Reconstructing Jane Doe
Frederica Parris washed the clay from her hands, patted them dry with a soft towel and pampered them with a squirt of moisturizing hand lotion. She took good care of her hands. They were the means by which she earned her living, for the long, thin fingers were those of a gifted sculptor. As she moisturized her skin, the artist critically viewed the progress she had made on the bust of Edgar Allan Poe. All modesty aside, she had to admit its resemblance to the photograph the Poe Society had sent her was astonishing.
Once the clay sculpture was completed, she would make a plaster mold from it and then send the finished mold to a mail-order gift company in White Plains, New York, that would use it to cast porcelain figures, which would be available to consumers in five easy monthly payments of $19.95 each plus tax, shipping and handling. It was mass-produced art for the middle class, sculptures sold in catalogs along with die-cast cars, porcelain dolls, designer teddy bears and scaled models of lighthouses.
Frederica was no snob. She did not look down her nose at the source of her income. She put the same effort and love into her catalog sales creations as she would have put into sculpting one-of-a-kind works of art destined to be sold at a high-end Manhattan gallery. Fellow sculptor Spencer Wilcox, whom she had been dating since her freshman year in college, already sold three pieces to prominent collectors in Philadelphia, Miami and San Francisco. Spencer repeatedly urged her to give up making "knickknacks and chachkies" and concentrate on creating art.
"But I like what I do," Frederica protested, "and it pays the bills."
"You'll never be famous working for the Hamilton Mint."
"My recent series of porcelain busts of the world's greatest writers has sold remarkably well. There are tens of thousands of people across the country who have my artwork in their homes."
Spencer chuckled.
"You could have made figurines of the Pillsbury Dough Boy and sold hundreds of thousands of them at Walmart. But it's the quality, not the quantity, of the work that makes a great artist."
Frederica's green eyes flashed with anger. Both of them knew she was the more gifted sculptor, but Spencer would never admit it. He preferred to play the Rimbaud-quoting Bohemian who smoked French cigarettes and drank espressos in sidewalk cafes.
Spencer knew he had struck a nerve, and he apologized immediately.
"Come on, Freddie, let's go get something to eat and see a movie."
"Mark Wahlberg?"
Spencer rolled his eyes. He could not see Frederica's attraction to the former rapper-turned-actor any more than he could understand her wasting her talent making mass-produced busts of Poe, Dickens and Hawthorne. Still, he loved her and was willing to overlook her shortcomings.
"All right," he agreed. "Marky Mark it is."
* * *
Frederica poured herself a cup of coffee and sat by her bay window, looking out to sea and thinking about Spencer. Six months earlier he had proposed to her, but she still had not given him an answer. While he was no Mark Wahlberg, she did find him physically attractive. More importantly, he was a good person with a warm, generous nature despite his somewhat pompous view of his talent and of art in general.
So why can't I make a commitment to him? she wondered.
Memories of their passionate romance during college and the months immediately after graduation, when she and Spencer rented an inexpensive loft in the Village, came flooding back to her.
At the time, her dreams had been as ambitious as his were. Then she stopped in Trinity, Connecticut, on the way to visit a former roommate in New Hampshire one weekend, and she experienced a sudden change of heart. On impulse, without consulting Spencer, she decided to stay in the small New England village and signed a lease for a one-bedroom apartment and art studio on Liberty Street.
Understandably, Spencer was deeply hurt by her decision, but he eventually forgave her. While he hated the idea of leaving New York, he was willing to compromise. He moved to Hartford so he could be closer to her without giving up city life entirely. If Frederica agreed to marry him, however, would he expect her to leave Trinity? She could not bear the thought of it.
The ringing phone broke the artist's concentration.
"Hello, Miss Parris?"
"Yes. Who's this?" she asked.
"Officer Sanford Wannamaker of the Trinity police department. Miss Parris, there's something I'd like to discuss with you, but I'd rather not do it over the phone. Would you mind if I stopped by your studio?"
A momentary spark of fear signaled all Frederica's senses to go to red alert.
"What's happened? Is it Spencer? Has he been in an accident?"
"No, nothing like that," he quickly reassured her. "I need the services of a sculptor."
Frederica closed her eyes and sighed with relief.
"Come on over. I'll put a pot of coffee on."
Ten minutes later, Sanford knocked on the door to Frederica's studio apartment.
"So, you need a sculptor," the artist said as she handed the police officer a mug filled with hot coffee. "Is this going to be a gift for your wife?"
"No. I'm here on behalf of the police department—unofficially, that is. Did you hear about the body they recently uncovered near Paugusett Lake?"
"No."
"A group of college students was holding a folk festival there," Stanford explained. "One of the demonstrations was on dowsing."
"Dowsing? Is that when they strap a suspected witch in a chair and dip the chair in the water?"
"No, that was dunking. Dowsing is an old custom used to find underground sources of water. In colonial times dowsers were called upon to locate subterranean water before wells could be dug. This time the dowser located Jane Doe's remains."
"Sounds intriguing, but what does this have to do with me?"
"The medical examiner hasn't been able to identify the remains. All he's been able to do is ascertain that the bones are those of a white female, eighteen to thirty years of age."
"And you want me to take the skull and try to reconstruct the young woman's face."
Sanford looked at her with surprise.
"I used to watch a lot of Court TV," Frederica admitted sheepishly. "So, I'm familiar with craniofacial reconstruction."
Sanford smiled at having met a kindred spirit. He himself was addicted to true crime programs and detective novels.
"Would you be willing to help?" he asked.
"Yes, but I've never received any forensics training. I sculpt heads and busts based on photographs. I'm not sure I'd be able to reproduce your Jane Doe's features with any accuracy."
"Right now, the detectives have got nothing else to go on."
"Okay," she agreed. "I'll try my best."
* * *
Frederica examined the skull of the dead woman and felt the bile rise in her throat. She forced herself to swallow. If she was going to perform her civic duty and assist the police, she would have to overcome her revulsion.
"Death is just another phase of life," she told herself.
A human skull was nothing to fear, nor was it an object of horror or disgust. Her own skull probably looked very much like the dead woman's. Hell, beneath his gorgeous, sexy exterior even Mark Walberg had a similar skull.
"What were you like when you were alive?" Frederica asked when she finally summoned the nerve to touch Jane Doe's remains. "Were you a blonde or a brunette? Did you have blue eyes or brown? Were you pretty or plain?"
The thought of the young woman being buried in an unmarked grave in a lonely, deserted area saddened her. When it came time for her to die, she prayed her loved ones would gather around the gravesite and bid her farewell with tears and flowers. Perhaps it was not too late for Jane Doe to have a decent burial, though. Once the police learned her identity, they could hand over the remains to the girl's family.
Determined to help the poor dead woman rest more peacefully, Frederica opened a jar of Vaseline and smoothed a thick coat of it over the surface of the skull. The petroleum jelly would work as a release agent so that the plaster would not stick to the bone. Then she mixed the plaster and began brushing it on the skull. Once the plaster hardened she would remove the mold and make a duplicate skull onto which she would apply clay and hopefully develop accurate facial features that would lead to the detectives' ascertaining the identity of Jane Doe.
* * *
When Sanford Wannamaker returned to Frederica's studio later that week to pick up Jane Doe's skull and return it to the police station for safekeeping, he could not help asking about the progress made on the reconstruction.
"It's coming along," the artist replied without going into detail.
In truth, she had done little except layer the clay on the plaster replica of the skull. She had yet to create a nose, lips or ears. How could she? She had no idea what the dead woman looked like.
Wannamaker gently picked up the real skull and headed for the door. Then he turned back toward Frederica.
"I'm going to meet with that dowser tomorrow afternoon at the lake," he announced. "He's going to search the crime scene for any of Jane Doe's belongings that might have been buried there, either deliberately or accidentally. Since you're a Court TV fan, how would you like to come along?"
"Thanks. Even if the trip doesn't turn up any clues to Jane Doe's identity, it ought to be interesting to see how a dowser works."
The following day Sanford picked Frederica up with his own Subaru Forester rather than the Trinity squad car.
"Since this is an unofficial investigation, there's no use calling attention to ourselves," he explained.
Nate Jessup, the dowser, met them by the edge of Paugusett Lake. He was not at all what Frederica expected. She had imagined him looking like the balding, grim-faced, pitchfork-toting farmer in Grant Wood's "American Gothic." Instead, he looked like Leonardo DiCaprio with long hair and a beard. At the sight of him, her pulse quickened.
Sanford made the introductions, and after the usual pleasantries were exchanged, the policeman suggested Nate begin the search. Frederica was fascinated when the dowser grasped the shorter ends of two L-shaped brass rods in his hands.
"Have you ever found any other bodies?" she asked.
"Not a body specifically," he replied, his smile making the young artist's knees go weak. "But I've uncovered a number of long-forgotten graveyards. I've also located the cellars and foundations of abandoned buildings as well as Indian and Revolutionary War artifacts."
"Were you born with this gift?" she asked.
"It's not a gift; it's more of a skill. Anyone can learn to dowse. Here, let me show you."
When Nate placed the divining rods in her hands, she shivered at his touch.
"Relax," he instructed. "Let the points of the rods lead the way. They will cross if there's something beneath you."
Frederica's hands shook slightly.
You're behaving like a foolish schoolgirl! she mentally chastised herself.
Besides, she already had a boyfriend, one who wanted to marry her. She had no business thinking about Nate Jessup's lean, muscular physique, his dazzling eyes or his captivating smile.
A woman's scream made Frederica drop the rods and turn toward the policeman.
"Who was that screaming?" she asked.
"I didn't hear anything," Sanford said. "Did you, Nate?"
The dowser shook his head.
"Maybe it was a bird's cry I heard," Frederica suggested.
"Probably. It's easy to imagine things in these hills," Sanford contended. "All noises echo and become distorted."
Nate picked up his rods and walked toward the area where Jane Doe's body had been discovered. While the dowser searched the vicinity of the lake with Sanford Wannamaker in tow, Frederica remained by the mound of dirt that had until recently been the unmarked grave of an unknown woman. Why had Jane Doe been buried there? Had she been murdered in the area or was she killed elsewhere and her body brought to the lake afterward?
"Over here," Sanford called out.
Frederica rejoined the two men and discovered that Nate had located a woman's wristwatch, one that might have belonged to Jane Doe. When Sanford allowed Frederica to hold it, she had a sudden, terrifying vision of a young woman being pursued by a madman.
"This is her watch," Frederica cried with certainty. "She lost it while she was trying to get away from her attacker."
The two men stared at her. Sanford viewed her vision with skepticism whereas the dowser was more open-minded.
"This watch was very precious to her," the sculptor explained further. "She wore it wherever she went."
"Maybe you can learn the young woman's identity by showing the watch to jewelers in the area," Nate suggested.
"But I'm not entirely convinced this watch belonged to our Jane Doe," Sanford argued, looking at Federica apologetically.
"It's worth a try, though, isn't it?" the dowser asked.
Sanford agreed. He put his hand out for the watch, but Frederica was reluctant to let go of it.
"That might be evidence of a crime," the policeman stressed. "I'll need to turn it over to the detective in charge of the case."
Frederica grudgingly agreed to surrender the watch, the only tangible link she had to the mysterious dead woman.
* * *
When Officer Wannamaker drove Frederica back to Liberty Street, she went directly to her studio and began working on the reconstruction of Jane Doe. Unlike her previous attempts at sculpting the dead woman's features, this time her hands worked swiftly and skillfully. Her fingertips artfully molded the contours of Jane Doe's cheekbones, forehead and chin. She was no longer plagued with doubt about the dead woman's appearance. From the moment she touched the watch, she developed a clear image of the finished face in her mind.
The fact that she never had a psychic experience before did not distress Frederica in the least. If a dowser could locate a buried skeleton using nothing more than a set of brass rods, then there was no reason why she could not get a mental image of the woman's face from touching her watch.
The sculptor worked through the evening and long into the night, stopping only to eat a microwaved frozen dinner at midnight. From time to time, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the mental images she had received at Paugusett Lake. The mouth and the eyes had to be just right. She had always been a stickler for perfection, and Jane Doe deserved no less. Frederica's eyes burned, and her neck and back ached. Still, she did not want to stop despite her exhaustion and the lateness of the hour. An unknown force compelled her to go on.
"I must finish this bust of Jane Doe. She's waited long enough."
The phone rang just before three o'clock. It was Spencer.
"I was hoping you were still awake, so I could tell you the good news," he said excitedly. "I sold another piece, and I got over a hundred thousand for it. Can you believe it?"
Frederica should have been delighted for him, but at the moment she felt nothing except the desire to get back to the job at hand.
"That's great. Why don't you give me a call tomorrow?" she suggested. "And we'll decide the best way to celebrate."
When the telephone call finally ended, Frederica returned to her sculpture. Shortly after 4:00 a.m., the reconstruction of Jane Doe was completed. Frederica raised a clay-caked hand to her forehead and brushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes. She sighed. It had been a long and grueling day.
"I'm going to wash my hands and then go straight up to bed," she decided. "I'll shower tomorrow morning."
She headed for the staircase that led up to her apartment. With her hand on the wall light switch, she turned and looked back at Jane Doe's face one last time.
"It looks exactly like the image I saw in my mind. It looks ...."
Suddenly, the young artist broke out in a cold sweat.
"It looks exactly like ...."
* * *
Spencer Wilcox tried calling Frederica the following day on both her cell phone and her landline but received no answer. By 2:00 p.m. he began to worry, so he drove from Hartford to her Liberty Street home. Although Frederica's car was in the driveway, there was no response to his knocks on the door. Trying to fight down his growing fear, he got into his Toyota and headed toward the Trinity police station.
"It's not like her to leave without telling me," he told Officer Sanford Wannamaker.
"I saw Miss Parris yesterday afternoon," Sanford informed the worried man. "She was perfectly fine. Perhaps she just ...."
"What are you doing with this?" Spencer suddenly cried, grabbing the watch off of Sanford's desk.
"Why? Have you seen it before?"
"Yes. I bought it for Frederica when we graduated college. She lost it right about the same time she moved to Trinity."
Sanford felt a spasm of apprehension in his abdomen.
"Let's go see if we can locate your girlfriend."
* * *
"Open up, Miss Parris. This is the police," Wannamaker announced loudly as he pounded on Frederica's door.
When there was no reply, the police officer forced the door open.
"There's no one here," he declared after a quick search of the apartment.
"Let's try the studio," Spencer suggested.
Like the living quarters, the studio was empty.
"Where could she have gone without a car?" Spencer asked, praying she had not run out on him again. "I hope nothing's wrong. Freddie hasn't been the same since she came up here and on a whim decided to stay."
Sanford, as a police officer, knew the proper steps to follow in a missing person's case.
"We'll have to wait twenty-four hours before we can take any official action," he explained. "But if you want to assist the police department, you can print some flyers with Miss Parris's photograph on them and put them up around town."
* * *
Weeks passed, but despite the best efforts of the police department, local media and concerned citizens, no trace of Frederica Parris was ever discovered. Her disappearance would forever remain a mystery to both Spencer Wilcox and Officer Sanford Wannamaker. The Trinity policeman never connected the missing sculptor to the Jane Doe who was murdered by a vagrant while she was walking along the banks of Paugusett Lake. And Spencer never suspected that the bust he found in his girlfriend's Liberty Street studio had not been meant as a self-portrait. Even had these two men suspected the truth, neither of them would have believed that the tragically murdered artist had unknowingly reconstructed her own features on a plaster replica made from her own skull.
There is no truth to the rumor that Salem is going to star opposite Mark Wahlberg in a sequel to The Departed.)
