Skin Dancer (2 page)

“Whoever it was, they musta wised up and moved on,” Hank said. “That's a damn good way to get shot out here.”

He turned back to the campsite. He'd figure out who was playing with him and get even at a later date.

 

A blast of wind swept up the steep slope and through the fir trees, rattling limbs and sending grit flying into Rachel Redmond's face. She used the back of her hand to wipe her mouth and then licked her dry lips. She was the only woman in a group of four men, and she forced her gaze back to the hellish scene where two naked, headless bodies hung from a tree limb like dead game. With each gust of wind, the rope that ran through the dead men's Achilles tendons sang a quiet complaint. It was an eerie, keening sound like a badly tuned funeral fiddle.

The men had been decapitated and mutilated, one more severely than the other. Long strips of skin and muscle had been removed from their backs, stomachs, buttocks and thighs, as if someone had been harvesting the skin or inflicting the most intense pain possible. The idea made her want to look away, but she caught a glimpse of Jake Ortiz watching her. This wasn't the time to show squeamishness. 

The scene was staged, a killer who had a specific agenda, whether it was a fetish or more personal. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to set up the crime scene. Aside from some type of silver ornament jabbed into the chest of one body, there was a bamboo pole decorated with one feather. Footsteps around the body indicated that the killer, or killers, had moved in a repetitive circle around the bodies, a ritual of some kind, perhaps a dance.

Beside the men was the carcass of a moose, and beside the moose were two hunting rifles, one new and very expensive, a pile of clothes and two sets of boots. There was no identification in the clothes.

She walked over to moose, examining the gunshot to the chest that had brought it down. The animal had been shot at close range, the exit wound cavernous. It looked as if the men, poachers hunting out of season, had been removing the head for a trophy when someone had taken them by surprise and killed them. She hoped it was a killing with personal motivation, otherwise, all of the classic elements of a ritual killing were there. And ritual killers seldom stopped with a single act. Or at least that was the textbook wisdom she'd learned at the academy.

“Should I cut them down?” Marston French, one of the Criss County Search and Rescue volunteers, asked her.

“Leave them be for now. The forensic team should arrive any minute.” Until the techs processed the evidence, nothing could be moved or touched. The procedure was carefully outlined in the manual she'd memorized while training as a deputy. Even when she'd been studying at the police academy, beginning a career where she could make a difference, she'd never truly anticipated investigating a crime like this. The level of cruelty was beyond her comprehension.

Jake started to step forward but she maneuvered herself in front of him. He was a state game warden and the dead moose would fall under his purview, except that it was now part of a murder scene. Her scene. Dixon Point was on a finger of county land that stretched deep into the state forest. This was her case, by default since Sheriff Gordon Gray was out of commission.

“As soon as Gus gets here with the camera, make sure he gets a close–up of that silver thing pinned to the heavy one's chest.” She spoke to Wilt Baker, another volunteer. She had to take charge and issue some orders or the men would view her as ineffective. It was bad enough that she was a head shorter than all of them—and almost a decade younger. And Jake's protectiveness wasn't helping.

She turned to the three remaining volunteers. “Lonnie, would you take Beck and Gabe and see if you can find a campsite or vehicles or something. These men probably walked here to the Point, but they had to have a base or transportation somewhere. I'll broaden my search here for the missing heads. If you get to a place where you have cell phone service, call and ask for some dogs to be sent up here.”

“Sure thing, Rachel,” Lonnie said. “We'll keep an eye out for the heads, too.”

“Do that,” she said.

She stepped closer to the bodies, avoiding the blood that had pooled beneath them. The bamboo pole and feather spoke of some kind of Native ritual. The ornamental silver had been skewered into the man's chest with what looked to be a porcupine quill. She couldn't tell the purpose of the silver—if it was jewelry or what. Obviously hand–crafted, it glinted in the bright June sun and drew the attention of a big crow that watched from one of the trees.

She bent to examine the footprints that surrounded the victims. Her first impression of a dance seemed right. The ground looked as if a troop of school kids had played ring–around–the–rosie. And where the hell were the heads? If the bodies had been skinned, was it possible someone had lopped off the heads like trophies? Rachel tried not to imagine it.

“Deputy Redmond, can I send the moose down to the retirement home?” Wilt asked.

“No.” She started to walk the perimeter of the scene.

Jake came up beside her.

“It's tradition,” Wilt insisted. “We always send the meat from any poached game we get to the retirement home. Give the old folks some protein.”

Jake put a hand on Rachel's shoulder, a silent gesture of support, as he spoke. “Whoever killed that moose was pretty damn close, Wilt. The moose was likely drugged, and even though it's cool up here, the meat might be spoiled. Do what Rachel says.”

Rachel clamped her jaw shut. Jake was trying to help her. He didn't realize that he undermined her with such behavior.

When Wilt walked away, Rachel ignored Jake and moved behind the bodies, examining them from all angles. The man on her left had been a strong son–of–a–gun. The other body was lean, with more of a gym–sculpted look. Younger, too. Someone with money and time to devote to fitness training. The closest gym was an hour away, and it would be a simple matter to get a list of members.

She continued walking the scene, using the Polaroid camera to document everything. The crime scene photographer would take the official photos, but her snapshots might prove useful.

There was no way to tell the identity of the men. She'd have to rely on fingerprints or the tattoo of a pit viper on the large man's chest. She snapped a photo. The killer had left that particular piece of skin, as if he were trying to be helpful in the identification of the bodies. The idea made her antsy, and she started to walk away, almost bumping into Jake, who'd stepped too close behind her yet again.

He slipped a hand under her elbow for support. “I sure hope they were dead before they were skinned.”

She glanced at him to see if he was testing her. “Mercy doesn't appear to be a priority for this killer.” His gray eyes met hers squarely, and with a hint of humor.

“Helluva first murder case for a rookie.” His fingers tightened slightly on her flesh, just a hint of pressure. “Gordon picked the wrong time for his hip replacement.”

“I have to start somewhere and believe it or not, I've got the most training in the S.O.” She tempered the tone of her reply. Jake had never done anything except support her. “You know Scott's wife is expecting any day now. She's had serious complications, and he couldn't be stuck up here in the woods working a double homicide.” She lifted her chin. “And I asked for this case. I'm a grown–up, Jake, not the skinny, pitiful, abandoned kid from the wrong side of town.”

“You might have been skinny and abandoned, but you were never pitiful. You always liked a challenge.” Jake gave her arm one final squeeze.

“Yeah. That's me.” For nearly as long as she could remember, Jake had been a part of her life. He'd influenced her to go into law enforcement. Long ago, he'd saved her life.

“Ms. Redmond…I mean Deputy Redmond, the forensic boys are just coming over the ridge.” Wilt pointed down the trail where two techs from Rapid City were headed their way. The men carried big suitcases, and a camera hung from around one's neck.

“Thanks.” She walked forward to meet the team and to put some distance between herself and the crime scene. The blood pooled beneath the bodies had enticed a host of flies. The droning noise and the metallic smell were beginning to wear on her.

“This sure ain't no job for a lady.” Wilt's words, meant to be a whisper, carried to her. What she couldn't hear was Jake's response.

A short way down the path, Rachel faced a vista that stole her breath. A mile away, granite rock formations pushed high into a pale blue sky. Evergreens covered the steep slopes, some of the trunks enormous. There were waterfalls and caves and mysteries beyond the ken of mortal men. The Sioux believed that some of the caves were a portal to the underworld. The red men had come from that portal in the Black Hills, and it was here that the Great Spirit gave them the buffalo as a source of meat and shelter and clothes. The Native Americans' bond with the land was meshed with history and pride and a knowledge that man and the wilderness were irrevocably linked.

For Rachel, the Black Hills were savagely wild and untamed, a place where humans seldom encroached, and she'd grown to love this land. As a kid, she'd been all about cars and malls and drugs and the party life. She'd changed, though. Now she could hardly remember the frightened young girl who'd been so alone and so angry at the world.

“Looks like some poachers got caught with an illegal moose and someone took justice into his own hands.” Jake's voice came from behind her. He was talking to the advancing techs.

“Could be that,” she told the techs. “Just document everything. The feather on the pole appears to be owl. I want that checked out as soon as possible.”

“Will do.” The two men moved to the crime scene and got busy.

In the distance an eagle caught a high draft and floated in a slow circle. The county and state lands, as well as the federal lands of the Sioux reservations, were protected by stringent hunting laws. Many hunters, though, had no respect for borders, laws, or even the rudiments of sportsmanship. It was all about trophy.

And that, perhaps,
was
the motive behind these murders. The moose was an exotic and illegal, meaning someone had physically brought it into the area. Hunting season didn't start until the fall. It looked like the men were poachers, and it was possible that someone finally got tired of it.

But she didn't think so. This was more than revenge. The silver ornament, the feather, the brutality. This was planned, what the textbooks called a highly organized killer.

“Deputy.” The tech nodded at her but looked to Jake for direction.

She walked back and gave a rundown of the photographs she wanted. She'd worked with Gus once before on a suicide. He knew his business, but it was her job to be sure. “Nothing has been touched, unless it was by the hiker who found the bodies. He called it in and we got here as fast as we could. Wilt and Marston came along to help us get the bodies down to the road for transport back to town.”

“Good lord almighty.” The other tech stopped and simply stared at the scene. “I've never seen anything quite like this. Either someone has a burn on for illegal hunters or these two guys really pissed the hell out of someone.”

Rachel didn't say anything. The mutilation of the corpses was a message, but one she didn't fully understand. Maybe the science guys could give her a few hints as to what direction to pursue.

# # #

Frances “Frankie” Jackson swung up into the cab of the dozer and backed it away from the majestic fir tree. She glared at the burly man whose job it was to push the four–lane through the Black Hills. No one on the crew was particularly glad to see her as boss, and the truth was, she didn't care. If a road had to go through this place of wonder and beauty, she'd make sure it did the least amount of damage possible. That was the job Belker Construction had hired her to do—to build the highway while preserving the wilderness.

She parked the dozer and jumped to the ground. “Ben, this is a historic tree. See the marker.” She pointed to the woodcut emblem. “We don't need protesters out here halting our progress. You're twenty yards off course. If you can't follow the engineer's outline, you'd better tell me now.”

Several men stopped working to glance at her long legs encased in skintight jeans and the knee–high cowboy boots she favored. She was lean as a whippet, and she kept her body honed with kick–boxing and Pilates. Once she'd been a chubby pre–teen, drowning her stuttering sorrows and inadequacies in boats of gravy and bowls of ice cream. Lida Jane's finishing school had skimmed off the pounds and given her a whole new view of herself and a new menu of options for achieving her goals. Of course, if Lida Jane or any of the Montgomery, Alabama, ladies she'd grown up around knew her ambitions, they'd be horrified. Ladies didn't run road crews, and that was just the tip of the iceberg in her lack of conformity.

“Look, I don't care how much it pisses you off, we can't take down that tree.”

“It's a tree. There are a billion more right over there.” Ben swung his hand toward the forest. “The original route went right through there. It's the easiest and fastest—”

“And the road was changed to preserve that specific tree. Accept it or leave now.” Frankie caught a glimpse of movement in the dark protection of the firs. The Black Hills were so–called because, from a distance, the thick perfection of the trees made the hills look ebony. She saw the vague outline of a tall man at the edge of the woods. Before she could say or do anything, he was gone. She turned her attention back to the crew.

“This tree isn't going anywhere. I'm headed into town, and when I come back, if there's so much as a scratch on it, I'll see that every one of you is fired. When I find out who damaged the tree, and I will find out, he'll serve time in a federal prison.” She looked around the circle of men who'd fallen silent. At times they hated her, but that was just part of her job.