no one saw him.”
Behind the body, the terrain changed markedly. Over time, pounding waves had done a job on the rock face, chopping it into pieces of varying sizes. Boulders, large and small, rose and fell in height, leading into the ocean a few dozen feet in the distance.
Vail said, “I can’t see how the offender would get in here on this end. He had to have come in where we did. Without anyone seeing him.”
Burden gave a quick look, then turned to study the opposite end of the cave. “Coming from the road, it’s a long haul. And the terrain’s rough. Hard to carry a body. Even using a wheelbarrow, or something like that cart he used back at the Palace of Fine Arts, not as easy to do here.”
“Remember,” Vail said. “Easiest thing for the offender to do is bring the vic here alive, then kill him in the tunnel.” Vail removed a pen from her pocket and handed the flashlight to Friedberg as she separated the ends of the man’s Members Only windbreaker. “Wanna hear my theory?”
“That’s what we brought you out here for,” Burden said.
“This kind of disposal site tells me that this offender has some prior knowledge of what he’s getting himself into here. The challenge of the terrain. But he still uses it-which would suggest it holds some kind of symbolism for him. It’s more than just being ‘in your face.’ He wants law enforcement to get the symbolism. And if I’m right, this kind of offender’s gonna be the type to monitor the investigation. He’ll pay attention to what the media says, so he can find out what we’re thinking about his disposal sites.”
“Maybe we can use that.”
Vail nodded. “The statements we make about these sites are very important. We may even use misinformation. We could totally misinterpret what he’d intended, to get him to contact us-kind of like, ‘No, stupid, you got it all wrong. This is why I’m doing it this way!’”
“I think we can arrange that,” Burden said. “A reporter I know, we can use him. He’ll do it.”
“Meantime,” Friedberg said, “if we can find out who this vic is, we may find another body.”
Burden nodded. “His wife.”
“Yeah,” Vail said, her mind shifting to an image of Maureen Anderson’s tortured body. “His wife.” Off to the side, amongst the uneven boulders, two parallel rusted metal strips poking up and between the rock caught her eye. “Is that railroad track? Kind of in the middle of nowhere.”
“That is what it looks like,” Burden said, peering out the opening. “Old. Very old. Maybe there was a gold mine around here.”
Friedberg slipped a gloved hand inside the man’s jacket. He fished around, then pulled out a wallet and opened it. “Russell Ilg.”
Burden pulled out his BlackBerry and started dialing. “Address?”
Friedberg read it off and Burden relayed it to the dispatcher. “Get a unit over there ASAP. Tell them I expect they’re going to find a DB. And it won’t be pretty. And tell ’em to use booties because I don’t want my crime scene destroyed.” He listened a moment, said, “Yeah,” then hung up. “His wife’s Irene. Seventy-nine.”
Vail gestured to Friedberg. “Get a light on his face, let’s see what we can see. And where the hell’s that CSI?”
Ilg’s face had deep jowls and a full head of gray hair that had been tousled by the whipping wind blowing in through the cave’s mouth. But then the flashlight hit the forehead. A 49 was written in black marker.
“So,” Vail said. “First, a 37. Now a 49. Burden, you’re the number scrambling Sudoku expert. What’s the significance?”
“Hell if I know. But forty-nine is significant to California. Gold Rush in 1849. The football 49ers. There’s a Pier 49, too.”
“And there’s a forty-nine-mile scenic drive in the city,” Friedberg said.
No. Vail shook her head. “Now that we have two vics with numbers, we have to start looking for a pattern or some relationship between the digits.” And why is it only on the male vics?
“I’ll think on it,” Burden said.
Friedberg ran the beam over the length of the body. “No overt signs of trauma.”
Vail leaned over the cable. “Let’s see the back of his head.”
Friedberg brought the light up.
“There,” Vail said, pointing. “Looks like bruising. Very substantial. Hard to see all of it because that two-by-four is in the way.” She moved around to Ilg’s hands. “Give me some light here.” She leaned in close, studied all ten fingers. “No defensive wounds. Just like William Anderson.”
“Meaning?” Friedberg asked.
Vail stepped back. “Remember I said control is the key? Our offender’s got an effective way of controlling them enough to get them somewhere near where he wants to display the body.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” Burden said. “I mean, the guy’s displaying these bodies in public because-what-I assume it’s to make a statement. Right?”
“Could be. Could be he’s going for shock value. Could be these places mean something to him. Or he could be taunting us.”
“Taunting us?” Burden asked. “How?”
A whistle echoed in the tunnel. The three of them turned and saw the silhouetted figure of a man headed toward them, carrying a toolkit.
“Our CSI,” Burden said. He turned back to Vail. “What do you mean? How is he taunting us?”
“Could be taunting us. I don’t know. But it’s a possibility. Like I said. The symbolism. We’re supposed to see something here, with these vics.”
“Yeah, but we ain’t seeing shit.”
“And that,” Vail said, “could be a potential problem. But think about it a second. He could pose or leave the bodies in any public place, places that don’t require the same level of effort and risk. But no. He picks these places for a reason. It’s more than just for shock. And while I don’t doubt there’s some taunting involved, it’s probably much more than that, too.” Vail turned to face Russell Ilg’s body. “Maybe we need to shed some light on the subject.”
Burden gave her a look.
“I don’t mean that as a joke. We need more information. Now that we’ve got three, and likely four bodies, we can fine-tune our theories. Hone the profile.”
“What happens if you’re right, and he really is leaving us clues that we’re not seeing?”
“One possibility is that he’s going to get frustrated. He’ll keep killing until we ‘get it.’ No matter what, he’s going to contact us somehow, somewhere. You may want to tell your office staff and operators to be aware of any suspicious calls.”
“On it,” Friedberg said. He lifted his phone and started
