Once Buried
In a moment, the murder scene came into view.
Several men surrounded a hole dug in the sand where the body still remained. Two of them strode toward Riley and Jenn as they approached. One was a stocky, red-haired man in a uniform. The other, a slender man with curly black hair, was wearing a white shirt.
“I’m glad you could get here so soon,” the red-haired man said when Riley and Jenn introduced themselves. “I’m Parker Belt, the Sattler police chief. This is Zane Terzis, the Tidewater District medical examiner.”
Chief Belt led Riley and Jenn over to the hole and they looked down at the half-uncovered body.
Riley was more than used to seeing corpses in various states of mutilation and decomposition. Even so, this one jolted her with a unique kind of horror.
He was a blond man, about thirty years old, and he was wearing a jogging outfit suitable for a cool summer morning’s run along the beach. His arms remained sprawled in a statue-like state of rigor mortis from his desperate attempts to dig himself out. His eyes were shut tight, and his wide-open mouth was filled with sand.
Chief Belt stood next to Riley and Jenn.
Belt said, “He still had a wallet with plenty of identification – not that we really needed it. I recognized him the second Terzis and his men uncovered his face. His name is Todd Brier, and he’s a Lutheran pastor in Sattler. I didn’t go to his church – I’m a Methodist. But I knew him. We were good friends. We went fishing together from time to time.”
Belt’s voice was thick with sorrow and shock.
“How was the body found?” Riley asked.
“A guy came by walking a dog,” Belt said. “The dog stopped here, sniffing and whining, then started digging, and right away a hand appeared.”
“Is the guy who found the body still around?” Riley asked.
Belt shook his head.
“We sent him home. He was badly shaken up. But we told him he needed to be available for questions. I can put you in touch with him.”
Riley looked up from the body over to the water, which was some fifty feet away. The waters of the Chesapeake Bay were a deep rich blue, with white-topped waves lapping softly at the wet sand. Riley could see that the tide was going out.
Riley asked, “This was the second murder?”
“It was,” Belt replied grimly.
“Has anything like this ever happened here before these two?”
“Right here in Belle Terre, you mean?” Belt said. “No, nothing like it at all. This is a peaceful preserve for birds and wildlife. Local people use this beach, mostly families. From time to time we have to arrest some would-be poacher or settle an argument among visitors. We also have to chase away transients from time to time. That’s about as serious as it gets.”
Riley stepped around the hole to look at the body from a different angle. She saw a patch of blood on the back of the victim’s head.
“What do you make of this wound?” she asked Terzis.
“It looks like he was struck by some hard object,” the ME said. I’ll study it better when we get the body to the morgue. But from the looks of it, I’d say it was probably enough to daze him, just long enough so he couldn’t put up a fight while the killer was burying him. I doubt that he was ever completely unconscious. It’s pretty obvious that he struggled hard.”
Riley shuddered.
Yes, that much was obvious.
She said to Jenn, “Take some pictures and also send them to me.”
Jenn immediately took out her cell phone and started snapping photos of the hole and the corpse. Meanwhile, Riley walked slowly around the hole checking the beach in all directions. The killer hadn’t left a lot of clues. The sand around the hole had obviously been disturbed by the killer when he’d been digging, and there was a trail of vague footprints where the jogger had approached.
Vague, too, were any footprints left by the killer. The dry sand didn’t hold the shape of a shoe. But Riley could see where the marsh grass she’d come through had been broken down by someone other than the investigative team.
She pointed and said to Belt, “Have your guys scour that grass carefully to see if any fibers might have gotten caught there.”
The chief nodded.
A feeling began to creep over Riley – a familiar feeling that she sometimes got at a crime scene.
She hadn’t felt it often during her most recent cases. But it was a welcome feeling, one that she knew she could use as a tool.
It was an uncanny sense of the killer himself.
If she allowed herself to let that feeling sweep over her, she was likely to get some insights into just what had happened here.
Riley moved a few steps away from the group gathered at the scene. She glanced at Jenn and saw that her partner was watching her. Riley knew that Jenn was aware of her reputation for getting into killers’ minds. Riley nodded, and saw Jenn swing into action, asking questions of her own, distracting the others on the scene and giving Riley a few moments to concentrate her skills.
Riley closed her eyes and tried to picture the scene as it must have looked at the time of the murder.
Images and sounds came to her remarkably easily.
It was dim outside, and the beach was shadowy, but there were traces of light in the sky across the water from where the sun would later rise, and it wasn’t too dark to see.
The tide was up, and the water was probably only an easy stone’s throw away, so the sound of the surf was loud.
Loud enough so he could barely hear himself digging, Riley realized.
At that moment, Riley had no trouble stepping into a strange mind…
Yes, he was digging, and she could feel the strain of his muscles as he threw shovels of sand as far away as he could, feel the mixture of sweat and sea spray on his face.
The digging wasn’t easy. In fact, it was a bit frustrating.
It wasn’t easy to dig a hole in beach sand like this.
Sand had a way of trickling back in, partially refilling the space where he dug.
He was thinking…
It won’t be very deep. But it doesn’t have to be deep.
All the while he kept glancing up at the beach, looking for his prey. And sure enough, he soon appeared, jogging along contentedly not far away.
And at the perfect time, too – the hole was just as deep as it needed to be.
The killer pushed the shovel into the sand and raised up his hands and waved.
“Come over here!” he shouted to the jogger.
Not that it mattered what he shouted – over the sound of the surf, the jogger wouldn’t be able to pick out his actual words, just a muffled yell.
The jogger stopped at the sound and looked his way.
Then he walked over to the killer.
The jogger was smiling as he approached, and the killer was smiling back at him.
Soon they were within earshot of each other.
“What’s up?” the jogger yelled over the surf.
“Come here and I’ll show you,” the killer yelled back.
The jogger unwarily walked over to where the killer was standing.
“Look down there,” the killer said. “Look really close.”
The jogger bent over, and with a swift, deft movement, the killer picked up the shovel and hit him in the back of the head, knocking him into the hole…
Riley was yanked out of her reverie by the sound of Chief Belt’s voice.
“Agent Paige?”
Riley opened her eyes and saw that Belt was looking at her with a curious expression. He hadn’t been distracted long by Jenn’s questions.
He said, “You seemed to leave us for a few moments there.”
Riley heard Jenn chuckle from nearby.
“She does that sometimes,” Jenn told the chief. “Don’t worry, she’s hard at work.”
Riley quickly reviewed the impressions she’d just gotten – all very hypothetical, of course, and hardly a moment-by-moment sense of what had actually happened.
But she felt very sure of one detail – that the jogger had come over at the killer’s invitation – and had approached him without fear.
This gave her a small but crucial insight.
Riley said to the police chief, “The killer is charming, likeable. People trust him.”
The chief’s eyes widened.
“How do you know?” he asked.
Riley heard laughter from someone approaching behind her.
“Trust me, she knows what she’s doing.”
She whirled around at the sound of the voice.
Her spirits brightened at what she saw.
Chapter Six
Chief Belt stepped toward the man who was approaching.
He said, “Mister, this area is closed. Couldn’t you see the barrier?”
“It’s OK,” Riley said. “This is Special Agent Bill Jeffreys. He’s with us.”
Riley hurried over to Bill and led him just far enough away so that they wouldn’t be heard by the others.
“What happened?” she said. “Why didn’t you answer my messages?”
Bill smiled sheepishly.
“I was just being an idiot. I…” His voice faded and he looked away.
Riley waited for his reply.
Then he finally said, “When I got your texts, I just didn’t know whether I was ready. I called Meredith for details, but I still didn’t know if I was ready. Hell, I didn’t know if I was ready when I started driving down here. I didn’t know if I was ready until just now when I saw…”
He pointed to the body.
He added, “Now I know. I’m ready to get back to work. Count me in.”
His voice was firm and his expression looked like he really meant it. Riley breathed a huge sigh of relief.
She led Bill back over to the officials clustered around the body in the hole. She introduced him to the chief and the medical examiner.
Jenn already knew Bill and she looked glad to see him, which pleased Riley. The last thing Riley needed was for Jenn to feel marginalized or resentful.
Riley and the others told Bill what little they knew so far. He listened with a look of keen interest.
Finally Bill said to the ME, “I think it’s OK to take away the body now. That is, if it’s OK with Agent Paige.”
“It’s fine with me,” Riley agreed. She was happy that Bill seemed like his old self now and eager to assert some authority.
As the ME’s team began to extract the body from the hole, Bill surveyed the area for a moment.
He asked Riley, “Have you checked out the site of the earlier murder?”
“Not yet,” she replied.
“Then we should do that,” he said.
Riley said to Chief Belt, “Let’s go have a look at your other crime scene.”
The chief agreed. “It’s a couple of miles into the nature preserve,” he added.
They all managed to push past the reporters again without commenting. Riley, Bill, and Jenn got into the FBI SUV, and Chief Belt and the ME took another car. The chief led them away from the beach, along a sandy road into a wooded area. When the road ended, they parked their cars. Riley and her colleagues followed the two officials on foot along a trail leading through the trees.
The chief kept the group to one side of the trail, pointing to some distinct footprints here in the firmer soil.
“Just your everyday sneakers,” Bill commented.
Riley nodded. She could see those prints going in both directions. But she felt sure they wouldn’t offer much information except for the killer’s shoe size.
However, some interesting marks were interspersed with the footprints. Two wobbly lines were dug into the soil.
“What do you make of these lines?” Riley asked Bill.
“Tracks from a wheelbarrow, coming and going,” Bill said. He glanced back over his shoulder toward the road and added, “My guess is the killer parked about where we’re parked now and brought his tools along this path.”
“That’s what we figured too,” Belt agreed. “And he left again this way.”
Soon they came to a spot where their path intersected a narrower one. In the middle of the smaller path was a long, deep hole. It was about the width of the path itself.
Chief Belt pointed to where the new path emerged from the surrounding trees. “The other victim seems to have come jogging along from that direction,” he said. “The hole was camouflaged, and she fell into it.”
Terzis added, “Her ankle was badly broken, probably from the fall. So she was helpless when the killer started piling dirt back in on her.”
Riley shuddered again at the thought of that kind of horrible death.
Jenn said, “And all this happened yesterday.”
Terzis nodded and said, “I’m pretty sure the time of death was identical to the murder on the beach – probably around six o’clock in the morning.”
“Before the actual sunrise,” Belt added. “It would have been quite dim. A jogger who came along here after dawn saw how the dirt had been disturbed and called us.”
While Jenn started taking more photos, Riley scanned the area. Her eyes fell on some flattened brush that had been crisscrossed by the wheelbarrow tracks. She could see where the killer had piled up dirt about fifteen feet away from the trail. The trees were fairly thick beside these pathways, so a runner wouldn’t have seen either the killer or the dirt as she’d come running in this direction.
Now the hole had been re-excavated by the police, who had piled the dirt right next to it.
Riley remembered that Meredith had mentioned this victim’s name back at Quantico, but she couldn’t recall it at the moment.
She said to Chief Belt, “I take it you were able to identify the victim.”
“That’s right,” Belt said. “She still had plenty of ID on her, just like Todd Brier did. Her name was Courtney Wallace. She lived in Sattler, but I didn’t know her personally. So I can’t tell you anything much about her just yet, except she was young, probably in her early twenties.”
Riley knelt down beside the hole and looked inside. Right away, she could see exactly how the killer had set his trap. At the bottom of the hole was a heavy, loosely woven blanket of erosion cloth, with leaves and debris tangled up in it. It had been spread out over the hole, unnoticeable to an unwary jogger, especially in the dim, pre-dawn light.
She made a mental note to call in a BAU forensics team to go over both of these sites. Maybe they could trace the origin of the erosion cloth.
Meanwhile, Riley was getting just a trace of the same sensation she’d had at the beach, of slipping into the killer’s mind. The feeling wasn’t nearly as vivid this time. But she could imagine him perched right where she was kneeling now, looking down at his helpless prey.
So what was he doing in those moments before he began to bury her alive?
She reminded herself of her earlier impression – that he was charming and likeable.
At first he probably feigned surprise at finding the young woman at the bottom of this hole. He may have even given the woman the impression that he’d help her get out.
She trusted him, Riley thought. If only for a moment.
Then he’d begun to tease her.
And before long, he began dumping wheelbarrows full of dirt down on her.
She must have screamed when she realized what was happening.
So how did he respond to the sound of her screaming?
Riley sensed that his sadism fully emerged. He paused from his task to throw a single shovelful of dirt in her face – not so much to stop her from screaming, but to torment her.
Riley shivered all over.
She felt relief as that feeling of connection began to slip away.
Now she could get back to looking at the crime scene with a more objective eye.
The shape of the hole seemed odd to her. The end where she was standing was dug in a pointed wedge shape. The other end reflected that same shape, only inverted.
It looked like the killer had gone to a certain amount of trouble about it.
But why? Riley wondered. What could it mean?
Just then, she heard Bill’s voice call out from somewhere behind her.
“I’ve found something. You’d all better come over here for a look.”
Chapter Seven
Riley whirled around to see what Bill was yelling about. His voice was coming from behind the trees off to one side of the path.
“What is it?” Chief Belt called out.
“What did you find?” Terzis echoed.
“Just come here,” Bill yelled back.
Riley got to her feet and headed in his direction. She could see broken-down brush where he had left the path.
“Are you coming?” Bill called out, starting to sound a little impatient.
Riley could tell by his tone of voice that he meant business.
Followed by Belt and Terzis, she waded through the thicket until they reached the small clearing where Bill was standing. Bill was looking down at the ground.
He’d found something, all right.
Another piece of erosion cloth was stretched over the ground, loosely held in place by small pegs at the corners.
“Good God,” Terzis murmured.
“Not another body,” Belt said.
But Riley knew that it had to be something different. For one thing, the hole was much smaller than the other, and square in shape.
Bill was putting on plastic gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints on whatever he was about to find. Then he knelt down and gently pulled the erosion cloth away.
All Riley could see was a circular piece of dark, polished wood.
Bill carefully took hold of the wooden circle with both hands and pulled it upward.
Everybody except Bill gasped at what he slowly brought out of the hole.
“An hourglass!” Chief Belt said.
“Biggest one I ever saw,” Terzis added.
And indeed, the object was over two feet tall.
“Are you sure it’s not some kind of trap?” Riley warned.
Bill rose to his feet with the object, keeping it perpendicular, handling it as delicately as he might handle an explosive device. He set it upright on the ground next to the hole.
Riley knelt and examined it closely. The thing didn’t seem to have any wires or springs. But was anything hidden beneath that sand? She tilted the thing to one side and didn’t see anything odd.
“It’s just a big hourglass,” she muttered. “And hidden just like the trap on the trail.”
“Not an hourglass, exactly,” Bill said. “I’m pretty sure it measures a longer period of time than an hour. It’s what’s called a sand timer.”
The object struck Riley as startlingly beautiful. The two globes of glass were exquisitely shaped, connected together by a narrow opening. The round wooden top and bottom pieces were connected by three wooden rods, carved into decorative patterns. The top was carved into a ripple pattern. The wood was dark and well-polished.
Riley had seen sand timers before – much smaller versions for cooking that counted off three or five or twenty minutes. This one was much, much bigger, over two feet tall.
The bottom globe was partially filled with tan sand.
There was no sand in the upper globe.
Chief Belt asked Bill, “How did you know something was here?”
Bill was crouching beside the sand timer, examining it attentively. He asked, “Did anyone else notice something odd about the shape of the pit on the trail?”
“I did,” Riley said. “The ends of the hole were dug in kind of a wedge-shaped manner.”
Bill nodded.
“It was roughly the shape of an arrow. The arrow pointed to where the path curved away and some of the bushes were broken down. So I just went where it was pointing.”
Chief Belt was still staring at the sand timer with amazement.
“Well, we’re lucky you found it,” he said.
“The killer wanted us to look here,” Riley muttered. “He wanted us to figure this out.”
Riley glanced at Bill, then at Jenn. She could tell they were thinking just what she was thinking.
The sand in the timer had run out.
Somehow, in a way they didn’t yet understand, that meant that they weren’t lucky at all.
Riley looked at Belt and asked, “Did any of your men find a timer like this at the beach?”
Belt shook his head and said, “No.”
Riley felt a grim tingle of intuition.
“Then you didn’t look hard enough,” she said.
Neither Belt nor Terzis spoke for a moment. They looked as though they couldn’t believe their ears.
Then Belt said, “Look, something like this would surely have stood out. I’m sure there wasn’t anything like it in the immediate area.”
Riley frowned. This thing that had been placed so carefully just had to be important. She felt sure that the cops had somehow overlooked another sand timer.
For that matter, so had she and Bill and Jenn when they’d been on the beach. Where could that one be?
“We’ve got to go back and look,” Riley said.
Bill carried the enormous timer over to the SUV. Jenn opened the back, and she and Bill put the object inside, making sure that it was braced and steadied against any sharp or sudden movement. They covered it with a blanket that was in the SUV.
Riley, Bill, and Jenn got into the SUV and followed the police chief’s car back toward the beach.
The number of reporters gathered in the parking area had increased, and they were getting more aggressive. As Riley and her colleagues made their way through them and past the yellow tape, she wondered how much longer they would be able to ignore their questions.
When they reached the beach, the body was no longer in the hole. The ME’s team had already loaded it into their van. The local cops were still combing the area for clues.
Belt called out to his men, who gathered around him.
“Has anybody seen a sand timer around here?” he asked. “It would look like a big hourglass, at least two feet tall.”
The cops looked perplexed by the question. They shook their heads and said no.
Riley was starting to feel impatient.
It must be around here somewhere, she thought. She walked to the top of a nearby grassy rise and looked around. But she could see no hourglass, not even disturbed sand that would indicate something freshly buried.
Or was her intuition playing tricks on her? It sometimes happened.
Not this time, she thought.
In her gut, she felt sure of it.
She walked back and stood looking down at the hole. It was very different from the one in the woods. It was shallower, more shapeless. The killer couldn’t have formed the dry beach sand into a pointer if he’d tried.
She turned all around and gazed in every direction.
All she saw was sand and the surf.
The tide was low. Of course the killer could have made some kind of wet sand-sculpture arrow, but it would have been seen right away. If it hadn’t been destroyed, it would still be visible.
She asked the others, “Have you seen anyone else anywhere near here – aside from the man with the dog who found the body?”
The cops shrugged and looked at each other.
One of them said, “Nobody except Rags Tucker.”
Riley’s eyes widened.
“Who’s he?” she asked.
“Just an eccentric old beachcomber,” Chief Belt said. “He lives in a little wigwam over there.”
Belt pointed farther along the beach where the shoreline curved away from the area where they stood.
Riley was getting a little angry now.
“Why didn’t anybody mention him before?” she snapped.
“There wasn’t much point,” Belt said. “We talked to him when we first got here. He didn’t see anything having to do with the murder. He said he’d been asleep when it happened.”
Riley let out a groan of irritation.
“We’re going to pay this guy a visit,” she said.
Followed by Bill, Jenn, and Chief Belt, she started walking along the sand.
As they walked, Riley said to Belt, “I thought you’d closed off the beach.”
“We did,” Belt said.
“Then what the hell is anybody still doing here?” Riley asked.
“Well, like I said, Rags sort of lives here,” Belt said. “There didn’t seem to be any point in kicking him out. Besides, he’s got no place else to go.”
After they rounded the curve, Belt led them up across the sand to a grassy rise. The group waded through the soft sand and tall grass to the top of the rise. From there Riley could see a little makeshift wigwam about a hundred yards away.
“That’s ol’ Rags’s house,” Belt said.
As they approached, Riley saw that it was covered with plastic bags and blankets. Here behind the rise, it was safely out of reach whenever the tide was high. The wigwam was surrounded by blankets covered with what looked like a crazy assortment of objects.
Riley said to Belt, “Tell me about this Rags Tucker character. Doesn’t Belle Terre have rules against vagrancy?”