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“We’re going to talk about you being mad at me later.” She would have glared but she was too busy checking the room.
“Take the left, I’ll go right.”
“I’m serious, Vera.” She turned back, Teddi was waiting with her hands on her hips. Dust and mud covered her head to toe. Vera bit back her retort, still feeling bad about the blood stuck to her hair. She hadn’t meant to hurt Teddi. Hell, it was the ironic consequence of her fearing that she could've gotten hurt.
“Fine, we’ll talk later.”
The building spread out over a long single level. The walls and floor were clear of anything that could tell Vera what it used to be used for. Toeing a piece of paper, she continued when it revealed nothing helpful. Cobwebs took over nearly every corner, their white clusters so thick they were opaque. Each breath of air puffed out in front of her highlighting how frigid the building was. There were no signs of electricity or plumbing.
Avoiding more trash, she reached the front end of the building finding nothing of note. Vera took a closer look at the floor as her mind began to process everything that happened. They had a fourth body, a mutilation, a crooked Sheriff’s department, and a town that seemed alarmingly calm about the growing body count.
“Back here!” Teddi hollered.
Hurrying to the far end and behind a half wall, Vera found her standing over a square door pulled up from the floorboards. “If the smell is anything to go by there’s more than just tonight’s victim down there.” Her flashlight revealed the edge of a mud-covered black body bag in the underground room.
An oppressive sensation unfurled itself. The pin-prickling feeling of being watched. Unease crept across her neck like a creature skittering along the fine hairs. As Teddi began to descend the cellar stairs, she looked through the closest dust-covered window.
The forest pushed back from the cleared land was being unveiled in the dawning light. Eyes pinched, she scanned every dark spot between the trees, waiting to find the source of that feeling. They were out there, waiting, watching. A dangerous thought danced into her mind. She could go out there, walk into the woods and wait. Her hand lifted of its own accord, reaching toward the pane of glass.
“You coming?” Shaking her head, she stepped back. They hadn’t felt like her thoughts and yet she’d thought them. Her hand was still lifted towards the woods. "Ver?" She gave the window her back.
Five uneven stairs creaked loudly as she walked down, Teddi knelt by a body bag. “Is it the victim from earlier, Scott Reade?” Vera ground her teeth together when she looked inside.
Peering up at her was the red, bloated face of the first victim, Adam Maller. “Holy fuck.” The curse came out muffled, Teddi’s mouth covered by her arm. A puddle of leaked fluid had collected beneath him. The bag held it all inside like a ziplock while he lay on his side, curled up in the fetal position.
“The cold has slowed down the decomposition process,” Vera noted, walking around it to get a better look. “How is Sheriff Malis keeping these a secret? What about their funerals?”
“There are two more bags,” Teddi said, tipping her chin behind them. She assumed the cleanest one was the newest addition. Kneeling to unzip the third bag, she saw the unmistakable red hair of Jackson Grennan. His corpse was in better condition than Maller’s but not by much. He’d ended up splayed out like a snow angel when he’d been dropped by the deputies.
“So, what? Alex isn’t down here because we identified him? He was an outsider and all these guys were local. Why submit his data to the missing persons database knowing he might be located and identified?”
“I don’t know.” Vera opened the zipper further to take note of his injuries. They were as the file photographed and described. Missing tongue, penis, and eyes. A mottled x-shaped bruise marked above the deteriorated heart.
Turning around to unzip the newest victim, she bit her cheek.
“The belt from his neck is still on him.” Teddi stepped closer to check.
“Why the belt this time?”
“Maller is missing his right foot. Grennan is sliced apart. This guy, Reade, has a belt.”
“We need to look at the victimology deeper. There has to be more answers there.” Vera was careful not to touch him more than necessary with her gloved hand. She lifted the belt a few centimeters off his cold skin. “It's hard to see with the discoloration but I'm pretty sure there’s a ligature mark around his neck.” Teddi peered down where her flashlight was pointed. A thin, singular loop marked his skin. “So strangulation or at least an attempt of it and then the belt.”
“Whatever they used to strangle him with was thin, it had to be strong enough to do the job and not break,” Teddi remarked.
“Check the others for it too.” Within seconds they confirmed it. Each man had the same mark around his neck. “So they’re mutilated and choked. Without an autopsy on each one, we don’t know which killed them—the blood loss or the oxygen loss. They’re also all positioned where they’re likely to be found and displayed as if they’re praying on their hands and knees.” Vera murmured as she tucked away each fact neatly in her mind, adding it to the file she was building.
“Praying for what, exactly?”
“I think that might be the million-dollar question.”
They took the next thirty minutes to evaluate each of the victim’s wounds. Using the small kit they brought, they swabbed their fingernails, necks, and wrists where the bindings had been. It would all be inadmissible in court but it was what they had. Vera needed an answer. Even if it was small, something inconsequential. She didn’t care. Alex, Maller, Grennan, Reade. Four bodies. Four victims. And she had zero answers.
"Text J. See about meeting up tomorrow to give her the samples,” Vera said as they hiked back to the car in the murky dawn.
"What're you going to do?"
"Meet with Sheriff Malis and see what he has to say." She already dreaded the conversation. Whatever it was he had up his sleeve was sure to push her as far away from his town and its rotting secrets as possible.
