head, read 613.
What did the numbers mean?
Where had these heads come from?
Why were they placed here in plain sight?
If this was a homicide, where were the bodies?
I tore my gaze away from the heads to look into Janet Worley’s face. She covered her mouth with both hands and tears sprang to her eyes.
I saw a meltdown coming. I had to question her. Now.
“Who do these remains belong to? Where are the bodies? Tell us about it, Mrs. Worley.”
“Me? All I know is what I just told you. I’m the one who called the police.”
“Then who did this?”
“I have no idea. None at all.”
“You understand that lying would make you an accessory to the crime.”
“My God. I know nothing.”
Conklin said, “We need the names of everyone who has been inside this house since last Friday.”
“Of course, but it’s only been my husband, my daughter, and me.”
“And Mr. Chandler?”
“Heavens, no. I haven’t seen him in three months.”
“Have you handled these heads or disturbed anything on the patio?”
“No, no, no. I opened the door to air out the room at about seven this morning. I saw this. I called my husband. Then I called nine-one-one.”
Janet Worley went inside the house, and Conklin and I were left to consider the nature of “this.”
Was it Satanism? Terrorism? Drug-related homicide? Who were these victims? What had happened to them?
I wanted to start looking around, but Conklin and I had to stay on the bricks and focus on what we could see without contaminating evidence.
Brady had told us to do the prelim.
That was the job: scope out the crime and tell our lieutenant whether this was a double homicide or a freak show that should be handed off to Major Crimes.
“I don’t know what the hell we’re looking at,” I said to Conklin.
Truly, I’d never seen anything like it in my life.
Chapter 8
The back garden was a dark, three-quarter-acre triangular plot that looked as though a slice of woodland had been dropped down in one piece behind the Ellsworth house.
The parcel was shadowed by buildings and mature trees, crossed with mulched paths, bounded by the house on one side and by two ten-foot-high brick walls that met at a toolshed at the farthest end of the garden.
Looking for entrances, I saw, in addition to the front gate with its broken lock, five doors that opened to the garden from the main house and a gate in the wall next to the toolshed.
“There’s a multipurpose tool,” Conklin said.
He was pointing to a shovel half hidden by a shrub, and beyond the shovel was a mound of soil and a hole dug in the dirt. The hole was about two feet across, the right size for potted chrysanthemums — and also just right for disembodied heads.
I saw a second hole, just visible from the far corner of the patio, and beside that hole was a rounded stone.
Now that I was looking for them, I saw other stones around the garden. Maybe they were decorative in a gnomish way, or maybe the stones were markers.
If the shovel had been used to break the lock, it would mean that whoever broke in knew where to look for the disembodied heads and had then exhumed them.
Did that mean that the intruder was the killer?
Or was he an accessory to whatever mayhem had taken place?
I took another look at the numbered index cards.
When a killer deliberately leaves a calling card, it’s a dare. Usually means he’s trying to show the cops that he’s smarter than they are. It’s playing a very risky game.
Here was the game board as I saw it: a large hidden garden, two severed heads wreathed with flowers, cryptic numbers on a matching pair of index cards.
Did the numbers indicate how many heads were in the garden? Could hundreds of skulls be in this place, perhaps stacked in holes, one on top of another?
Beyond the complete creepiness of the skull tableau, I didn’t have a sense of the meaning or intent of any of it, but we were just getting started and hadn’t yet scratched the surface.
I said to Conklin, “The quickest way is also the best.”
“Ground-penetrating radar,” he said, staring out into the garden.
“And cadaver dogs. We’ve got to dig this place up.”
Chapter 9
We met Nigel Worley in the kitchen of the Ellsworth house.
At six three, he was a full foot taller than his wife and had almost a hundred and fifty bloated pounds on her too. His face was puffy. Looked to me like he was a heavy drinker, and I noticed that he had rough dark-stained hands. He answered only questions directed specifically to him, and when he spoke, it was to a place in the air between Conklin and me.
Mr. Worley had no theories about the severed heads, and his tone was hostile. But he had to make a statement on the record. We gave him no choice. The Worleys were witnesses and they were also the only suspects we had.
We put on the siren and drove the English couple from their residence back to the Hall.
While Conklin interviewed Nigel Worley, I sat across from Janet Worley in the smaller of our two interrogation rooms. Brady paced unseen behind the glass.
Brady had already told me that he was unhappy with how our day was turning out. In his opinion, the Ellsworth case was a tar pit, and Conklin and I were going to get sucked under. He needed us to work the vigilante-cop case, and he wanted us to work it now.
I understood his concerns, but I’d seen the severed head of a woman who’d been alive a week ago. She was a Jane Doe, and because we didn’t know her name, she was about to get an official case number and a spot on a refrigerated shelf in the city morgue.
The camera in the corner of the interview room rolled tape as Janet Worley told me that she and Nigel had come to the United States from England ten years before and that they had been working for Harry Chandler since he bought the compound.
She said that she’d “adored” the Chandlers and were shocked and heartbroken when Mrs. Chandler disappeared. The Worleys had stayed on at the compound when Mr. Chandler went on trial, in part because their daughter loved living there and still did.
“Nicole is with Fish and Wildlife,” Janet told me. “She hasn’t been home all weekend. She’s a biologist, you know. Off on some animal rescue mission in the wilderness, I expect. I haven’t been able to reach her on the phone.”
Janet Worley thought Nicole would be returning home that evening but said they never knew her movements for sure.
