Vanished (28 page)

1

“I won’t miss this part of the job,” Victoria heard Dr. James Campbell mutter as he held a blackberry vine out of the way for Lacey and Victoria to pass by.

A discovery of dead bodies had abruptly shortened their Italian dinner at Portland’s fabulous Pazzo Ristorante. The trio of coworkers had been relaxing over a lovely Barbaresco when the medical examiner’s phone buzzed. He’d taken the call at the table and raised a brow at the women, who’d nodded. Both forensic specialists wanted to accompany him to the crime scene.

Five teenagers were dead in the depths of Forest Park.

Time to go to work.

The guiding police officer who’d met them at the trailhead commented, “A hiker found the scene about four hours ago. Looks pretty fresh. One of the girls was still breathing and they rushed her to the hospital. She’s not expected to make it.” He paused to take a breath, and the volume of his voice dropped to where Victoria leaned forward to hear him. “I gotta say, this is one of the most disturbing sights I’ve ever seen.” The tough cop looked rattled.

Who would kill so many teenage girls?
Victoria Peres shook her head. It was a messed-up world. And working at the medical examiner’s office as a forensic anthropologist showed her some of the darkest corners of that world. The indignities and atrocities that people inflicted on other human beings were mind-numbing. The kids were the hardest for her to stomach.

The three of them pointed their flashlights at the dirt path, choosing their footsteps carefully, following the police officer. Luckily the fall rains had paused for the moment, because tonight the forest was intimidating enough. Firs towered overhead, blocking all light from the full moon. Ferns sprouted from tree trunks, drawing nutrition from the bark and thick moss that draped the branches. Victoria had already given thanks that she’d worn her boots to dinner in honor of the fall chill. Still dressed for dinner, the three of them looked out of place for the two-mile hike in the damp woods. It was rare that she accompanied Dr. Campbell to a scene. Her job usually kept her inside the medical examiner’s building.

But this was Dr. Campbell’s last month on the job. Oregon’s ME was ready to retire. And Victoria wanted to spend every working moment she could with him, soaking up his experience, wisdom, and wit. “I can’t do anything about the death,” Dr. Campbell once told her. “But I can do something about what happens after the death. I can speak for the victims, explain their injuries, and bring justice.” It described exactly how Victoria felt about her job. There was a mutual respect between her and Dr. Campbell that made her cross her fingers, hoping she could achieve the same with the new medical examiner.

Dr. Campbell’s daughter, Lacey, had told Victoria she’d miss working with her father. Lacey served as the ME’s forensic odontologist. She and her father were very close.

Lacey was quiet behind Victoria as they trudged along the dark path. She didn’t wonder out loud at the cause of the kids’ deaths or bitch about the hike; she was professional. Victoria had worked with the petite forensic specialist for a few years, her respect growing every time one of their cases crossed paths. Only recently had they started using each other’s first names.

A soft buzz of conversation touched Victoria’s ears and the trail seemed to light up farther ahead. They were nearly there. She swallowed hard as the gnocchi she had eaten twisted in her stomach. Maybe she should have gone home after dinner and let the medical examiner do his job. But she’d be greeted by a lonely house. The evening had been so wonderful between the food and conversation, she’d hated for it to end. She’d decided to tramp a few miles through Portland’s five-thousand-acre park to view dead teenagers.

Was something wrong with her?

The trail grew choppy with boot prints and small tire marks from the equipment hauled in to process the scene. They emerged into a clearing lit up with glaring lights, and the quiet hum of conversation stopped. The three of them halted and stared, scanning the surreal setting. Cops stood idle in small groups, observing, while crime-scene techs crawled through the display.

It looked straight out of a cheap horror film.

Off the path about ten yards, five young women lay motionless in a lush bed of ferns, arranged like a wagon wheel, their heads at the center, feet pointed out. The image was simultaneously beautiful and evil. One prong of the wheel was missing—the girl who’d been rushed to the hospital.

A cop thrust a log into Dr. Campbell’s hands to sign. He barely glanced at it, his gaze locked on the eerie spectacle.

“Lead all souls to heaven,” Lacey whispered.

Victoria Peres felt as if her hands were tied. These poor children still had the flesh covering their bones, unlike her usual subjects at work, but she still had a need to examine them to discover their story.

Five girls gracefully sprawled in the center of a clearing. Their skin harshly exposed by the lighting the crime scene team had brought in. Each girl had long dark hair and they all wore white dresses of different styles. Their hands were all crossed on their stomachs. There was neither blood nor immediate indicator of cause of death, just an unnatural grayness to their skin and lips.

Poison?

The girls looked asleep.

No kiss would wake them.

Victoria pushed her own long hair behind one ear, disturbed by the similarity between the girls’ appearances.
Why did they look and dress the same?

She didn’t usually attend a fresh death scene. But she helped wherever her skills were needed. She’d definitely put in her share of hours over the flesh of the freshly deceased and the not-so-freshly deceased. Digging in the burial pits of the mass executions in Kosovo had desensitized her to most situations.

But when James had received the call, her instincts had kicked in. Death was her field. And she possessed a particular set of skills that could get answers for the questions the dead teens presented. She noticed the cops glanced their way, scoping out who’d arrived at the scene. None made eye contact with her. She’d busted enough balls at crime scenes to know they weren’t her biggest fans. She didn’t care. What mattered was that scenes were handled correctly. Mistakes weren’t acceptable.

She looked away from the sorrow on Lacey’s face. The odontologist had a big soft spot that she wasn’t afraid to reveal. Victoria kept her own sensitivity hidden deep. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel the sadness of the situation; she simply didn’t feel it was professional to show it. And she worked better when she tucked away the feelings.

“Who are they?” James muttered to the cop as he handed the log to Lacey to sign.

“We don’t know yet, Dr. Campbell,” he answered. “There’s no ID with any of the girls. No cell phones, no purses.”

“Parents will be looking for their daughters soon,” said Lacey. “They can’t be over eighteen.”

Victoria eyed the stature and build of the bodies, silently agreeing with Lacey’s assessment. Parents would expect these kids to be in bed by midnight. She followed Dr. Campbell as he carefully stepped to the closest body and squatted next to a female tech, pulling gloves out of his small kit. Up close, Victoria could see the first girl had applied makeup to cover acne on her chin and wore black liquid eyeliner to give the popular cat-eye look.

Someone’s daughter.

Dr. Campbell bent the girl’s arm. “Rigor has started. Not fully set yet. Can you roll her onto her side for me, Sarah?” he asked the middle-aged woman, who nodded and gently shifted the dead girl onto her side. He pressed at the purpling skin on her shoulder blades where gravity had guided the blood to settle once her heart had stopped pumping. It didn’t blanch. “Livor is set. Have you noticed anything unusual?” Dr. Campbell asked the tech.

The tech grimaced. “Outside of this being a group of dead children? Not yet. It’s a very clean site so far. The girls were cold when I got here, and they all look clean front and back. Frankly, it’s like a sick fairy tale.” Sarah frowned. “They’re laid out so perfectly. I mean, even their hair is smoothed down. Someone must have arranged them.”

“It’s just wrong,” Dr. Campbell said as he drew a syringe out of his equipment. Victoria didn’t need to see the medical examiner extract the vitreous humor from the girl’s eye to determine an accurate time of death. Very few things about the human body bothered her, but a needle in the eye was close to the top of the list. Victoria stood and walked back to where Lacey’d waited at the edge of the scene. Two men had joined Lacey. Victoria recognized them as Oregon State Police detectives from the Major Crimes division. The local police department must have called in the State Police for their help.

“Dr. Peres.” The older detective, Mason Callahan, greeted Victoria. His partner, Ray Lusco, nodded at her. Both men had tired eyes and subtle slumps to their shoulders. She hadn’t noticed that they’d been working the scene when she arrived. She’d been focused on the death wheel of beautiful girls. But obviously Mason and Ray had already spent several hours in the woods. She’d worked with the detectives several times, their opposite personalities making them perfect partners. Mason was the blunt-spoken salt-and-pepper-haired senior detective, rarely seen without his cowboy boots and hat. Ray was the younger family man, who looked like he should be coaching college football.

It wouldn’t take long to get depressed or angry or frustrated at this scene. The absolute futileness of the death of these young women was like a gut punch. It was one of the quieter scenes Victoria had visited, not chatty like some. The tension was thick, and the anger from the cops and workers was palpable.

“No one has reported missing teens tonight?” Lacey was asking, surprise on her face.

Ray shook his head. “Not locally yet. Some males, but no females. It’s only eleven. Calls will start coming in. This gives me the creeps. It’s like the girls all lay down and fell asleep. No evidence of thrashing about or fighting back.”

“What happened?” Lacey asked. “Do you think they drank something?”

Mason tugged on his ever-present cowboy hat. “Possible.” He was tight-lipped. Victoria knew he wouldn’t speculate out loud.

“No cups,” stated Victoria. “Unless you already removed them?”

“Nothing’s been removed,” answered Ray. “Not by us.”

“Ghosts took them,” stated the cop with the log. Victoria shifted to read his name.
Dixon.

The group simply stared at Dixon.

“What?” Dixon met their stares. “Don’t you know where we are?”

Victoria saw a flicker of recognition on Lacey’s face. The forensic odontologist had grown up in the area. Victoria was originally from a tiny coastal town; she didn’t know about Mason and Ray, but judging by their faces, they were clueless about the cop’s reference.

“This part of the woods is haunted,” Dixon stated solemnly. “All the high-school kids around here avoid this area.”

Mason looked disgusted.

Dixon’s brows narrowed. “You do know this isn’t the first ring of suicides here, right?”

The two Major Crimes detectives called for confirmation. Sure enough. In 1968, six female bodies had been found in Forest Park. Only three of the bodies had been identified. Three had remained unclaimed for decades. Victoria rubbed at her arms in the cold, hugging herself.

How come no one had missed them?

“How is that possible?” she asked the detectives. An hour at the scene hadn’t answered any of her questions; it’d only raised more. “How can no one miss three women? I can understand one person who possibly moved here from out of state, living as a transient going unidentified, but three?”

“It was a different era,” commented Mason. “I knew there’d been a mass suicide in Forest Park a long time ago, but didn’t know where. This place is gigantic. You can believe we’ll be looking into it again.”

Dr. Campbell stepped up to the group. “I’m done here. It looks like I’ll be seeing these young women again. With the air temperature here I’d estimate it’s been six to eight hours since death, but I’ll have a more accurate window tomorrow after the lab work.”

Her heart ached at the regret on his face. She knew he didn’t like seeing kids on his table.

“What a case to catch near the end of my career,” he added. “I hope to get a clear answer on this one. Soon.”

“I didn’t realize you were retiring, doctor,” Ray said, raising a brow at Mason, who looked stunned.

“I’m looking forward to sleeping in and not getting phone calls in the middle of the night. Or during my dinner.”

Both detectives nodded in grim agreement. “Holidays are also bad,” said Ray.

“I’ll stick around to help transition in the new chief examiner. We’ve narrowed it down to two applicants. Either will be a good chief.”

“You’re not promoting from within?” Mason asked.

“Not this time. I’ve got fine deputy medical examiners, but none of them want the extra responsibility of the position.” Dr. Campbell turned and looked over the young women in the ferns. “This case will stick with me for a while.”

“Detective Callahan,” came a different voice.

The group spun to see the new arrivals in the forest. Another Portland police officer had spoken as he led two men to the scene. One was a man in a dark green uniform with a baseball cap that read ranger, and the other was a tall civilian in jeans and a heavy jacket. The civilian’s face was in the shadows, but Victoria stiffened at his approach. Something about the way he carried himself set off alarms in her head.

“This is Bud Rollins.” The police officer gestured at the man in the ranger hat. “He’s one of the park rangers and knows this forest inside and out. He’s the first guy we call when we need help in here.”

Mason shook hands with the slender man. “Sorry to get you out of bed.”

“Not a problem. I like to know what’s going on in my woods.”

The weathered ranger spoke with a soft southern accent, making Victoria blink. The sound was a rarity in the Pacific Northwest. His eyes were kind, and she estimated his age to be in his early fifties. He scanned the scene ahead of him and paled. “Dear Lord. One of them lived?”