Beverly Connor - The Night Killer

The visible tissue was only partially decomposed. It appeared the bodies were drying out, rather than putrefying the way they would if they were lying exposed in the woods. The air of the cave was drier than outside and the biota was different, which made the decaying process different. The body on top was lying facedown over the other one. The long honey blond hair made it appear to be female, but you never knew. She or he was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. The body on bottom lay faceup and appeared to be male.

Diane and Neva shined their lights around the floor, looking for anything that might have fallen with the bodies. Nothing showed itself on a preliminary search. They split up and started a grid-pattern search of the cave floor.

It wasn’t a large cavern, not much bigger than the entrance room. There was breakdown littering the floor, and the walls and roof were much the same as they’d seen so far. Diane noted with dismay that the room at one time had a few stalactites and stalagmites. Most had been broken off and carried away, probably as souvenirs. A few were still lying broken on the floor of the cave, along with several vintage beer and soda cans. Diane and Neva collected and bagged every item they came across that was not native to the cave.

“Someone tried to build a fire,” said Neva. “I wonder how that worked out for them? Where did they expect the smoke to go?” She poked around in the burned charcoal and wood. “Nothing obvious here. I’ll bag it.”

Neva continued around the room and found an old piece of rope about three feet long that looked as if it had been down there for years. Diane found several candy wrappers that also looked old.

She shined the light around the walls and saw what she expected-graffiti. This wasn’t a difficult cave to traverse to this point, and over the years people had visited it who didn’t have the respect for caves that Diane and her fellow cavers had.

Mostly, the graffiti consisted of names and dates. Some of it dated from the 1930s. Someone announced that they lost their virginity here in 1978. From her current vantage point Diane could see three graduation announcements: 1946, 1958, and 1978. She and Neva photographed the walls and the graffiti.

“Look at this,” said Neva. “I wonder if it’s the same person we know.”

Diane walked over and looked at Neva’s find.

L. Conrad was here, 1974 , it read.

“Well, how about that? Interesting,” said Diane. “The date would be about right for his high school graduation.”

After finishing with the walls, they turned their attention to the bodies. Before anything was touched, Neva photographed them from several angles.

Diane and Neva slipped off their caving gloves, put on latex gloves, and turned the first body over. It wasn’t the dried flesh of their faces that was so startling about the two bodies. What Diane and Neva noticed first was that their throats had been cut from ear to ear.

“Wow. What do you make of that?” asked Neva, squatting to have a closer look at the wounds.

“Wow is right,” said Diane, crouching opposite her. “I didn’t expect this.”

The wounds in both victims were similar in length and depth and they looked exactly like the long, deep wounds to the Barres and Watsons.

Neva looked over at the handwriting on the wall. “He knew about this cave,” she said.

“He did, didn’t he? If it’s the same L. Conrad that we know,” she added.

“We could match the handwriting,” Neva said. “It would have changed over time, but we could find early samples, like in an old yearbook, maybe, or from some old legal documents from his early days as sheriff.”

Diane nodded as she studied the wounds. “We could,” said Diane.

She was looking at the neck wounds. Evidence of flies was still in the wounds. “These two were outside before they were put here,” said Diane. “David can tell us how long.”

Diane retrieved the body bags. She and Neva lifted the first body-the female-and put her in the black bag. It was then that Diane noticed the charm bracelet on the victim’s right wrist. Diane took the bracelet off the body and put it in a clear evidence bag. Neva zipped up the body bag.

The two of them did the same grim task for the other body, a male. They tied a rope harness on each bag for Mike to pull them up with the pulley system he had constructed while they were searching the cavern room.

They examined the cave floor under the bodies. Nothing.

“I was hoping for a note or a driver’s license,” said Neva.

“It was certainly very helpful when the remains we found in that cave a year ago had the diary with them,” agreed Diane.

The two of them collected their evidence bags-the contents of which they were sure would turn out to be years of trash from all the graffiti artists-and hoisted them up along with the crime scene kit. The last thing Diane did was to record the temperature of the cave. Hector and Scott’s work might very well help pinpoint a time of death in these bodies-possibly within a couple of days or even a few hours. Diane and Neva climbed up the rope to join Mike. He collected his bolts and pulleys and re-coiled the rope.

“The bodies have lost a lot of their weight,” said Neva. “Could we stack one on top of the other and save ourselves a trip? You and I can carry the bodies and Mike can carry the equipment.”

Mike nodded. “We can switch out if it turns out the bodies are too heavy,” he said.

Diane agreed and she and Neva stacked the bodies, tied a rope around them, and gave them a test lift.

“Not too bad,” said Neva. “We don’t have a long way to go. We can do it.”

They retraced their steps to the first chamber of the cave. Mike slithered out first, put down the gear, turned, and helped pull the bodies through. Diane came out after the bodies, followed by Neva.

The others who had been waiting outside the cave gathered around when they saw Mike and they stood in a huddle around the bodies.

“See, I told you the bodies was there,” said Slick, craning his neck to look at the body bags.

“You took a long time,” said Mathews. “I thought you said you would send Mike out if you were going to be long. I was starting to worry.”

“I’m sorry. I should have specified what I consider a long time,” said Diane. “We searched the cavern they were in, collected all potential evidence, and photographed the graffiti on the walls.”

“The graffiti? Why?” asked Mathews.

“To see who knew about the cave,” said Diane.

“They signed their names?” asked Mathews.

“That’s about all they wrote,” said Diane.

“Can you tell if they are my couple?” Liam asked.

“It’s a male and a female. The female has long honey blond hair; the male has shorter black hair. .” began Diane.

“Does that fit?” asked Mathews.

Liam nodded. “I’m afraid it does.”

He took two photographs from an envelope and showed them to Diane and Mathews. They showed a lovely elfish-looking girl with a sly smile and long honey blond hair and a boy with medium-length dark hair, a wide grin, and nice teeth.

Liam looked at Diane as if asking if these were the bodies. She shook her head.

“They have been dead for several weeks. I think my team will be able to pinpoint the time more accurately. And there is this,” she said, pulling out the evidence bag with the bracelet. “This was on the girl.”

Liam took the bag and looked at the bracelet. From the grim set of his mouth, Diane thought he recognized it. He nodded.

“It’s hers. Her sister gave it to her and she always wore it.”

“I’m sorry there isn’t better news for your client,” said Diane. “But we do need to do an autopsy before you tell him this is his daughter. We need a positive ID first.”