Hollywood Intrigue: A Hollywood Alphabet Series Thriller Page 2

  I kneaded my neck muscles and tried to steady my nerves for what was to follow. I glanced over at my partner as we approached the officers who were standing guard at the cave’s entrance.

  Ted Grady had lost a daughter in a drive-by shooting several years ago. The murder was never solved. That loss had cost my partner his marriage and, for a time, most of his sanity. He had eventually recovered, finding his way back from the loss, and even using what happened as motivation to help other victims.

  Ted had a theory that the world was divided between fear and love. The choices we make determine how we respond to the world. When we chose fear, we allow darkness and evil to enter our lives. Love, on the other hand, is the decision to choose compassion and understanding, even where there is loss.

  My partner used his beliefs in the best way he knew, giving everything he had to the cases that he worked. It all seemed good in theory, but I sometimes had trouble keeping it in perspective when I was at a murder scene.

  As I stopped at the darkened entrance to the cave with Bernie, I knew that I was also making a choice. I could either choose to give into the darkness and evil of the moment, or choose love; I could find a way to bring justice to the murdered girl and her family. I made a conscious decision to choose that path as one of the officers came over to us.

  “The girl’s about fifty yards back. There’s a white sheet and…” The big cop huffed out a breath and brushed a hand over his cheek. “You’ll see for yourselves.”

  We thanked him. I then asked if he’d take control of Bernie while we examined the crime scene. After he took Bernie’s lead, Ted and I snapped on our flashlights and we entered the cave.

  The passageway was no more than six feet across, maybe slightly higher at the top where the rocks were cut away. I wasn’t sure if the cavern was naturally occurring or had been carved out of the rocks when the reservoir had been created. All I did know was that the place we’d entered was pitch dark, damp, and cold.

  Ted and I were less than twenty feet into the cave when we heard a sound, something moving in our direction. Our hands instinctively went to our guns as there was a fluttering sound, a darting movement overhead.

  “It’s a bird,” I said, releasing a pent-up breath. “Damn.”

  We both ducked down as the small bird dove over our heads, moving from darkness into the light, before disappearing through the cave entrance behind us.

  I took my hand off my gun, breathed, and said, “Let’s move on.”

  We soon entered a place of total darkness where all light and color was drained from the earth. This suddenly black world seemed like a physical presence, seeping into my bones and consciousness.

  I was shining my light on some footprints that led into the cave, wondering if they had been made by the boys who found the body, the responding officers, or the killer, when I heard Ted’s voice coming out of the darkness next to me.

  “There she is.”

  I glanced up, now shining my own light in the direction Ted was holding his flashlight. What I saw sucked all the air from my lungs. I felt light-headed and disoriented, maybe even in shock, as I tried to come to grips with the image in front of me.

  There was a wooden platform ahead of us. The nude body of a young girl was lying on the raised area beneath a white covering. The tableau of the girl, ashen in death on a white covering against the blackness of the cave, was overpowering. It gave me the impression that the girl was being swallowed up by the darkness.

  “Oh, God,” I said, at the same time forcing some air back into my lungs as we found our way over to the dead girl.

  I bent down, unconsciously wanting to find a way to help her but knowing there was nothing I could do. The scene in front of us was heartbreaking.

  The girl’s arms were crossed over her breasts and her head was tilted up and angled slightly toward the back of the cave. Her eyes were closed and her hair was perfectly combed. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought she was asleep. Then I heard the sound and bent closer to the dead girl.

  “Do you hear that buzzing noise?” I said, my brows pinching together as I looked over at Ted.

  My big partner was right beside me now. He also bent down to the body and held his breath, listening to what I’d heard.

  “It’s coming from the girl’s body,” Ted whispered. “There’s something inside of her.” His dark eyes shifted and then found me. “And I think it’s alive.”

  THREE

  I again felt light-headed and stepped away from the body. In the silence of the cave I could hear the pulse of blood flowing through my veins. I took a moment, consciously trying to steady my nerves.

  The dark air around me was heavy, like thick black smoke. There was the faint odor of something sweet in the air that I couldn’t place. I then heard voices from somewhere behind me near the cave’s entrance. The animated voice of our crime analyst, Selfie Rogers, could be heard above the others.

  Ted came over to me, the light from his flashlight splashing back and illuminating his big features. “You okay?”

  I found his eyes, but otherwise didn’t respond. The silence of the cave was palpable, except for the faint buzzing sound we heard still coming from the vicinity of the girl’s head. It was vaguely reminiscent of the sound a house fly might make when it’s trapped against a window pane. I had an errant, odd thought that a fly might have somehow gotten into the victim’s mouth.

  I glanced back at the girl. “What do you think it is?”

  He cut his eyes to the body, back at me. “Hard to say, maybe insects.”

  We both knew that insects, everything from blow files and their larva to ants and beetles were common at crime scenes where bodies had been left for several hours or days. I took a step toward the girl again. “There’s nothing in the way of an insect trail or other signs of infestation.”

  That finding alone was strange. We both knew that a body left out in the open like this one should have some signs of infestation. I looked at Ted. “Do you smell something sweet?”

  He stepped forward, taking in the surroundings again. “Yeah, now that you mention it. Hard to figure.”

  My eyes swept over the girl’s nude body again, not seeing anything in the way of wounds or injuries. I glanced back at Ted. “Cause of death?”

  He grimaced, his gaze taking in the body again. “Maybe strangulation.” He pointed to our victim’s upper torso. “There are some fine markings around her neck.”

  I now saw what he’d pointed out. The bruising was faint, but was probably consistent with manual manipulation of the airway that I’d seen with other victims, suggesting strangulation.

  “Let’s begin processing the scene.” I glanced back toward the entrance to the cave. “Maybe we can use Selfie to control access. I don’t want an army traipsing through here until we’ve done a preliminary sweep of the area.”

  “Let me bring her back so we can tell her what we need.”

  Ted left me and I turned back to the girl again. As strange as it might sound, I was grateful for the time I had alone with her. For some people, even a lot of cops, death was merely the absence of life; the loss of that mysterious force that we all intimately know. But for me, death had always been a physical presence, almost like a tangible entity that came calling and remained, filling up the space that had once been occupied by the living.

  Maybe I felt that way because I’d been with my father on the day he was murdered. I was four years-old at the time and had no conscious memory of the events of that day. A therapist might even say that those events had imprinted themselves on my subconscious mind, leaving behind the strange sense I had that death was something more than a specter. All I knew was that the dark visitor called death was with me in the cave, as though he was standing right beside me.

  I looked into the dark, empty eyes of our victim and whispered, “What happened to you, sweetheart? Who did this?”

  I didn’t expect any answers. Not now. But the answers would come. In time, I would use
whatever skills and ability I had to push the dark visitor up against the wall and demand that he give up his secrets. Love, in the form of justice, would prevail for this girl, just as Ted had taught me. Nothing less was acceptable.

  I spent ten minutes walking around the girl’s body, using all my senses to gather data that I knew cameras and microscopes and laboratory swabs couldn’t analyze. My eyes travelled down, taking in her hands that were crossed against her chest. For the first time I noticed there was a gold band on her left ring finger. Our victim couldn’t be more than sixteen. It seemed unlikely that she was married. She also had a small tattoo on her ankle that I made note of on my writing pad.

  After several minutes alone with the girl, I came to a preliminary conclusion: I believed this was a scene that had been carefully constructed for those who would find the girl. I was convinced that something had been used to wash the victim before she was posed. I was also sure that the buzzing sound was just what Ted had thought it was—something was alive inside the girl. I just didn’t know what that something was.

  I jumped, startled as I heard Ted’s voice behind me. “Selfie’s agreed to do traffic control.”

  I turned and said hello to our crime analyst. Our civilian assistant in Section One had purple and red hair, full pouty lips and dark brows, both adorned with metal piercings. Selfie was normally all business at a crime scene; a wizard at assisting Ted and me with whatever we needed. But not today. Selfie, whose real name was Sophia but had been morphed into Selfie by a former boyfriend who said she was obsessed with taking photographs of herself, was clearly shocked by what she saw.

  “Let’s try and keep the number of visitors down,” I said, coming over to her side. I waited until her gaze moved away from the victim and found me. “No more than a half dozen SID staff at any one time. Anyone gives you trouble, let me know.”

  She nodded, her eyes finding the dead girl again. “What…” She blinked several times and leaned in closer to the victim. “That sound?” Her dark gaze came back over to me.

  “Not sure yet. We just got here.”

  Selfie held on my eyes for a moment, then turned and went back toward the cave’s entrance.

  When our crime analyst was gone I told Ted what had occurred to me when I was alone with the girl. “I think the killer is sending us a message.”

  Ted’s dark eyes shone in the artificial light as his gaze moved over to the girl. “As in?”

  My vision widened and I took in the scene in front of us. “I think this has something to do with light and darkness.” I glanced back at him and saw his still questioning look. “Our victim is in a black cave. She’s lying on a white sheet. Her head is tilted toward the back of the cavern, toward the darkness. Her body has probably been cleaned, except for…”

  “The buzzing.”

  I found his eyes as I searched for the words to express my thoughts. “I’m not sure about the sound.” I found a breath and regarded him. “But I think this is about contrasts…maybe…” I looked at Ted, back at the girl, now deciding there were too many unanswered questions to draw any conclusions. “I guess we need to work the scene, play catchup, and see where that takes us.”

  Catchup was a phrase common in homicide. It described the work cops do in trying to catchup to the facts of a crime by trying to piece the details together. Some crimes required less catchup than others.

  I knew from what I’d seen in the few minutes we’d been in the cave that we had lots of catchup work ahead of us. It would take hours, maybe days, of tedious work, before we could begin to speak for the dead child. But I knew one thing for certain—I would find a way to give voice to the justice that the girl deserved. I would eventually speak for her, telling the world what had happened. It was just a matter of time.

  FOUR

  Ted and I decided to wait for the coroner before processing the body, concentrating on the area around the victim, the platform, and the shoeprints. Selfie allowed a small group of SID staff into the cave, after making it clear that a full scale invasion of the crime scene wasn’t going to be allowed. Our crime analyst had a way of taking charge and usually got her point across, even when big egos were sometimes involved.

  After tripod stands with lights were set up using a portable generator, we determined there were six distinctive sets of footprints in the cavern. Three of those sets were small and likely caused by the boys who found our victim. Two other sets were consistent with the shoes worn by the responding officers. There was one other set of prints that we felt likely were left by our suspect. Out of an abundance of caution, we had the SID staff take photographs and make castings of everything.

  We didn’t find anything in the way of trace evidence around the body. I saw that one of the techies had begun dusting for prints on the raised platform where the victim rested as I talked to Bob Woodley, an SID supervisor I’d worked with before.

  “Any thoughts on the odor?” I asked Woodley as a couple of his employees laughed. I knew that the stress of dealing with a crime scene could be difficult and sometimes inappropriate words, even laughter could result, but I was nonetheless irritated by what I heard.

  “I think it’s a chemical, similar to a commercial insecticide,” Woodley said as radio calls from the responding cops drifted up to us from the entrance to the cave. “It looks to me like somebody wanted to preserve the scene and sprayed the body, as well as the area around where she’s posed.”

  I glanced over at the harsh lights that were now trained on the dead girl. The stark contrast of light cutting through the thick darkness of the cave and illuminating the girl’s nude body struck me. The techies were taking photographs, using a strobe flash and continuing to chatter as they worked. Maybe it was the maternal instinct that had surfaced in me lately, but for the young girl, senselessly murdered and posed, and now surrounded by SID staff, it seemed only a further senseless indignity that she was forced to endure.

  “Cause of death?” I asked Woodley, forcing myself to look back at him. I wanted to see if he agreed with what Ted had postulated.

  “Probable asphyxiation, although the markings aren’t something you’d normally see in manual manipulation.”

  “You think a rope or something else was used?”

  “Not likely a rope. It would be something softer, maybe a cloth material that didn’t cause a lot of external bruising.”

  “I think he wanted the girl to look like she was untouched, almost like she was sleeping,” I said, glancing over at the victim again. One of the technicians was now taking photographs of her feet. I turned back to the SID supervisor. “Any thoughts on the buzzing sound?”

  Woodley, who was in his fifties with a receding hairline and dark eyes that looked like they’d seen their share of horrific things, shook his head. “Not sure. I’ve never heard anything quite like it before.”

  There was more chuckling between the technicians. I looked over and saw the younger of the two men glance over at his coworker and say, “I guess Jesus forgot about this one.”

  I walked over to them and saw that he’d been photographing the small tattoo on the dead girl’s ankle. It was the biblical verse, John 3:16. The technician looked up as I stood in front of him.

  “What’s your name?”

  He visibly blanched when he met my eyes and swallowed. “Regg…Reginald Dent.”

  My eyes drilled into him. “Mr. Dent, I want you to turn around, walk back in the direction you came, and leave this area immediately. If I see you anywhere near this crime scene again, I will find a way to make sure that you never work another murder investigation.”

  Dent looked over at Woodley, his supervisor, who nodded. He then turned and left without looking back.

  Woodley came over to me. “I think that was a little extreme.”

  I’m five nine and stood a good five inches taller than Woodley. I leaned into him and the pitch in my voice rose. “No, extreme would be processing a murder scene and then laughing and making jokes about something that was obv
iously sacred to our victim and to a lot of other people in this world.” The SDI supervisor swallowed and took a step back. “If I ever see that bastard at another crime scene I work, both of you will be sent packing. Am I clear?”

  Woodley turned and walked away, apparently understanding that I mean what I’d said.

  A moment later, I heard a woman’s voice say, “I think he got the message.”

  I turned and saw that Dr. Brie Henner was standing a few yards away from me. Brie and I were friends, going back several months when we first met at the homicide of a child, a scene that had deeply impacted both of us. My friend was tall and African-American. She and her husband had separated recently and she was raising her five-year-old daughter, Lily, on her own.

  Brie walked over to our victim and said, “Oh my.” She inhaled and released her breath slowly, looking back at me. “What do we know?”

  I filled her in on what few details we had and then looked back at the nude girl. The buzzing noise Ted and I heard earlier had stopped. I ended my summary by saying, “She can’t be more than sixteen.”

  Brie and I were both quiet for a moment, maybe sharing a grief that only women understood. My own body came to mind when I was the victim’s age, what it felt like to leave childhood behind and enter the unknown, sometimes difficult world of becoming a woman. I blinked back a tear, thinking the girl would never make that same journey. I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to focus on the task at hand.

  Brie and I took a step away from the victim after a few moments.

  “Nice to see you again,” I said, as our conversation turned personal. I motioned to the victim. “But not under these circumstances.” I took a moment, then tried to explain about the sound we’d heard earlier. “There was a buzzing…it came from her upper body…maybe inside…” I glanced over at the girl’s body. “…maybe there’s something in her mouth. We’re going to need to take a look when you’re ready.”