Buried in Wolf Lake Read online

  “Wha’d Engen say?” I asked.

  “Not much. I got here only a minute before you. Said her golden went for a swim and came back with the leg.” Smoke studied the leg for a few seconds. “Doesn’t look like it’s been in the water long. I’d say we got ourselves a crime scene.”

  “You can see the dog’s teeth marks, but look—” I had grown more accustomed to the sight and squatted, facing Smoke on the other side of the leg, “—it looks like a human bite mark here.”

  I pointed to the spot near the top of the thigh. The injured area was several inches in diameter. There were bruise marks where it appeared six upper and six lower teeth had sunk into the victim’s flesh.

  Smoke lowered his head for a better look. “Yeah, well somebody likes to play way, way too rough—bites and cuts.”

  I heard a vehicle on the gravel. The dog that had quit barking some minutes before started up again.

  “Crime lab is here,” I said.

  We stood and Smoke waved the deputies over. “Grab the tape and some stakes,” he called.

  Brian Carlson opened the side door of the mobile unit then stepped in and out a second later with a roll of bright yellow crime scene tape and a small armful of thin metal stakes.

  Mason walked up to the dismembered leg and shook his head. “This is the stuff nightmares are made of.”

  Smoke nodded. “No doubt.”

  “Mine are bad enough already,” I said.

  Smoke opened his mouth in question as Sheriff Twardy’s unmarked white Crown Victoria pulled in and parked next to my squad car in the driveway. He climbed out and hurried over.

  “Had to get gas,” he said in case anyone wondered what had taken him longer than anyone else to get there. “Oh, for godsakes—it is a leg.”

  “Sheriff, we call the coroner in for this?” Smoke asked.

  Twardy frowned. “Good question, Detective. This is a first, as long as I’ve been with the department, all thirty-one years.” He wiped the back of his hand across his brow. “Sergeant, phone Melberg and let him make the call. Tell him we’ll start searching for the rest of her.” Doctor Gordon Melberg was the county coroner.

  “Right.” I stepped away from the others. Dr. Melberg answered on the third ring.

  “Doc, it’s Sergeant Aleckson. The sheriff asked me to call.” I gave him a summary of the dog’s discovery.

  Melberg clucked his tongue loudly against the roof of his mouth. “The M.E. is about finished here, so I’ll head up there shortly.” He was observing an autopsy of a person who had allegedly stabbed himself, according to a witness. “Give me about an hour. Is the leg lying in the sun?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Okay. Don’t cover it, of course, but figure out a way to get some shade over it, protect it from the sun.”

  “Will do. Thanks, Doc.”

  I relayed Melberg’s instructions to the others.

  “Let’s grab four of those stakes to build a little tent,” Smoke directed.

  Smoke, Mason, Carlson, and I each forced a stake into the ground a few feet from the leg to form four corners.

  Smoke brushed his hands together. “Mason, you got a tarp or blanket in the mobile unit?”

  “Sure, I’ll grab it.”

  We pulled the tarp over the stakes. Smoke looked up at the sky, then down at the leg. “Pull it a little more to the west to block out the sun.” The four of us worked to make the adjustment. “We’ll keep an eye on her, make sure we keep the sun off ’til Doc gets here.”

  We understood Smoke meant each one of us was responsible for that task.

  Smoke jotted something on his memo pad. “We’re going to need reinforcements to help with the search, keep the scene secure, interview neighbors.”

  The sheriff pulled out his phone. “I’ll call the chief deputy to pull as many as he can. What do you think? Six more be enough?” he asked Smoke.

  Smoke ran a hand across his chin. “Should be to get started. I’m thinkin’ we’ll need divers too, but I want to take a quick look-see around before we get ’em here.”

  The sheriff nodded and made his call.

  “Okay, troops, let’s get this roped off before anyone else shows up,” Smoke advised.

  “How much are you thinking, Detective?” Carlson asked.

  “From here to the road, down the road the length of the lake.” Smoke pointed out the areas in question. “If we spot tracks of a vehicle pulling off the road, go around ’em.”

  He paused a minute, scanning the lake and the land around it. From our north side vantage point, the east side was wooded and the south side had a gentle hill that rose perhaps five or six feet then dropped into a swampy area. On the west, there was a fenced in pasture on the other side of the road.

  Todd Mason held the mobile unit’s digital camera. Smoke motioned to him. “Start with the leg, then move down to the lake. When the homeowner comes back out, we’ll see where the dog found the leg. Hard to see from here, but it looks like there are a fair number of tracks by the water.” He squinted and pointed to an area on the west bank.

  “Aleckson and Carlson, you mark off the perimeter to the west there, then we’ll take a closer look,” Smoke instructed.

  The house screen door closed, and we turned to see Tara Engen coming toward us. Her drawn face had a little color restored to it, and her shoulder-length hair was wet and straight. Apparently she had done a quick shampoo and towel dry.

  “Ms. Engen, did you see where the dog found the leg?” Smoke asked.

  Engen shook her head. “No. Zeke likes to go for a swim. He usually goes in over there.” She waved her pointer finger in the direction where Smoke had noticed the tracks.

  “It’s easier to get in the lake, not so many weeds, like here.” She indicated where her yard became swamp reeds and grasses by the lake. “Anyway, I was putzing around the yard, not paying much attention to him. On my way to the garden I heard Zeke barking, you know, like he was telling me something?” She searched Smoke’s face, and he nodded that he understood.

  Engen exhaled sharply. “So I went back and saw Zeke had something lying on the ground. At first I thought it was a log, but it looked so weird. I couldn’t figure out what it was for the longest time, and Zeke just kept barking the whole time.” Engen crossed her arms, resting them on her waist.

  We were as still as four sculptures in Engen’s garden, listening to her account, waiting for answers.

  “Then what happened?” Smoke urged.

  Engen closed her eyes and hugged herself tighter. “I think I screamed . . .” She paused, then nodded. “Yeah, I screamed. And that pretty much scared Zeke. He looked at me like he knew something awful had happened. I couldn’t think of what to do next. Finally, I put Zeke in his kennel and called nine-one-one. Then I called my husband at work and told him to come home right away. He works in Plymouth and should be home anytime now.”

  “You did exactly the right thing,” the sheriff assured her.

  Engen frowned. “Who would put a leg in our lake?”

  The burning question.

  “That’s what we intend to find out,” Smoke affirmed.

  Sheriff Twardy took a step toward Engen and eased a reassuring hand on the back of her shoulder. “Let’s go sit on your patio and let the deputies do their jobs.”

  Engen nodded, and the sheriff ushered her away.

  “We’re going to need a bunch of stakes. Think we got enough?” I asked Brian Carlson.

  “Should have.” He was holding four or five. “We’ll start marking, and I’ll grab more when we run out.”

  Carlson handed me the roll of crime scene tape, then stuck the first thin metal stake in the ground about eight feet north of where the leg lay. I attached the tape and unrolled as we walked toward the road, following the length of the Engens’ driveway. Carlson and I kept our heads down, our eyes searching every inch of ground as we moved slowly along. Abbott Avenue ran anywhere between four and eight feet from Wolf Lake on the west side, following
the shoreline. Carlson stuck a stake in the ground every eight feet or so. I followed behind, attaching the tape.

  3: Langley

  Langley Parker looked up from his microscope. He was alone in the lab. The other five researchers were on a coffee break or completing a task in another part of the building.

  Langley preferred to spend his break time alone. He slid down in his chair, leaned his head back, and closed his eyes. Images, picture frame after picture frame, flashed before his mind’s eye. The display speeded up to become a movie. Sound kicked in a moment later. Good memories were almost as enjoyable as the actual events. They could be brought to mind at will and savored over and over.

  His smile faded. He’d think about personal pleasures later. Langley had important work he needed to concentrate on. He shook his head to loosen the distracting, pleasurable thoughts inveigling him.

  The Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at the University of Minnesota, housed in a three-story brick building in St. Paul, was Langley’s home away from home. The state-of-the-art laboratory was among the most advanced in the United States and served as the official laboratory of the Minnesota Board of Animal Health.

  Langley had spent his weekdays, and sometimes his evenings, there for several years. The generous grant his stepfather had given the university had helped secure a position for Langley as a laboratory geneticist so he could pursue the one goal of his life: to find the cause of, and cure for, Equine Cerebellar Abiotrophy, or CA, a genetic, neurological condition found almost exclusively in Arabian horses. CA had killed Langley’s first two horses, and he owed it to Sheik, his extraordinary Arabian, to find the cure.

  When Langley turned fourteen, his mother had told him he would be “trusted” with the next Arabian foal born at their hobby farm. Langley would finally have someone to care for, someone to care about him. He researched horse names and decided if the horse was male, he would be named “Kemen,” meaning “strong.” If it was a female, she would be “Manda,” or “battle maid.”

  Kemen it was—beautiful and perfect, until he was two months old and began to have head tremors. He often lost his balance. His forelegs adopted a wide-based stance. He startled and fell easily. Although the veterinarian could not positively diagnose the condition, he surmised it was CA and suggested euthanasia. Langley’s stepfather had no problem telling the vet to “take care of it.”

  Langley was secretly devastated. He mechanically told his parents he understood, and they promised him the next foal. Manda showed symptoms of CA by six weeks. The same vet was called and “took care of it” again. Langley overheard his stepfather ask his mother if Langley was some sort of jinx.

  Langley wondered the same thing.

  He spent hours studying the horrifying disease that had taken his horses. Breeding experiments at a research facility showed a horse could carry the disease gene but not be affected by it. Breeding between two carrier horses produced an affected foal twenty-five percent of the time. Langley learned that the incidence of CA in Arabians wasn’t known since there was no direct genetic test. Veterinarians could perform neurological tests to determine if symptoms were consistent with CA, but positive diagnosis was possible only through post-mortem examination.

  He discovered that the normal cerebellum of a horse was divided into two layers. The Purkinje cells were large neurons which lay on the border between them. The cells carried all the messages generated by the cerebellum and had control over movement and coordination.

  In horses affected with CA, the Purkinje cells began to degenerate and die soon after birth. The remaining Purkinje cells would atrophy and not regenerate. The animal would lose its sense of space and distance, making balance and coordination difficult—a dangerous condition for a horse.

  “Okay, Langley, we’re going to try one more time. I’m worried there must be something wrong with that new stallion we’ve got. We’ve never had trouble with our foals before,” his stepfather had told him.

  Langley worried for months about the expected foal. Finally, when he was sixteen, he got his very fine, very stately, very loyal Arabian. Sheik. His one true friend. His accomplice. The only one Langley trusted with his secrets. Sheik gave him the ability to concentrate, the will to get through his undergraduate and graduate programs.

  But, more than that, Sheik gave him power. Riding on his back vanquished the impotence Langley had struggled with since childhood—feeling helpless, lonely, unloved. When Langley was on Sheik’s back, galloping through the fields or walking through the woods, he felt powerful, in control and free. Langley became Gideon, “a warrior, one who cuts down.”

  Langley thought it was the greatest high in the world, until he discovered an even greater one: the ultimate dominance he had over his concubines.

  4

  “Look at this—someone’s been here on horseback,” I noticed about halfway down the west side of Wolf Lake.

  Carlson bent over and studied the ground. “Yeah, I’d say a single horse.” He stood up and called out, “Dawes, Mason, we might have something here.”

  Carlson dropped the stakes he was holding on the ground, and I laid the tape beside them. Smoke and Todd Mason took a break from their tasks and joined us. We all studied the hoof patterns.

  “Looks like a guy was riding along and stopped here . . . the hoof prints follow down to the water. Probably letting the horse get a drink. On the other hand, could be to throw a leg in the lake,” Smoke added.

  I had been thinking the same thing. Mason and Carlson both nodded.

  “A lot of people ride the trails in the park, Smoke. I saw a couple unloading horses from their trailer when I drove through yesterday,” I said.

  “It is a great place for riding,” Mason said.

  “Ever take a cast of horse-hoof impressions?” Smoke asked.

  “Nope.” Carlson and Mason agreed, shaking their heads.

  “It’ll be a new one for you, then.” Smoke got down on his hands and knees and perused the prints. “You’re the farm kid, Corky. These hoof prints tell you anything?”

  “About the horse?” I studied for a moment. “Well, it was barefoot, meaning it didn’t have horseshoes on. These ridges are most likely ‘grass rings’ because they run all the way around the foot.” I waved my hand over the hoof pattern.

  “What does that mean?” Smoke asked.

  “That the horse is pastured, and when there are changes in the weather conditions—you know, moisture followed by periods of dryness in the pasture—they develop. Temperature changes are another cause. They’re pretty common. Oh, and it also happens when there is exercise followed by little activity for a while.”

  Smoke crawled backward a few steps then jumped to his feet. “And what does that tell us?”

  I shrugged. “The owner keeps his horse in a pasture in Minnesota, where the weather fluctuates from hot to cold, wet to dry.”

  “Like the rings on a tree? You can tell what the weather was like by how thick the ring is?” Mason asked.

  “Not quite.”

  “Back to our horse and rider,” Smoke directed.

  “Maybe the guy has a busy schedule and rides the horse when he can,” I offered, shaking my head. “I’m not an expert on horse hooves. Oh look, there’s a crack on the right front hoof.”

  The three officers drew closer to me as I pointed out the flaw.

  “What’s that from?” Carlson said.

  “Maybe a harder ride sometimes—got a little injury. A farrier could fix it. I’m thinking the horse is most likely pastured and probably not ridden a lot.”

  “So not a horse from one of the riding stables?” Smoke said.

  “No, they’d have shoes on their horses.”

  “So why would a guy not shoe his horse?” Mason said.

  “It’s not the way nature intended, I guess. Shoes can cause lots of problems. Like, they restrict blood flow to the hooves and interfere with the natural expansion and contraction of the hoof when it’s weight-bearing. Plus, the nails drive
n into the hooves leave holes and weakened areas.”

  The sheriff joined us. Engen still sat—more like slouched —in a lawn chair on her patio.

  “Whadaya got going here?” Twardy said.

  As Smoke explained, I walked down the road about eight feet then headed back, examining the prints. I paused where the horse had stopped by the lake.

  “Hmm. Okay guys, this is interesting. C’mere.” I waved them to follow me.

  “We have a rider going down the gravel road. Not much for impressions where the gravel is packed hard, but here, more on the shoulder, the impressions are deeper.”

  The team stayed close. “Then we get to the spot . . . here . . . where the horse goes to the water’s edge, stands there for I don’t know how long, then backs up, turns around and . . .” I led the others as we followed the prints across the road and back south again for a few feet.

  “Damn,” Smoke said.

  “You got it. The horse was carrying a heavier load before it stopped then it was after it got going again.”

  “So that kinda backs up my gut feeling there is more of our victim in the lake than that one leg we got lying over there.” Smoke took in a big inhale and blew out the air slowly, one of the things he did when he was pondering something.

  “What do you figure the horse weighs—any guesstimates?” The sheriff directed his question to me.

  “That’s all it would be is a guesstimate.”

  I paced off the distance from the front and hind legs when the horse was in a standing position. “I would say the horse is about . . . five feet in length . . . fourteen to sixteen hands . . . around a thousand pounds. With a rider, maybe twelve hundred. The impressions are fairly deep, but not excessively so.”

  The sheriff had been part of the Winnebago County Mounted Patrol Unit and most likely knew more about horses than any of us, but he kept that to himself. Sheriff Twardy was a unique leader. He showed up at all the major crime scenes—he said it was too much in his blood not to be there—but he mainly observed and rarely gave any directions or orders. He trusted his officers to conduct the investigations and come to conclusions based on what they found.