The Pearl Drop Killer. Joshua Questin Hawk

      a killing field

      in a damp meadow on a cool spring morning, the sun rises on the sleepy fishing town of Jackson Hole. Small patches of snow still on the ground as the sun continues through the forest onto the bay. As the wind rustles through the shrubs and treetops, a small white mutt of a dog that no one owns but everyone cares for and feeds scurries out with a woman’s left hand in his mouth. He runs up to a man, who is in his sixties, with shaggy gray hair and a long shaggy beard. He is wearing a bright-yellow raincoat, pants, and cap, heading down toward the pier along the bay to start his day, smoking his corncob pipe and carrying four fishing rods. The dog drops the hand and barks a few times to get the old man’s attention. He turns back toward the dog, stoops down, petting him, and sees the hand.

      “What you got there, boy?” the old man asks, picking up the hand slowly, barely holding on to it with his index finger and thumb. “And where did you find this?”

      The dog barks a few more times, runs back to the shrubs he came out of, sits, and barks for the old man to follow him. He pushes the shrubs away, “What you got in there, boy?” He looks down into the shrubs and stumbles back in fright, seeing a young girl, white, with blond hair, and sixteen, wearing a string of teardrop pearls around her neck.

      She is dressed in a white ball gown, with heavy makeup as if she has just come from a debutant ball. Her lifeless green eyes stare up at him, and one hand—her left hand, which the dog had found—cut off with surgical precision. The man turns to the side, vomits, and drops it.

      Jackson Hole Deputies—khaki slacks and short-sleeved khaki dress shirts with brown pocket flaps—tape off the area and start searching the woods. A black Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV speeds up, with red lights flashing in the back window. Out comes a tall heavyset man in his late forties dressed in a nice black suit but looks as if he has slept in it. No tie, thinning black hair combed straight back, a real bad dye job. His new partner follows, an African American woman in her late twenties, with long black hair down just past her shoulders, with bangs running halfway down her forehead and wearing a black business suit. They walk toward the tapeline where two Deputies are waiting and talking with an older Deputy, a Sergeant.

      The Detective raises his seven-point gold shield with blue lettering, that reads jackson hole county and his rank, Lieutenant. “O’Malley and Sergeant Stein,” he advises the young man and then points to his partner as the man raises the tape. They step up to the older officer, who is in his fifties, white with dark-olive skin and bald.

      “How the hell did they drag you out of bed this early, O’Malley? You’re normally closing the bars.”

      “Nice one, Duke, you know my new partner, Detective Stein?” Duke nods. “What you got?” He stoops down over the body; the shrubs are now cleared away.

      “I think it’s called a crime scene, Lieutenant,” Duke replies. Stein smiles coyly.

      “And where is the Crime Scene Unit?” O’Malley asks, looking right at him and not finding any of this funny. Taking out a pair of gloves, he picks up the young girl’s hand.

      “Not here yet—a record for you! This is a first, you beat ’em,” Duke comments.

      O’Malley stands and is about to crack one of his own when another Deputy calls out, “Got another one!”

      O’Malley and Stein start, stepping past Duke, continuing toward the Deputy’s voice. Then a female Deputy calls out over O’Malley’s left shoulder with another body. O’Malley points to Stein, waving her onto the first Deputy, and he heads off toward the new call.

      Four more Deputies call out. O’Malley looks back at Duke, each man knowing this was not good.

      “All hands on deck, Duke.”

      O’Malley waves Stein off and continues on to the second one. A female Deputy with red hair and Corporal stripes, points to an area between them. He stoops down beside this new body, sixteen-year-old girl, white but, this time, in a black dress. A string of teardrop pearls hangs around her neck. Her left hand is cut off and missing.

      She is also wearing heavy makeup, just like the first victim. He moves the foliage around with a stick but finding no sign of her hand.

      “Mark it,” he says, pointing to the body and then back to the Corporal and heads back toward Stein.

      Stein is stooping over a young woman in her early twenties, wearing a white dress and teardrop pearl necklace. Her left hand has been surgically removed and missing. Like the others, also with heavy makeup.

      “Mark it,” Stein tells the young African American Deputy standing near her and moves off to the next body—another young woman in her twenties, wearing a black dress and teardrop pearl necklace. Her left hand is cut off and missing.

      O’Malley stoops, noticing the woman has been here for some time. There is more decomposition and animal bites, and her eyes have been eaten out, and parts of her thighs and arms have been gnawed at. She’s been here a week maybe more, he thinks.

      They continue on to the next one, same description: twenties, left hand surgically removed and missing, wearing a teardrop pearl necklace and ball gown. This victim is more recent, like the first one.

      O’Malley looks over at Stein and then up at the Deputy. He looks around at each Deputy near him and rubs his face slowly, seven girls.

      He had seen this type of site before and was hoping he would never see it again. He knows he will need Donovan’s help.

      “What is this?” Stein asks.

      He looks down at