Spiritual Murder Encounters (Trilogy) - The Two Doves

Spiritual Murder Encounters - The Two Doves

CHAPTER 1 - FOURTEEN MURDERS

There is a warm sea breeze, I pick out yet another bloodied crow's feather from the deceased woman's entangled hair. A jogger had found her naked body on a deserted beach at Danger Point Lighthouse, near Gansbaai, around sixteen hundred fifteen hours. He had notified the police.

I shake my head while searching for any evidence. The specialists secure the area while a forensic photographer takes photos of the crime scene. The victim's throat has been slit; her arms and stomach are cut open as well. She is lying face-up in a shallow tide pool, only her head surfacing above the water. She is in her early twenties. Her clothes and handbag—if she had one—are missing, and her nails are cut off severely, culled down to the flesh. Marine life has already begun feasting on her body. She appears to have been murdered in the same way as the other thirteen victims—her nipples have been cut out and removed from the scene: the murderer's signature mark.

Although the crow had, once again, warned me twenty-four hours earlier of a murder, I still can't get used to seeing a woman who has been killed in this way. This is the fourteenth woman, found dead on various beach spots alongside the fifty-two kilometer stretch between Hermanus and Danger Point.

Pointing to the rocks around the tide pool, overgrown by seaweed, I say, "Sergeant Meintjies, search underneath those plants for the murder weapon, please."

The tall, slender Sergeant nods in compliance. "Yes, Warrant Officer Goode."

For the past two years, a serial killer and rapist has been on the loose, and I have been struggling to crack the case. The community and the families of the deceased want the killer to be found—as, of course, do I and the rest of the police force. The frustration and pressure are mounting—I can still not find any clues that will lead us to solve the case. The killer has not slipped up once and clearly knows that evidence—blood, semen, any form of DNA, in fact—when exposed to sun and humid conditions long enough, usually gets destroyed. I suspect the victims were raped and murdered far from where their bodies were found, then driven to the coast and dropped in tide pools: there is never evidence of a struggle, never any footprints, and never any blood trail at all.... Given the scarcity of evidence at the fourteen crime scenes, the criminal profiler had been able to draw only a basic portrait of the perpetrator: the murderer was strong, and therefore probably—but not definitely—male. And, given the method by which the women were mutilated, the killer was certainly pathological.

While spotting a southern right whale mother and her calf breaching some distance away, I suddenly hear a loud commotion above my head. Two doves hover above me, flapping their wings vigorously. I find this very unusual. Then I look back to the body. How much time will it take before her family reports her as missing?

CHAPTER 2 - TO DIE OR NOT TO DIE?

Late at night, long after viewing this afternoon's disturbing corpse, I write down my haunted thoughts in my dilapidated diary:

Death is final. Whenever a loved one has died, I have never felt so powerless...defeated...wrecked...lost....

The irony is: During my life, I wished myself dead a couple of times, but each time, when faced with a near-death experience, my body, mind, and soul kicked in—fighting to survive, wanting to save me. But why? Just to keep me alive, again?

The unanswered ironic question: To die or not to die? Why, each time, when I've faced death—why haven't I really wanted to die? To my surprise, I keep fighting it. Fighting for my survival—beating it, every time. Why do I still fight to survive death if I want to be dead already? Why do I still care? Just to live in this hell on earth? Again?