On her notepad, Detective Grace Churchill jotted down the time, place, and weather conditions: hot and humid, with the potential for rain. Climate change might be great for the water supply, but it was making her job that much harder.
Getting out of the Crown Vic, she eyed Hillside Park—not as a green respite against the beating sun, but through the lens of shady opportunity. On patrol, she had been summoned there many a time for various crimes and misdemeanors—those glory days in uniform when her body stayed tight. Seven years later, her African American butt had grown to Type 2 diabetic proportions. The natural state of all good detectives, she thought, affirming the positive.
Reaching the temporary command post, she glanced over at Detective Santos, her fitness-nut partner—the one exception. Short, ninja-like, and ten years her junior, he stood off to the side, interviewing a blond woman in leggings. Her hand held the leash attached to the rusty brown neck of a male boxer, its tongue lolling from the attention and heat.
Sergeant Ortiz, the first officer, gave his account. Replaying the scenario in her head, she found it almost comical. The witness, jogging at the crack of dawn, let her dog loose in the park. Instead of the usual wild sprints—as was the boxer's morning routine—it cruised toward a homeless man emerging from the bushes like a heat-seeking rabid missile, and a war of tugging ensued.
The bone of contention between man and dog? A black garbage bag. The plastic ripped, contents spilled, and the dog snatched up an item to bring back to his master. Who, upon seeing it, immediately called 911. Arriving on scene within minutes—thanks to the directions of the witness—the homeless man was apprehended only a block away.
Now cuffed in a cruiser, sullen, he was on his way to Homicide for questioning, but only as a matter of due diligence. She'd already Mirandized him curbside—waived his rights with that vacant nod—and his story held water: scavenging at dawn, no priors popping on the radio check. One glance at the stuffed shopping cart he had left at the scene told her everything she needed to know.
No way in heck was he responsible for this.
Crouched within the inner yellow tape now, only yards from where the black garbage bag lay, she snapped on nitrile gloves from her belt pouch—standard issue, the kind that always smelled like cheap latex—and photographed the small, brown foot poking out of an eight-inch tear. The techs would swab that tear for fibers later, but for now, her digital camera would do for prelims. Standing—groaning slightly from her knee joints—she snapped the shot and jotted it down in her evidence log, timestamping it for the chain-of-custody headache to come. She faced the first officer, who pointed to another circle of tape farther away.
"That's where another part of her is lying," he said. "The dog dropped it there."
"What part?"
"Looks to me like a forearm without a hand, but don't quote me on it. I didn't give it a good look." The boxer's slobber on that forearm. Could be a break—she'd have CSI prioritize the saliva traces. She turned to Ortiz.
"How do you know the vic's a she? You look in the bag?"
"Nope. Just an educated guess."
"What about your partner?"
"She didn't go anywhere near here. While I was containing the scene, she was apprehending the perp."
"And a good job at that. Unfortunately for us—maybe more for you—the man stinking up your cruiser isn't the perp."
"So you buy his story? That he just happened to find a bag of body parts?"
"I do. The guy behind this isn't a 5150. He's meticulous and organized, and he has a vehicle."
"How do you know that?"
"Because this isn't his first kill. Stay put for a second, will you?" She moved closer to the shrubbery. On her knees again, she peeked at an opening at the base of the bushes. Just as she hoped. "Bingo."
"Find something?"
"Yup. Two more bags. And if my theory holds up, the rest of this poor girl."
***
"A K-9 unit picked up a scent leading from the bushes to an alley on 6th Street, half a block from here," Churchill said, getting her Detective Supervisor up to speed.
"Why did he hide the bag in the bushes? Why didn't he just dump them in the alley like the others? Doesn't add up."
"Nope, it doesn't."
"You're sure it's the same guy?"
"Aside from the change in venue, everything else fits his pattern. So . . ."
"Okay, so what do you need?"
"In two words, LT: three dicks."
"You and my ex. Never marry a showgirl, Churchill."
"I'll take that into consideration."
"Okay, I can give you Bremer and Sandoval for now. The other phallus will have to wait."
"We also need a tent. Supposed to rain tonight."
The Lieutenant looked up. The sky was blue. "You shitting me?"
"Wish I were."
"Anything else?"
"Yeah, unis are canvassing the alley on Sixth, dumpster diving, pulling any CCTV from the local bodegas—put in a ViCAP query; if this ties to the alley dumps, we'll know by noon."
***
The Chief Medical Examiner and Churchill had stood over this table over the years—over hundreds of corpses—their humanity intact despite it, both feeling a mix of anger, grief, and a need for justice for every victim. Though increasingly less for Matsu over the past year or so, she noticed, now that he had one foot out the door, edging toward retirement. This one, though, had them both leaning in closer than usual.
"Without the head, it's difficult to identify the ancestry," said Matsu, gesturing to the X-rays pinned above, the parts laid out in a reconstruction of the victim like a macabre puzzle. "But if I had to guess, I'd say Native American or Asian female. Skeletal fusion says possibly around eighteen or nineteen years of age."
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"Similar to the first two," she replied. "The killer has a type."
"Apparently," replied Matsu.
Reaching that conclusion hadn't been straightforward. Body parts in Glad bags weren't as rare as people imagined. In one case she'd worked, five black, hefty contractor bags were found in the basement of a meth lab. The murders were never solved, but the following autopsy revealed more than a dozen victims. One bag contained the pieces of six individuals.
Matsu moved around the table. Without saying a word, his assistant, using a DSLR camera, photographed the severed end of the neck.
"As I examine the external surface of the cervical stump here," the ME said, dictating into a hand recorder, "I've got a deep chop wound running transversely across the anterior neck, about 18 centimeters long, cleaving clean through the full thickness of the soft tissues . . ."
Matsu palpated the frayed wound with gloved fingers and a probe. "The deep slice cut straight across the front of the throat, slashing through the windpipe, esophagus, and the main arteries and veins."
He pointed out the clean, slanted edges of the cut, remarking that one side was sharply angled, indicating a heavy chopping tool with a single sharp edge.
"The broad groove left in the flesh—about three centimeters across—lacked the minute scratches that finer blades would make." He turned the recorder off. "I haven't spotted any wood fibers from the handle yet, but I'm going to wipe the wound margins for traces anyway."
Turning the DS-2300 back on, Matsu shifted his gaze to the X-ray of the exposed neck bones, detailing how the upper spine vertebrae—from the second through the fourth—had a clean break across the joint between the second and third, "with shallow chips on the surfaces and the front section pushed forward by up to two centimeters, all from a pulverizing blunt smash overlaid on top of the initial slice."
An axe.
Her thoughts meandered to The Tudors, a show she was hooked on, with its gruesome scenes of quartering and beheading. She pictured the hooded executioner wielding a massive Tudor-style axe with a broad, half-moon blade. That kind of axe?
"The head separated in what looks like one principal blow, though a tertiary hesitation mark can't be ruled out without the skull. What's really telling, though, is the vital reaction around the wound: the margins are discontinuously red, with some focal bruising and early fibrinous exudate forming. That's antemortem—no question—these hemorrhagic and inflammatory changes wouldn't happen in tissue after death. And no defensive wounds are observable in this area."
Matsu focused his examination on the severed limbs.
"I've got evenly transverse but serrated-textured amputations on both distal forearms—just proximal to the wrists—mid-humeri above the elbows, and distal femora above the knees. Each cut surface has this jagged, irregular profile, with multiple parallel micro-striations and saw-tooth undulations along the bone edges." He paused for a moment, allowing the forensic photographer to do his work, then resumed his dictation.
"Key point: no vital reaction at all on these. The cut surfaces are pale, bloodless, with sharp margins that aren't congested—no hemorrhage, the pallor runs right into the adjacent dermis and subQ fat, and zero clotting or inflammatory cells."
The ME turned off his recorder and looked up to speak directly to the detectives.
"These are pure postmortem cuts, done after the heart stopped and circulation ceased."
"The same profile as Jane Doe number one and two, found in the alleys."
"Precisely the same, the tool marks match."
"Any preliminary subclass on the axe and the dismembers? You leaning toward a fixed-blade hunting knife or something more utilitarian like a kitchen serrated edge?"
"I’m not leaning towards anything at the moment. I’ve never seen marks like this before. The same goes for the axe, novel to say the least." He continued to examine the rest of the body. "Again, consistent with the others: no defensive wounds on the arms or legs, but ligature furrows—1 cm wide, abraded epidermis with antemortem ecchymosis—across the forearms, shoulders, around the victim's breasts, her waist, thighs, and ankles. Suggests she was subdued pre-neck chop, and restrained for compliance."
"Tied up, just like the others."
"Yes, and I'm thinking there's more to it than basic utility. Fiber traces from the ropes—synthetic, red-dyed—match the first two."
"Which means?"
"He means," Santos remarked, "this dude was into some rope-bondage thing."
"Correct. Along the lines of Shibari . . ."
"Shibari?" she asked.
"A Japanese art form," Matsu explained with a hint of pride. He lifted the girl's torso slightly. "The configuration of the marks on the posterior side indicate she was tied to something—possibly a cross."
"St. Andrew's Cross," said her partner.
She looked at Santos, somewhat surprised.
"Familiar with the bondage world, are you, Detective?" Matsu asked.
Her partner shrugged. "As much as the next guy. Compared to the other stuff you can check out on the internet, it's pretty M.O.R."
"M.O.R.?"
"Middle of the road. Mainstream."
"Like your taste in music," she joked.
"To each their own. To recap, our guy likes to tie up his vics to a cross as part of a sexual thing, then—while they're still breathing—lops off their heads with an axe of an undetermined kind."
"Bleed them out," she added, "and after, dismember them with a serrated edge, for easier disposal."
"Yes, and with surgical precision," Matsu said, not hiding his admiration.
"What are you saying? Our guy's a surgeon?"
"Possibly. Or a master sushi chef, or a seasoned hunter, or an artist skilled with a knife. Perhaps even your neighborhood butcher."
"Well, that narrows it down. Thanks," she said.
***
Churchill and Santos were back in their cubicles, sitting on their duffs—where most of the detective work was done—deeply sleep-deprived, thus the general pathetic state of "wellness" among her brethren. That, and the fast food they fueled themselves on, and the booze. Not her young partner, nope. As he studied Matsu's reports on his tablet, he practiced yoga poses and took turmeric.
"No traces of semen, DNA, or prostatic phosphates in the orifices," she blurted, reading the forensics on the previous ME reports the old-fashioned way, on hard copy. "CSIs' trace section flagging nil on fibers, soils, or particulates from the bags. No evidentiary material recovered from their bodies or crime scene whatsoever."
"Scumbag's got a serious case of OCD."
"Toxicology's clean too—no drugs in their system beyond the recreational use of cocaine, weed, meth, heroin, and alcohol. Jane Doe number one and two weren't addicts, and I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts it'll be the same deal with number three."
"Gluten-free doughnuts?"
"I don't get this guy. He doesn't leave any evidence at the scene or on the bodies. He removes the head and hands to hide the identities, yet he leaves the tattoos on Jane Doe in the park." She spun around in her chair to eye Santos. Head between his toes, her partner stood up slowly, lids shut, his countenance remaining meditative and calm. He took a couple of deep breaths before opening his eyes. Alert and focused, looking like a detective again, Santos pored over the photos of Scars, Marks, and Tattoos spread out on her desk.
"Yeah, you're right. Why didn't he remove her ink?"
"Yeah," she sighed, "we might never get a positive ID. No face, no name, no family grieving over them, it's like they were erased from existence."
"Don't get morose on me, partner."
"Sorry, for being a woman and a mother, Santos."
"Not your fault, but we're dicks, let's put our feelings aside and figure this evil mofo out."
"Sure thing, Sherlock."
"The dump sites. He could be tossing the vics into a ravine, or out into the desert and the bodies wouldn't be found for months, even years. Yet he dumps them downtown in an alley, and now in a park."
"He wants them to be found," she answered, steely-eyed.
"Yeah, but why?"
"Messing with us." She felt a second wind coming on. "Call the FBI office and make a submission for BAU consult tomorrow—see if this cat-and-mouse fits a signature. I'll run her ink through NCIC."
"It's official?" her LT boomed, scaring the living daylights out of her.
She wheeled around to see him standing at the opening of their cubicle, sipping his morning Starbucks. His strained expression and way-too-loud morning voice suggested he had gotten as much sleep as they had. She responded in a contrary manner.
"Yup," she said, slowing things down to a crawl. "We've got ourselves a serial killer."
"Any good leads?" he grumbled.
"Not much. We just got the ME reports, and we're ten hours over the clock."
"Okay, go home. Get some winks. I'll take it to the Captain." He turned on his heel, then stopped for a second. "Oh, I heard Ada got into Stanford?"
"She did."
"Expensive school."
"Don't remind me."
"Well, then I got great news for you. Starting today, you two are the unofficial serial killer task force."
"Crap."
"Relax, Major Crimes is already in the loop; we're not flying solo. You should be thanking me, Churchill. That's overtime every shift for the foreseeable future." He walked off, voice trailing in the distance. "That's worth a semester at least."
Satisfied their boss was out of earshot, Santos gave her a high five. "Sweet!"
She finally allowed her weariness to show. Retrieving her purse from her filing cabinet—and her Glock—she got up, heading out. "Sorry if I don't share your enthusiasm, partner." Santos gathered his belongings, doing the same.
"Why?"
"Because whodunits are bad enough. This serial stuff? Well, frankly, it's beyond a murder cop's purview."
- Opening hook you?
- Grace feel real?
- Santos too polished?
- ME scene too lecture-y?
- Killer signature creepy enough?
- Any clunky lines?
What hooked you most in this opening chapter?