Page 4 of Pretty Broken Dolls
Chad’s head popped up from the water suddenly and he gave the signal that he had found something, but not what it was.
Another ATV? Belonging to his dad?
Jared?
The other diver conferred with him a moment. Katie strained to hear the conversation and tried to read the body language. She waited anxiously.
Was it something?
Chad swiveled toward the shoreline and made a gesture at one of the police officers, who in turn hurried away to his patrol car.
Katie stepped forward to get closer to the pond, mesmerized by how gracefully Chad moved. She didn’t care how wet she was going to get as the rain picked up momentum: she was chilled to the core anyway and more water wasn’t going to make a bit of difference.
Chad made eye contact with her and he subtly nodded. Even in this terrible situation, she still felt the strong connection of love for him—her fiancé. She waited to make absolutely sure what he was implying was correct and he confirmed it with a grim expression. She knew what it meant.
Turning around, she spoke to the rest of the crew in a hushed tone. “Looks like we have a body.”
McGaven confronted her. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
Hamilton walked up. “Okay, we’ll get the coroner, but for now let’s pull the body up and out of this rain.” Turning to Katie, he said, “Your crime scene awaits.”
Katie looked at him, a bit confused—she wasn’t sure if she had heard him correctly.
“That means you’re working the crime scene—what there is of it,” he stated. “You haven’t let me down yet.” Hamilton corrected himself, “You haven’t letusdown.” He gave her a genuine smile, looking much more likeable as he relaxed his face.
Katie nodded and then looked at McGaven. “Back me up,” she said as they walked to the south side of the pond—the closest to the recovery area—and waited.
She began preparing herself silently for what she was about to see. She glanced back at the house, expecting one of the Stantons to come running toward the pond screaming, but the house remained quiet—and no one came out.
She turned her attention back to Chad and the other diver as they pulled something to shore; it looked like a large black garbage bag. It was round, not the length and shape that would indicate a body. Could it just be a bag of debris?
To Katie’s relief, the drizzly rain had stopped, but the rumbling of thunder continued to approach, gaining in volume. Taking off her warm mittens, she slipped on plastic gloves and knelt down, reaching her hand forward as McGaven used his body to block the view from the house and the neighbors.
Katie barely touched the bag but she felt something bristly. Flipping back the plastic, she revealed brown hair, then an ear, then the side of a young man’s head. Katie gasped as she took in the grayish skin, concaved, shriveled, looking more like a rubber mask in a Halloween store than anything human. One eye was gone, but the other was blackened and staring out. It was the decapitated head of a man. A young man.
Katie drew her hand back in revulsion and turned away for a moment to compose herself. “It’s a young man. It’s…difficult to tell, but it appears to be Jared Stanton.”
Several of the surrounding group members sucked in air but couldn’t tear their eyes away from the horrendous site of Jared’s face staring back at them.
McGaven retrieved his small pocketknife and handed it to Katie. She looked at him and reluctantly took the blade, not wanting to see more, but then sliced a small area on the opposite side of the construction bag.
It was just as she had thought.
Carefully, she turned back the bag, revealing the remains of a young man. His torso, arms, and legs were crammed inside—the dismembered limbs broken and crooked to fit into the bag. The water had done damage to the body and decomposition wasn’t the same as it would have been if he were buried in the dirt. Jared Stanton’s body and decapitated head were bloated and shiny, and Katie knew that now the skin was exposed to the air, it would soon slip off, turning black.
Katie took a few moments to try to ascertain what type of tool might have been used to separate his body. Jared’s legs still had on jeans, his torso was wrapped in a T-shirt, and sneakers were on both his feet. She examined his head and neck to establish if there were any obvious clues to what had killed him—if there were any cuts, bullet holes, or traumas that led to his death—but nothing was obvious.
She immediately stood up and addressed McGaven and Hamilton. “The body needs to be taken to the medical examiner’s office so it can be identified officially as Jared Stanton. We need to find out what was used to dismember him—and if there are signs of trauma, drugs, or poison in his body. This isn’t the time or place to conduct any kind of examination, not in this weather.” She swallowed hard and continued, “The ATV needs to be transported to the police impound so that forensics can search and document it, getting any VIN numbers to identify it.”
She turned to Chad who was waiting in the background as far away from the body as possible. “I need the rest of the pond scoured for anything else that shouldn’t be there, especially anything that could have been used as the murder weapon, and the other ATV.”
There were two deputy sheriffs standing nearby. Katie summoned them. “I want you two to document anything in the barn that might be missing or might have been used to dismember the body, like a chainsaw, hand saw, knives, or whatever you can find, to assist forensics when they get here. Make sure that you keep any tools or items you find protected from this rain.”
They nodded that they understood and left.
As Katie turned and began walking back up to the house, she eyed the blond stranger getting into his car.
