Authors: Gary Braver
GRAY MATTER (6 page)
She thanked him and got up to leave, feeling sick to the core of her soul.
She took a long last look at the films against the light board, thinking that she would do anything to go back in time and undo what she had done.
Anything.
CENTRAL FLORIDA
I
n the open, he was a monster. In the bush, he was invisible.
n the open, he was a monster. In the bush, he was invisible.
Billy liked that. He liked how he moved through the woods like a ripple. The alien in
Predator
. He liked how he could disappear by standing still. He liked how he could melt into scrub so that neither human nor beast could detect his presence. The excitement made him sweat all the more.
Predator
. He liked how he could disappear by standing still. He liked how he could melt into scrub so that neither human nor beast could detect his presence. The excitement made him sweat all the more.
What he did not like was the heat.
He slipped out from the clutch of sapling oaks and crossed the clearing. The late afternoon sun sent thick shafts of light through the woods. He wished it were cloudy and twenty degrees cooler. He wished he were doing this someplace in the cool north and not these backwater woods of central Florida where the air felt like hot glue. He wished this were a simple
snick, snick,
you’re dead
.
snick, snick,
you’re dead
.
The scent-free, 3-D hooded camo suit with the fake leaves sewn all over the surface was the stalker’s dream. The ultimate in concealment, short of turning into a butterfly. But the material did not breathe. Inside the hood, his face was slick and his clothes were soaked with perspiration. That made him angry. That made him want to get this over with
snick snick.
But that wasn’t the assignment.
snick snick.
But that wasn’t the assignment.
Billy passed through the clearing to the shack by Little Wiggins Canal, as it was known to the locals, or Number 341 to the U.S. Geological Survey map. The structure was little more than a six-foot cube, banged together with old timbers and roofing sheets the kid’s mother picked up somewhere. The floor was an ancient piece of linoleum over dirt, and the compressed-wood
door and single window were crude. The interior consisted of a child’s table and chair, some Matchbox cars, a butterfly guidebook, a Gators banner, and tacked-up pictures of the kid and his dog—rough gestures at clubhouse homeyness, Billy thought. The place was a second home to the kid, a hangout for him and his dog, a place to play fort, games, hide-and-seek with other kids. A little tyke hideaway by the canal.
door and single window were crude. The interior consisted of a child’s table and chair, some Matchbox cars, a butterfly guidebook, a Gators banner, and tacked-up pictures of the kid and his dog—rough gestures at clubhouse homeyness, Billy thought. The place was a second home to the kid, a hangout for him and his dog, a place to play fort, games, hide-and-seek with other kids. A little tyke hideaway by the canal.
It was also the last place the little tyke would remember of his old life.
Through the brush, the battered blue and white Airstream trailer that the kid and his mother called home was barely visible from the canal, perched up on the bluff maybe a hundred feet from the shack. Because of the recent drought, the water was low so the mother had no reason to fear the kid getting swept downstream. Spring would be a different story altogether. She’d never let him come down here alone, especially since alligators mated in springtime. But it wasn’t spring—and the canal wasn’t raging and the fish weren’t jumping and the cotton wasn’t high.
So the boy came down. His name was Travis Valentine. Nice name, smart boy. The dog’s name was Bo, short for Bodacious. Dumb name, dumb dog, but teeth down to here.
The dog came first. A black mongrel whose genealogy some Lab must have made a pass at. For Billy, the dog was an unnecessary complication—and half the reason for the getup. A third of the odors of human beings issued from the head—mouths, nostrils, eyes, facial skin. Another third from the hands. Thus, the face-plated hood and scent-lock surgical gloves. Without them Billy would have broadcast his presence the moment the dog stepped outside the trailer, setting off barking like a fire alarm. But Billy was a hunter. He knew better. Still, he didn’t like to think what that dog could do to his ankle. He was a big muscular animal with a big bouldery head and powerful jaws that could crack through bone like that.
Billy heard the door of the trailer slap against the frame. “You got ten minutes, so be back when I ring. And keep away from the water, now.” She’d summon him with a handbell.
The kid moved down the little path, the dog ranging widely, snorting after every critter scent, yarfing and whining to itself. Creatures of habit. Dinner over, and it was down by the riverside with old Bo. The same pattern Billy had observed over the past few nights.
It didn’t take Bo long to pick up the rabbit. In a matter of seconds he found the half-buried carcass Billy had laid out earlier under a bush. And
while the dog got lost in the bouquet of viscera, the little boy in the red shorts and white Kennedy Space Center T-shirt and sneakers came sauntering down the dirt lane to the shack. In his right hand was a long-handled net, a glass jar in his left. A butterfly hunt. The kid collected butterflies. And, as Billy had noted, the place was loaded with them.
while the dog got lost in the bouquet of viscera, the little boy in the red shorts and white Kennedy Space Center T-shirt and sneakers came sauntering down the dirt lane to the shack. In his right hand was a long-handled net, a glass jar in his left. A butterfly hunt. The kid collected butterflies. And, as Billy had noted, the place was loaded with them.
In his mossy oakleaf Scent-Lok 3-D camo suit, Billy stood behind some trees just a few yards from the shack, his breath wheezing inside his mask and misting up the eye plate. He had used the outfit to hunt deer, but it was the first time on a kid.
While the boy was at some bush maybe twenty yards away, the scrub shifted behind the dog. The dog looked up, and before he could muster a growl, a muffled
snick
cut the air. And the dog’s head blew open.
snick
cut the air. And the dog’s head blew open.
“Bo? Here, Bo?”
The boy had heard something and looked around. Just a half-note yelp. No more. He went to the shack and looked inside, thinking the animal had passed through the small swing flap. “Bo?”
Bo. That was the last syllable the boy uttered.
Billy slapped the chloroform-soaked towel against the kid’s face from behind, raising the squirming body against his chest. He struggled with surprising vigor, whimpering into the towel, but the thick hand clamped the small face like an iron mask, forcing the pockets of his lungs to swell with the vapors. To prevent him from heeling his genitals, Billy pressed against the wall, locking his leg around the boy’s shins.
The boy struggled and whimpered for maybe half a minute. Then it was over. A final twitch, and Travis Valentine’s young-colt strength gave out. Billy lowered him to the floor as limp as a rag doll.
For a brief moment, Billy studied his prey. The kid was actually good-looking, with an oval face and short chin, small pug nose, and feathery brown eyebrows, a band of freckles across his nose, his shiny hair longer than was fashionable. His eyes were slitted open, and Billy could see the hazel irises. If he were a girl he’d be beautiful.
Enough of this
, thought Billy. He had to get moving before the mother rang her bell. When the kid wouldn’t come, she’d clang some more. And when he still didn’t respond, she’d be down.
, thought Billy. He had to get moving before the mother rang her bell. When the kid wouldn’t come, she’d clang some more. And when he still didn’t respond, she’d be down.
Billy unzipped a black body bag made of the same scent-free material as his suit, then took off the kid’s shoes and laid him in it, then zipped it. He grabbed the butterfly net and went back down to the canal. The place was
dead—not a sound except for the bugs and bats chittering in the darkening skies. He went back to the shack, and when he was certain that the woods were clear, he moved outside and with his gloved hands picked up the dog and scraps of brain matter and dumped it all and the rabbit into another bag. He sprayed the ground with coon urine from the aerosol can to deflect search-party dogs.
dead—not a sound except for the bugs and bats chittering in the darkening skies. He went back to the shack, and when he was certain that the woods were clear, he moved outside and with his gloved hands picked up the dog and scraps of brain matter and dumped it all and the rabbit into another bag. He sprayed the ground with coon urine from the aerosol can to deflect search-party dogs.
When he finished, he hauled the bags back into the woods maybe two hundred yards then turned west and headed to where yesterday he had dug the four-foot-deep hole, now covered over with brush. He laid down his bundles and uncovered the hole. It was deep enough and already limed. He dropped in the remains, filled the hole with dirt again, sprayed more coon urine, and then returned the brush.
But the exertion in the suit nearly made him faint. He trudged his way to the next clearing in the trees then crossed up and over the rise that would take him back to Little Wiggins Canal Road and to the cutoff in the woods where the van waited with the Igloo cooler full of ice and the six bottles of Coors Lite.
Billy thought about the beer then about the story in tomorrow’s local papers: How little six-year-old Travis Valentine of Little Wiggins Canal Road and his dog Bo were missing, and how the authorities speculated that the boy had gotten lost in the woods. And in a few days people would begin to fear that the boy and his dog had been snatched by alligators because it was nesting season and males are very protective by nature. And then it would come out how some large bulls reaching upward of eleven feet had been spotted in canals not too far from here. Wildlife officers would comment that although gators generally fear humans, some local animals had lost their timidity because residents had been feeding them even though that was against the law, and that most gator attacks occurred around dusk. And a spokesman from the Florida Game and Fish Commission would say something about how the boy’s death should not create a panic, that there had been only eleven confirmed deaths by alligator in the last twenty years, and that death by drowning and bee sting were more common. While that wouldn’t be much comfort to Mrs. Valentine, the commission just wanted to put things in perspective. And the local sheriffs office would solemnly promise that his men would hunt and kill the animal, and that the Game Commission would dissect it to ensure it was the one that got the Valentine boy.
And the distraught mother would report how there had been no screaming or barking or sounds of thrashing water. And how Travis would never disobey her and go near the water because he had more sense than that. He knew about gators, and even though they had almost never been spotted in the vicinity, she had schooled him right. Besides, he had Bo who would detect a gator if it were nearby.
But the authorities would express bafflement that even with a party of police, forest rangers, and a couple dozen backcountry volunteers with dogs, not a trace had been found of young Travis or his mutt—just a butterfly net and a solitary sneaker at the edge of the canal, leading them to rule out foul play, mountain lions, and bears, leaving them with the sad conclusion that both the dog and the boy had been snatched by alligators, the dog probably first—pulled right off the shore without a sound—then, when he went to help, another animal had burst from the depths and pulled in Travis, too.
No bloody clothes, no ravished bodies, nothing but a single sneaker and a butterfly net.
Like he had just up and disappeared
snick
snick.
snick
snick.
T
o Greg’s mind, the groomed piney acreage surrounding the medical examiner’s office was an overstated apology for the interior grimness.
o Greg’s mind, the groomed piney acreage surrounding the medical examiner’s office was an overstated apology for the interior grimness.
One of the three satellite offices of the Boston headquarters, the Pocasset unit occupied the dark concrete basement of Barnstable County Hospital, a former chronic care facility. Joe Steiner’s office was off a labyrinthine hallway, which housed autopsy rooms, a morgue, and storage facilities filled with cadavers and body parts in plastic containers. Greg parked next to some white ME vans.
He hated the place, for it was where Lindsay had been brought that night two years ago. As he walked down the hall, he could still recall the soupy unreality of moving past these walls and doors to identify her body, knowing that she was dead, while at the same time a tiny part of his brain clung to a candle flicker of hope that it was another woman they had pulled out of the wreckage.
It had been a clear, cool starry April night—the kind that made you aware of infinity, and just how incidental human life is. He had been at home half-watching a ball game and trying to stay awake until Lindsay returned. She was late because one of the girls at Genevieve Bratton had tried to kill herself, and Lindsay was most of the crisis-management team. Over the years, she had seen girls whose young lives were full of horrors so awful that she had stopped talking about them. And many of those lives she had helped turn around. Her colleagues spoke glowingly of her compassion
and skills in working with troubled kids. At a fund-raising gala three years ago, she was commended for her work. A graduate who had come into the school at age fourteen—a suicidal victim of repeated sexual abuse, an alcoholic, and a drug addict with a rap sheet a yard long—personally thanked Lindsay for setting her on a path of recovery that had led to a college degree, a successful career, and a sense of self-esteem. Greg had tears of pride in his eyes as the. audience gave Lindsay a standing ovation.
and skills in working with troubled kids. At a fund-raising gala three years ago, she was commended for her work. A graduate who had come into the school at age fourteen—a suicidal victim of repeated sexual abuse, an alcoholic, and a drug addict with a rap sheet a yard long—personally thanked Lindsay for setting her on a path of recovery that had led to a college degree, a successful career, and a sense of self-esteem. Greg had tears of pride in his eyes as the. audience gave Lindsay a standing ovation.
Greg moved down the corridor toward Joe Steiner’s office, and he could still feel the horrid disbelief that clutched him as he walked into Room 55 two years ago to identify her body—how Joe had met him in the hall surrounded by troopers and other officers, including T.J. Gelford. How their faces appeared like a funeral frieze.
Today Joe Steiner was on his phone at his desk, the sports section of
The
Boston
Herald
spread open, and a cigarette burning in an ashtray beside an open bag of Cape Cod dark russet potato chips. An air conditioner in a high window groaned against the sultry ocean air. Through the plastic divider was the autopsy room, occupied mostly by a single white porcelain cadaver table under lights and a butcher’s scale.
The
Boston
Herald
spread open, and a cigarette burning in an ashtray beside an open bag of Cape Cod dark russet potato chips. An air conditioner in a high window groaned against the sultry ocean air. Through the plastic divider was the autopsy room, occupied mostly by a single white porcelain cadaver table under lights and a butcher’s scale.
Reluctantly Greg’s job brought him here a few times a year, and the place always looked the same. On the floor sat a stack of large white plastic formaldehyde containers labeled in Magic Marker—
heart,
liver,
uterus,
lungs,
brain
—each with a case number. Nearby was a cardboard carton of small screw-top specimen jars containing slices of different human organs. Also on the floor was a small white refrigerator, containing vials of blood and urine. The place was a human chop shop.
heart,
liver,
uterus,
lungs,
brain
—each with a case number. Nearby was a cardboard carton of small screw-top specimen jars containing slices of different human organs. Also on the floor was a small white refrigerator, containing vials of blood and urine. The place was a human chop shop.
“Tonight’s my last good night of sleep,” Joe said when he got off the phone. “My daughter Sarah gets her driver’s license tomorrow.”
Joe was only half-joking. He had been a medical examiner for nearly twenty years, conducting more than a hundred autopsies annually. In his time, he had been host to every conceivable form of human death: by fire and water; in car, boat, and plane accidents; by their own hand and somebody else’s. As he once said, he had seen it all. To him, the deceased’s remains were no longer a human being but a scientific specimen containing information on it or in it—information that would assist the judicial system, public health office, police departments, and surviving families. But what still affected Joe—what still cut through that professional crust—was finding on his table
a teenager who had wrapped himself or herself around a tree. “Such a waste,” he once said with tears in his eyes.
a teenager who had wrapped himself or herself around a tree. “Such a waste,” he once said with tears in his eyes.
“I wish they’d up the age to thirty-five.”
“Or give them bumper cars for the first ten years,” Greg said.
Joe smiled. He had sad blue eyes that reminded you of the unspeakable images they had absorbed in his two decades. “So, how you doing?”
Greg knew what he meant: Had he ridden down the grief? Had he gotten on with his life since Lindsay’s death? Had he started dating other women?
During the first year after his wife’s death, Greg’s grief was ravenous, all-consuming. Early on, he wasn’t certain he could survive—and several nights he had found himself gnawing on the barrel of his gun. He had lost the love of his life and his baby-to-be, and with them all purpose. Yet, knowing that Lindsay would want him to go on, he threw himself into his work, taking on extra cases, doing overtime. Still, there were days when he could barely function for missing her. It was like trying to breathe on one lung.
The thought of seeing other women during that first year was borderline heresy. In his mind, his marriage to Lindsay had been a rare alliance with a woman whom he respected as much as he had loved. It always amazed him that someone so extraordinary as she had settled for someone so unextraordinary as he. He felt truly privileged. So, in the second year when friends tried to fix him up, he knew he could not settle for just any woman. She had to be special. He dated casually a couple times and met some fine people. He even on occasion met a woman he had fantasized over. But he soon lost interest and gave up. Lindsay had spoiled other women for him.
Today, the pain of her loss was no less keen. It still throbbed at the core of him. He had just gotten harder around it. And instead of other women, he took up the Sagamore Boy case. It gave him uncompromising purpose.
“So, what do we have?”
“His name is Grady Vernon Dixon, age six, white male from Coldwater, Tennessee. He’s been missing for fourteen months.” From a file folder, Joe produced several color blowups of a human skull and a single long bone. As he had explained on the phone, the remains had been processed at the main
office in Boston and the State Crime Lab in Sudbury. After twelve weeks, Gloucester and state police had exhausted all leads, as had investigators at the Tennessee end. All they had were the boy’s abduction and an unattended death—no suspects, no evidence, no leads. Just two devastated parents. And a skull and leg bone.
office in Boston and the State Crime Lab in Sudbury. After twelve weeks, Gloucester and state police had exhausted all leads, as had investigators at the Tennessee end. All they had were the boy’s abduction and an unattended death—no suspects, no evidence, no leads. Just two devastated parents. And a skull and leg bone.
Greg moved his chair forward and examined the photos.
“You can thank Patty Carney for the link,” Joe said. “She’s the forensic anthropologist at the Boston lab where they processed your Sagamore Boy. She made the connection just the other day and called me.”
“Any idea how long it was in the water?”
“Hard to tell, but from the wear and tear from bouncing around the bottom, I’d say at least a year.”
“So, it’s possible he drowned.”
“It’s possible.”
The skull, like the leg bone, was grayish-brown, not bleached from the sun. Only a few of the teeth were missing, unlike the Sagamore Boy whose skull contained only the incisors and two half-grown back teeth.
“I think he was pretty deep, because there isn’t the weight loss you’d get in warm water.”
“How did they determine it’s a male?”
“There was no soft tissue, but the leg bone had traces of marrow inside,” Joe explained. “And with that, they could detect certain DNA markers which only occur on the Y chromosome—the male chromosome. The calibrations of the skull also point to a male. The same with his ethnicity. Different races have different skull-feature measurements. His age we determine by bone growth and plate fissures, but there’s a larger window of error there—between five and seven years.”
Steiner handed Greg some color photos of the remains lying on the boat deck among piles of scallops, fish, crabs, and seaweed. They looked so sadly out of place. “They were taken by the boat captain.”
Greg turned to one of the several profile shots of the Dixon skull. “It’s got the same holes.”
“That’s what I called you for.”
There were two clusters each of ten small holes on the left side of the Dixon skull——one group between the eye socket and ear hole; the other above the left ear.
Joe opened his desk drawer and pulled out a folder with photos of the Sagamore Boy’s skull. “When this came in three years ago, my guess was the holes were some marine-animal artifacts.” From the same drawer he removed three large white quahog shells. “Also from Sagamore Beach,” he said. He laid the shells under the desk light. Each of the shells had small-bore holes of roughly the same diameter. “These were made from calcium-loving worms called polychaetes. They bore holes that are almost perfectly round, about one to two millimeters in diameter.”
“They look like the skull holes.”
“And that’s what threw me,” Joe said. “Same size, but they’re not from polychaetes or any other aquatic organism I know of. These skull holes occurred premortem.”
“How do you know that?”
“First, the animal holes are random and only partially clustered—maybe a dozen holes in an area then random spacing over a broader surface. Sometimes, as in this shell, you only get two or three on the whole surface, and some don’t go all the way through. But the Sagamore skull and the Dixon boy each have a cluster of ten and twelve above the temple and another cluster of ten above the ear,” he explained, moving from shell to photos. “And no other holes anywhere else on either skull, or the leg bone.”
Greg studied the photos. Both hole clusters were located in exactly the same areas on the skulls. Too much for a coincidence.
“That’s when I stopped guessing and put it under the scope.” From the same folder he pulled out other enlargements.
“On the right is a polychaete bore, on the left a hole from the Dixon skull—both straight-on.”
“They look the same.”
“That’s right.” Then he laid out two more enlargements. He pointed to the photo on the right. “This is the cross section of a polychaete hole in skull bone. Notice the homogeneous field of small pockmarks.” Joe then placed next to it another enlargement. “And this is one of the skull holes. See the difference?”
Greg studied the two for a moment. Laying his finger on the right photo, he said, “This one looks grooved.”
“That’s right. The polychaete worms leave smooth cavities. Those are cut marks from a drill.”
“Jesus!” Instantly Greg conjured up Geoffrey Dahmer-style horrors.
“But it’s not what you may think,” Joe said. “From the angles and the smoothness of the bores, it looks like these were done with very high-speed cranio-blade drills under precision guidance.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning nobody attacked the kid with a Black and Decker. He had some kind of medical procedure. There are no signs of the drill bit sliding on the skull or forced entry. Also, the cutting was fast and controlled—no microchipping or breakage like with a slower handheld instrument. This kid had some kind of sophisticated brain operation.”
Greg looked at him blankly. “Like what?”
“If they were bigger and fewer holes, I’d say they were drainage shunts to relieve internal bleeding—say if he had sustained some kind of trauma such as a car accident.” Joe let out a whimper as if reminding himself of his daughter. “With so many holes, my guess is some kind of biopsy.”
“You mean if he had brain tumors.”
“Or lesions, because something was either taken out of his brain … or put in.”
“Like what?”
“Well, if he were an old man, he might have been treated for Parkinson’s disease—except six-year-old kids don’t get Parkinson’s. Another possibility is he had several tumors. It’s rare, but if that were the case, surgeons might have implanted radioactive seeds.”
“Any way to test for that?”
“I asked Boston to do a radioactive scan. But, like I said, all soft tissue is unfortunately long gone—and no traces were detected in the bone.”
Greg held up the profile enlargements of the two skulls. There were variations in placement, but the clusters appeared identical.
“Another thing,” Joe added. “I checked around, and neurodrill holes are always refilled after such a procedure, either with some synthetic bone or even coral. From all microscopic indications, these were left empty.”
“Maybe they came out in the water.”
“Maybe. But I think there’d still be some signs of bone regeneration, which happens when there’s a fracture or fissure. But I don’t see any sign of the holes closing up.”
“That could have been lost in the water too, no?”
“Sure, but still.”
“If that were the case, it would mean that the kid died from the operation.”
“Or shortly thereafter,” Joe said.
Greg held up photos of the two skulls. “What’s the likelihood of two kids treated for brain tumors being found dead in the waters off the Massachusetts coast?”
Joe nodded and lit up another cigarette. “You’d do better playing the lottery.”
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