“Just this end was blocked, right?”
“Correct. It appears that three-quarters of it was empty. We’ll need to check the surrounding area too.” She sighed. “There’s no telling how much of the remains have washed away.”
How can the doctor put together this puzzle when several pieces might be missing?
“Do you have an age and sex on the last skull?”
The doctor’s large brown eyes narrowed, her lips thinning.
Mercy pushed on. “I’m not asking for perfect answers, but I know you have a rough idea. I’m simply looking for a place to focus my efforts while I’m waiting for your report. I’m trying to save some time.”
Dr. Peres’s face softened, and she looked over at the vehicle holding the bins of recovered bones. “That last skull belonged to a child between the ages of five and eight. I’m leaning toward female, but I’m not positive yet.” She met Mercy’s gaze. “Sexing a skull is hard at a young age. Clothes and hair help, but we’ve found neither. One of the other skulls belongs to a young person too. I estimated in their teens.”
“Five skulls.”
“So far.” Dr. Peres gestured toward the downward slope of tall pines. “Who knows what we’ll find down there?”
The scope of the search suddenly hit Mercy. Acres and acres of dense sloped woods and rushing water. “It could take days,” she gasped, overwhelmed by the task.
The anthropologist simply nodded. Her eyes looked tired, but Mercy believed she wouldn’t give up until she was completely satisfied. She’d heard rumors about the state’s Bone Lady. Tough. Brass balls. Ice princess. Damn good at her job.
Mercy wouldn’t mind the descriptions for herself.
“Are you taking the remains back to Portland?” Mercy asked, wondering how many trips to Dr. Peres’s office at the medical examiner’s building were in her future.
“I’m going to use a facility here at the county morgue,” Dr. Peres told her. “I prefer to be close to a scene like this. Especially when it could take quite a while to get all the missing pieces.”
“That will make it easier on me too.” Mercy paused but couldn’t stop herself from asking the question. “Have you seen anything to help us yet, Dr. Peres?”
“Call me Victoria. Did you get a look at any of the skulls?”
“Only from a distance.” Bones didn’t make Mercy squeamish. In fact, she found them fascinating and wished she knew how to read them the way this doctor did.
“It appears they all had powerful blows to the head in the temple area. The teeth have been forcibly broken. Someone took a hammer or club and bashed them in the mouth several times.”
Mercy’s teeth and jaw ached. “Postmortem?”
“I suspect so, but I’m not positive yet.”
“Were they trying to hide the identity?”
“They didn’t do a very good job if that was their goal. There’s plenty of teeth left, and people can even be identified by the roots of the teeth if we have previous dental X-rays. I’ve called for a forensic odontologist to come take a look.”
“Which skulls?” The idea of the child being hit in the mouth made her queasy.
“All of them.”
“Wait—what? All of them had the same injury?” A memory started to poke and prod in the back of her brain.
Victoria nodded. “All.” Her eyes narrowed as she studied Mercy’s face. “Why?”
Mercy simply stared back at her, her mind scrambling to uncover the memory emerging in her mind. Broken teeth. Smashed in the mouth.
It rushed to the surface.
It’d happened before. A family who’d been murdered in their home. Mercy had been in grade school, but she’d overheard her parents discussing the brutal destruction to their mouths. The imagery had horrified her and stuck in her young imagination.
Then it’d happened again two months later. Two families murdered.
She’d never heard of that type of mass injury again until this moment.
THREE
“Grady Baldwin was arrested more than two decades ago for the murders of the Verbeek and Deverell families,” Mercy informed the other agents in the meeting room at the Bend FBI office. “I checked, and he’s still in the Oregon State Pen in Salem.”
“What was his motivation?” asked Special Agent Eddie Peterson. He leaned forward, his elbows on the table and his fascinated gaze locked on Mercy’s face, clearly wishing he’d caught her case.
“Baldwin claims he had no motivation because he didn’t do it,” Mercy said. “The state argued that he was attracted to Maria Verbeek, hit on her, and she’d turned him down. He was a handyman of sorts and had worked on both the Verbeek and Deverell homes during the six months before they were murdered. I’m trying to set up an interview with him.”
“All those children,” data analyst Darby Cowan said quietly as she made notes on her laptop.
“Exactly,” said Mercy. Between the two families, four children had been murdered with their parents. Mercy pulled up the photos of the families on the big wall screen. The Deverell family photo showed everyone in red pajamas in front of a Christmas tree. Happiness and mischief radiated from the family. The father held mistletoe over his wife’s head and kissed her cheek as she laughed at the camera. Ten-year-old Michelle and twelve-year-old Glenn had their arms around a black Lab wearing a Santa hat, and Mercy idly wondered if someone had adopted the dog.
It’d been over twenty years. Odds were the dog was also dead.
The Verbeek family picture was more sedate, shot outdoors in front of a river. Dennis and Maria Verbeek stood formally behind their three blonde daughters. Only the children smiled, and Mercy couldn’t look away from one of the daughters, Britta, a fifth grader who had been a year ahead of Mercy in grade school. Mercy remembered the shock and astonishment from the other students and teachers when the family was killed. The other girls, twins Astrid and Helena, had been in first grade at the same school.
“Which girl survived the attack?” asked Eddie.
“Britta. The oldest,” answered Mercy. “She was hit in the temple with the weapon but survived the blow. He knocked out several of her front teeth, but she must have been unconscious during the blow and didn’t react. He probably assumed she was dead.”
“Blessed Jesus Christ,” Darby murmured. “The world we’re in . . .”
“Where does she live?” asked Jeff.
Mercy took a breath. “I looked her up. She moved to the outskirts of Eagle’s Nest last summer. Before that she lived in Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico.”
Everyone at the table exchanged glances. “She lives here now,” repeated Darby. “After how many years of living away?”
“As best as I can tell, this is the first time she’s been back. An aunt in Nevada took her in after the murders years ago.”
The room was silent. Mercy’s stomach had done a small spin when she learned Britta Verbeek had returned after decades of living elsewhere. She suspected the other agents were feeling the same thing.
“Weird,” Eddie finally commented.
“That’s putting it mildly,” said Darby.
“I’m trying to reach her,” said Mercy.
“And we still don’t have a lead on the identities of our current case?” asked Darby. “Those remains were all bone, so they’ve been dead for a while. Who doesn’t report an entire missing family?”
“Don’t assume it’s another family,” Jeff pointed out. “It could be a mix of individuals.”
Mercy nodded. Individuals had been her initial thought, and she’d considered that the site might have been a serial killer’s dumping ground. It wasn’t until she remembered the past family murders that she’d wondered if this was another family. “I pulled a list that includes missing children between five and twelve in our county. Dr. Peres—the forensic anthropologist—gave me a narrower age frame, but I widened it a bit, and I went back thirty years. I wanted to include the time frame of the other murders.”
Eddie sighed. “How many names on the list?”
“Five for Deschutes County.”
“Only five children unaccounted for in thirty years?” Jeff asked. “That’s not horrible.”
“Unless you’re one of their parents,” added Darby.
“Touché,” admitted Jeff. “You’ve been in contact with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children?”
“Yes,” Mercy stated. “I’m waiting on a callback.”
“Do you know how difficult it will be to follow a trail thirty years old?” Eddie’s eyes were hopeful, but he slowly shook his head in sympathy.
“I do.” It was a challenge. One she wanted to tackle.
“I’ll help you look into Grady Baldwin’s family and friends,” said Darby. “And get an in-depth history on Britta Verbeek.”
“Thank you,” said Mercy. “I know he has a brother still in the area. Don Baldwin.”
“When will the road be open?” asked Jeff.
“They can’t get started on repairs until the medical examiner releases the scene,” Mercy stated. “And that won’t happen until we’re positive we have every shred of evidence collected.” The rugged slope of the hill flashed in her mind. “It will be a difficult scene to process. How far down do we look for evidence? The water could have washed it miles away.”
“We’ll have to work with what we have,” said Jeff. “I think the skulls found so far will be very helpful. When will the forensic anthropologist have an initial report?”
“Tomorrow,” said Mercy. “But I’m going to stop by there tonight to meet the odontologist, and I’ll try to get more information from Dr. Peres.”
Jeff glanced at the time and tucked his pen in his pocket, signaling the meeting was over. Eddie and Darby immediately headed out the door, Darby typing one-handed while she walked, balancing her laptop on the other hand.