A/N: This took a strange turn, but some suspected there was more going on.
We're far from done, so stay tuned...
Langley Police as well as Agent Crowley's forces descended on Great Bear Lodge over on Whidbey Island. It was a dozen log cabins that were in walking distance to the hiking trails, campgrounds and water. This made it an ideal retreat for the outdoor enthusiast, primarily those who wanted to spend a few days fishing but was rather opposed to the "roughing it" that came with full-on camping.
Corporate accounts frequented these cabins for team building exercise weekends. It was rare for a week to go by without all twelve cabins being booked.
In Cabin #8, the scene was anything but peaceful.
Laying across one of the identical twin beds was the stiff body of Hal Bircham, if not America's he was at least Washington State's Most Wanted.
Bircham was on his back, throat slashed. With the head hanging upside-down, dangling from the edge of the bed, he couldn't have been in a worse position with such an injury. The likely culprit was still in his grip. The forensics squad was still on their way yet, so detectives looked around for anything without disturbing the body.
Tori crossed her arms in observation of the other twin bed in the room. It was immaculate. She doubted that the cleaning crew made up this side of the accommodations and then reported a corpse. The disheveled pillows and rumpled sheets, more than what a dying man could do, led her to believe he slept in this bed only. Depending on how bad he bled out, the lodge may have to throw this mattress away.
The floor around him was pretty well covered in blood, so authorities did their best to avoid stepping in any of this. FBI mostly stayed outside to guard the scene while Andre, Beck and Tori tiptoed around.
"YO-YO!"
The other two turned to see Beck picking up with gloved hands a tape recorder, like the kind they use for interrogations. You can buy one of these in the back of a Wal-Mart or an electronics store alongside the supposed "dead formats" like blank VHS tapes and CD-ROM discs. The Canadian noticed there was a cassette inside and according to the magnetic tape, it progressed sometime from the beginning before it was stopped. Played, or recorded?
Andre and Tori stood there with bated breath as Beck pressed what he thought was the play button, but he hit rewind by mistake. They all blinked at his error, and he shook his head before pushing stop and hitting play.
"...it wasn't...I wasn't trying to...they were gonna ruin everything..."
Beck hit stop when he saw the blood drain from Tori's face.
"That's him," she nodded. "That's Bircham."
Andre put his hand on her arm.
"You okay?"
"Yeah..." Tori swallowed. "Don't worry, I've got a grip..."
Upon saying that, she turned and was nearly nose-to-nose with Jade West. The newbie froze as the other two detective exchanged mildly amused looks. It was a pleasant respite, however brief, before diving back into the levels of Hell.
Cat Valentine was right behind her, holding two small suitcases of supplies.
"Who's taking pictures?" the redhead queried.
"Okay, like we discussed..." Jade smirked.
The shorter one gently put down the containers and both forensics gals put up their dukes to play some quick rock/paper/scissors. Jade grinned as she swiftly one best two out of three. Cat pouted as she handed a camera to Beck.
"The fuck is his?" the dark-haired man asked.
"Our hands are gonna be full, pretty boy!" the scientist stated. "We were just deciding who was going to tell you that we need a photographer!"
Indeed, their usual shutterbug, McCutcheon wasn't in today. If nobody took out a camera soon, the cops would have to resort using their phones to document the crime scene and that just didn't feel very professional.
Tori was attempting to traverse toward the other side of the room and was doing the floaty dance with Jade, unable to determine who should lean right and who should lean left to allow safe passage. Jade huffed and pivoted away from the Latina, holding out her hand that she has the right of way. Tori looked back with a blush and refocused on the task at hand.
Beck got in close and snapped several pictures of the bloody mess, giving a sense of placement at the scene and body position. The medical examiner needed this before making any kind of contact with the deceased.
Jade kneeled down beside the body after enough pictures were taken of the scene to move the closed hand. She had a time opening it up, deciding that this man was dead for hours. The knife would not have been this grasped this hard unless it was there prior to rigor mortis setting in.
Clearly, his objective was to get results, not attention.
If one were to willingly slice their own jugular, sprawling across the bed in a manner such as this would allow gravity to assist in the bloodletting. Or maybe it was dumb luck. Perhaps Hal cut his throat and the sudden loss of so much blood made him woozy and he unwittingly collapsed, thereby removing any possibility of being saved.
This puzzled Beck as well as his colleagues.
Why would a multiple murderer suddenly kill himself?
Back at the station, everyone was abuzz with the revelation that their manhunt reached a rather unexpected conclusion. Some of the feds had dispersed per Crowley's orders. Meanwhile, Andre was situated in the main room, sitting by himself with a different tape recorder as the one from the cabin was being tested for prints and ownership. He was playing the cassette on repeat to himself.
He plugged in headphones so as to not bother his fellow officers.
"Okay...I'm ready to talk..."
Hal's voice sounded so resigned, so...
...final.
"Police, FBI, whoever is hearing this...I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
His breathing got heavy.
"It didn't have to be this way but...I couldn't control it. I didn't fight HARD enough!"
Andre leaned in during a passage where he muttered something faint. Bircham was saying something, but he had a time making it out. What was it about a recording that we think we could understand it better if we lean in? There was no logic in that. No logic at all. But sitting in this chair for the last hour replaying this confession was making the senior detective's posture restless.
"The girls..." he sighed. "They're gone. Swallowed up by the earth."
(What the hell did he mean by that?)
He replayed that particular excerpt to the point that he wrote it down and tapped it with his pen every time he heard it.
"Swallowed up by the earth."
If he was trying to say they were buried, that was a disturbing way to put it.
"I just wanted money. They wanted to live. Nobody got what they wanted..."
Andre felt chills down his arms, how matter-of-factly Hal summarized up his brutal crimes.
Tori peeked through the crack in the open door at Andre hunched over the desk with a pair of headphones. His face was intense. She couldn't fathom how a man can stomach listening to the rantings of that maniac over and over and over again.
Morbid curiosity can affect the average person, especially a detective. We want to get to the bottom of how and why something truly evil happened, but this was a lot in her opinion. Not that they didn't have their own obsession.
Beck leaned his left side against the wall, looking at their board with his tired eyes.
"Why a tape?"
His question knocked Tori out of her funk, and she regarded him more carefully.
"What?"
"It just seems...strange," Beck shrugged with his one shoulder.
The tall man grumbled and punched the wall.
"NONE OF THIS SHIT ADDS UP!"
Now he started pacing back and forth, Tori following him with her eyes. He looked like a caged animal at a zoo and this conference room was his habitat.
"I agree," she sighed. "Suicide notes aren't out of pocket but...why a tape recorder?"
"EXACTLY!" Beck jerked his head. "How many suicides have you heard that did that? Notes? Yes. Social media posts? Sure. But a cassette tape?"
Tori cracked her neck.
"Did we get anything useful from the lodge?"
"Nope!" he huffed. "Fucking useless. Hal's cabin was paid in cash, and nobody could positively identify if he was the one who checked in."
The tan woman lowered her head onto the long table, groaning. Things were supposed to get simpler when your killer was dead. But they were left with more questions than answers.
"This is a disaster, Helen!" Agent Crowley confessed.
She sat back in her chair, arms folded.
He wasn't wrong.
Those families were practically being strung along for months and now, all signs were pointing to the girls were dead and gone.
"I couldn't begin to put myself into their shoes," the chief sighed. "But they must have thought they weren't coming back. It's been so much time."
Crowley threw up his arms.
"Don't you think I know that!" He rubbed his hand on his face. "I was just...I was just hoping that we could get the bodies. There's something...There's something so awful about not being able to bury the victims."
Helen understood too well.
Families were looking for their girls. Then it was about seeking justice, for the monster responsible to pay for his misdeeds. And now, could they at least have them returned to them to be interred so their spirits can finally rest?
No.
They just about lost in every sense possible. Hal Bircham took Nikki and Heather away from home. Then he took their lives. Then he took his own. And now, the whereabouts of their remains go with him to his grave.
"It's just not fair," Helen admitted. "I'm sorry."
"Yeah..." Crowley sighed, folding his arms. "Me, too."
He took a few steps and stopped at the window.
"Helen...I appreciate your hospitality, your cooperation. Sincerely."
The agent looked at her with real conviction.
"You sound like you're leaving."
He nodded.
"At least...at least Langley can rest easy tonight."
"Will you?" she asked.
"I'll do my best...tomorrow I have to deliver the bad news and then hold a press conference."
She smirked. It was classy that he wished to inform the families before going public on the fate of Hal Bircham and the closing of the case of the Bellevue Belles. This was hardly the outcome everyone wanted.
Paul Crowley walked over to the door and opened it.
"You take care of yourself, chief. And let your people know they're one hell of a unit."
"Don't worry, agent...I will."
Jade unzipped the new arrival down in the morgue.
She visibly recoiled at the man, whose reputation proceeded him. It was hard not to be joyful that he was no longer alive, but she needed to suppress that until a later time. As medical examiner and future town coroner, Jade needed to treat this corpse like any other that comes through her door.
"The irony isn't lost on me," the blonde sighed as she picked up her mini cassette recorder.
Jade pressed the record button and began the analysis.
"This is Dr. Jade West, Langley, Washington. The date is November 4th, time is 6:57 pm."
She paused the recording and carefully removed the plastic stuffed in the gaping neck wound to keep it from leaking everywhere during transport. Her hand picked up the device and resumed.
"Subject is Hal Bircham, crimes include felony kidnapping, attempted murder and possible first-degree murder." Jade cleared her throat. "Blood samples sent to the lab for analysis. The need for full autopsy is yet to be determined."
The pale woman leaned in close to the even paler body's face.
"Cause of death...severe damage to the common carotid artery." PAUSE. "Self-inflicted?"
Jade looked at the slit in the neck. Around the hole were "white" and "black" arrowheads indicative of sharp force trauma leaving a very rough wound. These are discolorations that stand out from the person's skin and flesh. As hasty as this slashing was, it was very possible that Bircham did this to himself.
But she had to be sure.
The medical examiner squatted down, looking carefully at his neck wound and the right hand, which used to hold the weapon. That too was sent off to Cat for further investigation. Jade squinted as she judged the angle, and the trajectory bore fruit that this was as it looked: a suicide.
She pressed record.
"It is my professional opinion that the sharp force trauma is self-inflicted."
A/N: Curiouser and curiouser...
The 12 cabins was a reference to Psycho as the Bates Motel had 12 rooms.