The Tanglewood Murders. David Weedmark
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him. A ruptured metal gas tank, visible beneath the fallen shingles and plywood, lay on the floor near the far wall. The red and yellow lettering was still legible on its side, but the metal was torn and blackened where the burning fuel had kicked its way out.
In the corner, he could see a pile of clothes. There were the remnants of a yellow dress with a pattern of blue wildflowers, singed from the fire and wet from the rain. Two white canvas tennis shoes, one singed and melted, the other untouched, lay lopsided on the dress. Protruding from the bottom of the pile of clothing was the edge of a cotton bra that had once been white but was now brown from the fire.
Against the wall were more six-inch irrigation pipes, each about ten feet long, stacked horizontally on metal shelves. Next to the pipe were several wooden pop bottle crates containing several dozen steel and aluminum connectors; shorter pipes with clamps, each about ten inches long. A rusty red toolbox sat unopened beside the crates.
Only when Taylor was certain he had taken in every other detail in the shed did he finally turn his focus towards Anna’s body. He took another breath. She was naked, black, grey and white, her burned face staring up from the metal cot. The cot, he imagined, had been used over the years by workers while they waited to move irrigation pipes or just needed to hide from the boss. Her hands were above her head, held by heavy handcuffs now blue and black from the heat of the fire. Her legs were spread open, nylon rope melted into the flesh of her ankles. He could smell the residue of gasoline most strongly from her body now. Several flies still swarmed her mouth and nose, lighting on her open eyes, but there were no maggots visible. Taylor had no desire to look more closely. She had not been dead for much more than two days. Her torso was burned badly, but her face and limbs still recognizable. Her neck had been cut ruthlessly. Most of her hair had been charred. Her mouth was open.
She must have died screaming, he thought as he took another step forward. No, something was in her mouth. A cloth had been pressed deep in her mouth. He pulled his utility knife from his back pocket and prodded lightly at the cloth. White cotton panties with pink flowers, singed by the flames.
Taylor put his knife back in his pocket, careful now to keep his eyes away from her face. The human mind cannot accept chaos. It will play tricks on you, trying to rearrange the details it is seeing into something it can make sense of. Lifeless open eyes seem to blink. Lifeless lips seem to smile then to sneer. It was hard enough when it was a stranger’s body you were looking at, when you could detach yourself from the knowledge that the body before you was once a living, animated person. It was nearly impossible, however, when it was someone you knew. Taylor blinked his eyes, again and again, trying to keep his mind focused, and looked around the shed once more.
It was shoddy work, he decided. He looked at the hole in the roof, at the broken glass of the window. More flies, buzzing loudly, lighted on his shoulders, his face and his ears. As he stepped back towards the door, he noticed an old hammer on the floor in the corner, rusted, the wooden handle scorched and split down the centre. Beside it was a small sickle about six inches long with a foot long handle. Taylor crouched down and looked for blood on the hammer and on the rusty serrated blade. There was none. He surveyed the room again, memorizing every aspect of her body and the items surrounding her.
Finally, he let his eyes pass over her face one last time: the mouth open in a silent scream; the disfigured bulging eyes staring at him; and the flies, the endless flies climbing over the once beautiful face. He turned his head away before his feet could move again. Once outside, he leaned against one of the apple trees until his head cleared. He let himself fall against the tree, sitting with his back against the rough trunk, and closed his eyes to the leaves and the blue sky above.
Taylor opened his eyes and looked down the orchard for any sign of Juan. How long, he wondered, would it take the boy to find a phone to call the police. How long before this crime scene became a circus of police, reporters and farm workers? He thought of heading towards the warehouse himself, just to be sure Juan had made the call he was supposed to make, but he fought that reaction. It was best to let the urges come and go as his mind tried to fight the memories of Anna as she had been, of Anna as her body was now. Memories of her blonde hair flashed before him now, so beautiful when she was alive.
Anna Wagner was only eighteen years old. She had disappeared ten days ago. Her boyfriend, David Quiring, was also missing, and the Andover Police, after a three-day investigation, had decided that the two had run away together, either to Mexico, based on what his family had said, or to Alberta, based on what her few friends had said. Anna’s father, Abe Wagner, had rejected this theory, adamant that his daughter would never leave without telling him, but his protests to the police had gone largely ignored. Whether she had run away with her boyfriend or not, Abe Wagner wanted her home. To this end, Michael Voracci, Wagner’s employer and the owner of Tanglewood Vineyards, had posted a five thousand dollar reward for information leading to her safe return.
One of the last times Taylor had seen her, she had been having lunch outside at a picnic table on a sunny day much like today. She had smiled and waved as he walked by. He could still hear her voice, see her smile and her expressive blue eyes. She was such a beautiful, carefree soul, one of those girls who could have been sixteen or twenty-five depending on the expression on her face. He could hear her laugh now. Taylor dug his heels into the ground as the sound of her laughter turned into a sob then a muffled scream.
Again, he fought the urge to get up, to go to the warehouse, to find out what had become of Juan. He needed to be here, to protect the crime scene, in case Juan returned with some curious workers before the police arrived.
For a moment, he considered covering her naked body with his flannel shirt. But these emotions pass, he reminded himself. It was best just to sit here against the tree. He had seen enough. There was nothing he could do to help her now except to ensure no one else went inside before the police arrived. He clenched his jaw when he remembered how easily Juan had stepped past him to get inside to satisfy his morbid curiosity. What had he been thinking of, letting down his guard like that? Perhaps he had been here too long. Perhaps he had spent so much effort trying to convince himself that he was just another farm hand that he had actually come to believe it.
Taylor shook his head with a surge of self-disgust. What had he been thinking of, coming here, trying to convince himself that he was something he was not? Just two nights before—the night of the thunderstorm in fact—he had been thinking of quitting this job and returning home to Ottawa, thinking of putting the pieces of his own life back together, and finally leaving this fantasy of a simpler life behind. Why had he not come to his senses a few weeks earlier, he demanded of himself now, when he could have done something to help Anna before it was too late?
He knew the answer to this, of course. He had fallen in love and had become too busy trying to find a new place for himself in an old, over-used fairy tale—the white knight trying to save the damsel from a tower of her own making. Dammit, Ben. So he had entrusted Anna’s fate to the local police—men, it turned out, who had put less thought into her case than they did trying to decide what to order for lunch.
When Taylor had told the Andover Police Chief, Tom McGrath, that he did not think Anna was the kind of girl to run out on her father without saying a word, McGrath had scoffed at him.
“And who are you again?” McGrath had asked, amused. “These Mexican Mennonites, they’re just like the migrant workers. They float from place to place. In fact, they’re worse than the Mexicans because they don’t carry any papers. They’re just blonde-haired, drug-selling gypsies.” McGrath had grinned at him, the sun reflecting from his sunglasses into Taylor’s eyes. “Don’t worry. Her dad will get a postcard from her in a few weeks. Just you see.”
Taylor understood well enough the prejudice against the farm workers. Tanglewood Vineyards employed over a dozen migrants from Mexico and sixteen Mennonites, most from Mexico, one family from Alberta, and Anna and her father who came from Argentina. To everyone in town they were all from Mexico. They lived the same simple lifestyle. The men were all thin, and all seemed to wear the same cheap brands of fertilizer caps. The women all wore handmade dresses, black shoes, white socks, and handkerchiefs tied over their hair. They lived and worked in a world of their own, apart from anyone who lived in town. There was nothing Taylor could say to McGrath to