“At the souvenir shop. Remember? The jar was on a shelf surrounded by snow globes depicting pirate chests filled with gold doubloons. The killer was being cute. Alluding to his private necropolis filled with treasure chests.”
“So you think this Miriam is the same Miriam who, you know….”
“I do.”
Usually, he says, “It's a possibility.” Not today. Today, he's definite.
“The nose, most likely, was the souvenir the killer kept for himself during the totem stage of his cyclical spree. During or after the murder, the killer performs a ritualistic taking of trophies, often involving mutilation of his dead victim's corpse. He needs a souvenir, something to help him perpetuate the erotic pleasure sparked during the actual killing.”
“Jesus.”
“It's no wonder he placed his formaldehyde jars in a museum and, later, The Treasure Chest. One building storehouses trophies, the other contains nothing but souvenirs. This man is taunting us.”
“Why?”
“He wants us to know he's back in town. Perhaps to complete another killing cycle. A serial killer is very similar to a drug addict, Danny. Sooner or later he will give in to his cravings and return to the one thing in the world that gives him pleasure.”
Ceepak pulls a pair of latex gloves out of his hip pocket, snaps them onto his hands. Next, he finds his magnifying lens. Finally, he uses his free hand to hold the skull. He looks like Hamlet crossed with Sherlock Holmes. I make sure no one's watching.
It's amazing. The beach is still empty.
“Can you see it, Danny?”
I lean over his shoulder, try to look through the lens, but all I'm getting is a rubbery, funhouse-mirror close-up of white.
“See what?”
“Between the eye sockets. Where the nasal bone is joined to the frontal bone.”
I see an upside-down Valentine-heart-shaped hole between the skull's two eye sockets. Not much else.
“Definitely nicked,” says Ceepak. “Slightly notched. There are noticeable groove marks where a blade sawed too close to the bone when severing the cartilage forming the support structure for the nose.”
He flips the skull around in his hand and zooms in for a look at the ear canal.
“Here, too. I note chipping near the exterior auditory meatus. A cut line crossing into the adjoining temporal bone.”
“He cut off Miriam's ears?”
“Yes, Danny.”
“But we didn't find her ears.”
“Not yet. Most likely, those were the souvenirs he chose to keep for himself, in his personal museum.”
Ceepak slips the skull back into its paper sack.
“I believe we may have just isolated the killer's signature.”
Ceepak hikes back across the sand to Hole Number One and the ring of evidence bags circling it-everything we found with “Delilah's” skull.
Ceepak reaches into the bag, pulls out the skull, and examines it with his magnifying glass. First the front, then both sides.
“Again. The nose and both ears were chopped off. The cuts in this instance were much cruder, less skilled. I note a false start with a serrated blade high up on the nasal bone, along an imaginary line running between the girl's pupils.”
I don't want to imagine that line. I don't want to imagine some lunatic drawing it in with a stubby carpenter's pencil or snapping a blue chalk line across the girl's face so he could saw off her nose with a serrated steak knife.
“He kills his victims, decapitates them, then cuts off their nose and their ears. This is his signature.”
“Why?”
“Unclear.”
He puts away Skull Number One and marches over to Hole Number Two.
“We need to call Officer Diego. Have her run down the Bible quote.”
“Diego doesn't come in until nine.”
“Let's radio the house. Have Dispatch call her at home and instruct her to report for duty ASAP.”
“It's only like a half hour until….”
“Danny? Time is of the essence.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We should also request uniformed backup to help us secure this crime scene and work crowd control. The beach will be filling up soon. We should contact the municipal garage. See if we can procure some privacy screens. You know, the type of tarps the Highway Patrol puts up around serious accident scenes on the Interstate.”
“Right.”
“I will once again urge the chief to request county, state, and/or federal assistance. He should also contact the Chamber of Commerce. Postponement of the Sand Castle Competition would seem the most prudent course of action.”
“Yeah.”
“Danny, if you had any plans for this evening, please cancel them.”
“Yes, sir.”
“We need to move fast. This killer may not wait for Chief Baines to call the FBI before striking again.”
And I was worried about the greenheads.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
One hour later, we have two more holes, two more plastic containers, two more skulls pulled up from the sand.
Hole Number Three: Rebecca. Tuesday, August 13, 1980.
Hole Number Four: Deborah. Tuesday, July 29, 1981.
Each skull was wrapped in the local newspaper from the following Friday. Each was stored in Tupperware- type bins slightly different from each other and the ones we found earlier, but big enough to handle the job. All four plastic containers held sandwich bags with neatly typed index cards identifying the victim and proclaiming, “Thus will I make thy lewdness to cease.”
Each find also contained a map leading us gruesomely onward.
One hour later, we have company. Lots of it. First came the lifeguards. Now the beach is almost full, fed by a steady parade of sun worshippers. They march across the sand and claim their territory, planting the family umbrella. They haul lawn chairs, ice chests, boogie boards, and rolling laundry carts stuffed with towels, paddle- ball paddles, and brightly-colored sponge toys. They wear bathing suits, sarongs, sun visors, and the occasional unfortunate Speedo. Children squeal and splash at the foamy edge of the shallow water, down where the sand sucks at your toes. Parents lounge in low-slung chairs. Every now and then, the lifeguard up on his platform blows a whistle, calling foul on some hotshot boldly venturing beyond the safety flags staked fifty feet out from his chair. The flags tell you where it's safe to swim.
Today I wonder if any place on this particular beach is safe. There are dangerous, hidden spots nobody can see. Deep black holes where young girls disappear. Young girls nobody was watching out for. The invisible dead. What Ceepak, only yesterday, called the “less dead.”
You dig up four skulls in under an hour, you start thinking creepy stuff like that.
Ceepak decides we should stop digging even though we are in possession of Map Number Four, which indicates that if we venture seven paces to the east we will unearth Skull Number Five.
