Monster (55 page)

During the day, France and her assistants exposed all the walls of the original grave. NecroSearch botanist Vickey Trammell pointed out where roots from the plants above the grave had been cut by the gravedigger and other roots had since grown. “We’ll be able to get a pretty good idea on how old the grave is from that,” she said.

By late afternoon, they knew that most of a human body remained in the grave under the light-tan soil. About 4
P.M.
, France bent over and tugged at a small root in the bottom of the pit. It came up along with a small lock of dark brown hair.

The searchers were silent. Then Richardson said quietly, “It’s Cher.” Everyone cheered. Hands clapped him on the back. Voices said, “Congratulations, you got her.” They all knew what this case meant to him and its enormous personal toll. But Richardson just wanted to get away from the celebration.

Numb, he walked off. On the other side of the clearing, he sat down on a rock outcropping that offered a view of the mountain that rose above the gravesite and the chapel-like clearing that held the remains of Cher Elder. Clear Creek sang in the valley below, different sounding now as it appeared and disappeared beneath an icy sheath.

It’s so beautiful,
he thought again.
Peaceful. A shame we have to take her away—except that Thomas Luther put her here
. Anger filled his mind. Luther’s presence could stain even the most heavenly place; he sullied everything he touched. Richardson hated him for it.

The detective sat for a long time trying to sort out his feelings.
I found her,
his mind exalted one minute, only to be overwhelmed by sadness the next. He was surprised to discover that even he had held out the tiniest hope that Cher was alive somewhere.
She’s dead,
he told himself.
She’s dead
. It sounded so final, so unfair.

He stood up as the last light from the west bathed the snows on the mountain above briefly in pink before leaving the world in gray twilight. A chill wind swept down from the slopes with the setting of the sun, and Richardson shivered. But not from the cold.

I found her,
he thought,
only now I have to tell her family.

The sleepless night in the car, the cold, and the emotional toll of the discovery had done in both Richardson and Connally. They were nearly asleep on their feet when the crew called it a day. Although they argued to remain behind, Sgt. Girson ordered them both to go home and rest.

When he got home, Scott was pumped up. He could hardly stop pacing. Finally, he was going to nail Tom Luther’s hide to the wall for what he’d done to Cher.

Sabrina was relieved. In part for Scott’s sake; he’d put himself under a lot of stress juggling the investigation, keeping it fresh, while giving Cher’s family a shoulder to cry on. He’d lost a lot of weight and wasn’t sleeping well—waking up in the middle of the night to write a note to himself, then lying awake with his mind going over next steps.

But it was also in part because she was fed up with their lives. Luther was like a ghost in the house, always there. Scott couldn’t seem to think of anything else. If they went somewhere, the Luther case became a topic of conversation, nothing else mattered. Scott was always tired; he had no energy for the boys. About the only time he seemed like his old self was riding with her on his Harley.

Now,
she thought,
maybe we can go on with our lives.
She had no idea that the ordeal was not even close to being over.

Richardson still could not call Cher’s parents. The formal identification by a coroner would have to come first. There was always the remote possibility that it might be someone else buried in the grave, and he didn’t want to tell the family and then have to reverse himself.

He was still pondering how he would tell them when he got the message from a police dispatcher that Debrah Snider had called that afternoon. Wearily, he picked up the telephone and called her back.

“I’m movin’ back to Fort Collins,” she said sadly. “It’s over between me and Tom.”

There wasn’t much he could say. He couldn’t tell her he’d found Cher Elder’s body. That had to remain a secret as long as possible. And he didn’t have the heart to tell her that now that he had a body, her relationship with Thomas Luther would soon be entering a whole new phase. One that would tear her heart and challenge her conscience.

Richardson and Connally returned to the site early the next morning only to face a new problem. An avalanche had swept across the highway further up the pass, burying two people, and slowing traffic down to a crawl past the turn-off. When the occasional curious skier poked his head out the window to ask what they were up to, the detectives pointed up the road and yelled, “Avalanche.”

Near panic gripped the searchers when a television news helicopter began circling overheard. It was there to record the effects of the avalanche, but had a bird’s eye view of the partially exposed gravesite through the trees. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the road was opened and the skiers and the helicopter went away.

It wasn’t until six that evening that France finished for the day. The skeletal remains of a nude woman lay exposed, looking like a mummy encased in dirt. For the most delicate work near the body, France supplemented her toothbrushes with thin bamboo sticks. Bamboo, she explained to Richardson, wouldn’t scar bone as would a metal pick.

The man who buried Cher Elder had not made the grave long enough, and she was lying awkwardly on her back with her head bowed by the wall of the grave. Her left arm lay across her stomach, her right under her.

All that remained was to dig beneath Cher to gently loosen her from the ground on which she’d rested for two years. Before France left, she and Richardson gently laid a plastic tarp over the remains, folding the edges under the remains.

Stepping back, France looked up at Richardson’s sad, dark eyes and reached out to touch him on the arm. He looked at the small woman at his side and smiled wistfully. “It’s like we’re tucking her in for the night.”

France nodded. “I understand now why you took this so personally,” she said. Addressing the grave, she added, “We’ll be back in the morning, Cher,” and walked off to her car.

Richardson and Connally again spent the night. “There’s a mountain lion living around here and there’s always the possibility of bears,” Richardson told Sabrina when he called. But the real reason was he couldn’t bring himself to leave Cher alone one more night.

They slept next to the grave in sleeping bags, one on either side. In the morning, Richardson was awakened by something wet that dripped onto his neck. He opened his eyes, puzzled that all he could see was white, and wondered for a moment if he was still dreaming of death and heaven.

It took a moment to realize that it had snowed again, so gently that it didn’t wake him when several inches piled up over the small space he’d left open in his bag to breathe. He sat up to a world pure and innocent; even the horror of the grave was disguised beneath the white cover.

That night they placed the remains in a body bag and transported them to the Jefferson County coroner’s office. There the dirt was carefully removed and the skull X-rayed. Comparing the X-ray to dental records, the coroner was able to make a positive identification: Cher Elder.

It was time to tell her parents.

When it looked like a deal with Byron Eerebout was imminent, Scott Richardson arranged with the Grand Junction Police Department victim’s advocate to be ready to contact Rhonda Edwards. He wanted both parents told simultaneously so that one wouldn’t be the first to break the news to the other.

Now Richardson, accompanied by Girson and representatives of the Jefferson County coroner and victim’s advocate offices, drove to Earl Elder’s home. Pulling into the driveway, he called the advocate’s office in Grand Junction. “We found Cher,” he said. “Tell Ronnie right now. And take her over to the police department and I’ll call in an hour.”

Drawing a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Richardson got out of the car and walked up to Earl’s door. He’d investigated a lot of homicides in his seventeen years as a police officer and dealt with a lot of grieving families. But this was by far the hardest thing he had ever done.

Earl’s car was in the drive, but there was no answer to the doorbell. “I think he’s working nights,” Richardson said. “So he’s probably sleeping. Keep knockin’ and I’ll go around back.”

Earl Elder was indeed asleep in his bedroom with a fan on to drown out daytime noises. He didn’t hear the pounding on his doors, but was finally awakened by his dog barking.

Walking sleepily down the stairs, he looked up and saw Richardson at the back door. He knew right away why the detective was there.

Over the past two years, they had talked often. Richardson was always keeping him abreast of the investigation’s progress, even when there was little to report and in the darkest days when he had to admit that he didn’t know if they would ever find Cher. But he never gave up and now that he was banging on Earl’s back door, it could mean only one thing.

Elder let Richardson and the others in. They sat down as he fought to keep his emotions in check. “Earl,” the detective said, “I’m real sorry to have to tell you this. But we found Cher.” He shook his head at the father’s unasked question. “She’s dead.”

Earl sat quietly, struggling with the tears that sprang into his eyes. He was a private person who preferred to be alone when he got bad news so that he could absorb it in his own way. He appreciated that the others were there to try to comfort him, but he wished they would leave.

There was a searing feeling in his heart, like someone had touched it with a knife. He tried to picture Cher—always laughing, always smiling from the days she was an infant to the last time he saw her two years earlier. Even when he knew it was hopeless, he’d held on to the hope that his oldest child had simply run off on some wild, 20-year-old whim. That someday he’d hear the door open or the telephone would ring and there she’d be.

Elder escorted the others to the door. There he took Richardson’s hand and shook it. “Thanks,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Thanks for finding her.”

He closed the door and began to weep. But gradually the sadness was replaced by an anger greater than any he had ever known. That little bit of hope was now gone, snuffed out by a monster named Tom Luther. If it took the rest of his life, he would make sure that Luther paid the price.

Just six days earlier, Rhonda Edwards had reached the end of her rope. Her own mother, Cher’s grandmother, was about mad with grief, sure she would die before her granddaughter was found. Neither woman could understand what was taking so long.

The previous fall, when Byron Eerebout was sent to prison, Richardson called to say he was working with an FBI psychologist to break Cher’s former boyfriend down. He was sure that Byron knew where Cher’s body was and what happened to her. “We might have worked out a deal already, except Byron’s lawyers keep gettin’ in the way,” he said. “But I think we’re close.”

Christmas approached with no news. She sent the card with the photograph of Cher to Richardson as a way of thanking him. But Christmas Day she locked herself in her room and wouldn’t come out.

The new year arrived and still there was nothing. Then February drew to a close and she faced the prospect of a second anniversary of Cher’s disappearance.

How could Byron do this? she cried to her husband. Did Cher mean so little to him that he would torture her family like this?

On February 21, Rhonda Edwards picked up her diary and wrote, “How long do I have to wait?” She didn’t know that on that date, Richardson had stood within a few feet of her daughter’s grave, knowing he was close.

She was at work on February 27 when the victim’s advocate walked into her office. She looked at the woman’s face and knew what was coming before she heard the words. “They found Cher,” the woman said gently. “They want you to go to the police department. Scott Richardson’s going to call.”

Edwards nodded and gathered her coat. Deep inside a voice began to cry, but she fought to keep it from getting out. At the police station, she called her husband Van.

“They found Cher,” she said.

“Is she alive?” he asked.

Surprised by his answer, she reacted with anger. “No, Van, of course not,” she snapped.

Immediately she felt ashamed. Van had known Cher since childhood and loved her like one of his own. They’d been great friends, though he was careful not to usurp Earl’s role as father.

Everyone in the family hoped that Cher was somehow still alive. Van just asked what the rest of them dared not voice out loud.

“I’m sorry, Van,” she said gently. “But no, Cher isn’t alive.” It wasn’t long after she hung up that the telephone at her side rang. It was Richardson. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Ronnie,” he said in that soft Texas drawl she had thought was so comforting. “But we found Cher.”

The day the body of Cher Elder was identified, her case was officially changed from a missing person to a homicide. The autopsy revealed that she had been shot three times in the back of the head behind her left ear with a .22 caliber at close range.