Page 47 of Evidence of a Folktale

“And we found the contacts,” the M.E. said as she worked.

“A white box was delivered to the station this morning with a similar style clue,” Bel said. “We recognized the words‘what big’and‘you have’, but we don’t knowwhat four-letter word sitsin the middle. Our guess is lips, nose, or ears. Maybe arms?”

“Arms might be right since she’s posed like a crucifix,” Lina said. “This hangingdefinitelydraws attention to them.”

“I didn’t think arms would work, but you have a point.” Bel stepped closer without disturbing the frozen blood.

“I’ll check them, but we’ll probably have to wait until the autopsy to locate anything embedded subdermally,” Lina said. She took her time examining Ellery, both her skin and the crimson cloak, but after five minutes, it was clear her arms were free of evidence. “Okay, there’s nothing here, so my guess is nose, ears, or lips.” She stepped back to study the corpse. “I’ll perform the autopsy tomorrow, and we’ll look for whatever he hid in her body.”

“Lina?” Olivia interrupted as she shifted into their peripheral view. “When you examined Miss Roja’s arms, you knocked the hood off her right ear.” She pointed to the side of the victim’s head. “I think the clue is‘What big ears you have’.”

“Oh my god, you’re right,” Lina said as she rounded the bloody snow and leaned toward Roja’s ear. “It looks like a hearing aid. Did she wear hearing aids?”

“Not that we saw when we spoke to her yesterday,” Bel said.

“Contact lenses. Hearing aids. It fits,” Lina said. “Can someone get a picture of this before I pull it out?”

A techjumped to oblige her, and when he finished, she withdrew the object. “Okay, not exactly a hearing aid, but it’s somesort ofearpiece.” She dropped it into an evidence bag and handed it to Bel. “I know film crews use earpieces to communicate. Could this be one?”

“Maybe,” Bel said. “I’ve seen people walking around set with them, but this one’s different. It looks custom.”

“The contact lenses were custom,” Griffin said. “It makes sense this is too.”

“Another hidden message.” Bel retreated a few paces and pulled out her phone to snap a few wide shots before returning to the sheriff’s side. “But the first clue isn’t this crime scene.” She showed her boss the photos. “We’d wondered if the forest etched into the contacts was his next murder site, but nothing about these trees matches the ones in the image. Everything’s wrong.”

“So if the lenses weren’t warning of his next victim, what do they mean?” Olivia asked.

“I don’t know.” Bel studied Ellery Roja’s almost biblical visage. “If this is about exacting revenge for the accident that sent Orion Chayce to jail, I have no idea what a photo of the woods has to do with anything.”

“What’s that?”Bel’s eyes scanned the room for the sound’s origin.

“This.” The tech held up the earpiece found on Ellery Roja’s body.

“It makes noise?” Bel asked as she moved closer. As expected, they’d recovered little at the scene, and the forensics team was currently pouring over the physical evidence. It seemed this earpiece was more than just a plastic mold.

“What did you do?” Bel asked without giving him time to answer.

“I noticed screws in the larger end,” he answered. “I took it apart and found this.” He pointed to the smallest USB flash drive Bel had ever seen. He’d plugged it into his laptop, and it was playing a sound clip of a man speaking.

“Turn it up and play it from the beginning,” she demanded, but the tech was already increasing the volume.

“It is a cold one this January morning, so don’t forget to bundle up,” the recording began. “Right now, we’re looking at a temperature of twenty-two degrees Fahrenheit, but by mid-day, we’ll see a high of twenty-nine degrees before it falls back down to the low twenties tonight. Wind speed will be around ten miles per hour, which is a relatively mild breeze, but with these January temperatures, it’ll make everything colder. Skies are mostly sunny with only a ten percent chance of rain, so at least we’ll have beautiful sunshine tomake upfor the chill.”

“A weather report?” Bel and the tech asked in unison.

“A January weather report,” she repeated. “No date. No location.Justa winter forecast. That’s even more random than the contact lenses.”

“What if that’s the point?” the tech said. “To make us chase our tails with nonsense.”

“Maybe,” Bel agreed. “But let’s not dismiss anything yet.”

“Right… well, it’s January and cold in the report, so it’s obviously from a northern state.”

“Based on the snow in the contact lenses photos, that’s a given. Can you play it again? There might be a hidden meaning.”

“Want me to email the recording to you too?” he asked.

“Please.”

---