Mystery At Mystery Lake Ch. 01

German indicated the other two young men and said "This is Carl and Chris Bacon. They saw the body being buried, and reported it at the station, and they volunteered to lead us back to the crime scene."

"I know you guys." I said, shaking their hands. "Thanks for helping us out. Did you happen to see the perps? Can you tell us what they looked like?"

Carl said "I didn't see them all that well, but I took photos with my iPhone."

"Fantastic!" I said. "Where is the phone?"

"I've got it right here, in my pocket." said German. He took off his gloves, fished out the iPhone, and handed it to me. "We don't have the app you have, that can download the photos."

"True," I said. "But we're not going to do it that way. Carl, I'm going to hold onto this for now, and when we're done here we'll go back to the vehicles, and I'll have you send me the photos. That way, I don't have to fool with getting a warrant to download the entire contents of your phone."

"Yes sir." said Carl. Yes, a lot of unscrupulous Police Departments, or worse, Federal Agents, would want to download everything. I knew two things: that would unnecessarily open up cans of worms later on, and I also knew these young studs might have photos of themselves having sex with other women... including my wife.

"I have a question before we get off the rails." said Chief Molly Evans. "Did you find the body like this?"

"No ma'am." said Jason Folby. "She was buried, and we saw the slight mound of fresh dirt. We didn't know if she was buried alive or not, so Detective German photographed the scene while I went and got an E-tool out of the vehicle, then he videoed as I dug it out. But she was already dead, and for a while; her body was cold." (Side note: an 'E-tool' is a collapsible shovel issued to Army soldiers.)

"And damaged our crime scene." Molly said, a bit harshly.

"No, it was good thinking." I said. "It was a long shot, for sure, but one worth taking if she'd been alive. By the way, whose idea was it to put chemlights on the road turnoff up to here, and on the trail entrance?"

"That was Folby." said Detective German, showing good leadership by giving credit where due instead of trying to take it for himself.

I replied: "That was good thinking, too. Soooo, Mister Folby, you are in the Army Reserve, I perceive. Whose ROTC were you in?"

"Uh, yes sir." said Folby, surprise showing on his face. "City University's ROTC. I'm in a Military Police Corps Reserve unit."

"Oh, you have a new friend and mentor now." said Teresa. "Commander Troy was an MP Reserve Officer, too."

"How did you know Folby was in the military?" Molly asked me.

"He used the term 'E-tool', which is a distinctly military term, not to mention having one in his vehicle." I replied. "And the chemlights are straight outta the military, too. I used a ton of them while I was in (Wildcat School) ROTC and in my Reserve MP Unit."

I turned on the bright light of my Police iPhone and examined the face of the victim. "Yep, white female. Looks to be early 20s, if not younger. She doesn't look like anyone I know of that's missing. Any of y'all know her? Walk up and look from right behind me, so we don't trample any more of this crime scene than we already have."

Everyone took a closer look, but no one recognized the victim. I said "Chief, do you have anything to ask of me?" I had to hear the words.

"Yes." Molly said. "Consider the TCPD's help under the auspices of our contract with you to be asked for." The TCPD, NCPD, and the Coltrane County Police Forces to our south had a contract whereby our greater resources were available to them in exchange for a contracted amount. I now put those resources into play... including myself.

I said "Thank you for asking, and I accept your request for help. Commander Croyle, let's get a CSI team in here. Send the TCPD Duty Desk our coordinates. Also, have our cadaver dog Sergeant Grover brought up here, as well as our sonar equipment. Let's see if this is the only body buried here, or if there are others..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

While we waited, I had Carl Bacon and Teresa return to our Police vehicles with me. Once there, I turned on the headlights of my Police SUV, then had Carl stand in the lights with me as Teresa videoed us on her Police iPhone.

"This is Commander Donald Troy." I said, then said the date and time, and our location. "I am with Carl Bacon, who photographed what may be a body being buried here at Mystery Lake. I am having him send me the photos. Carl, show the camera your photos and declare that you are voluntarily sending me these photos." Carl did so, and Teresa said they showed up well on her iPhone. I had Carl send me the four photos he'd taken, then I showed them to Teresa's camera as I said "These are the same photos. I am sending these to our evidence servers now."

After we were done, I handed Carl his cellphone back. He said "Y'all really have to go through all that?"

I said "If we do manage to catch the perps, this overabundance of documentation will hold up at trial against virtually anything the Defense could try to bring up. And my words and these actions are from my vast experience with what some of those legal beagles have tried in the past. By the way, don't destroy that phone, and don't erase anything from it, in case I do have to get a warrant for it..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

4:05am, Saturday, May 7th. Teams were beginning to arrive. I had called TCPD Captain of Detectives Claire Michaels and told her to send Lieutenant Teddy Parker and 'Team Teddy' to the scene to augment the NCPD Detectives. She had asked if she could send 'Team Theo' instead, and I asked her (strongly) if she had not properly heard my very specific instructions to send Team Teddy. She wisely said she would follow my instructions.

I called TCPD Chief Sean Moynahan and advised him of the situation, mostly so that the Press could not ambush him with questions and him not know what they were asking about. He told me that he would inform the Sheriff, and that he would not go to the crime scene, but would go to TCPD Headquarters and monitor from there.

Lieutenant Teddy Parker had arrived with Detective Sergeant Julia Rodriguez and Detective Roark Coleman. They were all in civilian attire with blue windbreakers with the word 'POLICE' on the backs, their badges on their belts, and their holstered service weapons under their armpits. I introduced them to everyone already at the scene.

The TCPD CSI team, led by Yolanda Grissom, arrived within five minutes of the Detectives, and included our field Medical Examiner Kendell Ramsey. After the CSI's documented the scene immediately around the body, it was excavated and Dr. Ramsey was allowed to examine it. His report to Chief Evans and me was swift in coming.

"White female, red hair, late teens or 20s." he said. "She had been wearing a ring, one ring, on her left ring finger, but it was very recently removed. I used rape kit to collect data from her vagina and mouth. She looks like she has a lot of contusions, which suggests she was beaten, but I need to get her into the Morgue and under the lights for an autopsy as quickly as possible to determine the exact cause of death."

I said to Teresa: "Get with Yolanda Grissom and Teddy Parker, and have them finish to the point they can release the body to the M.E. as fast as possible." Teresa stalked off to make that happen. Thirty minutes later, the body was being carried out of the woods to the waiting Town & County Coroner's Office vehicle, which looked like a box truck ambulance except it was painted black. As the body was being removed, I remembered...

"Where the hell is the dog?" I asked Teresa. "It's twenty to five already. They should be here by now."

"I apologize that they are not here already." Teresa said, apologizing in the Japanese sense of taking responsibility for anything and everything her subordinates did. "I'll check on them now. The sonar equipment came up with the CSI team, so it's here."

She made phone calls, and a couple of minutes later came back to me and said "They had a lot of trouble finding Sergeant Grover's handler, sir. They finally sent a patrol to his house. He was there, with a woman, and he was sleeping off a night of serious drinking. He and Sergeant Grover are being driven up here."

Teresa continued: "They also went and got Sergeant Oscar and his handler. Oscar is our new cadaver dog, and will succeed Grover when Grover retires in August."

"Ah yes, that's right." I said, remembering the planned-for succession of dogs. "Is Oscar ready for prime time?"

Teresa said "He's going to get some tutelage tonight, sir."

"Yep." I said. "Walk with me, Commander. Bring a flashlight." We began walking down the path, away from the others and from the field where the vehicles were. I began shining my flashlight along the trees along the path, and the ground.

"What are we looking for?" Teresa asked, relieved that I had not asked her to 'walk with me' in order to deliver an asschewing.

I said "Anything out of the ordinary. Places that look like they may be graves, ribbons tied around trees, cut or damaged trees, even what looks like deer scrapes. Your main job, though, is to keep me from running into a tree or stepping into a hole."

"Darn, you figured me out." Teresa said whimsically, in what was typical 'humor' for her...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

5:05am, Saturday, May 7th. The first pink gloaming of pre-dawn was appearing in the eastern sky as the dogs and their handlers arrived. Sergeant Grover came right up to me upon sight, and I gave him the good petting he expected. Someone had someone trained, I thought to myself.

His handler was bleary-eyed and did not look well. I told him to get his dog going. "I would suggest starting by going along this grassy path, and having Grover sniff on the same side of it as the body was found, and for as far back as the path goes, which is a tire track road a couple of hundred yards down the line. Then turn around and have Grover sniff the other side as you come back."

I told Patrolman Johnson, who had driven him up, to go with him and the dog. They moved out, with Grover determinedly sniffing around. But I noticed that Grover was not moving very fast, and I wondered if he was in some physical discomfort. He's getting old, I thought sadly. I hope it's no more than age...

I was then introduced to Sergeant Oscar, who was barely older than a puppy. I introduced myself to him by letting him sniff my fist, then giving him a good petting. Your Iron Crowbar loves dogs, especially his outstanding TCPD K-9 Corps, and our newest addition was going to be a good one, I could tell.

To Oscar's handler I said "Have Oscar sniff along the path back towards the field where our vehicles are. Then as the light gets better, have him sniff around in ever-widening semicircles in the woods behind where this body was found. It's fairly thick, but if you see cleared or dug up spots, have him check those." They moved out smartly, Oscar happily sniffing around.

"You think we're going to find something?" Molly Evans asked me as Teresa and both Department's Detectives gathered around us.

"It's a fifty-fifty shot." I said. "Carl and Chris said they did not see nor hear another vehicle at all, and they'd been camping over by the lake for hours. So that means the 'Cleaners', for lack of a better term, brought the body here by another route."

'Cleaners' was a term borrowed from the CIA, describing persons that cleaned up messes, including disposal of bodies.

I continued: "We're at the southwest corner of the lake, so I suspect there is another road or path that comes from further north of this road, or maybe a loop road around the lake. In any case, they did not come in via the most direct, most obvious, and most visible route, which is the one Carl and Chris and their camping companions did."

Me: "And the point of that is that these perps apparently know this area very well. They knew the route they took, and knew the location where they wanted to bury the body. And that suggests they either live around here, have been camping around here a lot, -or- that they may have used this area as a place to bury bodies in the past."

Me: "Remember that the Black Velvet Killer, George Aurus, buried bodies east of here, near that old asylum." (Author's note: 'Power', Ch. 02-03) "I suspect that the main path out there goes east to hook up with a road that ends on State Highway 141 to our east, and there may be a path from the old Millwakee Camp facility to our southeast from here."

"So Aurus may have buried bodies here, too?" Detective German asked.

"It's not likely, but it's possible." I said. "And someone else may be burying bodies here. We'll do our due diligence and find out, one way or another."

Molly said quietly "Guys, this is a teachable moment. My sister Cindy will tell you that the Iron Crowbar never does anything on a whim. He suspects something, and I'll bet something gets found."

'Cindy' was Cindy Ross, Molly's half-sister through their mother, and Cindy was my first cousin as our fathers were brothers. Molly and I were not related... except that she was the mother of two of my children. Cindy was the Command Deputy Sheriff, second-in-command of the Town & County Sheriff's Department.

Officer Jason Folby asked "Sir, why would they risk burying the body here while there were campers nearby?"

"Excellent question." I replied. "And it supports my suspicions. They came in by their alternate route to avoid being generally seen. But that caused them to not see the campers over by the lake, or else they might have gone elsewhere---"

"Hey! Over here!" came a voice down the grassy path. It was Sr. Patrolman Johnson. They were about 50 feet down the path, and the same distance off of it as the grave that had been dug just hours before.

As we came up, Johnson said "There's a depressed spot with nothing growing over it, which looks like a leveled-off hole where the ground settled."

"Grover sniffed it and alerted." said his handler, who sounded like he was still drunk and maybe about to get sick.

"All right, let's get the sonar over here." I said. Yolanda Grissom called on her radio for the sonar to be brought over, and the spot Grover had found was examined.

"Yes ma'am." said the tech. "Human skeleton, about eighteen inches under the surface." The CSIs went to work on the new crime scene. Everyone else redoubled their efforts, except Grover's handler. He had gone off to the other side of the path and had become violently sick.

Teresa said quietly to me "I apologize for the embarrassment to you and to the TCPD, especially in front of the Nextdoor County Police Chief. I will take care of the situation."

"Your apologies are accepted, but are not necessary." I replied. "Hold off taking any action, though, for the time being." I went up to the handler, upon whom Grover was looking sympathetically. "Are you going to be okay?" I asked.

"Yes sir." he said, then stood up and came to attention in front of me. "I apologize, sir."

"Johnson!" I called out. Senior Patrolman Johnson appeared nearly instantly. "Take him home. Grover, too. By the way, what's wrong with Grover?" It suddenly got very quiet in the area.

"He has cancer, sir." the handler said. "Tumors in his lungs. Not very bad, so far, and he might live a few more years. But that's why they got Oscar."

I petted Grover, who looked up at me gratefully, then said "All right, y'all go ahead." They left and I turned to Teresa. This time, an asschewing was imminent.

"We didn't tell you, sir, because we know how much you love all the K-9 dogs." she said before I could ask.

"You still should have told me." I said. "All right, we suddenly have a lot of work to do. A lahhht of work to do..."

Sergeant Oscar was proving to be a worthy successor to Grover. A total of six bodies would be found in various states of decay; some had been buried for a long time, while others not as long. The length of time seemed to be sequential, from the first body buried just hours before down the line to the last two bodies that may have been there for years. Coroner's vehicles and University Hospital ambulances were called in to transport the remains to the Town & County Morgue.

I also sent two TCPD Sheriff Deputies to augment the NCPD in blocking the road to the crime scene site, with specific orders to keep the Press out, and arrest any reporters found within a 100-yard perimeter. Molly also conveyed my orders to shoot down and utterly destroy any drones flying overhead, especially if they were found to be Press drones...

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

8:30am, Saturday, May 7th. As Teresa and I drove back to Town & County Police Headquarters, she said "I have a question, sir. Is there still a problem with Captain Michaels?"

"Before this morning, there wasn't." I said. "Did you do like my daughter Carole and listen to a conversation that did not concern you?"

"Except it does concern me." Teresa correctly replied. "I only heard your side of it, of course, but I'm not an Agency of the Weak-Minded, and I could tell she was trying to get you to send Team Theo instead of Team Teddy. My question is 'why?'. What do Theo, Kerri, and Joan have that Teddy, Roark, and Julia don't?"

I replied "It's what Team Teddy has that Team Theo doesn't: Roark Coleman. Either she thinks he'll embarrass the TCPD Detective Corps in front of the NCPD, -or- she just doesn't want him interacting with them, and possibly making a good impression upon them."

Teresa said "I thought we were past all that. And switching the teams at the New Year seemed to be working well for everyone."

I said "I did too, at least as far as Claire was concerned. And you're right that the current teams seem to be working well."

Teresa said "Speaking of embarrassments, Grover's handler sure embarrassed us today,"

"Yeah." I replied thoughtfully. "But I don't think he expected to be called in. And Grover is his dog, and there's a special relationship there. I'd feel like getting wasted, too, if I found out my dogs Bowser or Buddy had cancer..."

Part 3 - Beginning The Investigation

9:00am, Saturday, May 7th. I had taken a shower and shaved in the men's locker room facilities of TCPD Headquarters, and changed into a fresh uniform. I felt refreshed, and all I needed was a good cup of coffee to really get going. I poured my Airborne School mug full of coffee from the coffeepot in my office, and sat down in my comfortable 'Command Chair' behind my desk, and sipped it.

It was all downhill from there.

Not really, but things got very busy in a hurry. I was called into the Chief's Conference Room, but it was not our morning coffee klatch. The Chief was in his usual seat at the near end of the table, and the Sheriff at his seat on the far side. I was 'invited' to sit in my usual seat between them, to the Chief's left and the Sheriff's right. Teresa, Deputy Chief Tanya P. Muscone, and Command Deputy Sheriff Cindy Ross came in and took seats opposite us, on the Chief's right side.

Chief Moynahan opened the meeting. "Chief Evans is sitting in with Detective Sergeant Rodriguez for the interview of the two women witnesses in Interrogation-Alpha, and NCPD Captain Price is sitting in with Detective Cole-mannnn." he drawled. "While they are distrac-tedddd, let me ask you, Mister Crowbar: should we be calling in the FBI and SBI?"

The SBI was the State Bureau of Investigation, and it was not the most widely respected law enforcement entity in these here parts. And everybody knows who the FBI is.

Well aware that Tanya's husband Jack Muscone was the FBI Special Agent In Charge (SAC) for this region, I said "I was hoping to get more data before calling them in, Chief. But with the discovery of multiple bodies, we're going to have to inform Special Agent In Charge Clark Webster, since he's the Missing Persons Bureau SAC for this region."