Steven James - The Knight

Thursday, May 15

Bearcroft Mine

The Rocky Mountains, 40 miles west of Denver

5:19 p.m.

The sad, ripe odor of death seeped from the entrance to the abandoned mine.

Some FBI agents get used to this smell, to this moment, and after awhile it just becomes another part of the daily routine.

That’s never happened with me.

My flashlight cut a narrow seam through the darkness but gave me enough light to see that the woman was still clothed, no sign of sexual assault. Ten sturdy candles surrounded her, their flames wisping and licking at the dusty air, giving the tunnel a ghostly, otherworldly feel.

She was about ten meters away and lay as if asleep, hands on her chest. And in her hands was the reason I’d been called in.

A slowly decomposing human heart.

No sign of the second victim.

And the candles flickered around her in the dark.

Part of my duties at the FBI’s Denver field office include working with the Denver Police Department on a joint task force that investigates the most violent criminal offenders in the Denver metroplex, helping to evaluate evidence and suggest investigative strategies. Since this crime appeared to be linked to another double homicide the day before in Littleton, Lieutenant Kurt Mason had asked for my help.

But some local law enforcement officers tend to be territorial, and from the moment I’d stepped off the task force helicopter I’d seen how excited the four men from the crime scene unit were that I was here. It probably didn’t help matters that Kurt wanted me to survey the scene with him before they processed the tunnel.

The mine was barely high enough for me to stand in, and narrow enough for me to touch both sides at once. Every five to ten meters, thick beams buttressed the walls and ceiling, supporting against cave-ins.

A rusted track that had been used by miners to roll ore carts through the mine ran along the ground and disappeared into the darkness somewhere beyond the woman’s body.

As I took a few steps into the tunnel, I checked to see if my Nikes left an imprint but saw that the ground was too hard. So, it was unlikely we would have shoe impressions from the killer either.

With each step, the temperature dropped, dipping into the low forties. The time of death was still unknown, but the cool air would have slowed decomposition and helped preserve the body. The woman might have been dead for two or three days already.

One of the candles winked out.

Why did you bring her here? Why today? Why this mine?

Whose heart is that in her hands?

The voice of one of the crime scene unit members cut through the dim silence. “Yeah, Special Agent Bowers is inside. He’s taking his time.”

“I should hope so.” It was Lieutenant Mason, and I was glad he was here. He’d been on the phone since I arrived, and now I paused and waited for him to join me.

A beam of light swept past me as he turned on his flashlight, and a moment later he was standing by my side.

“Thanks for coming in on this, Pat.” He spoke in a hushed voice, a small way to honor the dead. “I know you’re leaving to teach at the Academy next week. I’m hoping-”

“I’ll consult from Quantico if I need to.”

He gave me a small nod.

Forty-one, with stylish, wire-rimmed glasses and swift intelligent eyes, Kurt looked more like an investment banker than a seasoned detective, but he was one of the best homicide investigators I’d ever met.

It’d been a hard year for him, though, and it showed on his face. Five months ago while he and his wife Cheryl were on a date, their fifteen-month-old daughter Hannah drowned in the bathtub while the babysitter was in the living room texting one of her friends. Kurt and I had only known each other for a few months when his daughter died, but I’d recently lost my wife, and in a way the sense of shared tragedy had deepened our friendship.

Silently, we donned latex gloves. Began to walk toward the woman’s body.

“Her name is Heather Fain.” His voice sounded lonely and hollow in the tunnel. “I just got the word. Disappeared from her apartment in Aurora on Monday. No one’s seen her boyfriend since then either-a guy named Chris Arlington. He was a person of interest in the case… until…” He let his voice trail off. He was staring at the heart.

I looked at Heather’s body, still five meters away, and let her name roll through my mind.

Heather.

Heather Fain.

This wasn’t just a corpse, these were tragic remains of a young woman who’d had a boyfriend and dreams and a life in Aurora, Colorado. A young woman with passions and hopes and heartaches.

Until this week.

Grief stabbed at me.

Kurt’s comment led me to think he might have reason to believe this was Chris Arlington’s heart. “Do we know the identity of the second victim?” I asked. “Whether or not it’s Chris?”

“Not yet.” An edginess took over his voice. “And I know what you’re thinking, Pat: don’t assume, examine. Don’t worry. I will.”

“I know.”

“We have to start somewhere.”

I focused the beam of light on the heart. “Yes, we do.”

Together, we approached the body.

The candles gave off a scent of vanilla that intermingled with the smell of moldering flesh and the sharp sulfurous odor coming from deeper in the mine. I wondered if the candles were the killer’s way of trying to mask the smell of the body as it began to decay, wondered where he might have purchased them, how long they’d been burning.

Details.

Timing.

“I should tell you,” Kurt said, “Captain Terrell’s not thrilled this is going through the task force. He wants it local law enforcement all the way.”

“Thanks for the heads-up.” Even from three meters away I could see the heart’s intricate, fleshy veins. “We’ll deal with that later.”

We arrived at Heather’s body.

Caucasian. Mid-twenties, medium build, dusty brown hair. Fresh lipstick. I pictured her alive, moving, breathing, laughing. Based on the bone structure of her face, she would have had a lovely, shy smile.

Her skin was mottled and blotchy and there’d been minor insect activity, but the cool temperature had kept it to a minimum.

I studied the heart for a moment-reddish black and clutched in her hands. It looked so dark and terrible lying on her chest.

Then I let my gaze shift to the candles. Over the years I’ve found that having a clear understanding of a crime’s timing and location is the most important place to start an investigation. I looked at my watch and then blew out the five candles encircling her legs. “Jot down 5:28 p.m.”

Kurt wrote the numbers on his notepad. “Wax flow?”

“Yes.” Later, we would have Forensics burn this brand of candle at this altitude and this temperature and compare the melting rate and amount of wax flow to determine how long these candles had been burning. It would tell us when the killer was last here. I didn’t need to tell Kurt any of this; we were on the same wavelength.

I studied the position of the body in relationship to the way the tunnel curved to the left as it followed the vein of minerals winding through the mountain. It appeared that Heather’s body hadn’t been placed haphazardly in the mine. The killer had centered her between two support beams.

He wanted us to see her as soon as we stepped into the mine. He’s framing her. Like a picture.

“Just a few more minutes,” Kurt said, jarring me out of my thoughts. “Then I need to let the CSU guys in.”

I leaned over her body.

Her eyes were closed.

No visible body art.