He had suspected Dakota was in danger, yet he’d failed to bring her in and keep her safe. How many minutes had he missed her by? If he had left Kera’s immediately and called Agent River on the way over, he might have arrived at the TV station in time to steer Dakota in a different direction. He mentally kicked himself for his hesitation. Yet he realized Dakota was willing to do whatever it took to get her way. And arresting her for her own good had never been a real legal option. Now the only way to make this right was to find her killer.
In the car, another icy thought squeezed his heart. If the perp had killed Dakota, had he already killed Renee too?
The park was near the intersection of two newly paved winding streets in the south hills. Calling it a park was an exaggeration. There was a small covered area for humans, but it was mostly grassy acres with a narrow creek in the middle, where people let their dogs off their leashes to run and get muddy. The acreage, surrounding tree grove, and historic house had been
owned by the late senator Wayne Morse, whose family had donated the land to the city. Now it was open to the dog-loving public.
Early Tuesday morning, only a few cars were in the parking lot. The owners had probably been questioned by the officers, who had beaten Jackson to the scene, then blocked the entrance with their patrol cars. He parked in an empty driveway across the street and sat for a moment.
Why dogs? Why him?
A Rottweiler had bitten him above the eye as a young man, leaving an ugly scar and a deep distrust.
He pulled on his overcoat and stepped out. The cold stung his face but he heard no barking. Soft fog hung over the area as he crossed to the park. A patrol officer strode to meet him in the parking lot.
“What have we got?” Jackson pulled out his notepad.
“A dead young woman who looks like she was mauled by a dog.” The officer shuddered a little. “I didn’t even get close and it nearly made me sick.”
Dread filled Jackson’s torso like liquid lead.
Should he turn this case over to someone else?
“Do we have any witnesses?”
“Just the woman who found her. She’s in her car with her dog.” The officer nodded toward a yellow Volkswagen bug. “She was hysterical but she may have calmed down enough to answer questions now.”
“Any other people or dogs in the park this morning?”
“An older couple with two little terriers. I questioned them but they didn’t see anyone else in the park, nor did they see the body. So I sent them home. They live right down the street if you want to talk to them again.”
Jackson started to say something but the officer added, “I wanted to get all the dogs secure and out of the park while we investigate.”
“Thank you.” Which dog had mauled the victim? Not likely a couple of terriers with their owners in tow. “Did you take pictures of the terriers?”
“I did.” The officer patted a camera in his pocket. “I also took some with my phone and sent them to the crime lab.”
“Good work. The evidence techs should be here soon. Where’s the body?”
The officer pointed northeast, to a cluster of trees in the far corner of the fenced area. Wishing he’d worn his boots, Jackson took off down the sawdust path, then trudged through the tall grass to reach the crime scene.
The body lay on a sloped bank leading down to the creek, her feet nearly touching the water’s edge. What was left of her face was not recognizable and her throat had been torn open as if by an angry bear. Dakota wore the same skirt and pale-green blazer she’d had on at work the night before. One sleeve had been shredded and the arm underneath was torn open with deep bite marks. Blood had seeped into the collar and shoulders, blending with the green to look like spilled chocolate.
Distress pumped through Jackson’s veins and he fought the urge to look away.
Please let someone else take this case.
If the dog factor wasn’t bad enough, processing the bodies of young female victims had become overwhelmingly difficult. His thoughts always turned to Katie and he started to visualize his own daughter in similar circumstances. Thinking of her being mauled by a dog enraged him and made his heart pound. Jackson took three deep breaths and tasted the iron in the blood that had flowed everywhere. Bile rose in his throat, and he popped a piece of mint gum in his mouth.
How had this happened? Was it a tragic accident? If Dakota hadn’t been connected to the other case, it would be easy to think she’d come here to visit and been killed by a loose dog. It had
never happened in the park before, or even in Eugene, but lots of children across the country are attacked and killed by dogs.
Jackson looked over at a second patrol officer, standing rigidly nearby, his ghost-white face expressionless as he guarded the body. “Where’s her ID? How do we know this is Dakota Anderson?”
The patrol officer held out a small silver purse. “I wore gloves when I opened it. Her driver’s license is in there.”
“Is there a cell phone?”
“Yes.”
“Good news.” Jackson pulled on gloves and reached for the purse. He did a cursory search, finding only a wallet, cell phone, keys, thumb drive, and lipstick. Nothing unexpected. He put the keys in his jacket pocket, thinking her car was likely in the parking lot and they would need to search it. He tucked the purse into an evidence bag and slipped it into his carryall. The cell phone and thumb drive begged to be explored, but he needed to examine the body before the medical examiner showed up and took over the scene.
After snapping a dozen pictures from various angles, he took a moment to scan the area around the corpse, looking for anything the dog’s owner or the victim might have dropped. Nothing popped out. But the grass and clover mix was six inches tall, and without crawling around and manually searching every square inch, he probably wouldn’t find anything. He would leave that task to the evidence technicians. A sense of urgency compelled him to move quickly into questioning suspects.
Jackson knelt next to the body, not even sure what to look for. This attacker wasn’t human and he’d never dealt with anything like it. Out of habit, he picked up the victim’s hands and looked for defense wounds. They were remarkably untouched. On her right hand was a ring with bands of turquoise mixed with another stone that was a translucent white. Opal popped into his head, but
he wasn’t sure. As he was about to let go, he noticed a faded blue mark on the top of her wrist. It looked like it might be part of a stamp, like the kind you get after you’ve paid to enter an event. He took several close-up photos. As much as he wanted to know where she’d been and when, the time it would take to track down the information seemed daunting with his limited manpower.
Jackson shifted his attention to Dakota’s feet, noting that she had on black pumps, likely the same shoes she’d worn to work the night before. She hadn’t changed her clothes before coming to the park in the middle of the night. Small bits of grass stuck to the edge of the soles, and the instep held a little smear of what looked like dog poop. Had she been brought here against her will? If not, why had she come?
Dark nylons obscured her legs but surprisingly little debris clung to the fabric. Jackson scanned all her clothing but didn’t see any stray hairs or lint. The overcast sky and the shade of a nearby tree darkened the scene. He stood to grab a flashlight and saw Michael Quince jogging across the grass.
“What have we got?” Quince called out. The younger detective looked grim, but his face was handsome even when he wasn’t smiling. He’d joined the Violent Crimes Unit after several years in vice and sex crimes and he had a broad range of contacts and informants.
“Dakota Anderson. She’s the daughter of Ivan Anderson, the ransom target in Renee’s kidnapping.”
“What the hell?” Quince stared at the body. “She was attacked by a dog?”
“It looks that way.” Jackson dug though his carryall for a flashlight and evidence bags. “I need you to talk to the woman in the yellow Volkswagen. She found the body.”
“Then what? Look for more witnesses?”
“Yes.”
“Do we have a time frame?”
“We know it happened after Dakota left the station at ten thirty last night and before eight this morning when she was found. But no time of death.”
Jackson turned back to his task, shining the beam back and forth across her skirt. The flashlight illuminated a cluster of tiny caramel-colored seeds clinging to the hemline. He scooped them into an evidence bag, worried that they might dislodge at any moment. If Dakota had picked them up somewhere besides the park, the evidence could help trace her movements or implicate her killer.
He examined her jacket, focusing on the shredded sleeve. He flashed on an image of a Doberman pinscher sinking its teeth into Dakota’s arm to bring her down. Revulsion turned somersaults in his stomach. Could he look at her face and neck? Jackson braced for it, telling himself this was just a training exercise with fake wounds and blood.
Her throat had been ripped open, exposing a mangled esophagus and carotid artery. She’d bled profusely and the blood had pooled and thickened in her open wound. Above her jawline, her once-pretty face had been torn open in a series of long gaping wounds. Most of her nose was gone and one eye had been torn from its socket. Jackson had to look away. He wasn’t a canine expert and there was nothing he could learn by staring at these wounds.
Springing to his feet, he gulped in cold wet air to fight the nausea. He hoped Anderson wouldn’t feel compelled to see his daughter’s body. No father should ever have to see this. I’ll get the bastard, he promised the slain young woman. We’ll put the dog down, and if the owner let this happen, we’ll put him away too.
“It’s heinous, isn’t it?” The patrol officer hadn’t moved.
“The worst I’ve seen.” Jackson stepped back.
“Do you think someone sicced the dog on her?” Anger tightened the officer’s voice.
“I don’t know.” The ugly thought had hovered at the edge of his mind too.
The rumble of engines in the parking lot made Jackson turn. The medical examiner’s white station wagon had pulled in, followed by a white crime lab van. He hoped Jasmine Parker was driving it. She was the best technician in the department and this case would be challenging. The pathologist might not even rule it a homicide.
While he waited for the death specialists, he bent down and searched the pockets of Dakota’s jacket. She carried a small tube of strawberry lip gloss in one and a Visa credit card in the other, and he bagged them both.
“Hey, Jackson. Give me some room to work.” Rich Gunderson’s voice was friendly and bossy at the same time.
Jackson stepped away from the body, watching Gunderson unload his heavy bags of equipment. The ME turned and called, “Bring the lights” to Jasmine Parker, the tall, slender Asian woman following him. She turned and headed back to the van.
“Good god, she’s been mauled.” Gunderson’s jaw dropped, then snapped back. “I’ve only attended one other fatal dog attack, a toddler killed by the family’s pit bull, but it was nothing like this.” He squatted next to Dakota. “Maybe I’m glad this will be my last case. I’ve seen enough death and destruction.”
“You’re quitting?” Jackson was stunned.
“I’ll be laid off next month if the county doesn’t find a couple million dollars fast. The federal timber payments are not coming through.”
“Who’ll handle death investigations? The pathologist?”
“No one will. But I can’t talk about it now. Give me some time with the body.”
Jackson watched as the ME pulled down Dakota’s skirt and plunged a temperature probe into the white flesh of her hip. “It dipped below freezing last night,” Gunderson said, not looking up, while he waited for a reading.
Jackson resisted the urge to ask questions.
“She’s at 82.6 and in full rigor mortis.” The ME looked at his watch. “Considering how it frigid it still is, I’d say she’s been cooling for eight or nine hours, so she likely died around one o’clock this morning. Give or take thirty minutes on either side.”
Dakota had left the TV studio at 10:30 p.m. What had she done in between? Hopefully, her cell phone would tell him.
Schak walked up with Parker, carrying a large tripod light. Jackson noticed Schak moved less comfortably and had gained back some of the weight he’d lost after his heart attack.
“What do we know?” Schak asked, as he set up the light.
“She was killed by a dog at one this morning. No witnesses, so far.”
“Jesus.” Schak clasped his hands over his head.
“Don’t assume it was a dog just because we’re in a dog-run park,” Gunderson corrected. “It could have been a cougar or coyote.”
“Those wounds don’t look like claw marks,” Jackson said.
“No they don’t, but I’m not an animal expert and neither are you. We’ll have to call someone in to assist with the autopsy.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Do you two have other areas to investigate?” Gunderson was always a little grumpy, but his pending layoff was making him downright testy.
Jackson handed Dakota’s keys to Schak. “These are the victim’s. I need you to find out if she has a car in the parking lot.”
“Will do.”
Jackson looked around to see if he could determine Dakota’s route to get here. She had probably followed the same dirt trail
he had to reach the fork in the path. Had the charging dog—or animal—driven her off the path and toward the creek? Or had she headed for the tree?
Jackson walked slowly toward the tree, scanning the ground for anything. Halfway there, he spotted a glint of silver. Squatting to reach for it, both knees popped and he was again reminded that his life was getting shorter by the minute. His fingers looped through a necklace and he lifted it out of the grass. The silver chain held a pendant made of turquoise and opal, matching the ring on Dakota’s finger. Not seeing any blood, he bagged the necklace and kept scanning and walking toward the tree.
The grass here was shorter and thinner. A section near the base of the tree was slightly matted down, as if someone had lain there recently. How long did grass stay bent over? The area was six feet long and several feet wide, as if more than one person had stretched out. Jackson snapped several photos, then knelt and took several more. He did a quick visual search and didn’t see anything unusual. Parker and her crew would search it inch by inch, staying all day if they needed to. Eager to hear what Gunderson had to say, Jackson pushed up, his knees popping again. He was glad his coworkers hadn’t heard. Schak would have given him shit about it.