Scavenger Hunt Ch. 02

I saw the little pink and blue flags on wires stuck into the ground as I pulled in behind Deputy Goff. A grassy area stretched 150 feet away from the road to a line of pine trees. Behind that line was a farm field. On the ground, about ten yards from the road, were spray-paint outlines of where the bodies had been."

"We took the bodies to the cooler, since we didn't know when you'd be here, if at all." said Sheriff Donnan. "We took photographs and documented the scene, and we'll take you to see the bodies after you're done here."

"Okay, thanks." I said as Kendell and I looked around where the bodies had been. A moment later, I called out "Who called it in? Who notified you that the bodies were here?"

"We got a 9-1-1 call." said Deputy Goff, whose voice was husky and 'Southern'. "Someone said they saw something on the side of the road. They didn't give their name. They said they didn't want to get involved. There was no name attached to the phone when it dialed in, either."

"What time did the call come in?" I asked.

"About 8:30 this morning." said Sheriff Donnan. "We made the call to the SBI office in Rocktown about 10:30, and they suggested we call for more help than they were able to give at that moment."

I nodded in seeming acquiescence of what I was being told. I also walked around the scene in increasingly wide semicircles, looking for clues on the ground. Beyond about 15 feet from where the bodies were, there were almost no human tracks. Within that perimeter, it looked like a cattle stampede.

Coming back to the others, I said "What did they die of?"

"Take a look." Deputy Goff said, handing me his cellphone. Kendell watched with me as I flipped through the photos. They showed four white persons, two women and two men, clothed and lying on their backs. Shotgun blasts to their faces had made those faces completely unrecognizable. I also noticed that their hands had been chopped off at the wrists.

"Wow." I said as I handed Deputy Goff his phone back. "Forward those to me, please." He did so as I looked at the outlines of the bodies in front of me. "See anything of interest, Kendell?" I asked Kendell Ramsey.

"I'm used to looking at bodies, not the rest of the scene." Kendell replied. I smiled briefly in acknowledgement, and he added: "Is there something you want me to notice, sir?"

"It's what I'm not seeing. Blood." I replied. "No blood here. I'm seeing no pools of blood, no spatters of flesh. They were killed somewhere else, then brought here and dumped... and not just dumped, they were laid out, side by side by side by side. And within sight of the road. And that tells me that the bodies were dumped here before it got light enough to see what was going on from the road. They likely were dumped just before dawn."

"Those are good points." said Sheriff Donnan, who appeared to be impressed. Deputy Goff looked on with no expression on his face.

After a few minutes, I said "Why don't we go take a look at the bodies."

We piled into the cars and drove back to Griffith. On the way, Sheriff Donnan said "That road is the main highway through the county. It crosses the State Line just a couple of miles down the road from the crime scene. The Welcome Center there has cameras that videotape all cars coming and going, and we secured the video of everything from midnight until the time we acquired the data. I'll send it to you."

"Thanks." I said. "Has anything like this happened before? Do you get people crossing the State Line and dumping bodies, or contraband or drugs?"

"No." replied Sheriff Donnan. "I've been here a long time, and we've never had any dumped bodies. The only thing even close was about 20 years ago. Some guy was chased across the State Line by three others guys. They caught up to him, forced him off the road, shot him dead, and then went back over the State Line. The FBI got 'em two days later."

There was almost no traffic at all; it was as if the town had just shut down. We pulled into the convenience store by the side of the road just north of the town.

"We don't have the facilities you guys do." said Sheriff Donnan. "So we put the bodies in the deer cooler behind the store. We'd have taken them to the SBI Lab or to the big hospital in the county north of us, but again, we were waiting on your arrival."

"That's fine." I said agreeably. And yes, I was remembering how the theft of some deer from a deer cooler led to the defeat of the Consultant of Crime all those years ago. (Author's note: 'Seriously Inconvenienced', Ch. 03-04.)

When we got inside, we saw the four bodies in body bags. We also saw that the light was totally inadequate for performing an autopsy. Sheriff Donnan said "Our Medical Examiner is the one of the three doctors in the town, and our Morgue is the Funeral Home."

I said "Can we take custody of these bodies, and transport them to the State facility in Rocktown?"

"Sure." said Sheriff Donnan, relief in his voice. "The case is yours. Just keep us in the loop, and send us a copy of the autopsy..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

10:00pm, Saturday, October 8th. I had procured a refrigerated box truck to transport the four bodies to Rocktown, contacted the State facility there to be ready to receive us, and we followed the truck on the drive that took over an hour to complete. Rocktown now had an Applebee's, so we went there to get a late supper. Unfortunately, it was very busy after the football game, in which Rocktown High defeated Donnan County High in a game that was not as close as the final 42-6 score indicated.

Ergo, Kendell Ramsey began his autopsies at 10:00pm. In the meantime, Sheriff Ormond stopped by, remembering us from the Larry Wheeler murder case, as well as the SPS murder case. (Author's note: 'Whistleblower'; 'Shipping And Handling', Ch. 02, 04.) I introduced him to Shane O'Brady, and we swapped stories as Kendell worked.

Right at midnight, Kendell came out of the autopsy room. "Commander, Martha has taught me well. I know the first thing you'll ask is time of death. And the answer is... I'm not sure. Keeping the bodies cold messes up the TOD determination, and they've been cold since they were put in the deer cooler."

Kendell: "But a body has to be frozen pretty solid to not begin decaying, and these bodies weren't frozen, nor were they preserved with formaldehyde or anything like that. And they didn't show the signs of decay that I'd expect to see if they'd been dead over 48 hours. So I'm going to say within 24 hours of when they were found, from dawn Thursday to sometime Thursday evening."

"Okay." I said. "What else?"

"They were exsanguinated, i.e. the blood drained out of them." Kendell said. "And there's evidence that one of the women was repeatedly sexually assaulted while she was alive. Severe tearing of the vaginal and anal areas, with bleeding. The other woman and the two men were not sexually molested, vaginally or anally.

"One of the women, but not the other." I said, my voice sounding far away. I snapped out of it, and said "What else?"

Kendell: "The shotgun wounds were all post-mortem; in other words, they were blasted after they were dead. So I started looking for what killed them, and they all had needle marks on their left shoulders or upper left arms. I took samples around the area as well as general blood samples of what blood was left in them, and the lab will determine what drugs were injected into them, if any."

"Good work." I said.

Kendell: "Their hands were chopped off post-mortem, as well. I took prints of the bottoms of their feet like you suggested, Commander."

"Why did you do that?" asked Sheriff Ormond. "I'd think most baby footprints aren't in any database, digital or otherwise."

I said "We may get lucky, there. And there is one Federal entity that does take footprints of their employees... the CIA, especially their people that go overseas, so that they might be identified if they are executed and we somehow recover their bodies."

"And they'll look that up for you?" Sheriff Ormond asked, his voice connoting stunned skepticism.

"I got people." I said in a tremendous understatement. "Kendell, did you take samples for DNA testing?"

"You know it, sir." Ramsey replied, also making a thumbs-up sign.

"Good." I said. "Maybe we'll get lucky and get a... match..."

My voice trailed off as I went into a reverie after a thought struck me hard. After a moment, I came out of it. I fished out my Police iPhone and dialed Jack Muscone.

"Hey Dog." he said as he answered. "You must be psychic---"

"Hey, Jack." I said, running over his words. "Sorry to call you so late, but this might be big. Since you began the surveillance of the Apple Grove Four, have they returned to their apartments?"

"No." said Muscone. "We haven't seen them at all. Why? Do you have a lead on them?"

"I just might." I said. "Listen, I need you to go ahead and raid their apartments. Get a warrant if you need to. What you are looking for is DNA. Hairbrushes, toothbrushes, clothing... anything that you can get some good DNA from."

"So you don't expect them to be returning?" Muscone said, a bit whimsically.

"No, I don't think they will be." I said. "If I'm right, the four bodies that were found in Donnan County this morning are the bodies of the Apple Grove Four..."

To be continued.