Page 131 of Last Girls Alive
Katie walked through the cramped living area and moved into a small room. It was mostly dark, making everything obscured. The rancid food smell was overwhelming, but there was another smell vying for attention that caught Katie’s senses, triggering her to slow her pace.
“Katie,” said McGaven. This time with more urgency as he followed her into the room.
Looking at the other end of the dank room, to Katie’s horror, there was a nude woman, tied to a chair and slumped over, and it was easy to see the letters carved into her back even in the gloom. She still approached with caution as the stench was overwhelming and growing in intensity with every step. Katie couldn’t tear her eyes away from the woman. Her thin body didn’t move. The skin stretched over bone was grayish and had a slight iridescent shadow about it. Her long dark hair covered her face. It was clear to see that the rope around her neck had been tightened too much. Looking down, she saw her feet, ankles, and calves were partially eaten away by rodents—tiny chew marks were visible.
Katie put her hand to her mouth, to some extent in horror and partially to keep the smell away from her nose.
McGaven moved closer to her. “Don’t, Katie.”
Dapples of the victim’s blood were scattered across the floor in an almost intricate design of dots and then full-sized spatters. They weren’t bright red, but dull, dark, and almost rust-colored.
With one hand, Katie slowly moved the woman’s hair, noting that her face was extremely pale and gaunt. Katie recognized the resemblance to the lovely, quiet woman that she and McGaven had spoken to.
Tanis Jones appeared dead, but her skin was still warm.
On a small table, there were various bottles of shampoo and ink. In a large shallow bowl, there was a mixture of jewelry, fingernails, barrettes, and groupings of hair. His trophies.
McGaven touched Katie’s arm. “C’mon, let’s get out of here. We have to call it in for the homicide and forensics.”
“Why?” she said. “Why did he need to do this?” She was devastated and weary as she looked around the room.
“Let’s go outside,” he said gently. “C’mon.”
A quiet gasp of air. It was faint but discernible.
“Wait,” said Katie. She knelt next to Tanis and gently pulled her hair from her face again. Pressing her fingers against Tanis’s neck, Katie was able to detect a pulse. “She’s alive!”
“What?” said McGaven.
“She’s alive. There’s a faint pulse. Call an ambulance.” Hope filled her heart and she silently prayed for a miracle.
McGaven made the call.
Katie found a pocket knife on the table and began carefully cutting Tanis’s restraints. “C’mon, Tanis, you got this. Keep breathing… Gav, get a blanket or sheet. Anything we can wrap her in until they arrive.”
McGaven and Katie carefully wrapped Tanis and laid her on one of the beds. She began to make tiny noises and it became clearer that she was breathing shallow, but it was consistent.
Katie waited outside on the flimsy decking with a wobbly metal railing as McGaven stood next to her. She couldn’t get Tanis’s face out of her mind and the fact that she had been left to die in that condition. She couldn’t imagine the horrors and suffering Tanis had been through. If only she had figured out who the killer was sooner, then they would have found Tanis sooner. She felt weak and defeated as she stood there trying to act like everything was okay—when it clearly wasn’t.
She watched the deputies search the overgrown area and thought they were going to find only ticks and mosquitos.
Trying to calm her nerves, the only thing she could do was breathe and focus. The simple act of taking air in and out made things better. She kept her focus present and her mind on finding Jerry Weaver.
Something shiny caught Katie’s attention—it flashed twice. She kept her head low but turned her gaze toward one of the train cars, not making it obvious. She knew instinctively that Jerry Weaver was hiding out there, and once they left, he would make his escape and maybe avoid law enforcement in the future.
She wasn’t going to allow him to slip away again… He wasn’t going to hurt anyone else—ever.
Katie walked up to McGaven and whispered, “He’s in the fourth train car with the blue graffiti.” She backed away. “I’ll head back toward the car and go around the long way as backup. You and the deputies can confront him.”
“We can take care of this,” he said softly.
“I’m just the insurance that he’s not going to get away this time. There won’t be enough time to call in for more reinforcements. Besides,” she said, “there will be cops coming here because of the crime scene, but that will ten or twelve minutes. Every minute counts.”
McGaven gave her a look, a stern stare, before he jogged away to meet up with the two other deputies.
Dark clouds skirted across the sky, making the day darker than normal. A few drops of rain escaped and dappled the ground. Rolling thunder rounded out the gloomy day with a deep rumble. It seemed fitting to Katie as she moved silently through the weeds on the other side of the train yard.
Some of the area was piled with trash and plastic items wedged underneath the dried overgrowth. Katie kept her eyes focused on the train car. With no movement or voices, she thought that the deputies were searching farther away than the area she had explained to McGaven.
