The Girl in the Woods (9 page)

I
t was a perfect spring Saturday—the kind that residents of the Pacific Northwest don’t want the rest of the country to know about. Having people believe it rains all the time isn’t good for the travel industry, but it does keep people from moving to a place that’s considered gray with gloom most of the year. While snow fell like sanding sugar on Denver, and temperatures dipped on the East Coast to near freezing at night, the Seattle area was enjoying the kind of weather that invites men to go shirtless—even when a long winter of football and snacking offered more reasons to cover up.

A dirt biker named Martin Best had been riding the humps and bumps of the Limerick Trail in Banner Forest when he got off his bike to smoke a cigarette. Martin, a small but muscular guy in his mid-thirties, settled himself on a log riddled by the beak of a woodpecker to such a degree that it looked like it had been sprayed with buckshot. As he puffed away, he took in the silence of the forest.

Life was good. He’d made up with his girlfriend. His employment prospects were looking up. A second interview at a coffee roaster in Bremerton had gone well. It was a start-up company, but that was all right with him. He had turned the page on some dark times in his life. Nothing was going to stop him now. Looking up was a very good feeling.

He finished his smoke and snuffed it out with his fingertips and stuck the butt in his pants pocket. When he got up to get back on his bike, he noticed a large black plastic trash bag.

What’s with people, anyway?
he thought.

The bikers had a bad enough reputation as it was.
Why,
he wondered,
would someone give the county commissioners any more reasons to boot them out of the best trails for riding in the entire county?

Martin bent down to pick up the bag, but when he lifted it, it split in half.

Jesus! What’s that?
He pulled back from the worst smell he’d ever whiffed in his entire life. It was like railroad spikes driven into each nostril with a sledgehammer. He winced hard and his eyes watered. It was sharp, acrid, and gassy. All of a sudden, the young man vomited. It was a reflex, something far beyond his control.

His eyes had mapped out what it was that was in that plastic bag.

Curled inside was the body of a girl. Long blond hair, matted with twigs, lay on the forest floor. What Martin Best saw was blood-soaked and rotten and foul as foul could be. It was gooey, disgusting, but heartbreaking at the same time. He’d read the papers. He knew the park had been searched after the school kids from Olalla Elementary discovered a severed foot on one of the trails.

Martin squatted and braced himself with his arms on his knees. He coughed out all he had left in his stomach—a grilled cheese sandwich and a diet soda from the deli at Safeway on Bethel. His hand trembled as he reached for his phone, but he confirmed what he already knew. No service in that part of Banner Forest.

Unaware that he had screamed out when he saw the body in the bag, he got on his bike and made his way down Limerick. The forest whizzed by and he nearly crashed into a stump, but despite his accelerated pace, the smell stayed lodged in his nostrils. So did the image of what he’d seen. Martin Best had served in Afghanistan. Proudly so. He’d seen things that were beyond words.

None of it compared to what was in the bag.

 

 

A woman walking her dog in the forest made the first call to 911.

“Hey, I’m in Banner Forest and I heard a man scream bloody murder. You need to get out here.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t some kids just messing around?” the Comm Center operator asked.

The caller took a gulp of air. “Look, the man that screamed out ‘Oh God it’s a body!’ wasn’t some kid playing a game. You better get here now. Hurry. He might be having a heart attack or something.”

The operator took the woman’s name and told her to wait at the trailhead for the responders.

A minute later, the second call came in.

This time it was Martin Best. He was out of breath and desperate.

“I’m in Banner Forest,” he said. “You need to get someone here right now.”

“Sir, please calm down,” the operator said in a voice that indicated she was more about procedure than actually calming him down. It was the same tone a call center in India used on Martin one time when his laptop crashed.

“I am goddamn calmed down,” he said, this time yelling. Martin was nearly hyperventilating. His back was striped in sweat. “I think you got to get here.”

He stopped talking and started dry-heaving.

“Help is on the way,” the operator said. “Go to the main entrance on Banner Road. Someone will be there in a few minutes. Hang on.”

Soon a swarm of deputies and crime scene techs were on the site. Birdy had taken Elan up to Silverdale to buy some more new clothes at Macy’s. Her phone had the worst possible service, so she missed the call.

No matter. The remains would be waiting for her in the chiller in the morgue. Quietly. And yet, Birdy knew of this case as she did of all the murder victims who’d found their way to her office: “They bide their time until someone finds them and brings them to me. Then they’ll tell me what I need to know.”

At least that’s what she always hoped.

 

 

A badly decomposed body is a stew of information. Sometimes, as Birdy Waterman knew as she prepared to autopsy Darby Moreau, the clues most needed are lost among the rotting flesh. If an individual dies from an overdose, for example, the residues of lethal drugs are often recovered in the lab. If a person has been shot, the remnants of a bullet are easy enough to discern. Sometimes an X-ray will even turn up the bullet or a fragment of one. Birdy Waterman was no lightweight, but she put on a mask that she’d swabbed with mentholated ointment to diminish the stench that had knocked Martin Best to his knees.

Items collected from the scene included the plastic bag, which Martin Best said he’d touched. His fingerprints were expected to be found somewhere on its slippery black surface, as were, Kendall and Birdy hoped, the killer’s. The bag, the girl’s clothes—jeans, a running shoe, a bra, a T-shirt—were all sent off to the county’s crime lab at the sheriff’s department. There, they’d run a battery of tests on all of that. They’d dry the clothes, superglue-fume the plastic bag in a fish tank they’d set up for that purpose, and with the use of scopes and a small vacuum scour for trace evidence.

If there was anything to find, the county techs there were up for it.

The body, however, was Birdy’s. With its obvious missing foot, it would take only science to confirm what she knew.

Darby Moreau had been found.

Beyond the damage to the tissue there was a slight glimpse of what the victim’s face might have looked like before she died. Birdy had seen the dimple in her chin in the photographs collected from her mother. Her hair was thick and long. It was blond and in life, it must have been lovely.

Darby Moreau’s spirit, however, had gone elsewhere. What remained in the woods for the young girl to discover and later the dirt biker, was only the vessel that held the spirit. The body was but a shell. Once the life had been drained from it, it was ready to be given back to the earth. Birdy knew others made their livelihoods from dealing with the dead, but she saw her role as something different. A mortician did his or her job for the benefit of the living, to aid the grieving process.

Birdy was doing her job for the dead. She was there to give them the voice to tell what had brought them to her table.

“Victim is a decomposed teenage female, well nourished, no indications of drug use . . .” she dictated.

As she’d done before with the foot, she took measurements—both weight and length—and recorded every bit of it on a digital recorder that would be transcribed later for the final report on the one-hundred-pound victim. After a thorough exam for biologicals—and other evidence, she made the Y incision, turned on the saw, and removed and cataloged each of the dead girl’s vital organs.

“. . . all unremarkable, all intact . . .”

That finished, she rinsed the body to get a better look at the condition of the derma.
Had the girl been shot? Strangled? Just how did Darby die?

There was no sign of sexual assault.

Birdy looked at the stump, the only indicator of any trauma to the body. She had hoped that there’d be something there. Percy at the state crime lab indicated the appendage had been severed crudely by someone without much experience in butchering.

Birdy magnified the stump.

A small bone fragment, no, a tooth.

She almost sighed with relief. It was not human. It was far too small. She cleaned it and bagged it.

The foot hadn’t been severed by a person, but by an animal. It had been dragged across the forest floor and summarily deposited under the cover of the sword fern where sixth grader Tracy Montgomery first pointed the tip of her purple Ugg boot at it.

Birdy’s mind wandered back to the roadkill in front of her house on Beach Drive. If she had a visitor in the autopsy suite she’d have bet them dinner that the animal that had dragged the foot from the garbage bag was an opossum.

A zoologist at the state crime lab in Olympia would confirm the source of the tooth. That would be necessary for the case, but Birdy already knew it. She’d collected animal skulls, bones, and teeth as a child back on the reservation. Her prized possession until Summer wrecked it in a fury was a reconstructed skeleton of a harbor seal pup.

What happened to Darby was not a mauling, obviously. No bear, no cougar, bags their kill in what appeared to be a Hefty brand garden trash bag. That was good news for nature lovers who liked the solitude and beauty of Banner Forest. Since the discovery of Darby’s foot, those types had stopped coming to the park. Instead teens looking for more of the body or those dirt bikers were the only ones who’d ventured back.

Birdy’s eyes lingered on the five toenails and ten fingernails, all pretty in Car Nation pink. For Dr. Waterman that hue would always hold a sad memory. It would remind her of the sixteen-year-old girl who’d been dumped in the woods.

T
ess Moreau stood out amid the debris that surrounded her house and overtook her yard and screamed at the sky. She’d seen Birdy Waterman and Kendall Stark as they pulled into her rutted dirt driveway and ran toward them.

“Say it!” she said. “Say it!”

The forensic pathologist and the detective wound their way through the fringe of spring grass and a row of doghouses that stood like a mini housing development for troll families. There was no hiding the sadness on either visitor’s face. The long walk to a murder victim’s front door is the most unpleasant task of law enforcement. The first visit, the one in which there is still hope, is far different. Both women knew that from the experience that came with the job.

Birdy had only done two home notifications as an employee of the coroner’s office. Kendall, however, had done many over her years as a detective in the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Department. The second visit to a family’s home always cuts deeply. That’s the one that brings out the tears. Kendall had seen grown men fall to the floor. She’d seen mothers hurl themselves into her arms.

Tess Moreau knew why Birdy and Kendall were there. While she knew from TV shows that DNA profiles take a little time, they don’t take days.

“You better tell me,” Tess said, running toward them. “Tell me right now!”

Kendall spoke first. “I’m so very sorry. So, so sorry. Yes, your daughter is gone.”

Gone
was such a peculiar word. It was as though the girl with the long blond hair and love of art had been vaporized by some kind of bizarre death ray.

“You mean dead. My baby is dead!”

Birdy could not sugarcoat it.
Gone
was such a stupid word. She’d never use it again when telling someone what they really needed to know.

“Yes, Ms. Moreau. I’m so sorry, but yes. Your daughter is dead.”

Tess clutched her stomach and then buried her face in her hands. She didn’t fight to control her grief. It had been welling up inside since Birdy bagged that hairbrush with those silken strands of her precious Darby’s hair. She knew the reason for it. She hadn’t eaten all day. She hadn’t gone to work. She’d waited by the window. When she saw the sheriff’s car, she knew.

She screamed out. Tess Moreau let nothing stay inside. She didn’t care if she was a spectacle. When a gawker slowed by her place, Tess didn’t wave them away.

She had nothing left. No one. No husband. No children. For some reason God had sought to hurt her above anyone else. She could think of reasons for it, but she’d never say them out loud. Too ugly. Too painful.

“Take a breath, Tess,” Birdy said.

“I don’t want to breathe. I want to die too.”

Birdy held the crying mother in her arms. Her eyes met Kendall’s and neither could imagine being in that woman’s shoes right then. Kendall had a little boy. Birdy didn’t have a child of her own, but she knew that nothing could ever hurt more than that loss.

Kendall asked if they could go inside.

Tess pulled away and the three women made their way past Tess Moreau’s collection of junk into the overstuffed living room.

“Do you know who did it?” Tess asked.

“No, we don’t,” Kendall answered. “We’re in the middle of the investigation. We’ll keep you up to date as we can.”

“Do you know how?” Tess asked, before holding up her shaking hand. “No, don’t tell me.”

“We don’t know yet,” Birdy said.

Tess shifted on the sofa and picked up a pillow. She wrapped her arms around it and rocked slightly.

“When will you know who did it?” Tess said, her voice now soft and cracking.

“There is no timeline, Tess,” Kendall said, now using the mother’s first name.

“Can you think of anyone who might have done this?”

Tess sobbed some more; it was guttural and startlingly loud. Birdy put her hand on her knee, but Tess flicked it away.

She tossed the pillow to the floor. “I don’t need your pity,” she said. “I need you to find out who did this to Darby!”

“We’re working on it,” Kendall said. “That’s why I asked you to tell me if you can think of anyone who might have harmed her. Have you thought any more about the condoms? She obviously had a boyfriend.”

Tess’s eyes were puffy and red. The forty-five-year-old took short gulps of air. Every muscle in her neck tightened.

Birdy looked at Kendall. She was worried that Tess was going into shock.

“We might need an ambulance,” she said quietly.

Tess fought hard to control her breathing. She didn’t want more people in her house. She didn’t want more people talking about what they’d seen once inside.

“No, she didn’t,” she said. “Darby didn’t have a boyfriend. She was too young. Those condoms probably belong to Katie. Darby loved her, but I think she was a bit of a tramp.” Tess stopped herself. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that. I like Katie.”

“It’s all right,” Birdy said. “You’re upset. Is there someone you can call? Someone who can be with you tonight?”

Tess, tears still streaming, shook her head. “I never have anyone over here. I guess you probably figured that out already.”

“I think,” the detective said, “it would be best if you had someone with you. Can you go to a friend’s house?”

Tess looked for her phone. “I can call Amanda from work. She’s a good friend.”

“Fine,” Kendall said. “I want you to do that now. While we wait. I want to talk to her when you are on the phone. All right?”

Tess punched the buttons with a shaky fingertip. She started crying before she could say much of anything.

Kendall reached for the phone and Tess let it go.

“Amanda? This is Detective Kendall Stark with the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Department. I’m afraid Tess has had some very upsetting—that isn’t even the right word—
devastating
news. We’ve confirmed that her daughter has died.”

Birdy watched Tess as her red eyes followed the floorboards down the hall to Darby’s room. She wondered if Tess was replaying memories of her daughter. As a little girl? As the only one who understood her? That last evening she said good night?

All before Darby vanished.

Tess slammed her fist hard against the seat cushion of the sofa. The hurt was deep. Whatever she was thinking about brought more frustration than tears.

“Tess is having a very hard time,” Kendall said. “Are you in the position to come and get her?”

Tess got up and started down the hallway.

“You know where it is?” Kendall asked. “Okay, fine. I’ll stay here until you arrive.”

Kendall, still carrying Tess’s phone, found the grieving mother on her daughter’s bed. Birdy followed. Tess was rocking back and forth with a pristine white pillow in her arms.

“I knew this day would come,” she said.

While Birdy looked on, Kendall sat on the edge of the bed.

“Tess, what do you mean?” she asked.

Tess met the detective’s gaze and then looked over at her daughter’s perfectly ordered desk. Pictures were tucked under crisscrossed grosgrain ribbon on a bulletin board that she’d picked up at Target. The images were of a life now gone.

“Nothing,” Tess said.

Birdy pressed her gently. “You meant to say something.”

Tess wrapped her arms around herself, tightly, with an almost constrictive force, as if binding herself would keep the hurt from spilling out.

“Nothing. I meant that all I have now is nothing,” she said. “I knew that what little I had after the car accident was a tenuous gift. I knew, somehow, I don’t know how, that it could all be taken away in a flash.”

“We’re going to stay with you until your friend arrives.”

“She doesn’t have my address,” Tess said. “It will be dark soon. She won’t know how to find me.”

“Tess, Amanda knows where you live. She’s coming from Gig Harbor. Let’s pack an overnight bag. Can I help you find one?”

Tess looked at the women, one by one. “I know what you think about me. Both of you. But I know where everything is. The overnight bags are in the barn.”

“I’ll go with you,” Birdy said. “Let’s go get one. Your friend will be here soon.”

The detective stayed in the house as Birdy and Tess walked toward the barn. With each step, Tess Moreau felt the weight of the world crashing down on her.

“How much more can I take?” she asked.

Birdy didn’t answer. She didn’t know what was to come. No one did.