Shame

his second victim, situating her at the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site. He was fascinated by the rock drawings. I suspect he saw them as tablets with messages as clear as the Ten Commandments. His fascination with Indian drawings wasn’t anything new; whenever he was at his wife’s home in Eden, Texas, he always visited the neighboring community of Paint Rock to look at its renowned Indian pictograph site. It’s a pretty spot, a half-mile bluff that overlooks the Conchos River, a place where a number of Indian tribes have left artifacts for over a thousand years. Some have even offered up their stories in relatively modern times. In 1865 Apache warriors kidnapped a fourteen-year-old girl named Alice Todd. They were fleeing pursuit but took the time to paint symbols of what they’d done on the rocks. They drew two crossed lances, which is the warpath symbol, and next to that they painted two long-haired scalps, which depicted the killings of Alice’s mother and a black slave girl. A third drawing showed a girl posed horizontally, a typical depiction of a captive. What ultimately happened to Alice is not known. Her body was never discovered, and she was never seen by the white community again. The last evidence of her existence is that drawing.”
    Elizabeth paused in her telling. They didn’t need to hear about Parker’s fascination with Alice Todd. It would be more helpful to them to hear about Kathy Franklin. Elizabeth had extensively toured the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site, had spent two full days walking up and down the ridge and studying the area where the Franklin girl’s body had been posed. Anthropologists had documented more than twenty-one thousand rock carvings at Three Rivers, drawings more than a thousand years old. Many of the petroglyphs told stories; the bighorn sheep pierced with three arrows; the representations of mountain lions, bears, and game birds; the staring faces and masks; the mysterious crosses, circles, and patterns—all believed to have religious significance.
    She had never felt exactly alone at Three Rivers. It was an easy place to be spooked. The weather always seemed to be changing, and the wind constantly tugged and talked. Even immutable objects never looked the same. From one moment to the next the Godfrey Hills to the north, the Sacramento Mountains and Sierra Blanca to the east, and the San Andres and Oscura Mountains to the west seemed to alter in stature and color. And below, looking northwest to the Chupadera Mesa, Elizabeth always thought she was on the verge of seeing visions.
    She had hinted to a BLM ranger how she felt, how the spot seemed to her to be alternately holy and eerie, and he told her he often felt the same way. He took her down the trail and showed her what he called The Little Man but what he said others called the God of the Petroglyph.
    “He’s the watcher,” the ranger said. “He’s the holy man looking out for this site. I’ve come up here some nights, and I’ve seen these weird lights in the area, sort of bluish and green. The Little Man puts on quite the light show.”
    Something else the detectives didn’t need to hear about. “Parker didn’t leave a drawing at Three Rivers,” said Elizabeth, “no picture of Alice Todd. He left Kathy Franklin’s body.”
    Back then, there had only been a dirt road out to the petroglyph site. Gray had brought Kathy at night, had laid her down beneath a petroglyph of one of the goggle-eyed beings. The figure looked alert, even afraid, its hands raised in alarm and its eyes wide open. Elizabeth wondered if that was how Kathy had reacted as Parker had put his hands around her neck. She coughed, not sure if it was out of reflex or sympathy, and remembered her audience.
    “It’s clear the recent homicides have somewhat paralleled the original murders. I don’t have an opinion as to whether the San Diego homicides are copycat killings, ritualized murders based on the Shame MO, or whether the killer is staging these homicides for as-yet-unknown reasons. At this juncture, though,I think it’s important that Parker’s third murder be examined. Looking back might give you the opportunity to plan ahead.”
    Elizabeth stopped talking, ostensibly to take a sip of water, but in reality to gather her thoughts about Heidi Ehrlich, another name from her personal memorial wall.
    “Heidi Ehrlich was a woman who liked to help others. She was a college student who chose to be a Good Samaritan to the wrong person.