The Night Killer

with dismay that the room at one time had a few stalactites and stalagmites. Most had been broken off and carried away, probably as souvenirs. A few were still lying broken on the floor of the cave, along with several vintage beer and soda cans. Diane and Neva collected and bagged every item they came across that was not native to the cave.
    “Someone tried to build a fire,” said Neva. “I wonder how that worked out for them? Where did they expect the smoke to go?” She poked around in the burned charcoal and wood. “Nothing obvious here. I’ll bag it.”
    Neva continued around the room and found an old piece of rope about three feet long that looked as if it had been down there for years. Diane found several candy wrappers that also looked old.
    She shined the light around the walls and saw what she expected—graffiti. This wasn’t a difficult cave to traverse to this point, and over the years people had visited it who didn’t have the respect for caves that Diane and her fellow cavers had.
    Mostly, the graffiti consisted of names and dates. Some of it dated from the 1930s. Someone announced that they lost their virginity here in 1978. From her current vantage point Diane could see three graduation announcements: 1946, 1958, and 1978. She and Neva photographed the walls and the graffiti.
    “Look at this,” said Neva. “I wonder if it’s the same person we know.”
    Diane walked over and looked at Neva’s find.
    L. Conrad was here, 1974 , it read.
    “Well, how about that? Interesting,” said Diane. “The date would be about right for his high school graduation.”
    After finishing with the walls, they turned their attention to the bodies. Before anything was touched, Neva photographed them from several angles.
    Diane and Neva slipped off their caving gloves, put on latex gloves, and turned the first body over. It wasn’t the dried flesh of their faces that was so startling about the two bodies. What Diane and Neva noticed first was that their throats had been cut from ear to ear.

Chapter 47
    “Wow. What do you make of that?” asked Neva, squatting to have a closer look at the wounds.
    “Wow is right,” said Diane, crouching opposite her. “I didn’t expect this.”
    The wounds in both victims were similar in length and depth and they looked exactly like the long, deep wounds to the Barres and Watsons.
    Neva looked over at the handwriting on the wall. “He knew about this cave,” she said.
    “He did, didn’t he? If it’s the same L. Conrad that we know,” she added.
    “We could match the handwriting,” Neva said. “It would have changed over time, but we could find early samples, like in an old yearbook, maybe, or from some old legal documents from his early days as sheriff.”
    Diane nodded as she studied the wounds. “We could,” said Diane.
    She was looking at the neck wounds. Evidence of flies was still in the wounds. “These two were outside before they were put here,” said Diane. “David can tell us how long.”
    Diane retrieved the body bags. She and Neva lifted the first body—the female—and put her in the black bag. It was then that Diane noticed the charm bracelet on the victim’s right wrist. Diane took the bracelet off the body and put it in a clear evidence bag. Neva zipped up the body bag.
    The two of them did the same grim task for the other body, a male. They tied a rope harness on each bag for Mike to pull them up with the pulley system he had constructed while they were searching the cavern room.
    They examined the cave floor under the bodies. Nothing.
    “I was hoping for a note or a driver’s license,” said Neva.
    “It was certainly very helpful when the remains we found in that cave a year ago had the diary with them,” agreed Diane.
    The two of them collected their evidence bags—the contents of which they were sure would turn out to be years of trash from all the graffiti artists—and hoisted them up along with the crime scene kit. The last thing Diane did was to record the temperature of the cave. Hector and Scott’s work might very well help pinpoint a time of death in these bodies—possibly within a couple of days or even a few hours. Diane and Neva climbed up the rope to join Mike. He collected his bolts and pulleys and re-coiled the rope.
    “The bodies have lost a lot of their weight,” said Neva. “Could we stack one on top of the other and save ourselves a trip? You and I can carry the bodies and Mike can carry the