Three crossties away I find another identical impression, then one more, and in the dirt nearby on the other side of the tracks there are several partial ones spattered by rain that oddly point the opposite way, toward the campus, as if the person were heading into it. The impressions were left at different times, the partial ones earlier while it was still raining lightly, I decide, and the others later when it had stopped. Each footprint is slightly smeared as if the person was jumping from tie to tie or running or both. Sure-footed, strong, and agile, he wasn’t slipping or stumbling in conditions that most of us couldn’t navigate at a rapid pace.
The footprints look inhuman as if made by a superhero in a rubber suit who vanished along the railroad tracks as abruptly as he appeared. A Batman, a Superman, setting down before springing into flight again. Only this character isn’t dedicated to fighting threats against humanity, and I envision the figure in black tights I noticed jogging when I arrived at the scene while it was still dark. Agile and fast, and for some reason he caught my eye as he headed toward the very area of the campus where the railroad tracks run behind Simmons Hall.
“A shoe glove.” That much is obvious to me. “Lucy wears them sometimes, five-fingered running shoes, as they’re called, for minimalist jogging or sprinting.”
“Minimalist like a white cloth. Like simple clear plastic bags adorned with simple bows made out of decorative duct tape. Minimal injuries. A minimal struggle if there was one at all.” Benton says all this as if he’s computing out loud. “Killing minimally but with great fanfare and mockery. He knows how to get attention.”
“Have you seen a footprint like this before?”
He shakes his head, his jaw hard set. Benton hates whoever it is.
“No footwear patterns have been found at any of the other scenes,” he says. “He drove and then was on foot through woods. It doesn’t mean he didn’t have something like this on. I don’t know.”
“Supposedly running gloves are the closest thing to being barefoot, what Lucy calls running naked,” I tell him. “They’re certainly not what you would expect anyone to be wearing out here, especially in these wet, muddy conditions. They have protective soles but you can feel the terrain through them, every rock, stick, or crack in the sidewalk. Or so I’m told. Lucy usually wears hers on the street, on the beach, but not off road.”
Within a space of ten crossties the shoulders of the tracks are gravel again. The dark hardwood is wet but relatively clean and I wonder if the footprints are another premeditated surprise. I wonder if we’re supposed to find them like the tool, like Gail Shipton’s handbag and wallet. Or did her minimalist, attention-seeking killer finally slip up and was the bead of mentholated ointment adhering to grass also an error? I can get DNA from Vicks. All I need is a few skin cells.
I dig my phone out of my jacket pocket and use it to take several photos of a footprint and when I stand up my vision goes black. For an instant I feel faint. My blood sugar is low. I look up at the bare tops of trees against the bright sky, at clawlike branches swaying in wind that is shifting, and the air is brisk against my skin. I look around for him, for whoever is stalking women and murdering them and very likely stalking me. I need to get to my office.
I need the body to talk to me because it will tell me the truth in a language that makes sense and can be trusted. The dead aren’t capricious with me. They don’t lie. They don’t create spectacles and they don’t prey on anyone. I don’t want to be inside the killer’s mind. I don’t want to witness what Benton does. I’m reminded how it feels to watch him bond the way he must with a person who brings the dead to my door.
“I’ll get hold of Marino,” I decide. “He needs to come here now so I can get to the office and start on the autopsy.” I text the photos to him.
I include the message that we’ve found unusual footprints left on the railroad tracks on the other side of the tunnel that cuts through a brain research institute, maybe a quarter of a mile from the tennis bubble.
Not a minute after I’ve pressed Send, Marino calls me.
“You got any good reason to think they’re his?” he asks right off.
“They were left in the past few hours as the rain was light and then later when it stopped,” I reply. “Some impressions are partially washed away and heading into the campus while others are intact and heading out. Therefore, I think we can safely conclude these were left by someone walking, possibly running, back here recently, headed into the campus and then away from it while it was still dark and we were still working the scene.”
“He wouldn’t be heading toward the scene on foot if he had the body with him,” Marino says, his voice heavy with doubt.
“No he wouldn’t.”
“Then what the hell was he doing going in and out?”
“I don’t know but you should check to see if you find other footprints, ones I might have missed.”
“I don’t know why he’d go in and out on foot. Maybe different people left what you’re looking at.”
“Are you familiar with shoe gloves?” I ask.
“The freaky shoes Lucy wears. She got me a pair a couple of Christmases ago, remember? They got no arch support. I looked like a frog in them and kept stubbing my damn rubber toes.”
“I’m estimating they’re twenty-six, possibly twenty-seven, centimeters in length.”
“How about inches. I live in America.”
“Approximately ten inches, which would be the equivalent of a size eight in men’s shoes or a size ten in women’s.”
“Size eight?” Marino’s voice is loud in my ear. “That’s pretty damn small for a man. Could be a kid playing around back there along the railroad tracks. Not to mention the weird-ass shit MIT students are into, and some of their nerdy little genius-types are like fourteen years old, right? Wouldn’t surprise me if one of them would wear shoes with toes in them.”
“We need these footprints photographed to scale.” I hear myself telling Marino what to do as if he still works for me.
No matter my intentions I can’t seem to resist supervising him. I can feel him bristle over the phone. Or I imagine I do.
“It may be that they turn out not to be relevant,” I add diplomatically as I hear the background sounds of metal jingling and a car door thudding.
I hear Marino getting Quincy out of the SUV and on leash.
“But let’s play it safe. Photos and measurements, please,” I add. “I don’t think you’ll be able to cast the impressions but you might want to collect the soil for trace. We’ll get Ernie to take a look at that, too.” Ernie Koppel is my most senior microscopist and trace evidence examiner. “It’s a long shot, I realize, but if it’s not necessary or possible to preserve the footprints intact you may as well get whatever you want while you can.”
“I’m coming,” Marino says. “Heading toward you even as we speak. Hold on a few minutes and I’ll grab the photos, whatever’s needed. It doesn’t make sense wearing shoe gloves but I guess if they’re rubber you can wash them off easy enough like flip-flops. What a whack job. Certifiable. We should check area mental hospitals to see who’s gotten out recently.”
“I wouldn’t make that the first thing on your list.” I hear myself telling him what to do again.
“How ’bout you let me do my job?”
“That’s what I want you to do.”
“Is he right there?” Marino lowers his voice.
I look at Benton waiting restlessly, walking along one side of the fence, stooping over again to tuck his pants legs in.
“That’s correct,” I reply.
I can’t tell if Benton is listening but it doesn’t matter if he is. He doesn’t have to work hard to figure out what Marino might be thinking. Benton doesn’t have to guess at what Marino might say or wish were true.