By a Thread

Chapter Three:

Chapter Three:

The desert called to her.

Tzivia Azaria sat cross-legged on the hood of her Crown Victoria and watched the arid sun waver above the horizon. She was thinking of home: Israel. It was the endless desert speaking to her.

The face of the desert was searing naked, pocked here and there by black clumps of thorny bush. A desolate landscape, as empty as a w***e’s heart, that inspired a disconsolate feeling of one’s own insignificance.

You had to look hard to find the beauty in it. But it was there, if you took the time, in the layers of rust and pink that were embedded in the sandstone. In the craggy canyons and the pilaster-shaped buttes rising purple in the distance. The wind blew as steady as any sea-breeze and propelled the cloud-shadows across the barren landscape like sailing ships.

It gave no consolation, and Taz loved the desert for that fact alone. It was proof that for all of man’s accomplishments, and all of his tragic defeats, man had not the slightest effect on the order of the universe. A coyote cried and Taz shuddered. There was no more pitiful sound on earth than the howl from those wild dogs who would devour the rotting flesh of man.

And then, conjured up out of the wide Arizona sky, there was suddenly an image of Marie. Lovely Marie: The only soft spot in Taz’s solid stony heart.

Taz ran a hand across her face. It had been almost eight years since her friend had been shot and killed. But the pain in her chest was still as acute as a scorpion’s sting. The two of them had trained together in the Metzah, the Investigation Division of the Israeli Military Police and been assigned to a border town not two miles from the fighting. She and Marie were returning to the barracks from the military command post when they were abducted and forced out onto the desert. A desert not unlike the one that now surrounded Taz, bounded by horizon on every side.

Marie was the pretty one. And the men opted for her, first. Taz watched as they brutalized Marie and then mutilated her s*x with a burning surgeon’s scalpel. But what had made the assault unbearable and had changed Taz for life, was the fact that the r**e had not been carried out by the enemy. It had been fellow officers who had tortured and killed Marie.

Taz survived that night in the desert but had never forgiven herself for being the lucky one. She had been awarded a Citation of Merit for her bravery, but was considered an embarrassment and the top brass worried she may talk. They plotted her demise, but someone with influence recognized the injustice of it and had contacted the Americans: The CIA.

Within days, Taz found herself on a military transport bound for New York City. She had a new passport and a job with the New York City Police Department. And she hadn’t any idea who to thank for it.

A special assignment for the CIA took her back to Europe and a chance to return home to Israel. But after much soul searching, Taz returned to the States. She chose Arizona because of the desert and the job offered was as far away from Washington as she could possibly get.

She slid from the hood of the plain white Crown Victoria, only recognizable as a police vehicle by the push bars protecting the front grill and the innocuous antenna sprouting from the trunk lid. Taz ran a hand along a tight jaw. She wasn’t an attractive woman; a narrow face with eyes close-set. And her long nose had been broken and never set right. Her mousy brown hair, which she cut with kitchen shears, hung in her eyes and was shoulder length, but kept tied back with butcher’s twine. Taz didn’t own a lipstick tube nor an eyeliner.

No one had ever described Taz as a rare beauty, but plenty of men found her compelling just the same. There was something animalistic about her s*x appeal. She stood close to six-feet, had a lithe body like a coil of steel, and for reasons she could never fully understand, men seemed determined to physically possess her– hold her down and take her. But it did them little good. Taz looked after herself. And she hated men, and she barely tolerated women.

“Taz. What’s your twenty?”

Taz c****d an ear to the police radio. Reaching through the driver’s side-window she lifted the mike from the dash. “Dispatch. Mile marker eighteen, Old State Road. I am on the side of the road, a couple miles past the Tugg’s ranch.”

“That about halfway to Monastery Peak?”

“Looks like.” Taz squinted at the buttress on the horizon and confirmed her location. “Alice. What do you have?”

“I got a call from a woman hiking in the area of the Peak. She was up one of the canyons and reported the smell of something rotten. Very rotten.”

“Carcass rot? Decomp?”

“That’s what she called it, yes. She seemed pretty upset and I said I’d send someone to have a look.”

“Dead cow, horse maybe,” Taz said flatly. “Ranchers shoot the sick ones; leave ‘em to rot.”

“Well that was my first thought. But here’s the thing, Taz: This woman is down visiting from Chicago. She works in the Medical Examiner’s office up there. She said she recognized the smell. So she took it upon herself to have a poke around. And Taz, she found a woman’s high-heel shoe.”

“Damn.” The desert air rose with a sudden chill, an unforgiving cold that frosted lungs. Taz lifted her eyes to the monolithic rock that dominated the far horizon. “Take me fifteen or twenty.” Taz tossed the radio mike and reached for her duty-belt that lay on the seat. After buckling up, she pulled her Glock 14 and exchanged it for the Jericho 941 she kept hidden beneath the driver’s seat. She worked the slide, jacking a shell into the chamber, then popped the magazine and added an extra nine millimeter cartridge. Fully loaded, she placed the gun in her holster, dropped behind the wheel of the car and hit the lights. When she was up to speed she called back to dispatch. “Alice. A location?”

“Yes. We got lucky there, Taz. The woman had to leave the area for her cell phone to work but she had one of those hand held GPS things the hikers use. The coordinates will take you right to the spot. It’s a clearing in the woods.”

“Right,” Taz keyed her mike while jotting down the numbers. “Report back, when I am there.”

Taz drove a steady eighty with an eye on her dashboard GPS as it counted down the miles.

The Old State Road, known locally as the Tijuana Trail because it was the quickest route to the best brothels and strip joints in Mexico, ran straight to Monastery Peak before turning south to follow the perimeter of the escarpment. The directional pointer on her GPS slowly moved from west to north and when the pointer lined up with due north, Taz looked for someplace to pull over. Ahead she saw a culvert in the ditch and slowed to investigate. It looked like an access road to a ranger station, but there was no ranger station up on the Peak. Taz pushed the car through a tight U-turn, parked on the opposite side of the road, put her shoulder to the door and planted heavy soled boots onto the pavement.

Across the road there was a dirt track leading back into the pines. She moved carefully, not wanting to disturb the dust. Taz saw tire tracks. They were wide with deep treads. Had to be a truck, she concluded; followed by a car. Taz stepped to one side and moved forward between the trees. Unless her GPS was off, she figured she would find the clearing less than a mile in.

But the smell struck her long before that. A smell like rotting potatoes.

It was the putrid smell of dead meat; meat that had ripened in the sun before swelling and bloating open to spill out bodily fluids. Taz had encountered that smell before; on the battlefield.

She started searching the underbrush as she moved forward. The reek clung in the air, clung to her clothes, her hair, her skin. Clung to the inside of her lungs. Taz broke into a small clearing and saw where the truck had parked; the tire marks distinct where they had sunk into the pine needles. There were the remains of a campfire and she saw the trestle where hunters had hung their deer for gutting and butchering.

Taz saw the misplaced shape of a high-heel shoe.

It sat on top of the trestle, looking sadly foreign and left where the hiker from Chicago knew it couldn’t be missed. Taz pulled a pencil from the sleeve pocket of her uniform shirt and lifted the shoe. It was black patent leather with a four inch heel; size four. An expensive shoe, not the type of footwear favored by female hikers. Taz leaned closer and inhaled. She could smell the fear.

Taz replaced the shoe and moved cautiously to the edge of the clearing, mindful of trampling evidence under her police boots. She searched the perimeter, sweeping aside the bushes and keeping an eye for mounds or depressions in the soil that might indicate a shallow grave. When she came up empty, Taz expanded her search area, moving ten feet deeper into the woods and once again, walked a search pattern around the edge of the clearing.

She found nothing and expanded her area of exploration yet again. Taz kept at it when, eighty yards out, she noticed the smell wasn’t as strong. She had missed something.

Taz was close by the top edge of the ravine and saw that the sun had descended to the distant mountaintops. Shadows were long and the light had begun to fade. She would have to give it up soon. She decided to return to her car for the evidence kit she carried in the trunk and go back for the shoe. It was the only piece of hard evidence so far and Taz didn’t want some raccoon eating it. After, she could call Phoenix where the K-9 division was stationed. They would send an officer out the next morning and let a cadaver dog do a sweep of the area.

Taz hiked up to the edge of the ravine where she found a trail that would lead back out to the road. Her muscles were stiff and she took a moment to stretch. She looked back down into the ravine and saw her. Taz felt the willingness slide from her limbs. The woman was hanging naked and lifeless, twenty-feet above the forest floor. She appeared to be hanging by her waist, her swan-like arms dangling down, long hands floated by her tiny feet; her blond hair, falling forward, wavered on the light evening breeze.

The woman looked to be a shapely, silky cocoon, hanging from a pine bough and as Taz expanded her field of view, she gasped. She counted six more bodies, all twisting gently at the end of a rope. She was aware of her guts working.

“Dispatch. Taz... You read Alice?”

“I got you,” Alice replied, “You at the scene?”

“Alice. I got bodies. Seven I can see.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus.”

“Alice. I need the number of the detective in Scottsdale. The one who is working the case. Those missing women...”

“Taz, you can’t possibly think all those women were killed here, in our jurisdiction?”

“I do not know what I think, Alice, but I need a Medical Examiner, search party, dogs, trucks, and body bags, seven of ‘em. The guy’s number, Alice. What is the guy’s number?”

He picked up on the second ring. “Detective Boyko... Homicide.”

Taz had crossed paths with Boyko several times before and didn’t like the man. He was pushing retirement, over-weight, over-bearing, and drank enough bourbon in a day to affect any small amount of good judgment that he might still possess. “Boyko. Taz Azaria... Avondale Sheriff’s Department.”

“Taz, baby. Yuh in town, here? Why not drop by the Station and do some stretching exercises for us? I’ll find you a nice pair of tight leotards.”

“You are a f**k, Boyko. Now shut up. Those missing women you have been chasing. What is the last count?”

“As of yesterday, seven. What’cha wanna know fer?”

“Seven. Boyko, I have seven females, hanging in the trees down here. I think they are yours.”

There was a long pause. “Oh for s**t-sake, Azaria. It’s after fuckin’ five o’clock. Couldn’t this have waited ‘til the morning?”

Taz disconnected. Boyko could get his directions from Alice. She reached into the trunk of her car for the yellow crime scene tape. Taz strung it around the entrance to the lane-way. She figured no one would be driving up into the forest at night but she didn’t want some grade ten flunky dragging the heels of his police boots through the tire tracks. Taz pulled latex gloves and a plastic bag from the evidence kit then hooked a flashlight to her duty belt. She went back for the shoe.

Keeping well to the side of the lane, Taz swept the area with her light in the hopes of uncovering something of interest. She was looking for clothing, undergarments, used condoms; anything. But the scene was clean except for the shoe. Taz bagged and sealed it, wrote down the date and signed her name. There was nothing further to be done but wait for Boyko and his troops.

The first to show were two Scottsdale PD cruisers. The watchdogs had arrived. A couple of young uniforms got out, and full of self-importance, they scanned the area. One shot Taz a cheeky smirk from across the State Road and flicked his finger at her. It’s okay, sweetie, the men have arrived. Taz didn’t acknowledge the boy, much to his disappointment, and watched the two of them move to the yellow tape, their eyes focused on the dark forest beyond. They dallied about, pouring coffee into styrofoam cups. They didn’t offer her any.

Close to an hour passed before the first two detectives arrived, their unmarked car followed closely by a CSV panel van. They stood for a moment scanning the dirt on the opposite side the yellow tape. One slipped under, crouched to study the tracks more closely under the beam of a powerful flashlight before he disappeared into the pine trees. Taz watched the shaft of his light bobbing between the tree trunks as he headed toward the clearing.

There was the sound of a generator firing up and two technicians maneuvered tripods into place. Once the scene was lit, they started mixing plaster and preparing the molds to take castings of the tire imprints. More junior detectives arrived and hung about, waiting on the boss. Two wagons from the Coroner’s Department pulled to the side of the road to join the carnival.

Finally Boyko arrived. He lurched to a stop on the gravel shoulder and stumbled while extracting his sizable bulk from his old Caprice.

Christ, he’s already had a few, Taz thought and watched him drop a cigarette by his foot and give it a grind under a toe. He tried to pull his old windbreaker around his gut to ward off the desert chill. Boyko was permanently beet-red, constantly pulled at his shirt collar like it was gagging him, and was never far from a bottle of Jack Daniels. He swore again when his city-loafers lost traction on the loose gravel.

He ignored Taz and called a pow-wow with his junior’s clustered about his belly. When the assignments had been handed out, he went to inspect the plaster molds the technicians were placing over the tire tracks, then he disappeared into the forest. A pretty naked lady hanging in a tree would command close scrutiny. Taz checked her watch.

Boyko was gone for half an hour before Taz finally saw him crawling out from beneath the pine boughs. He looked up and down the road, spotted her, and crossed the pavement.

“Officer Ar-zus,” he mangled her name; on purpose Taz figured. He lowered his eyes and studied the front of her uniform shirt, blatantly trying to decide if she was wearing a bra. “Taz. You’re looking particularly lovely this evening.” His eyes were still lowered. “It’s a pleasure as always.”

Taz knew what he was looking for.

“No, I am not,” she spat. “Now what is it you want, Boyko. I got better things to do than waste time with you and your monkeys.” He had a piece of dead pine branch sticking out from the side of his head and, together with his bloodshot nose, he looked like a deranged Rudolf. She neglected to point it out to him. “A simple thank you will suffice and I will be on my way.”

Boyko’s lips compressed, scrapping for an altercation. “You do realize that the Yankees are playing the Cardinals tonight and I’m stuck out here in the fuckin’ boonies because of you. Now officer, the story, from the top. And I’ll need your fuckin’ boots, I might add. We got indentations back there and they better not match the soles of your boots or I’ll bust your ass for trampling my crime scene.”

There was the sudden sweep of headlights and both Taz and Boyko turned to see a red Corolla pull up behind one of the cruisers. A lanky woman got out and reached back in for her shoulder bag.

Boyko immediately turned his back. An odd reaction, Taz thought, being the woman was attractive in a no-nonsense sort of way: Dark hair, severely styled, framed tight hard features. Boyko’s tongue should be dragging. “What the f**k’s she doin’ here?” he muttered. “You call her?”

“Your wife?” Taz offered.

Boyko turned his collar up. “Okay. I just ran out of time and patience. Give me your fuckin’ story, the short version.”

Taz shrugged. She told him about the call from Dispatch and the hiker’s discovery in the clearing. She explained how she found the shoe and the preliminary search she had conducted in the surrounding woods. And she told him about reaching the crest overlooking the ravine and spotting the bodies from there, seven women swinging from the trees.

“And the shoe?” he interrupted her.

Taz went around to the back of the car and held up the plastic bag containing the size four pump. Boyko snatched the bag from her fingers and examined the shoe a moment, measuring the length of the heel against his thumb. “Nice,” he exhaled. “And the other one?”

Taz shifted her stance; noticing that she and Boyko had attracted the attention of the dark headed woman. “Try the vic’s right foot,” Taz said, “I think you will find she is still wearing it.”

Boyko swore under his breath and held the plastic bag containing the left shoe up to her face. “You know you outta try wearing a pair of these, Azaria. You might finally catch yourself a f**k. It would shake the pickle loose.”

Eyes flashed. “The pickle?”

“Yeah. The one you got stuck up your ass.”

Taz straightened. She had almost five inches on the man. “Thank you. I will take that under advisement.”

“Okay. Get outta here. But I want you in my office tomorrow morning. Ten o’clock. Understood?”

“Coffee?” Taz offered coldly.

“And donuts. Ones with whipped cream.” He held the plastic evidence bag to his chest and turned just in time to see the dark headed woman rush toward him. “f**k,” he said, looking right and left for an avenue of escape. She caught up with him before he could duck back into the trees.