Page 14 of Only Girl Alive

Eve looked back at the first photograph. She needed the name of each woman who had lived in the home. It was vital but getting information about wives and children was always difficult.

It took them two hours to complete the photos. The only room Eve didn’t capture in her camera’s lens was the attic. She would look there tomorrow, as Collin had suggested.

After they finished the forensic photography, Clyde went to the van to speak with the team, giving Eve time to mentally prepare. She re-masked and gloved then placed her bag outside the parents’ room and took a moment to collect herself. She’d wanted Elijah’s to be the first body she processed because of his age, but since she was convinced Bart was the first one murdered, she would start with him.

DNA evidence still had to be collected and Eve avoided the blood as best she could. Her shoe covers protected her boots. She also had a bio suit made from the same material as the shoe covers to protect her clothing. Sometimes, they still got blood on their clothes and carried hydrogen peroxide along with dish soap in the van. They used the hotel sink or the bathtub to soak the clothes before allowing them to dry. After these steps, they placed them in laundry bags to be washed at home. This was simply a part of their job.

Eve entered the master bedroom. Only the sleeping quarters had the wooden floors covered by earth-tone wall-to-wall carpeting. She refused to think about what she was stepping into as she approached the couple.

She placed paper bags on Bart’s hands and taped the bags around his wrists. Then she carefully pushed the body from his side to his back and examined the wound more fully. She took the body photos and logged the descriptions herself. Bart’s holy garments, once white, were covered in blood apart from a few untouched patches, tinged yellow in the glow of the lamplight. She usually checked pockets and removed personal belongings. Dying in bed took that aspect away. Holy garments had no pockets.

She took DNA blood samples from several different locations on Bart’s skin and clothing. More would be taken at the autopsies. Her team had handled the carpets and other areas away from the bodies.

Eve stared between husband and wife wondering how someone would cut four throats in a similar manner. Hunter? The similarity of the wounds pointed to a single killer. The evidence would weed out the truth but that always took time unless someone came forward.

Aaron hadn’t seemed as concerned about the discovery of four bodies as he should be.

Eve knew it was an act. She’d thought about it after leaving his office and still wasn’t sure why he gave her the feeling that something was not as it should be. Possibly he thought the murderer was someone outside the community. She would keep an open mind but she didn’t believe that. She didn’t think her stepbrother did either. Could Aaron be protecting the killer? If it were someone special in the church, it was a very real likelihood. That thought showed how little she trusted him.

There were other things that didn’t add up. It was weird that no relatives had shown up to ask about the bodies. No one hovering near the crime scene. Aaron hadn’t even mentioned the outside family. The fundamentalist church buried their dead quickly and at night. They snuck into the county-owned graveyard to do it. Originally the land belonged solely to the polygamist community. The state took possession of it due to mismanagement and now it was a public cemetery. One with rules, where you had to reserve burial plots. According to the fundamentalist prophet, however, God was the only person who could grant permission to bury a body.

Like most petty crimes committed in the county by church members, they got away with it. Eve had also heard rumors that local police kept strangers from entering the area during the funerals. Her team wouldn’t touch their graveyard theft with a ten-foot pole and, fortunately, it wasn’t their job. It was up to local police to enforce low-level misdemeanors.

When Eve had dealt with the young wife beaten to death by her husband, the father hounded Aaron within hours about funeral arrangements. Eve’s number was finally given to him so she could handle his calls.

She checked her watch. They’d been here for more than four hours.

There was also the fact Aaron hadn’t called every few minutes to complain. Within hours of coming into town, she usually had text messages and voicemails from him that she had to ignore to get her work done. His having invited her to his office to read a few words on a piece of paper was also odd. Had he set her up for the confrontation with her stepbrothers? He must have. She also didn’t have a police chief breathing down her neck and grumbling about her taking over his case. Basically, everything seemed off.

She shook away the strange feelings she had.

Eve walked around the bed to the wife’s side and gently bagged her hands. Marcella also wore holy garments with an additional beige nightgown over them.

Eve remembered the heaviness of her fundamentalist dresses with layers of underclothing before the innermost holy garments that went from wrist to neck to ankle. Even in blistering heat, modesty had to be maintained. Eve worked hard to fight the prudishness she still carried. That’s what bothered her about her stepbrother’s revulsion when he looked at her clothing. She was conservative in her attire, though she would never wear a dress to work. But even fully covered, by the prophet’s standards, she was far from modest.

According to their doctrine, the pants, blouse, gun at her hip, and badge at her waist, made Eve the worst of the worst, an apostate sent by the devil to undo God’s work. Again, she shrugged these thoughts aside. They got her nowhere.

Eve examined the wound at Marcella’s throat as closely as she had Bart’s, making more mental notes. She needed a knife expert and would have Tamm locate someone. Since they hadn’t found a murder weapon, Eve wanted to know the possibilities so they had some clue on the type of blade they were searching for. There was also the possibility the knife wouldn’t be found. If they didn’t locate it in the yard, they would do a grid search outside the property. She took a shallow breath. One step at a time and two bodies to go.

Eve did not place Marcella’s hand back into her husband’s. The murderer wanted it that way and Eve didn’t feel inclined to carry on a killer’s tradition. Eve removed her bloodied shoe coverings, put on a new pair, and changed her gloves. With a clenched stomach and sad heart, she moved to the next room.

Tracy’s hand, propped under her chin, must also have been positioned after her death. Had the killer or killers arranged the bodies like this out of some sense of compassion? Using that word to describe the horrors that happened here didn’t feel right. There was one thought Eve couldn’t keep from her mind: this was retribution.

She bent at the side of the bed, her boots sinking into the blood-soaked carpet that was nearly dry. She carefully bagged Tracy’s hands that were stiff with rigor. Her eyes were murky blue caused by lack of oxygen to the cornea after she died. She took a long look at the blonde, braided hair soaked in blood and arranged over Tracy’s shoulders and on her breasts.

The killer knew them. These were added touches. You didn’t do this without some connection to your victims. A one-killer scenario was solidifying in Eve’s head. The crime scene was too neat for multiple perpetrators. It would be interesting to hear what her other team members thought.

After close-up photos of her body, she rolled Tracy to get the other images she needed for evidence. She finally backed away to her bag at the door and once more changed her boot covers and gloves. She left Tracy with an even heavier heart.

Elijah’s bedroom took additional time. Eve stared at the bed, then at his body on the floor. Mentally, she went through what the crime scene revealed. The amount of blood on the sheets suggested his throat was cut there. The trail of blood from the bed to his body showed how hard he had tried to get away. Was the killer still in the room while Elijah struggled to breathe? Did Elijah see who did this? He must have.

The Book of Mormon caught her eye along with the highlighter pen. Both were drenched in blood and had evidence markers.

She moved closer and examined the dark mahogany stained nightstand. She slowly opened the drawer. Whoever processed this room first would have done it but there were no evidence markers for photographs so nothing in the drawer had been considered vital to the investigation. The drawer held a Holy Bible. Only scripture was allowed for reading. Eve looked at the bed where blood marked the pillow and sheets. It told a story and they would spray the walls, drapes, and furniture with Luminol to gain a more complete understanding. That would have to wait until after the remainder of the scene was processed. They had to take all their DNA samples first.

Eve bagged Elijah’s hands and rolled him to his back with a solid push. At fifteen, he was doing the work of a man and was heavy. She would have been more surprised if it wasn’t so. She knew he most likely put in a ten-to-twelve-hour workday with his father and uncle.

Elijah was simply too young to die. Like Charlie and the baby girl, Becky, who disappeared so long ago, he deserved justice.

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