“Jesus,” I mumble.
The woman is naked, arms and legs splayed out, her head fallen back, as she lies suspended several feet off the ground, impaled on the trunk of a tree that has been shaved down to the point of a thick spear.
Technicians are working her over right now, photographing and gently probing her. The insects buzzing around her are fierce. She’s suffered some animal bites, too. That, plus the look of her skin, gives me an approximate window on time of death.
“She died … maybe one, two days ago,” I say.
Isaac looks at me. “Very good, Detective. At least that’s what the ME is saying at first glance. One to two days.”
“That’s a significant difference, one versus two days.”
“Yeah? Why?”
“Two days ago,” I say, “Noah Walker was a free man. But one day ago, we took him into custody, and he couldn’t have done this.”
“You’re connecting this with Noah Walker?” Isaac gives me a crosswise glance. “This is nothing like those murders.”
I move in for a closer look at the victim. This nameless woman, hardened and discolored now, with the ravages of nature having taken their toll, is hard to categorize. I’m thinking she’s pretty young, from the bone structure and lithe build. Early twenties, maybe, what appear to be nice features, and beautiful brown hair hanging down inches from the grass.
She was pretty. Before some monster impaled her on a wooden spear like a sacrificial offering to the gods, this woman was pretty.
“No ID yet,” says Isaac. “But we have a missing-persons from Sag Harbor that we think will check out. If it does, then this is …” He flips open a notepad and holds it in the artificial light. “Bonnie Stamos. Age twenty-four. Couple of arrests for take-a-wild-guess.”
“She was a working girl.” Not terribly surprising. The clients a prostitute serves come in all shapes and sizes, but it’s like I felt when I was on patrol, approaching a car I’d just pulled over—you’re never really sure what’s waiting for you.
“This is totally different than what we found on Ocean Drive,” Isaac says. “Those were a bloodbath. This thing is … what … posed, I guess. Dramatic. Like some ritual thing, some ancient Mayan ceremony. How do you connect these two crimes?”
I squat down next to the tree stump and gesture at it. “See the side of the tree and the surrounding grass and dirt?”
“I see blood everywhere, if that’s what you mean.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Blood everywhere. Her heart was still pumping. That’s how I connect these crimes.”
“Not following.”
“She was still alive when he did this, when he impaled her on the tree trunk.” I stand back up and feel a wave of nausea. “The symbolism was incidental, a means to an end,” I say. “He wanted her to die a slow death, Isaac. He wanted her to suffer.”
11
THE CHIEF HAS the porch light on for me when I walk up the steps to his house. The squad car that drove me here idles in the driveway. The door is open, and Uncle Lang has a bottle of gin and two glasses on the kitchen table. Dirty dishes are piled high in the sink just as they were earlier today, with evidence of meal choices—remnants of dried catsup or smears of brown gravy, a bit of hamburger. The floor could use a good wash, too. The clock on the wall says it’s almost two in the morning.
My uncle doesn’t look well. He’s gained a lot of weight since Aunt Chloe left him two years ago. His face is splotchy, broken capillaries on his prominent nose, his eyes rimmed with heavy bags. He’s wearing a wife-beater T-shirt that accentuates his added poundage, tufts of curly white chest hair peeking over the top.
“You don’t look good,” he says to me.
I kiss him on the forehead before I turn to the refrigerator. “I was just thinking the same about you. Still drinking, I see.” I take another glance into his refrigerator. The fruit container still hasn’t been touched, but a second square is missing from the pan of spinach lasagna.
I look back at him with an eyebrow raised.
“See?” he says. “I listen to you.”
“Yeah?” I take a seat across from him. “And if I look through your trash, will I find an entire square piece of lasagna, without a bite taken?”
“Now you’ve insulted me. I’m insulted.”
That’s not a denial. But I can’t spend every waking moment hectoring him.
“I’m serious, though,” Uncle Lang says. “You look worn out. Are you still having nightmares?”
I shrug. It’s been a thing, since I returned to Bridgehampton. Usually they come at night, the sensation of choking, the terror, the desperate cries. What happened to me today, at 7 Ocean Drive, was the first time it ever happened during daylight.
Lang pours me an inch of gin and slides the glass across the table. “Maybe you never should have come back here.”
The thought has crossed my mind. It leads to another thought. “Why did my family stop coming here when I was a kid?” I ask.