Consumed (8 page)

The chief deputy said nothing.

“Is the forensics guy here?” I asked.

“Not yet,” Whissell said.

“What are we looking at? Same?” I asked.

“It looks like it,” the guy in the lab coat said. “Excuse me for a moment.”

No one replied. The guy walked for his van and opened the back.

Whissell nodded to his deputy and pointed at the tarp. “Show them,” he said.

The deputy took a few steps toward it, and Beth and I followed. I noticed an evidence cone on the edge of the road to my right. We continued to the body.

The deputy knelt next to the remains and drew the tarp back while looking back up at us, seemingly trying not to view what was beneath. He had a square jaw, matching the shape of his haircut. His shoulders were thick, yet he didn’t appear overweight. I chalked the guy up to have been raised on a local farm somewhere. I caught his nameplate on his shirt: Washington.

My eyes went to the remains. A dark-haired woman lay flat on her back, facing the sky. She had a wound dead center in her forehead that was two inches wide and a quarter of an inch across, which wasn’t consistent with bodies found prior. Her eyes were glazed over, her throat opened wide. Though the tarp was only pulled down to her chest, in addition to the lack of arms, I could see multiple stab wounds.

I rubbed my nose and coughed. The smell coming off the woman was thick. “This is how she was found?” I asked.

Deputy Washington nodded his head. “Exactly as is. I found a little blood up on the street that I marked off.”

“Okay.” I turned away and looked at Whissell. “What’s our time frame on forensics?”

“Any minute,” he said. Whissell crossed his arms over his round chest. He wore the same outfit as he had the day prior—a white sheriff’s-department shirt with black pockets and a black tie. He reached up with his right hand and scratched the side of his white beard. His eyes showed anger.

“Done looking?” the deputy named Washington asked.

I nodded.

“I’ll show you where I found that blood.” He lay the tarp back over the body and walked back toward the coroner’s van. He stopped at the evidence cone at the edge of the road and pointed down. “Looks like she may have lay there for a bit—like she was pulled out of a trunk and dropped to the street or something. There’s no drag marks through the gravel at the shoulder here, so I’m guessing she was carried off to the side of the road.”

“Anything else stand out at you?” Beth asked him.

“Not really, I tried looking for footprints but didn’t see anything. Same goes for anything resembling evidence—a cigarette butt, separate drip of blood, any kind of paper or trash—nothing, though.”

While his not finding anything could be seen as a letdown, the fact that he described actually doing some police work to locate evidence was a bit refreshing.

“That’s all we have over here,” he said.

“Thanks,” I said.

Beth, Deputy Washington and I walked back to Tom and the chief deputy.

The deputy walked to Whissell’s side and asked what the chief deputy wanted in the report, and Whissell responded that he’d handle it. The conversation struck me as odd. As far as I knew, chief deputies didn’t typically show up to crime scenes, and I doubted they wrote up the reports on them. I pushed the thought away—maybe he was just trying to do his part to help.

“Nothing found with the woman?” I asked.

“You’re looking at what was found,” Whissell said.

“Who called it in?” Beth asked.

The chief deputy pointed up the road toward an older white house on the left side of the road, maybe a quarter mile up. “Homeowner there,” he said.

“Someone talk to him yet?” Beth asked.

“I did,” Washington said. “I got the call to come and check it out. Spoke with him when I arrived.”

“And?” Beth asked.

“He saw the remains as he was leaving for work, called it in, turned around, and waited until I arrived. I got a statement from him, checked the guy out, and then let him get off to work. He had a clean sheet—Army recruiter in Clarksville. Not too much there.”

“Okay,” I said. “What do we know about the other scene?”

“Haven’t been there, but I’m guessing it looks the same as this one—body at the side of the road,” Whissell said.

The sound of tires crunching the gravel at the shoulder of the road caught my ear. I turned to see a white sedan pulling up behind Beth’s rental car. A man wearing a white coat stepped from the driver’s side, took a box from the backseat, and approached us.

“This is our forensics guy,” the chief deputy said.

The man stopped at Beth’s side and looked over toward the tarp and then at us. He was average in height and weight and appeared in his midthirties. His hair was red with a few specks of gray on the sides—a goatee wrapped his mouth in the same colors. His face was thin, his skin fair.

“I’m Agent Harper,” Beth said. She pointed at me standing next to her and then past me at Tom. “These are Agents Hank Rawlings and Tom Clifford.”

“Um, hi. Dave McElroy,” he said. He reached out and shook our hands. “So what have we got?”

“Female. Arms and legs removed. Stabbed, throat cut,” I said.

“So the same as the others I’ve been looking at all week?”

“Appears so,” I said.

“Sure.” Dave turned his attention to the chief deputy. “Has the scene been altered at all?”

Whissell shook his head. “No one touched anything other than laying down the tarp.”

“Okay.” He looked back at Beth, Tom, and me. “Let me get on a pair of gloves, snap some photos, and then I’ll look at the remains to see if I can tell you anything.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

Tom nodded.

Dave from forensics went about getting his things set.

“Excuse me, I need to make a call,” the chief deputy said. He rounded the front of the sheriff’s SUV and got inside.

Beth, Tom and I watched as Dave began to take his photographs of the scene.

Dave had been photographing the remains and surrounding areas for the better part of fifteen minutes. The man from Nashville Medical Science, who we learned was named Jeff, was assisting Dave to roll over the remains so he could get a few photos of the woman’s injuries from behind. As soon as Dave had finished, Jeff said he would load the body and they both would head over to the next dump site with us to repeat the process.

Beth had called back to Ball to give him an update and see if they had come up with anything regarding the family of Owen Matheson—so far, they hadn’t.

Beth, Tom, and I leaned against the side of Tom’s government-issued cruiser. The plan to head into Nashville and speak with the local police hadn’t changed though it had been added to. We planned to take them photos of each deceased woman that we didn’t have a positive ID for. We assumed them all to be Nashville prostitutes, which meant the women were more than likely in the system. Dave said he would e-mail me photos of the two women we were in the process of viewing. I called back to Dr. Nehls, who said he would supply me with the same for the unknown woman from earlier in the week as well as the female we’d viewed the night prior.

“We might have something here!” Dave called. He waved us toward him at the body.

Tom, Beth, and I went over.

“What did you find?” Tom asked.

“Well, we were rolling her to see if the knife wound to the forehead penetrated the skull, which by the way, takes some serious energy to remove a knife after doing something like this.”

“What does that mean?” Beth asked.

“Just that penetrating the skull is one thing, but removing a knife after you do is something else entirely. The brain makes a suction effect on the blade.”

The thought sent a shiver up my back.

“Continue. What did you find?” I asked.

“Her hair came away from behind her ear as we rolled her. She has the same tattoo as the girl I looked at yesterday. It’s a—”

“Moon and stars?” I asked.

He looked over at me. “You know what I’m talking about?”

“Yeah, I saw it on the woman’s remains yesterday.” I took another step toward him and placed my hands on my knees as I bent over to get a better view. The woman had the identical crescent-moon-and-star tattoo behind her ear.

“What do you make of that?” Dave asked.

“Well, either they are connected, or it’s about the most ridiculous coincidence in the world. Odds say they are connected.” I looked at Chief Deputy Whissell, who was leaning against the side of his sheriff’s SUV, seemingly not interested in doing anything other than observing. His face still showed annoyance. “Know anything about moon-and-star tattoos on women around here?” I asked.

He shook his head. “You sure they’re the same?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Dave turned toward the chief deputy. “I agree. They are the same.”

“Well, we’ll have to find out what it means, I guess.” He went quiet after the comment.

I shook my head at his disinterest, unable to figure out why he was even there. “You have photos of everything, Dave?”

“Yeah, I’m through. I’m just going to give Jeff here a hand loading her up, and it’s on to the next one.”

“Okay,” I said. “Can you send a photo of her face and a photo of the tattoo to my e-mail? I’ll need them to show the Nashville PD when we head out there.”

“Sure,” he said.

I gave him my e-mail address.

Tom, Beth, and I left them to load the remains, and we headed back toward Tom’s car. I looked at him. “Tom, you said you’ve known the chief deputy for a while. Is he always like this?” I asked.

“Like what?”

“Just seems like he doesn’t care about this,” I said.

“Nah. Normally, he’s pretty straightforward. I just think it’s the fact that he’s not in charge of this that has him all pissy. Either that or he had to come in on a Saturday. I don’t know—you have to think it makes him look bad that this is happening in his jurisdiction and someone else had to come in to handle it. I noticed what you’re saying, though.”

“I’m going to make contact with the Nashville PD. If these women were both from Nashville and both had the same tattoo, maybe it means something. We also need to get ourselves a contact there for when we stop by.” I glanced at my watch—a bit past nine. I figured a noon meeting with them sounded about right. I pulled out my phone, searched the number, and dialed.

“Nashville Police Department. Is this an emergency?” a woman asked.

“No, ma’am. My name is Agent Rawlings with the FBI. We’re over here in the Clarksville area, investigating a number of homicides. We’re looking to stop by your station this afternoon and meet with someone regarding our investigation. We believe there to be a connection between the two cities.”

“Okay, did you want someone in homicide?”

“A captain or lieutenant, ideally,” I said.

“Sure. One moment. I’ll put you through to Captain Munro.”

“Thank you.”

I heard a click in my ear, followed by music, followed by ringing.

“Captain Ken Munro,” a man answered.

“Hello. Agent Hank Rawlings with the FBI. We’re out here in Clarksville, investigating these torso murders. Are you familiar?”

“Unfortunately,” he said.

“Okay. Well, we have a connection with the victims and Nashville. We’d like to stop into your station today and discuss what we have. We also believe these victims to be prostitutes in your area there. Ideally, if we had someone there familiar with that, it would be helpful. We’ll bring some photos.”

“Sure. You’re with the local FBI there?” he asked.

“No. Another agent and I were sent in from Manassas, Virginia. We’re in the serial crimes unit, homicide.”

“Specialists.”

“It’s our job,” I said.

“All right. Tell you what, let me get on the horn with a few people here and see what we can come up with as far as putting a little meeting together. You said you wanted to do this today. What time were you thinking?”

“Noon or so?”

“Um, I have something already on the books at noon. One o’clock works.”

“Perfect,” I said.

“And you said Agent Rawlings?”

“Yes. There will probably be three of us. Agents Hank Rawlings, Beth Harper, and a local agent, Tom Clifford.”

“Got it. I’ll make some calls, and we’ll see what we can come up with.”

“Appreciate it. One more thing, while I have you on the line. We have two victims with matching tattoos. The tattoo looks like a crescent moon with a couple of stars, located behind their ears. Does that ring a bell with you at all?”

“Can’t say it does off the top of my head,” he said. “I’ll ask around the station and see if it does with anyone else, though.”

“Great. Just ask for you when we arrive, then?”

“Yeah. Captain Munro.”

I pulled my notepad out, pinched my phone between my shoulder and ear and wrote down the captain’s name. “Okay. We’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Yup,” he said and clicked off.

I put my phone back in my pants pocket and my notepad inside the inner pocket of my suit jacket.

“Nashville PD is going to meet with us?” Beth asked.

“One o’clock,” I said.

“That should give us plenty of time at the next scene and enough time to maybe grab a bite to eat on the way back out to Nashville,” she said.

“You’re ready to eat after looking at what we just looked at?” Tom asked.

“A girl’s gotta eat,” she said.

I shrugged.

“Looks like they’re loaded up,” Tom said.

Dave was heading back toward us and said a few words to Chief Deputy Whissell as he passed. He stopped at the side of Tom’s car. “We’re ready to head over to the next spot if you are.”

“Yup. Let’s do it,” Beth said.

Whissell’s SUV pulled from the line of cars and headed down the road.

“Is the chief deputy meeting us there?” I asked.

“He said he had to get back to the station,” Dave said. “He just wanted me to let him know what we found at the next scene when I get back.”

“Okay. Do you know where we’re headed?”

“Yeah, I have the area already on my GPS. You guys just want to follow me over there?”

“Sure,” I said. “Lead the way.”

He walked toward his car.