Tami Hoag - Deeper Than the Dead

It was interesting to him that the victims had been women trying to make their lives better, not women stuck on the low end of society.

Prostitutes were always favorite victims of serial killers because they were considered by the killer to be despicable, disposable, and easy prey. The other end of that spectrum was the killer who hunted young women perceived to be of good virtue, for lack of a more modern word. High school girls, college coeds, young single women.

This killer chose women trying to move up from poorer circumstances. Trying to fool people into believing they were something they weren’t? Was that it? Or were they simply vulnerable and accessible through the connection to the center?

Nothing was ever that simple.

Steve Morgan sat at a table on the stone patio, watching the swarm of law enforcement going over the yard. Vince walked over and sat down across from him.

“Hell of a thing, huh?”

Morgan looked at him, his expression unreadable. “Not the way you want to start your day: finding someone half-buried in your friend’s yard.”

“But she’s alive.”

“Unbelievable.” He shook his head at some private thought. “I heard Jane scream. She had gone to see what her dogs were barking at.”

“Where are the dogs now?”

“Jane’s assistant came and got them. Why?”

“We’ll need to collect hair samples from them, in the event hairs were recovered from Miss Vickers. A stray hair from an unknown source could open the investigation in a different direction. Maybe the perpetrator owns a dog or a cat. One stray hair could make a connection. It only takes one loose thread to unravel a cheap sweater.”

“The science is that sophisticated?” he asked.

“You can’t imagine the things they’re doing at the FBI lab in Washington, the advances in analyzing trace evidence, DNA evidence. One day soon there’ll be a national DNA databank with the DNA codes of every convicted criminal in the country.”

“That’s a little Orwellian, don’t you think?”

“Big Brother is sure as hell going to be watching the criminal population,” Vince said. He shrugged. “It’s nothing to worry about if you haven’t done anything wrong.”

He sat back and squared his left ankle over his right knee, settling in as if watching evidence collection at a crime scene was all part of a normal, relaxing Saturday morning.

“Good thing you were here so early today,” he said.

“Jane and I had scheduled a meeting. We were supposed to be having a press conference this morning.”

“Another five, ten minutes, that girl probably would have been dead. Now there’s a shot she can tell us who abducted her.”

“I read the man glued Lisa’s eyes closed,” Morgan said. “So she couldn’t see him. Did he do that to Karly?”

“I don’t think that’s why he did it,” Vince said, watching him carefully. “I think it has to do with his fantasy. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. I think the women become objects to him-pretty to look at, but no trouble. A lot of guys would say when a woman opens her mouth it spoils everything.”

Morgan tipped his head in acknowledgment.

“How’s your family, Steve?” he asked, surprising the man a little. “Your daughter-how’s she holding up after what she saw?”

“Wendy is very resilient.”

“How about yourself? Now you know exactly what it was like for her, stumbling on that body in the woods.”

“I certainly wish that hadn’t happened to her.”

“Yeah.”

Mendez wandered over from the gravesite, scribbling in his notebook. “They found a couple of good shoe prints in the arroyo.”

“In the what?” Vince asked. “I’m from Chicago here. Don’t go throwing language at me.”

“The arroyo. Down the hill in the trees. There’s a stream. The ground is just damp enough to hold a good impression.”

“Great.”

“Mr. Morgan,” Mendez said. “I have to ask you where you were last night.”

“In bed like any sane person. Jane thinks she might have heard the guy back here-or that the dogs did-sometime after three.”

“And you arrived…?”

“Just before seven.”

“Hell of a deal, huh?” Mendez said. “Finding that girl alive.”

“Hell of a deal,” Morgan said. He pushed to his feet with the effort of a much older man. The dark circles beneath his eyes spoke of another long night. “Unless you gentlemen need me, I’m going out to the search site and let people know what’s happened. The search is over.”

They watched him round the corner of the house and disappear.

“You know,” Mendez said, “he didn’t lift a finger to help her-Jane. She came out here and found that girl half buried, and started digging her out, and Morgan just stood there and watched her. I find that odd, don’t you?”

“Yes.” Vince said. “But he might have been in shock.”

“Or he might have been enjoying the show.”

Vince slapped him on the back. “Now you’re thinking like a profiler, kid.”

Wendy had gotten up early and dressed for the day in a baby blue turtleneck and bib overalls. She put her hair in two thick braids, the way her father liked it.

Her plan had been to bounce downstairs and help her father make breakfast as he always did when he was home on a Saturday. They got up early and made breakfast while Wendy’s mom slept in. They made crazy kinds of pancakes, like pumpkin or butterscotch, and cut them into shapes with cookie cutters. She loved Saturdays with her dad.

Then she remembered that her dad had left.

But surely he would come back this morning because it was Saturday and they had their tradition. He might have been mad at her mother, but he wasn’t mad at her. Of course he would come home to make pancakes.

Then she would talk him into going with her to the park. She wanted to show him where everything had happened. She wanted to tell him about her idea to write a book and/or a movie about the experience.

That had been her plan.

But her father wasn’t in the kitchen when she got downstairs. The house was quiet, the only sound the hum of the refrigerator.

Wendy’s heart felt like a thousand pounds in her chest. It was so unfair. They were a great family. All her friends said so. They all envied her her parents. Her mom was so artsy and funky and cool. Her dad was so handsome and so much fun.

We had such a nice family , her mother had said.

Had-like in the past.

They were being so selfish, Wendy thought. They yelled at each other, hurt each other, but neither of them thought about her.

Fine then. If they wanted to be selfish, they could be selfish on their own. Let them realize she’s a person too, she should have a say too. Let them find her gone and see how selfish they were then.

She went back to her room and got her backpack. Then she tiptoed down the stairs and slipped out the front door and headed for the park.

In another part of town, Cody Roache was being pushed out of his home by his mother. One of the neighborhood dads was taking kids to the park. Not to the part where they had found the dead lady, but to the part where the fun stuff was-the swings and monkey bars and tetherballs.

Cody didn’t want to go. He felt nervous. But his mother said he would never get over it if he didn’t go out and do normal things and play like a normal kid.

There were about ten kids piling into the neighbor’s van. He would feel safe with ten other kids and a dad there. So Cody glanced back at his mom and climbed into the van. It never once occurred to him that he might never come back.

Anne begged off from a ride to Santa Barbara for an afternoon of shopping and meeting some of Franny’s friends for wine in the afternoon.