They pressed themselves against the wooden barricade, leaning hungrily forward, shouting questions.

A tall man near the front of the crowd craned his head to look at the laminated ID hanging around the FBI agent’s neck.

“Agent…Franklin! What’s the body count so far?”

Agent Franklin, with an air of long experience, didn’t answer. Instead, he planted himself about six feet from the reporters on the police side of the barricade. Then he gestured for the county sheriff—a beefy middle-aged man with a comb-over hairdo—to stand beside him. Once Chad and I joined the lineup, Agent Franklin lifted a hand. His frown and the force of his personality quieted the babble of voices.

Only then did he speak.

“This investigation is in its earliest stages so it would be premature for me to comment on specifics. Except to say that, at this point, we have recovered a total of seven bodies in a very limited area where federal, Hardin County, and—”

Here he hesitated.

“Maryville,” I murmured.

“—Maryville jurisdictions intersect. The state of Illinois is also providing invaluable technical assistance in this endeavor. So this will be a cooperative, multi-agency investigation.”

That sounded good. But
cooperative,
I’d quickly realized, didn’t leave me with much. Small-town cops were rarely viewed as equal partners. And a rookie female cop from a one-
person department was doubly cursed. Even my expertise in search and rescue was trumped by the arrival of a large, well-equipped and tightly organized state-police team. Bottom line, I had no leverage. Because I’d insisted, I was still at the scene, still formally “in the loop.” But I didn’t delude myself. I wasn’t needed for what Agent Franklin referred to as a “full-fledged investigation.” And if I spoke, the odds were against anyone listening.

Under different circumstances, I would have complained bitterly to Chad. But his situation was worse than mine. He had already been informed by his boss, the county sheriff, that right after the press conference he was to take the rest of the afternoon off and return to his regular patrol duties the next day. The sheriff’s explanation for Chad’s banishment was amazingly straightforward. He was an elected official, and no matter how competent Chad was—no matter how much the sheriff liked him personally—this case was too important to the outcome of his upcoming reelection bid to be left in the hands of a young deputy.

As the FBI spokesman spent a bit of time talking about the Bureau’s success rate on cases just like these and made another mention of the value of interdepartmental cooperation, the sheriff ran his fingers over his balding dome to re-plaster long strands of very black hair back into place and then ran those same fingers beneath his nose to neaten his salt-and-pepper mustache.

“And now Jake Hargrove, sheriff of Hardin County, will make some comments.”

At that introduction, Sheriff Hargrove straightened his shoulders and puffed out his burly chest. Then, very deliberately, he stepped forward just enough to put Agent Franklin behind his left shoulder. And smiled for the cameras.

“First, I want to congratulate Hardin County deputy Chad Robinson and Maryville police officer Brooke Tyler for the fine work they’ve done. Their initiative brought these murders to light. Deputy Robinson characterizes the kind of dedicated officer who protects and serves the citizens of Hardin County. And I know that all the fine folks who live in Maryville are particularly proud of this feisty little hometown gal of theirs.”

That’s when he reached over and put his arm around my shoulders to pull me in closer to him. He held that pose long enough to give the still photographers from the local newspapers a good shot of the two of us. I smiled into the cameras, knowing darned well that the sheriff was using me to cultivate my town’s voters. But I was all too aware that continued goodwill between my department and the county was essential. Which, I supposed, made me just as political as the sheriff.

Released from the sheriff’s avuncular embrace, I stepped back out of the limelight as he kept speaking.

“I also want to take this opportunity to assure local residents that they’re in absolutely no danger. I can’t compromise an ongoing investigation, but I can say that early indications suggest some kind of a connection with organized crime.”

That statement earned him a repressive glare from Agent Franklin. But the sheriff had his back to Agent Franklin, so he continued heedlessly on.

“The murders sure have the look of mob executions.”

At that point, Agent Franklin pushed forward.

“The sheriff and I have a lot of work to do,” he said smoothly. “So we’ll take a few questions before wrapping this up.”

That’s when, much to my surprise and—I was certain—the sheriff and Agent Franklin’s dismay, a female reporter turned the press’s attention to me.

“Hey, Brooke,” she said, “aren’t you the one with the search dogs?”

I nodded. “I am.”

“You and your dog discovered a skeleton out here a few days ago, didn’t you? While you were looking for a lost toddler?”

I nodded again, adding that the child had been found safely and returned to her parents.

Another reporter chimed in, a thin guy with an aggressive chin.

“Hey, I remember you!”

In that moment, I remembered him, too. Remembered how he’d shoved his microphone into my face, demanding to know how I felt about finding a little boy’s body. As if my tears hadn’t said it all.

“Didn’t you find a murdered kid right around here, too? About a year ago? Are all these murders somehow connected?”

Well, all the victims are dead, I thought sarcastically. But I kept my face bland and my voice neutral when I answered.

“The child’s body was discovered near a residential area, there was a history of domestic abuse, and the boy’s father confessed to his murder. So no, I don’t think they’re related.”

Then Agent Franklin announced that the interviews were done and that the next official news conference would be tomorrow morning at nine.

I turned my back on the camera and walked back across the length of Camp Cadiz, knowing that I’d only answered half the reporter’s question. I, too, wondered how—and if—the murder I’d uncovered days earlier was tied into the bodies in the ravine.

Mowed areas of grass marked each of the campsites at Camp Cadiz. Beyond the outhouse, on the far side of the
campground, were two adjacent campsites. That was where the human remains brought up from the ravine were laid out on plastic tarps. A stand of trees and the stone foundation of an old Civilian Conservation Corps building shielded the makeshift morgue area from the curious eyes of the press and a gathering crowd of spectators. Not surprisingly, word of the murders—like every other piece of bad news that surfaced in Hardin County—had spread quickly.

Though it was hours from sunset and the afternoon sun beat down on the unshaded field, battery-powered light stands already ringed the grassy morgue area. Similar lights were also among the equipment that had been lowered down into the ravine along with a small army of crime-scene techs and forensic investigators. With the resources of the FBI driving it, this investigation wasn’t going to be interrupted by sunset. Or limited by lack of equipment or personnel.

The weather, I thought, was the only element they couldn’t control. I’d mentioned that to the first investigators arriving on the scene. Mentioned how quickly the shallow stream could be turned into a raging torrent. The kind of torrent that had already scattered body parts down the length of the ravine. Since then, a portable weather radio had arrived on the scene. Now periodic National Weather Service announcements echoed across the campground, reinforcing my warning, spurring the investigation into high gear. Severe thunderstorms were predicted for tomorrow afternoon. Flooding was likely in low-lying areas. And nothing, I thought, was lower-lying than the bottom of the ravine.

The perimeter of the morgue area was marked with crime-scene tape. A single opening, on the side nearest the River-to-River Trail, was monitored by a woman dressed in a short-sleeved blouse and khaki slacks with a badge and ID
hanging from a cord around her neck. She was also in charge of a nearby bulletin board on which a blown-up section of Chad’s topographical map had been mounted. Bright colored pushpins, each with a number, dotted the map, indicating where remains had been found. The pushpins were keyed to numbered plastic triangles placed on a corner of each of the tarps.

I looked over the double row of tarps then back at the map, my eyes lingering on a lemon-yellow pushpin. Number one. There was no corresponding tarp for that pin because the remains that Possum and I had found were already at the state’s forensics lab. Thinking back to that night, I now wondered about Possum’s reaction. When he’d whined and tucked his tail down, he probably hadn’t been reacting just to the remains on the ledge, but to the odor of decaying bodies wafting up from the depths of the ravine. Overlaying the scent of a little girl who was very much alive. And still Possum had managed to stay on task and find Tina.

I moved slowly around the perimeter of the morgue area, pausing often to watch what was going on while trying to stay out of the way of the people who scurried back and forth despite the heat. Only one edge of the campsite was shaded by trees, so the technicians worked in the beating afternoon sun. And most of them were dressed for air-conditioned labs.

As I stood nearby, several grubby searchers arrived with more remains. After consulting briefly with them, the woman in the khaki slacks pointed to the next empty sheet. She added pin number fourteen to the board. A police photographer documented the fourteenth body just as he had every new addition to the sheets.

Other workers—some wearing lab coats, some in civilian clothing, and all wearing latex gloves—bent over particular piles. A few concentrated on the bits of clothing and personal
effects salvaged from the kill sites and placed in bags that were also numbered. Most were carefully arranging bones, creating incomplete jigsaw skeletons with a few ribs and a jaw bone and a shattered hand. Or a femur, a pelvis and bits of spine. Or matching forearms, one with a fingerless hand still attached.

The collections on each tarp, I knew, had been found in geographic proximity to each other. But it would take DNA testing to match all the pieces that had been scattered over longer distances by scavengers and the stream.

Every intact skull I saw had a ragged hole at the back of the head.

“Execution style,” I overheard a nearby county cop say. “Stand ’em up or kneel ’em on the edge. Put the gun up near their head. Then—” he pointed at one of the skulls with his right index finger and jerked his thumb upward “—bang. A quick push and you’re done.”

That, I thought, explained the sheriff’s off-the-cuff comment to the media. He probably figured the ravine for a dryland equivalent of a pair of cement overshoes. Certainly, the Shawnee National Forest could be as impenetrable as the deepest lake. And a bullet to the brain was just as permanent as drowning.

I looked back down at the remains nearest my feet. A single item on a corner sheet. It was the cap of a skull, the bone still half covered with skin, soil clumping the hair, making the color impossible to determine. And on the sheet beside that, a pair of femurs, their heads tucked in next to the hip sockets they fit in, looked almost porous and polished clean.

I waylaid one of the FBI technicians, a younger guy with a pleasant face whom I’d noticed earlier. Then, he’d been standing off to one side, staring over the bodies laid out before him, looking more than a little overwhelmed. Now, he was
moving efficiently along the perimeter, dividing his attention between two incessantly squawking walkie-talkies.

I managed to catch him in a moment when he wasn’t talking into either.

“This has been done over a lot of years, hasn’t it?” I said.

He hesitated as he searched for my ID, then noticed the Maryville PD badge I’d retrieved from my SUV and clipped to my waist.

“Oh, you’re the one who got this circus started. You and your partner.”

No point in telling him that Chad wasn’t my partner.

“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry about that.”

“You should be,” he said, suddenly grinning. “To answer your question
unofficially,
some of these bodies may have been down there for twenty years or more. But a couple of them—like number six over there—are a lot more recent. Maybe just a few months old.”

One of the walkie-talkies crackled to life, demanding his attention.

I mouthed a “thank you,” carefully kept the relief I felt from showing in my expression, and left him to his work.

These murders, I thought, had nothing to do with my sister, nothing to do with the secret that had prompted her to threaten me. This place was someone’s killing field—someone’s dumping ground—when Katie and I had still been children. Maybe even before we’d been born. And it was too much of a coincidence to believe that the remains I’d found on the ledge were unrelated to the bodies down in the ravine. As the search progressed, I was confident that other victims would be discovered along the edge of the ravine.