3. All That Remains (1992) by Patricia Cornwell

Author:Patricia Cornwell [Cornwell, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Serial Murders, Women Sleuths, Crime, Serial Murder Investigation, Mystery Fiction, Medical, Women Detectives, Adult, Medical Examiners (Law), Women Physicians, Kay (Fictitious Character), Richmond (Va.), Scarpetta, Scarpetta; Kay (Fictitious Character), Forensic Pathologists
ISBN: 1439149895
Google: rR3U1dINYY4C
Amazon: B002XQAAQ8
Barnesnoble: B002XQAAQ8
Goodreads: 6641159
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 1992-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Their murders were meticulously calculated, methodically planned. Bruce Phillips and Judy Roberts disappeared in June. Their bodies were found in mid-August, when hunting season opened.

Jim Freeman and Bonnie Smyth disappeared in July, their bodies found the opening day of quail and pheasant season.

Ben Anderson and Carolyn Bennett disappeared in March, their bodies found in November during deer season.

Susan Wilcox and Mark Martin disappeared in late February, their bodies discovered in mid- May, during spring gobbler season.

Deborah Harvey and Fred Cheney vanished Labor Day weekend and were not found until months later when the woods were crowded with hunters after rabbit, squirrel, fox, pheasant, and raccoon.

I had not assumed the pattern meant anything because most of the badly decomposed and skeletonized bodies that end up in my office are found by hunters. When someone drops dead or is dumped in the woods, a hunter is the most likely person to stumble upon the remains. But when and where the couples’ bodies were discovered could have been planned.

The killer wanted his victims found, but not right away, so he killed them off season, knowing that it was probable his victims would not be discovered until hunters were out in the woods again. By then the bodies were decomposed. Gone with the tissue were the injuries he had inflicted. If rape was involved, there would be no seminal fluid. Most trace evidence would be dislodged by wind and washed away by rain. It might even be that it was important to him that the bodies be found by hunters because in his fantasies he, too, was a hunter. The greatest hunter of all.

Hunters hunted animals, I thought as I sat at my downtown desk the following afternoon. Guerrillas, military special agents, and soldiers of fortune hunted human beings.

Within the fifty-mile radius where the couples had vanished and turned up dead were Fort Eustis, Langley Field, and a number of other military installations, including the CIA’s West Point, operated under the cover of a military base called Camp Peary. “The Farm,” as Camp Peary is referred to in spy novels and investigative nonfiction books about intelligence, was where officers were trained in the paramilitary activities of infiltration, exfiltration, demolitions, nighttime parachute jumps, and other clandestine operations.

Abby Turnbull took a wrong turn and ended up at the entrance of Camp Peary, and days later FBI agents came looking for her.

The feds were paranoid, and I had a suspicion I might know why. After reading the newspaper accounts of Pat Harvey’s press conference, I had become only more convinced.

A number of papers, including the Post, were on my desk, and I had studied the write-ups several times. The byline on the Post’s story was Clifford Ring, the reporter who had been pestering the commissioner and other personnel of the Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Ring mentioned me only in passing when he implied that Pat Harvey was inappropriately using her public office to intimidate and threaten all involved into releasing details about her daughter’s death.

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