A Bllind Eye Read online

  I continued to scan the terrain, searching for clues the killer may have left behind. The area was blinding white. There had been a dusting of snow late last night. Evidence once visible could be hidden under a blanket of fine powder. Lips pursed, I glanced down, not at anything in particular. My mind filled with images of the killer, standing at this same spot not long ago.

  “If you touched her,” I thought, “you left a part of you behind . . . somewhere.

  I was determined to find it.

  Bellows called out as he turned his head toward his deputies who were milling around the scene. “Where are my photographers?”

  I stood up and scanned for anyone with a camera who wasn’t part of the media. I pointed downwind with my chin. “There.”

  From the corner of the road, three officers approached, cameras swinging like pendulums around their necks, black nylon bags slung over their shoulders. They marched in single file toward the crime scene. Bellows stood and fell in line behind them, guiding the officers through a narrow pathway in order to take pictures of the surrounding area.

  “I want every inch of this landscape photographed from here to Sunday. If you find anything, I want to be the first to know.”

  Nodding in agreement, they moved as a team, photographing at every angle, entry and exit, broken branch, indentations. Cameras flashed, auto-advance mechanisms squealing a high pitch whine, reverberating off the thick wall of evergreens. Inch by inch, the land to be forever memorialized onto a dozen rolls of 35mm film.

  A string of investigators crawled methodically toward the body. Bellows watched over the examiners while another cameraman followed, lockstep behind them.

  More cameras flash, more whirl from the auto-winders.

  Cigarette butts were retrieved for potential DNA, a glass bottle under a fallen branch for fingerprints. By the time they reached the dead girl’s body, I had already formulated my planned examination. Bellows opened his pad and started taking notes.

  I noticed there were more people on the hilltop. The tourist population had started to gather alongside the news crews.

  Another contingency of Mariposa deputies walked a grid line along the north ridge, just below where the body lay.

  I continued my focus on the lifeless figure, studying how she was left and the reason for her position, assessed her injuries. She had been struck at the base of the neck with a blunt object; that was obvious. Thin, rusty wire still wrapped around each ankle, cutting into her skin. That was telling. Frozen in place, on her knees, arms by her side, head pushed into the dirt. Her face was turned sideways, staring right at me. Eyes open and hazy, empty and distant. Blood splattered across her nose, eyes and mouth, matted in dirt and what appeared to be grease. The snow had melted then froze, leaving only patches of crimson in the ice around the girl’s torso. Like an unwanted doll discarded and forgotten in the woods, lifeless. Left like discarded trash. There was a time the girl didn’t have a care in the world, never had to worry about abductions and murderers. I couldn’t help my eyes from welling up.

  “How old do you think she is?” Bellows asked. “Fifteen, sixteen?”

  “Seventeen,” I said.

  Bellows’ brow creased with a row of deep lines, stare-sharpened into a question mark.

  “I spoke to her mother.” I pointed at the body. “Her name is Amanda Jenkins.”

  She was reported missing three weeks ago. Mother gave me her photo for distribution. I never forget a face. When Bellows called and said he had a possible child vic in the national forest, Mrs. Jenkins, resident of Mariposa County with a missing seventeen-year-old daughter, floated to the top of my mind. “Said she was a chronic runaway.”

  “Number three,” Bellows barked. His words were sharp, accusatory as if to say, I told you so.

  I reached into my jacket and removed a pair of latex gloves. Placing the opened end up to my mouth, I blew in a puff of air, all finger expanded as if waving. I slid it over my right hand, did the same for my left, and began a visual examination before touching the body. Cuts and scratches, possibly indicative of defensive wounds. May contain trace evidence. Gingerly, I placed my fingers on her head, guiding wet matted hair away from her face, making every effort not to move or disturb the body.

  “You know it’s under her, don’t you?” Bellows said.

  Staring only at Amanda, I forced back a response. “Wouldn’t that be my luck.”

  I peered under my arm and back toward a cadre of deputies standing in the background, waiting to see what was to come.

  “Get me a sheet to move her on.” I instructed Bellows, surrendering to the inevitable. “Time to find out what’s underneath her.”

  Bellows nodded and walked back to the crew to help find a large plastic sheet to transfer the body. Within a minute, he returned, carrying a large roll under his arm.

  I took the roll and unsnapped the tie and, together, we laid the sheet beside her. We started to transfer her onto the tarp in order to capture any microscopic evidence stuck to her small frame, but in that moment of stillness and anxiousness, my attention broke, catching sight of falling winter leaves. They gently fell, bounced, and cartwheeled over her body. Some stayed while others were whisked away by a growing gust of wind. More leaves followed by pine needles. Bellows gritted his teeth. We both knew this was not a natural draft. This was man-made.

  “Helicopters, Hal!” I screamed, trying to be heard above the thump, thump, thump of the rotor blades. “Here they come!”

  Bellows looked up, grabbed tightly onto his Stetson, preventing it from being blown down to the valley floor.

  With great speed, the air stirred to a frenzy, kicking up dirt and decayed leaves. Wet pine needles summersaulted in the air before falling like darts from the sky.

  I yelled to a group of deputies stumbling in the whirlwind. “Get to a phone and tell those media assholes to get their choppers up higher before I shoot them down!”

  The helicopter’s blades continued to blow away evidence I fought to preserve as I shielded the body from the flying debris of dirt, ice, and pine needles. In that moment, something under Amanda Jenkins’ left shoulder caught my attention. Flapping in the wind, a small piece of paper protruded out, threatening to fly away with the violent swirl. I quickly grabbed a corner, careful not to tear or damage it. As I fought to protect myself from the rotor blast, I bent down close to the body, peeling the sliver of paper from under her chest and placing it close to my face to read the words scratched in pencil. My anxiousness grew, knowing what I would see. Two words neatly written on the wet paper now glued to my gloved hand.

  Catch Me.

  Two minutes later, the helicopters had ascended and the turbulence started to subside. The air became quiet, the only sound coming from a passing winter’s gust. Droplets of melting snow dripped from the trees. Soon the stillness was replaced by the sound of Bellows’ boots trudging back toward me. I was still shielding Amanda’s body as I caught sight of Bellows’ shadow.

  He leaned next to my right shoulder then glanced at the note. I could hear him breathe. “Same as the others?”

  I straightened up and nodded. There were times I hated it when he was right.

  “Same,” I confessed.

  Bellows pulled off his Stetson and dragged his sleeve across his forehead then said in a conceding fashion,

  “Congratulations, Agent Paris. You got yourself a serial killer.”

  Chapter 4

  Tuesday February 18th - 6:15 a.m.

  Home, El Dorado Hills, California

  The alarm went off early but it didn’t matter. There wasn’t much time for sleep, having driven back from the valley late last night. Besides, I was restless, my head still in a fog, unable to shake the vision of Amanda Jenkins laying on that frozen grassland. Hate didn’t come close in describing my feelings. Bellows and I had spent most of yesterday’s daylight hours at the scene before the coroner arrived. We had canvassed the neighborhood, conducted interviews, checked and reviewed every ATM and liquor store camera. We still had more to do.

  When night fell, I had to make a decision: go home and pack for a return to the valley or live in the clothes I was wearing for who knows how long? Although it was at least a two-hour drive on hair-pin roads back home, I opted for the clean clothes.

  The sun hadn’t risen yet, keeping the room gray and without shadows. Piled on a chair were neatly folded clothes I hadn’t had time to put away. Not too long ago, Emily would have done it. She took care of everything. For my entire career, I lived life away from home, finding being in the heat of a case the addiction I craved, not appreciating the fact that I always had a place, a safe haven when the world turned a shade too dark. With Emily. Until it was too late.

  After a quick shower, I pulled a white dress shirt, tie, and gray suit from the closet, sat on the corner of the bed and got dressed. I reached over to one of the stacks of clothes, searching for a pair of socks, preferably matching. It took me a second to realize I had been staring at the half-made bed for a long while, seeing the sheets on my side pushed, bent, and crumpled halfway down. Her side still neatly in place, crisp and unspoiled. The contradiction made my heart sink and constrict with pain. Seeing it made me question my decision, wondered if I should’ve stayed in Yosemite.

  I walked over to her side of the bed, stood there for a moment and placed a hand on her pillow. The coldness of it felt like the emptiness of space. It was a miracle I was able to finish dressing.

  Forty-five minutes later, I pulled into a long driveway, steering toward a large building buried in a mass of look-alike structures, a single story with a red brick facade. Smoked glass windows lined the
outside like a ribbon around a box, a low wall bordering the circular concrete pad at the entrance. Isolated within a residential and college community, the facility was encased in thick, black steel bars with multiple array antennas, cameras and razor wire. An eyesore within a quiet, serene neighborhood.

  I carefully maneuvered my bureau ride, a dark blue Crown Vic, through a series of concrete barriers, nosing the large sedan up to the overbuilt steel gate that surrounded the FBI Field office, jammed in the northwestern edge of Sacramento. The large sedan came to a crawl as I approached a small keypad that jutted out from a concrete slab. I waved my office ID card across the access panel and a set of numbers flashed up in random order. Typing in my private code, the panel beeped with each punch. The car idled for a minute before a green light blipped on and the large three-thousand-pound metal gate built to withstand an eighteen-wheeler at full speed slowly opened.

  A voice crackled over the entrance intercom speaker. “Good morning, Agent Paris.”

  I waved at the surveillance camera perched high above my vehicle and took the first open parking slot before stepping out of the car. The air smelled damp, cut heavy with car exhaust coming from the vehicle maintenance bay.

  A concrete walkway took me straight to a set of large reflective glass doors. I pulled on the thick handles. Warm air rushed out, hitting me like a slap in the face.

  The lobby was dead quiet. Directly in front, a receptionist sat behind a wall of high-impact bullet-resistant glass, talking on the phone while another line chimed away. To my left, side-by-side portraits hung of the current US Attorney General and the Director of the FBI. The Top Ten board finished off the look, prominently displaying the most wanted, a true hold-over of Bureau tradition.

  The doors leading to the workspace were locked with a guard standing at attention next to the metal detector. I’m an employee so I bypass the detector. I tapped my access badge against the card reader, punched in my passcode—again—and entered. My squad’s bullpen was on the other side of the building. Getting there was through a long, narrow hallway that spanned the entire length of the building. Investigators at one end, the bosses at the other. Agents referred to the corridor between the two sections as the Green Mile.

  Before I could make it to my desk, my Supervisor’s secretary, Beatriz Gonzalez, stepped in my path and slowed. She pointed in the direction of Frank Porter’s office before continuing on. “He wants to see you.”

  I entered the squad bay and continued past a maze of half-walls and cubicles. Telephones rang in the background, pictures of bank robbers, serial killers, and international terrorists pinned cock-eyed on corkboards along my path. Agents hunkered over their desks, talking in whispers. Most of them looked too young to be carrying guns.

  I turned the corner to Porter’s office and rapped twice, gently, against his doorframe. “Frank,” I said. “I take it you want an update?”

  Frank Porter looked up, peered over a pair of black plastic frame reading glasses with an affable look. He’s an average sized guy, slightly stocky with a head of salt and pepper hair, more salt than pepper. He always had a smile, positive attitude, something he had not lost from years of dealing with assholes inside and outside of the field. Been in the Bureau of fifteen and change, doing time at headquarters and two other field offices before landing this gig as the violent crime supervisor. He stood up from his desk behind stacks of teletypes, electronic communications, and bureau publications. Reports from headquarters filled his in-box, unread, which were clear indications of how important he felt they were. The furniture in his office was not the typical government-grade. Rosewood table, credenza and stacked bookshelves were all neatly arranged. A man who knew what he liked. A television and an old video recorder were tucked in the corner with the world news running in the background. On the walls were awards and certificates of appreciations from agencies he worked with in the past. There was a photo of Porter shaking hands with the Director.

  Porter reached out, his shirtsleeves rolled up above his wrists, taking my hand like he was glad to see you. And meant it. He was like that.

  “Talk to me.” Porter’s face relaxed as he slid a notebook in front and grabbed a pen from his desk drawer.

  I pulled my notes and went through yesterday’s event chronologically, starting with Hal’s initial phone call, finding the vic, confirming identity. Porter never looked up, the whole time taking notes as if he was preparing for an exam. I didn’t get a chance to detail our findings before he interrupted me in an apologetic voice. “You get another one?” he asked.

  I knew what he meant.

  I nodded. “Yeah, we got another note.”

  His eyes went glassy and I could almost hear his jaw clench. I’d seen that look before. A boiler couldn’t generate steam to billow any thicker.

  “I have Chris coming out,” I said. “His team will help examine what we collected.”

  Chris Hoskin oversaw our Evidence Response Team. His crew of agents and support staff are trained at the FBI Academy at Quantico in forensic examination. They travel wherever we need to collect evidence, whether it’s a bank robbery or a terrorist attack. Hoskin’s team was one of the first to mobilize and support body recovery efforts at the Oklahoma City bobming in ’95. When they returned, they didn’t speak much of what they saw, at least not to the outside world but I could tell, each one of them had been deeply affected.

  “Bellows is turning over his evidence to us so we can send it to our lab. Hopefully, it’ll generate some good leads.” I flipped through my notebook one more time to make sure I covered everything. “Jenkins is in Mariposa and will be transported to the coroner’s office in Stanislaus County later today. Autopsy’s tomorrow.”

  Porter leaned back in his chair, creaked under his weight. “Mother been notified?”

  “She’s with her daughter at the funeral home.”

  There was a lull, neither of us saying much of anything. Porter has a daughter. She’s fourteen, maybe fifteen. Has a picture on his desk with his wife, Jane squeezing each other somewhere on the beach or by a lake. Big smiles. I saw Porter giving the photo a glance before returning his attention back my way.

  Porter asked. “You doing okay?”

  He knew my situation, my two kids: Michael and Justine. They were grown. Michael, a chef in midtown at a top-notch restaurant, has his own apartment close to work because of his hours and Justine is in her sophomore year at college in Seattle. He knew how important they were in my life, especially now.

  I nodded and gave Porter a short wave of a hand. “I’m fine, Frank.”

  Porter tapped the top of his phone. “I just got a call from the Special Agent in Charge at the U.S. Forest Service in the Yosemite National Park. Has himself two missing, a mother and daughter vacationing in the park.”

  The shift away from my case to this new report caught me off guard. One minute we were talking about the murder of Amanda Jenkins. The next, two missing tourists.

  Is he suggesting they’re related?

  “They’d be treating it as routine,” Porter said. “But there are some suspicious things about how they left their hotel room.”

  “What are they implying?” I put down my pen.

  Porter placed both hands flat on his desk, took a moment before speaking. “They’re concerned.”

  “Forest Service have reason to believe there’s a connection to my case?” I felt my voice crack at the question.

  He inhaled a deep controlled breath and panned a look of uncertainty before conceding, “I don’t know what they’re thinking. People come up missing in Yosemite all the time. Hell, the roads are as slick as a used car salesman. You can easily roll off the side of a cliff and no one would find you for months.” He reached over and grabbed a separate notepad, turned to a page scribbled with bullet points. Lots of arrows and underlined words. “This is what I was told.”

  Porter started to rattle off detailed information about the case. I turned to a clean page, titled it Case Two.

  “On February 13th,” Porter started saying, “Maria Samuels, mother, age forty-one, and daughter Judy Samuels, age fourteen, checked into the Mountain View Lodge just outside the National Park’s west entrance, near the town of El Portal. Hotel registry shows them planning a stay for a week. Two days later, the maid service advises management the guests in room 309 haven’t been in their room since they checked in. Manager found all their luggage still in the room. The US Forest Service contacted Mariposa Sheriff’s who dispatched a couple of detectives. They went out and photographed the scene.”