Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

Through the front window Anne watched a sleek, dark Jaguar pull into the drive beside her little red Volkswagen. Peter Crane got out and walked toward the house.

He was a handsome man, medium height, lean, well-dressed in dark slacks, a shirt and tie. He called out cheerfully as he came in the front door.

Sara Morgan hadn’t managed to catch him at the office, Anne thought.

Tommy turned abruptly away from his mother and went to his dad, hugging him around the waist. Peter Crane looked a little confused. His wife went into the foyer and told him what had happened.

Anne watched the shock cross his face.

“It was a terrible thing to see,” she said, moving into the doorway.

“Miss Navarre brought Tommy home,” Janet Crane said.

“You were there?” he asked.

“I went to the park as soon as I heard what had happened.”

“Oh my God,” he said.

“I’m going to go call Mr. England,” his wife said. “To let him know why Tommy didn’t make it to his lesson.”

She walked away and disappeared into the interior of the home, heels clacking.

“Things like this don’t happen here,” he said.

Anne had been born and raised in Oak Knoll, a town of twenty thousand (twenty-three when the college kids were in residence). It was a civilized, upscale town nearly two hours removed from Los Angeles. Home to a prestigious private college, the population tended to consist of well-educated professional people, academics, artists. Crime here ran along the lines of small-time drug deals, petty theft, and vandalism, not murder, not women buried in the park.

“Do they know who the woman is? Do they know what happened to her?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Anne said. “I don’t know what to think.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Well, thank you, Miss Navarre, for bringing Tommy home. We appreciate your dedication to the kids.”

“If I can help in any way, please don’t hesitate to call,” Anne said. “You have my number.”

She leaned down to Tommy’s level. “That goes for you, too, Tommy. You can call me anytime if you need to talk about what happened. Try to get some rest tonight.”

Her mother’s cure for everything: rest. Bad day at school? Get some rest. Dumped by a boyfriend? Get some rest. Dying of cancer? Get some rest.

In all her life Anne had to say rest had never solved anything. It was just something to say when there was nothing adequate to take its place, something to do when unconsciousness was the best option available.

As she backed out of the driveway and turned for home, she hoped Tommy would have better luck with the concept than she ever had.

“This is the third victim in two years.”

“It’s the second.”

“In our jurisdiction. The second vic was in the next county, but it’s the same perp. Same MO, same signature.”

“Signature?” Frank Farman said. “Where’s his signature? Maybe he left his address and phone number too.”

Sheriff’s Detective Tony Mendez clenched his jaw for a beat. Farman, chief deputy, was old-school and resented the hell out of him for being one of the new faces of law enforcement-young, college educated, a minority, eager to embrace all the new technology the future promised.

“Why don’t we consult a crystal ball?” Farman suggested. “No need for any legwork at all.”

“That’s enough, Frank.”

Cal Dixon, fifty-three, fit, silver-haired, uniform starched and pressed, had been county sheriff for three years. He had a long solid career with the LA County Sheriff ’s Department before he had moved north to the quieter setting of Oak Knoll. He had campaigned for the office on a promise of progressive change. Tony Mendez was an example of his promise in practice.

Mendez was thirty-six, smart, dedicated, and ambitious. He had jumped at the chance to attend the FBI’s National Academy, an eleven-week course for senior and accomplished law enforcement personnel-not only from around the United States, but from around the world. Classes ranged from sex crimes to hostage negotiations to criminal psychology. Attendees went away not only with an advanced education, but with valuable contacts as well.

Dixon had seen sending Mendez as an investment that would pay off for his department in more ways than one. Mendez was happy to prove him right.

“MO is how he did it,” Mendez said. “The signature is his own thing, something extra he does for his own reasons.”

He pointed at the head of the dead woman as deputies and crime scene investigators worked around her, searching for anything that might resemble evidence. “Eyes glued shut. Mouth glued shut. See no evil, speak no evil. He didn’t have to do that to kill her. That’s what gets him off.”

“That’s all very interesting,” Farman said. “But how does that help us catch the bad guy?”

He wasn’t being sarcastic. Mendez knew there were still plenty of cops who doubted the usefulness of criminal profiling. Mendez had studied enough cases to feel differently.

They stood in Oakwoods Park. The sun was gone. There was a crisp chill in the October air. The area around the shallow grave was illuminated by bright portable work lamps. The stark light made the scene seem all the more surreal and macabre.

The body hadn’t been buried there for long. Maybe a day at the most. If the corpse had been there for very long, it would have sustained more damage from animals and insects. If not for the gash on her cheek and the ants crawling on her face, the young woman would have looked like she was sleeping peacefully-undoubtedly a far cry from the reality of her death, Mendez thought.

He believed they would find she had been strangled, tortured, and sexually assaulted. Just like the two victims who had come before her.

He had worked the first homicide-Julie Paulson-eighteen months ago, still unsolved. The victim had been found at a campground five miles out of town, eyes and lips glued shut. There had been multiple ligature marks on her wrists and ankles, some older than others, indicating she had been held somewhere over a period of time.

Nine months later he had spoken with the detectives in the next county when their vic had been discovered. He had looked at the photographs of that corpse-a body that had suffered considerably from the elements before being found by hikers, just off a popular trail. The mouth had been more or less gone, along with one eye. The other eye had been glued shut. The hyoid bone in the neck been fractured, indicating strangulation.

“Neither of the others was buried,” Dixon pointed out. “Let alone displayed like this one.”

Their victim’s head was entirely above ground, propped up on a stone the size of a loaf of bread. Staged for maximum shock value. This was something new: the body left in a very public park, off the beaten path, but definitely in a place where it would be found.

“It’s risky,” Mendez said. “Maybe he wants attention. I think we’ve got a serial killer on our hands.”

Dixon took a step toward him, scowling. “I don’t want to hear those words coming out of your mouth again outside my office.”

“But this vic makes three. I can reach out to Quantico now.”

“Yeah, that’s what we need,” Farman said. “Some Feeb strutting around like the cock of the walk. Who the hell cares if this creep wet his pants when he was ten? What good is that? They’ll send some hotshot who just wants to be on the news to tell the world he’s a genius and we’re a bunch of stupid hicks.”

Dixon glanced over his shoulder at the crowd still gathered on the other side of the crime scene tape. “Nobody says shit about this crime possibly being connected to any other. Nobody says anything about the eyes and mouth being glued shut. Nobody mentions the letters F-B-I.”