Blake Pierce: Once Gone

The road was nothing more than parallel tire tracks through the woods. The killer had almost certainly driven here along it. He had carried the body the short distance along a narrow path to this spot, arranged it, and left. He wouldn’t have stayed long. Even though the area looked out of the way, rangers patrolled through here regularly and private cars weren’t supposed to be on this road. He had wanted the body to be found. He was proud of his work.

And it had been found by a couple of early-morning horseback riders. Tourists on rented horses, the ranger had told Bill. They were vacationers from Arlington, staying at a fake Western ranch just outside of Yarnell. The ranger had said that they were a little hysterical now. They’d been told not to leave town, and Bill planned to talk to them later.

There seemed to be absolutely nothing out of place in the area around the body. The guy had been very careful. He’d dragged something behind him when he’d returned from the creek – a shovel, maybe – to obscure his own footprints. No scraps of anything left intentionally or accidentally. Any tire prints on the road had likely been obliterated by the cop car and coroner’s wagon.

Bill sighed to himself.

Damn it , he thought. Where’s Riley when I need her?

His longtime partner and best friend was on involuntary leave, recovering from the trauma of their last case. Yes, that had been a nasty one. She needed the time off, and the truth be told, she might not ever come back.

But he really needed her now. She was a lot smarter than Bill, and he didn’t mind admitting it. He loved watching her mind at work. He pictured her picking away at this scene, detail by minuscule detail. By now she’d be teasing him for all the painfully glaring clues that had been staring him in the face.

What would Riley see here that Bill didn’t?

He felt stumped, and he didn’t like the feeling. But there wasn’t anything more he could do about it now.

“Okay, guys,” Bill called out to the cops. “Take the body away.”

The cops laughed and gave each other high-fives.

“Do you think he’ll do it again?” Spelbren asked.

“I’m sure of it,” Bill said.

“How do you know?”

Bill took a long deep breath.

“Because I’ve seen his work before.”

“It got worse for her every day,” Sam Flores said, bringing up another horrific image on the huge multimedia display looming above the conference table. “Right up to when he finished her off.”

Bill had guessed as much, but he hated to be right.

The Bureau had flown the body to the BAU in Quantico, forensics technicians had taken photos, and the lab had started all the tests. Flores, a lab technician with black-rimmed glasses, ran the grisly slide show, and the gigantic screens were a forbidding presence in the BAU conference room.

“How long was she dead before the body was found?” Bill asked.

“Not long,” he replied. “Maybe early evening before.”

Beside Bill sat Spelbren, who had flown into Quantico with him after they’d left Yarnell. At the head of the table sat Special Agent Brent Meredith, the team chief. Meredith cut a daunting presence with his broad frame, his black, angular features, and his no-nonsense face. Not that Bill was intimidated by him – far from it. He liked to think that they had a lot in common. They were both seasoned veterans, and had both seen it all.

Flores flashed a series of close-ups of the victim’s wounds.

“The wounds on the left were inflicted early on,” he said. “Those on the right are more recent, some inflicted hours or even minutes before he strangled her with the ribbon. He seems to have gotten progressively more violent during the week or so that he held her captive. Breaking her arm might have been the last thing he did while she was still alive.”

“The wounds look like the work of one perpetrator to me,” Meredith observed. “Judging from the mounting level of aggression, probably male. What else have you got?”

“From the light stubble on her scalp, we’re guessing her head was shaved two days before she was killed,” Flores continued. “The wig was stitched together with pieces of other wigs, all cheap. The contact lenses were probably mail order. And one more thing,” he said, looking around at the faces, hesitant. “He covered her with Vaseline.”

Bill could feel the tension in the room thicken.

“Vaseline?” he asked.

Flores nodded.

“Why?” Spelbren asked.

Flores shrugged.

“That’s your job,” he replied.

Bill thought about the two tourists he’d interviewed yesterday. They had been no help at all, torn between morbid curiosity and the edge of panic at what they had seen. They were eager to get back home to Arlington and there hadn’t been any reason to detain them. They had been interviewed by every officer on hand. And they’d been duly cautioned to say nothing about what they’d seen.

Meredith exhaled and laid both palms on the table.

“Good work, Flores,” Meredith said.

Flores looked grateful for the praise – and maybe a bit surprised. Brent Meredith wasn’t given to making compliments.

“Now Agent Jeffreys,” Meredith turned to him, “brief us on how this relates to your old case.”

Bill took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair.

“A little over six months ago,” he began, “on December sixteenth, actually – the body of Eileen Rogers was found on a farm near Daggett. I got called in to investigate, along with my partner, Riley Paige. The weather was extremely cold, and the body was frozen solid. It was hard to tell how long it had been left there, and the time of death was never exactly determined. Flores, show them.”

Flores turned back to the slide show. The screen split and alongside the images on the screen, a new series of images appeared. The two victims were displayed side by side. Bill gasped. It was amazing. Aside from the frozen flesh of the one body, the corpses were in almost the same condition, the wounds nearly identical. Both women had their eyes stitched open in the same, hideous manner.

Bill sighed, the images bringing it all back. No matter how many years he was on the force, seeing each victim pained him.

“Rogers’s body was found seated upright against a tree,” Bill continued, his voice more grim. “Not quite as carefully posed as the one at Mosby Park. No contact lenses or Vaseline, but most of the other details are the same. Rogers’s hair was chopped short, not shaved, but there was a similar patched-together wig. She was also strangled with a pink ribbon, and a fake rose was found in front of her.”

Bill paused for a moment. He hated what he had to say next.

“Paige and I couldn’t crack the case.”

Spelbren turned to him.

“What was the problem?” he asked.

“What wasn’t the problem?” Bill countered, unnecessarily defensive. “We couldn’t get a single break. We had no witnesses; the victim’s family couldn’t give us any useful information; Rogers had no enemies, no ex-husband, no angry boyfriend. There wasn’t a single good reason for her to be targeted and killed. The case went cold immediately.”

Bill fell silent. Dark thoughts flooded his brain.

“Don’t,” Meredith said in an uncharacteristically gentle tone. “It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have stopped the new killing.”

Bill appreciated the kindness, but he felt guilty as hell. Why couldn’t he have cracked it before? Why couldn’t Riley? There were very few times in his career he had been so stumped.

At that moment, Meredith’s phone buzzed, and the chief took the call.

Almost the first thing he said was, “Shit.”