Page 43 of Her Frozen Heart

“How is the death industry not more regulated?” Courtney asked in surprise. “I mean, very few people are going to buy a body bag for non-nefarious reasons, it just seems bizarre.”

“Sadly, Blanchard’s right,” Willard said. “You’d be looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. These bags are waterproof, though.”

“Kesha’s would have been too,” Nikki said. “But something ripped the bag, which caused the weight to slip out.” She hated to think how long her body would have been in the lake if that hadn’t happened. It was likely none of them would be out here in the freezing dark right now.

Nikki took photos of everything while the others worked.

“This is a skeleton, and the towel is falling apart, so we can’t just pick it up and put it on the tarp.” Willard worked to extricate the rotting material until the full skeleton was visible. “These bones have probably been here a decade or longer. I’ll know more after we’ve thoroughly examined them.”

“Can you tell anything about the material they were wrapped in?” Nikki asked. “The part you peeled away is pretty degraded but maybe if there’s print left we might be able to date it.”

Willard shined her LED flashlight on the bones inside the towel, gently shifting them around. “There is some kind of print left on the fabric. It’s too hard for me to make out to even hazard a guess at the pattern, though.”

“Once you’ve taken all the bones, I’ll collect the towel,” Courtney said. “Hopefully I’ll be able to see something under the microscope.”

“We’ll obviously need to sift the dirt beneath this victim carefully, but I don’t think we’ve got half a skeleton here. Likely animals carried off the rest of the remains.”

Thanks to the ten inches of ice and snow on the unthawed ground, searching for scattered bones wasn’t an option. They were stuck with what they found, at least until spring. And even then, Nikki doubted the search would yield many results. Small bones ended up in various critter nests, and an animal could have carried the larger bones miles away.

After Willard made sure the remaining bags weren’t compromised, Miller and Omari carefully removed the second body and placed it on the tarp.

Nikki held her breath as Dr. Willard opened the bag. “Skeletonized, head to toe, but see the difference in the bones? They look more recent,” Willard said. “These were in body bags, however, so that could make a difference. The less water and heat, the slower the decomp.”

“Any idea how much of a difference?” Miller asked.

Dr. Willard shrugged. “Depends on how long they’ve been here, how many different seasons they’ve gone through. Given Minnesota’s average seasonal weather and the depth this person is buried at, my best educated guess—and that’s all this is right now—is that this victim’s been here through a few seasons. There’s no organic material or insect activity, but the bones themselves look fresher, for lack of a better word. But I can’t tell you anything with any certainty until I’ve thoroughly examined the bones in the lab. And wrapped in any sort of plastic, which is essentially what body bags are, will slow decomp, especially if the victim is buried in the fall or early winter.”

Miller put a red tag on the bag. “Red goes to your lab, Doctor Willard. If there’s enough organic material left, blue tags mean Blanchard’s lab.”

Willard studied the third victim, who also appeared mostly skeletonized. When she got to the fourth victim, she said, “I don’t think this one has been here more than a year or so. There are intact dead beetles, which suggests some organic material was left on the bones fairly recently.” She touched the long, glossy black hair. “He stripped her like the others, but she’s wearing a silver bracelet with some beautiful inlaid design. I’ve seen similar ones at the Shakopee Sioux events.”

Like all tribal reservations, the Shakopee Sioux, located south of Washington County, fell under the jurisdiction of the FBI. They didn’t have their own police force like some reservations, but they did have an officer liaison from the local police. “If she’s missing from the reservation, why haven’t we heard about her?” Nikki asked.

“Maybe they don’t trust the government,” Miller said wryly.

“I don’t blame them, but this is different. She’s a missing person, and we’re here to help.” She texted Liam and asked if any of the missing women he’d found in the database were Native American. He must have been waiting to hear from her, because the reply came back right away.

“Liam says a twenty-six-year-old female disappeared from Mystic Lake Casino about thirteen months ago. She worked there and clocked out. Security footage showed her heading toward her car, but she walked out of the frame. Her car was found in the lot the next morning.”

“The last bag is a lot larger than the others,” Courtney said. “I hope there isn’t a mom and a kid inside.”

It took Miller, Willard and Omari to remove the wide third bag. “No way this one is skeletonized,” Willard said. “It wouldn’t be this heavy.” She carefully unzipped the bag, the faint scent of decomposition hanging in the air.

“Holy God,” Blanchard said.

The five of them stood in silence, trying to comprehend what they were seeing. Like Kesha, the victims were nude. Instead of a heavy person, two people occupied the bag. They lay facing each other, their bodies covered with a waxy substance and in advanced decay, but the genitals of both were still visible. The man’s dark hair was flecked with gray, the female’s long hair in a braid.

“They might be siblings.” Courtney finally broke the silence. “Or friends. It doesn’t mean they’re a couple, does it?”

“No, but that doesn’t matter in terms of a profile.” Nikki barely managed the words, still trying to comprehend what she was seeing. “It’s a biological male and a biological female. That is… rare for this sort of serial killer, to say the least.”

“Will you be able to tell if they were assaulted?” Courtney asked.

“Possibly,” Blanchard said. “But I’d think the removal of clothes suggests they were.”

“Or he wanted to humiliate them before he killed them,” Nikki said.

The medical examiner pointed to the male’s belly, where lividity marks could still be seen. “He either died face down or was turned that way shortly after death, because the lividity on his stomach is fixed, and you can also see some on his upper thigh.” Blanchard motioned for Dr. Willard to help move the male onto his side. The fatty tissue on his rear end had marbled, and what looked like a mix of dried blood and body waste were visible on his upper thighs. Nikki looked away as Blanchard worked to get a better look at the man’s injuries. She hated the undignified way victims often had to be examined.

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