Chapter EIGHT.
Two stone pillars at the end of High Street farthest from the courthouse marked the main entrance to Wishing Well Park. A wide path between the pillars led to the wishing well, which had been built in 1972 as a memorial to the men of Whitaker County who had given their lives in the Vietnam War.
From the wishing well, the park expanded into a large recreational area with a marina, baseball diamonds, a playground, a band shell and a series of hiking trails.
It was only one mile from Oscar Watts's house to the wishing well, but Oscar was a neophyte in the world of physical fitness and the two-mile round trip of alternate jogging and walking was pure agony. Oscar worked as a bookkeeper at the JCPENNEY on Broad. Though his doctor was always chiding him about his weight, Oscar was never troubled b the fact that his belt was lost in y overlapping rolls of fat. He loved to eat, and he didn't really need to be physically fit to add up columns of numbers. Then, Oscar had a stroke and his doctor gave him a solemn lecture about blocked arteries, sky-high cholesterol counts and saturated fats. Now, instead of spending each morning consuming stacks of his wife's fabulous maple-syrup-and-butter-soaked hotcakes, Oscar spent his mornings gasping in agony as he struggled along the hiking trails of Wishing Well Park.
Head down, feet dragging, mouth open and gulping for air, Oscar trudged ahead on legs of lead. When he looked up, the wheezing jogger saw the wishing well wavering like a ghostly beacon in the half light of dawn, reminding Oscar that his self-inflicted torture was half over. He was one hundred yards from the well when he spotted the object at its base. He was fifty yards away when he realized it might be human. Oscar stopped running and leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees, straining for a better look. Sweat obscured his vision.
He ran his forearm across his eyes. Could that be a woman? It was hard to tell. Whatever sex it was, the person was curled around the base of the well, knees almost touching the red brick and hands and arms tucked out of sight, as if the person was sleeping. She could be sleeping, Oscar thought hopefully, as he crept toward the well.
At twenty-five yards, Oscar started to make out the dark stains that had soaked into the long blond hair and puddled at the base of the well. He wondered if he should call a cop now or take a closer look. Oscar didn't want to jump to conclusions and look like a fool. He decided to check things out. It was the last time Oscar thought about food for a long time.
Earl Ridgely could hear the gentle rush of the river from where he was standing. The summer air smelled of fresh-cut grass and roses. Morning dew shined his scuffed, black leather shoes. It was the type of balmy JU y t -tat made Ridgely wish he were lazing in a hammock sipping from a cold glass of sangria. Instead, he was sweating in a business suit, just inside the perimeter set up by the forensic experts from the Oregon State Crime Lab as they studied the body huddled next to the red brick wishing well.
Ridgely was a slender man with thinning strawcolored hair, tortoiseshell glasses and a thick mustache.
A local boy who graduated with distinction from Stanford, but was smart enough to attend an in-state law school because he wanted a career in politics. Ridgely was forty and at the tall end of his second term as Whitaker County D.A. A spot on the circuit court bench would be opening up soon. A good friend from law school was the governor's legal adviser and Earl had been assured that he would soon be taking his first step up a ladder that he hoped would end at the Oregon Supreme Court.
As he approached the body, a young policeman wearing latex gloves was delicately holding up for Sergeant Dennis Downes's inspection a thin metal chain at the end of which dangled a medallion. Downes had been selected by the Major Crime Team to be the officer in charge because the crime being investigated was within the Whitaker city limits. The team was composed of the same men who had viewed the body found several weeks ago in a gully in the wastelands at the border of Whitaker County. The method of murder and the type of victim were sufficiently similar to put every one of these seasoned professionals on edge.
'Should I bag this?' the officer asked.
'Where'd you find it?'
'In the bushes by the entrance.'
'Better do it,' Downes decided, even though the bushes were a distance from the wishing well. The officer walked away with his find.
'Morning, Dennis,' the district attorney said.
'Mornin', Earl.'
'Any idea who she is?'
'Not yet, but she's got to be from the college. Looks the age and she's wearing a Whitaker tee shirt.'
'Does she have any ID?'
'If she had a purse or wallet, we haven't found it.'
'Then, let's get her picture on TV and ask the Clarion to run it on the front page of the afternoon edition.'
Downes jerked his head toward the body. 'Like that?' he asked, wanting to be certain he understood Ridgely.
'Of course not. If she can't be cleaned up, have King make a sketch.'
Downes looked relieved. Ridgely didn't blame him.
He had taken only one quick look at the corpse, but it was enough to leave him light-headed. People died unnatural deaths in Whitaker County, but the dead were usually the victims of auto accidents and farming mishaps. This girl's skull had been split, exposing the brain and drenching her long blond hair with blood that had soaked into her clothes and spilled onto the ground in such quantities that even the careful forensic experts were stained by it.
The girl's face had been lacerated by chopping blows, creating open wounds that also bled profusely.
Ridgely spotted Dr. Guisti bending over the corpse.
Guisti straightened up when he saw the D.A. approaching.
'Was the murder weapon a hatchet?' Ridgely asked when they were far enough away from everyone else so they could not be heard.
'I can't say for certain, but I will say that there are enough similarities between this crime, the murder in the gully and the murder in Blaine for me to say they are either the work of the same person or a very good copycat.'
'Any signs of sexual activity?' Ridgely asked. The first two women had been raped before they were killed.
'I won't know until I examine her, but I'm guessing no. The other women were naked. She's got her clothes on. The first two were murdered in a location different from where they were found. I'm guessing the killer ah ducted the other women and held them for a while, but fouled up the abduction here and had to kill her.'
'I don't like this one bit, Harold. What you're telling me is that we've got a serial killer in Whitaker County.'
'Looks like it.'
'Well, shit. I don't have the personnel to investigate something like this.'
'You'd better figure out how to do it quick. I started doing a little reading on the subject after we found Emily Curran in that gully. One thing's for certain. Our boy has tasted blood and, according to the literature, once he's taken a liking to the killing, he's not going to stop.
The Mancini-Harmon wedding reception was held in the dining room of the Whitaker Elks Club. A long table stocked with hors d'oeuvres, salads, desserts and a selecnon of roast beef and fried chicken stood against one wall next to the bar. A band played in front of a large dance floor on the opposite side of the hall. The guests chattered noisily at tables covered by white-and-redcheckerboard tablecloths. Peter was refreshing his drink at the bar when a finger poked him in the back.
'Hi, Peter.'
Peter turned too quickly and a splash of gin and tonic slopped over the lip of his glass, wetting his hand. He jerked his hand back reflexively and some more liquid jumped out of the glass.
'Having trouble holding your liquor?'
Peter looked down and found Becky O'Shay observing him with a bemused smile.
'Don't you know better than to sneak up on a person like that?' Peter asked, annoyed that Whitaker's prosecutorial pixie had made him look foolish.
