The crackle of a recording began to play over the loudspeaker.
It was impossible not to hear the flirting tone of the banter between the officer and the dispatcher. The crack of the gunshot on the tape sounded almost like a comedic pop, but the ragged howl of pain from Officer Graham made everyone in the room pale.
The unintelligible singsong chant at the end sent another shudder along Sayer’s spine.
When the tape ended with a harsh click, Sayer gave everyone a moment to recover.
“Does anyone recognize the song at the end?” she asked.
No one responded so she continued, “All right, I don’t recognize it, either. Ezra?”
“I’ve sent a copy of the tape to the language department and the audio team to see if they can pick up any sounds we missed.”
With a nod of approval, Sayer gestured for him to click on the next image.
A close-up photo of the dead girl came on-screen. In the flash of the camera, the smear of blood across her lips looked unnaturally red.
“The second victim was this unidentified young woman,” Sayer said. “She was found dead at the Einstein Memorial. What do we know so far?”
Ezra held up a piece of paper. “‘I’ve got the initial notes from the medical examiner. She was approximately seventeen years old. She was a well nourished and healthy young woman with a lifetime of access to excellent dental and medical care. She did have minor abrasions on her wrists suggesting that she was briefly bound.”
“Can they tell how long?”
“Not really,” Ezra said. “They sent the skin scraped from under her nails to DNA but got no match in CODIS. I’m working my way through other DNA databases now.” Even though the Combined DNA Index System was the largest DNA database in the world, it didn’t include hundreds of smaller private or restricted access databases.
“She got a piece of him?” she asked.
“Yeah, looks like it.” Ezra looked back down at the page, tension creasing the lines around his eyes.
“Well done,” Sayer said softly to the girl in the photo. She wished she could reach into the image to touch the girl’s papery hand.
“They also took samples from the blood on her lips and the writing that was also in blood. They’re all a match to the same person, a single male donor. We’ll work up a profile based on the DNA, but you know how unreliable that can be,” Ezra said.
“So, right now, it’s looking like we’ve got a solo unsub. Interesting that he so willingly left his blood at the scene. Maybe he knows he’s not in the system. What about cause of death?” Sayer asked.
Ezra read off the single-page report in his hand. “She died around seven this evening due to drowning.”
Sayer felt a jolt of shock. “Drowning?” she managed to say. Even though Jake’s original autopsy report said that he was shot, she eventually discovered that he had actually drowned, a relatively unusual cause of death. Ignoring the bile creeping up the back of her throat, she forced herself to focus on what Ezra was saying.
“Yes, she drowned in fresh water. They found some minor bruises on the back of her neck, suggesting that someone simply held her head underwater.” Ezra shuffled the papers, face drawn. “Otherwise, nothing else was disturbed. There are no signs of sexual assault. That’s about it. They’re about to open her up so they’ll report in if they find anything of interest.”
“Okay.” Sayer gestured for Ezra to continue.
The next photo zoomed out enough to show the axe in the girl’s hand as well as the circle of crouching baboons. Murmurs spread around the room at the strange sight.
“As you can see, her body was carefully displayed at the center of this very ritualized display including a circle of nine baboon figurines. An axe was placed in her hand and ‘as above, so below’ written in what appears to be the unsub’s blood on the bench behind her. The whole scene was staged at the Einstein Memorial. What do we know about the location? There’s no standing water at the scene so he clearly killed her elsewhere. Why bring her body there? Ezra, can you give us a quick background on the memorial?”
He brought up a stock photo of the Einstein statue. “The Einstein Memorial was unveiled on the grounds of the National Academy of Sciences April 22, 1979.”
Ezra clicked on the next image. It was a photo of the girl from directly above showing the star map surrounding her body. The effect was startling. It looked as though she was floating against a greenish sky, stars sparkling around her like a glittering cosmos.
“The victim’s body was placed on the celestial map at Einstein’s feet,” Ezra continued. “It’s made from a circular slab of emerald pearl granite, and those metal studs represent the stars and planets in the exact position they would’ve been in at noon on the day the memorial was dedicated.”
Sayer stared at the image. For a brief moment she wished that she could believe that’s where the girl was, somewhere among the stars.
The next image showed a close-up of “as above, so below” written in blood along the stone bench.
“This saying sounds familiar,” Sayer said. “I found a bunch of links that suggest some kind of occult connection?”
Ezra nodded. “‘As above, so below’ sounds familiar because it’s everywhere. No one knows the exact origin of the phrase, but the first written evidence traces back to an old hermetic philosophy text from the seventh century called the Emerald Tablet.”
“Hermetic?”
“It’s an occult tradition associated with, you know, alchemy and astrology basically. This is from the opening lines of the Emerald Tablet.” Ezra squinted at his screen to read. “‘Tis true without lying, certain and most true. That which is below is like that which is above and that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing.’ So, that’s from a specific book, but the idea was common to everyone from the early Christians to the Masons. Anyone with a Christian background is probably familiar with the phrase, ‘on earth, as it is in heaven.’ Same thing.”
“I get the basic concept, the microcosm can reflect the macrocosm, but does it have a more specific meaning?” Sayer asked.
“Yeah, I was just reading all about it. Hermetic philosophers, who were the earliest alchemists, called this the principle of correspondence. That everything in the heavens corresponds with something on the earth. Sort of the idea that the spiritual and the material are interconnected and you can manipulate the heavens if you know the proper corresponding material on earth.”
Sayer stared at the blood writing. “That reminds me of the Carl Sagan quote, that we’re all made of star stuff.”
Ezra nodded. “Exactly. At the deepest level we are all interconnected, yada yada. So, maybe the killer is trying to symbolically connect this girl’s body to something in the heavens?”
“And that might explain why our Jane Doe was put on a star map.” Sayer nodded. “Let’s follow that idea out and see where it goes but, until we know what the unsub is trying to say, it doesn’t give us much to go on. Ezra, see if you can find any other crimes that have a related theme. Next photo, please.”
The photo switched to a close-up of one of the baboons.