He told her to take Highway 64 north for thirty miles and that he would have a squad car waiting for her at the park entrance so she and Jeffrey could find the way to the remote spot in the woods.
“Fine, we’ll be there.’’ She hung up the phone without another word. A little civility was perhaps too much to ask from someone like Lydia Strong.
An hour later the pair arrived at the crime scene. Lydia brushed by Chief Morrow without a word and walked straight to the covered body. She asked the uniformed officer for a pair of surgical gloves, which he handed her, and she removed the light plastic tarp from the victim’s body.
“Was this tarp sterile?’’ Morrow heard her ask the officer. “Because if it wasn’t, you just contaminated the crime scene.’’
“Yes ma’am.’’
“‘Yes ma’am,’ what?’’
“Yes, it was sterile.’’
That was exactly why Morrow hadn’t wanted her here, looking over his shoulder, second-guessing every fucking move he made. Waiting for him to screw up again so she could ruin him for good.
“Hey, Chief,’’ Jeff said as he approached Morrow. “Who found the body?’’
“Some hunters from New York were looking for big game and they came across the body instead.’’ He motioned to a group of men, who for all their weathered toughness, rifles, and orange hunter’s attire, looked pale and shaken.
Lydia regarded the grotesque body of Maria Lopez. Throat slashed, a gaping wound from her sternum to her belly, eyes wide and glassy, skin tinged black-and-blue, the naked body lay discarded by the killer without regard. Lydia could tell instantly by the careless disposal that the killer did not care for Maria, had not known her in life. She was less than trash to the person who had killed her. Lydia wondered if the killer was becoming disorganized, descending into a careless rage to murder Maria so brutally and then dispose of her like a hated piece of furniture. Or maybe he was becoming cocky, having killed, presumably, three times without even raising suspicion.
She did not feel moved by the body. Life had abandoned it. It was nothing more than an object, arousing only wonder in her, as if she had spied a single shoe lying dirty and flattened in the middle of a city sidewalk. She stood up and circled the body. This was a dump site and not a true crime scene. He had not killed her here. There was not enough blood. He had carried her here in the body bag and opened the zipper, hoping, probably, that the scavengers would find her before the park visitors did.
It had not rained since Maria was taken from her apartment, but the ground was soft and damp so maybe they would get lucky – footprints, tire tracks. He could have driven only part of the way to the dump site. He would have had to then park the car on the dirt road below and carry her up the incline that Lydia and Jeffrey had just ascended, moving through the trees. Had he known this area well? Or had he just driven in during regular park hours and dumped her, hoping he wouldn’t be seen? It was very risky behavior, if that’s what he had done. Maybe, more likely, he had come and stayed at one of the campsites and done his deed under the cover of night. She wondered if there was a visitor registry or a list of license-plate numbers of park visitors.
“Lydia, check this out,’’ Jeffrey called.
Lydia walked over to where Jeffrey stood. He pushed aside some weeds, revealing a partial footprint. The rest of the area was more exposed to the wind, but the weeds had preserved the top half of a large boot. Lydia glanced over at the hunters.
“It could belong to one of them, or to another hunter. We should check their boots before they leave.’’
“Gentlemen, could you help us out over here?’’
One by one, each man removed his right boot and compared the tread to the track in the ground. There were no matches.
The crime-scene photographer came over and took some shots as Jeffrey directed.
“Chief, can you get someone over here to take a mold?’’ Jeffrey inquired.
“I don’t know how well a mold will take. The ground is pretty soft,’’ Morrow replied.
“We should at least try,’’ Lydia snapped, annoyed by what she considered to be his laziness.
“Fine,’’ Morrow replied curtly, angry at her tone but feeling powerless. He walked off to the squad car to use the radio.
“He’s right, Lydia. There’s no need to be so hard on him.’’
“Back off, Jeffrey.’’ Lydia was still angry from their argument earlier in the afternoon. She always held a grudge for a little while, at least, and didn’t like being criticized at the best of times.
“Fine.’’ Jeffrey walked off toward the squad car as well.
You’re the most popular girl at the crime scene, she thought.
Lydia walked back over to the body and scrutinized it for anything she might have missed before. Around Maria’s neck hung a small gold cross. Lydia bent down, covering her mouth and nose against the stench, and leaned in to get a better look at it. It was plain, thin and light, a cheap piece of gold if it was gold at all. Had she seen something like this in the case at the church? She couldn’t remember. She checked Maria’s earlobes. They were pierced but she wasn’t wearing earrings. Lydia was reminded of the earrings Jed McIntyre had stolen from his victims. She noticed that Maria’s right hand had a deep, wide gash, probably a defensive wound, and that she appeared to have blood beneath her fingernails.
Lydia approached Jeffrey and Morrow, who were conversing with the hunters. She eyed the strange men one by one, envisioning each of them as the killer, trying to imagine them stalking and murdering their victims, then removing their organs. But they all seemed too dimwitted, too simple. She was sure they would offer nothing by way of leads or evidence. She waited for a pause in the conversation.
“Morrow,’’ she interrupted, purposely neglecting to use his title, “Will you make sure that you get that gold cross off her neck? And we need to talk to someone who administers the park to find out if there is a camera at the entrance, or a register of vehicles that have entered the park since Maria Lopez went missing.’’
“Yeah, no problem,’’ he answered, silently kicking himself for not thinking of that first.
She turned to Jeffrey. “Unless you think I should stay, I’m going to speak with Greg Matthews and then go to Smokey’s, see if anyone’s talking, maybe run into Mike Urquia.’’
“You want me to come with you?’’
“No, I think I should go alone. Sometimes people are willing to say more to one person than they are to two.’’
“I’ll go with Morrow and follow the body to the Medical Examiner’s office and see what the autopsy turns up. On the way out, we’ll stop at the guard on duty, find out what the procedures are for logging in visitors.’’
Lydia looked at Jeffrey, and smiled slightly, lowering her eyes in a silent apology. She raised her hand and quickly smoothed the collar of his leather jacket, a gesture he knew meant peace. “I’m sorry, too,’’ he said and her smile widened.
“The results from the Maria Lopez apartment could arrive as early as tonight,’’ Morrow interjected. “I have a contact at the state lab who promised me a rush.’’
“Great,’’ Jeffrey answered Morrow. Turning to Lydia, “Just be careful. I’ll get a ride back to the house from Morrow or someone.’’
He watched her walk back to the car, her hands in her pockets. She paused before she was out of sight and looked back at him, saw he was watching her, and smiled again. She looked at him with equal parts apology, laughter, and wistfulness. He took a breath at the intensity of his feeling for her, at the magical quality of her beauty in the early-evening light.
Lydia knew about isolation, the lure of it, the seduction of having only yourself to answer to. She knew about the craving for a silencing of all voices but one’s own, about the urge to escape the gaze of others.
In fact, she had constructed a life where isolation had become as comfortable as down, solitude as welcome as sleep. She was alone, had taught herself not to need anyone, and somewhere along the line loneliness just became familiar. And she had grown afraid of everything else. She had started to fear intimacy the way some people fear being alone. She had driven people away all her life with her coldness. She had no friends; her relationship with her grandparents, who still lived in Sleepy Hollow where they had moved from Brooklyn after Marion was killed, was loving but distant. The only significant person in her life was Jeffrey, and she kept him always at arm’s length.
But she also knew that beneath that desire to alienate the world was another, more ardent wish to be understood and recognized, a desire bound and gagged by the hopelessness that such a thing was possible
