His pager started going off five minutes after the lieutenant hung up. It was Vanessa. He had ignored the paging to get ready but she had kept at it right up until he pulled into the station parking lot.
He pressed the button to end another page and headed towards the station doors. He was almost there when he saw Vanessa coming towards him. She was tall and thin, some might say skinny, with long straight black hair and large eyes. They had been beat cops together and she was good, very good. She’d made detective before him and he was glad that when he’d made rank, they were assigned as partners.
Usually, she was smiling but that wasn't the case this morning. She started talking before he got to her.
“Why didn’t you answer my pages?”
“Good morning to you, too”
“Lieutenant says there's a body over by Canyon State Park. He wants us to take it.”
“Yeah, I know. That’s why I ignored your pages, he wanted me here as fast as possible.”
She wasn’t buying it.
“Whatever!”
He laughed. It was good to be working with his partner again.
“Why are we taking a case in a state park?”
“Lieutenant says it’s just outside the park, in the Stanton subdivision, and they’ve asked us to take the lead.”
“He give you any other details?”
By now Jason had turned around and was walking with Vanessa towards her car.
“Just that it's a female. Uniforms have taped the area off. Medical Examiner and forensics are on the way.”
They got to her car, a restored 1971 Dodge Challenger, and got in. She fired up the engine with a roar. Jason loved the sound of it. Vanessa's husband had restored it for her at his auto body shop.
Jason had been to the shop a handful of times and had seen several of the cars Rob had done for customers. He was good at what he did. Jason had a Ford Thunderbird he wanted Rob to tackle but the new house had used up all the fun money for now.
They were on the Highway 1608 loop heading north towards the suburb of Stanton. Even though it was a hot July day, they drove with the windows open and the air conditioning off. He knew Vanessa loved to let her hair blow and his comfort came second. Truth was he didn't mind. It reminded him of his college days.
Jason was just over six feet with sandy brown hair and piercing blue eyes. He wore his dark sunglasses most of the time but, when he wanted information or wanted to get a read on someone, he would take them off. He could be very intimidating with his stare. He was muscular in an athletic way, not a body builder, but strong and very calm under fire.
Vanessa was his opposite. She was always going forward, most always talking, and ready for anything. She was also smart and the two of them complimented each other well. They made a formidable team.
She wheeled the Challenger around a sharp corner and came to stop at a stretch of yellow crime tape. The crime scene ran from the road back into the woods about two hundred yards, across another hundred and then back to the road. Jason could see the forensics team near the middle of the yellow box, bending over a form.
They got out, and even though they were well known to the officers, flashed their badges before ducking under the tape. Vanessa was pulling on latex gloves while they walked. She had gone quiet. For all the talking she did normally, at a crime scene she was the quiet one. Jason would ask most of the questions while Vanessa looked at the scene for things that seemed out of place or somehow askew.
They got up to the body and the forensics team stepped back. Jason nodded at the chief medical examiner, Doctor Leonard Davis.
He had first met Leonard Davis at the city morgue during his first year on patrol. Jason had gone over to meet a detective who had some questions, and had been introduced to the Doc.
The years hadn’t changed Doc at all. Jason remembered thinking the doctor was near retirement when he first met him. He still looked 65, with just a ring of gray hair around his head and extremely pale skin, from too many days in the basement morgue. He weighed on the heavy side of 250 pounds and could best be described as ‘lumbering’ when he walked. He might be the smartest man Jason knew.
“Doc, what have we got?”
“Female, approximately 25, been dead about two days.”
“Can you tell what killed her?”
“Appears to be single gunshot to the heart.”
The woman's body was naked and she was propped up with her back against a tree. A wine glass had been stood up in her right hand. Vanessa shook her head.
“What kinda sick shit is that?”
Jason squinted at the wine glass. It had a bloodstain on it. He looked at the medical examiner.
“Can you tell if she was killed here or dumped?”
Leonard Davis leaned over and pulled the body away from the tree.
“Look for yourself.”
Jason bent over and looked at the tree behind her. There was blood and tissue imbedded in the tree bark.
“You find a bullet?”
The medical examiner let the body resume it’s position against the tree and pulled a baggie out of his pocket, waving it at them.
“It's a 9 millimeter. Forensics lab will run ballistics when I get back to see if it matches anything on record. I wouldn’t hold my breath though, it’s pretty badly beat up.” He waved a second baggie. “Also found a shell casing. It might be more helpful.”
Jason took out a note pad and started jotting down information. Vanessa reached over with a pen and moved the wine glass in the sun.
“Is there any other blood, where this stain could come from?”
Doc Davis shook his head.
“No. The gunshot is the only wound.”
“So it could be our perpetrator’s blood?”
“Could be. Won’t know until autopsy.
“Any ID?”
“No, and a search of the area hasn't turned up any clothes or a purse.”
Jason looked around.
“Who found the body?”
One of the uniforms nearby pointed at a man in green fatigues and a ball cap.
“A hunter. That's him over there.”
Jason left Vanessa studying the scene and walked over to the hunter. Even though he hunted animals, and probably killed some if he was any good, the sight of a human body had clearly left him shaken. Jason extended his hand as he reached the man.
“Detective Jason Strong.”
“Mike Gilbert.”
They shook hands.
“You found the body?”
“Unfortunately. Couple hours ago.”
“Can I ask what you were doing back here off the road?”
“I like to hunt. This is one of my favorite areas.”
“It's July, what were you hunting?”
“Squirrel.”
Jason noticed there wasn’t any defensiveness in his answers.
“Okay, make sure the officer has your name and number. You can go after that. Thanks.”
Jason went back to Vanessa. He found her standing about thirty feet from the body taking in the whole scene. It was time to pick her brain.
“What do you think?”
“Well, he was clearly comfortable here. It's not that far off the road. Probably stripped her and raped her, if she was raped, somewhere besides this forest. We know she was shot here but it feels more like a dump site than like he spent a lot of time here.”
Jason was adding her thoughts to his notebook while she continued.
“The wine glass and posing of the body indicate a ritual or message of some kind. The choice of the victim may have been opportunity but the crime itself was clearly premeditated. Assuming she was raped, the final pose speaks more to why she was killed than the sex act itself does.”
Doctor Davis waved and pointed at the body. He wanted to know if they were done. Jason gave him a thumbs up and they started preparing the body for transport. Evidence bags were put over the hands and the dead woman zipped into a body bag.
Jason and Vanessa rounded up the uniformed officers on the scene and began a search line. They began at the road and walked slowly until they reached a point approximately fifty yards past the body. The only items bagged for evidence were two soda cans and a cigarette butt.