Richardson was used to snakes, but that kind of eyeball-to-eyeball encounter certainly got the adrenaline going. He waited until his heart had stopped pounding and then radioed in.
This time he was transferred to the lieutenant, who was becoming somewhat frustrated at how long checking out one simple call was taking. Particularly when it was almost certainly nothing.
"Hurry it up, Andy, will you?" said the lieutenant.
"Roger that, Lieutenant," said Richardson flatly.
He entered the clearing a few minutes later. If he had read the tracks right, there should have been a car there, but there was nothing. This was all getting ridiculous, he decided. They would be talking flying saucers and little green men soon. In the real world, vehicles did not drive into lonely clearings and just vanish. Life was much more mundane. Solid stayed solid and flesh stayed flesh. And visible stayed visible.
All good sensible thinking, he reflected, but he still could not see that damned automobile and there was no track out of the clearing.
He started a perimeter search. The trees were growing too close together and too irregularly for a vehicle to have been driven between them. Then he saw the break in the tree line where maybe there had been a lightning strike or storm damage. Anyway, a couple of trees were down. The vegetation had been cut away and then replaced in a crude attempt to buy time.
He pulled the cut undergrowth out of the way. It did not take too long, and then there in front of him was the trunk of a Dodge sedan. A rental, by the look of it. The hood pointed into the forest.
The trunk was locked. He tried the doors and they were open. There were no keys in the ignition, but he found the trunk release lever.
He recognized the odor immediately. It was an amalgam of blood and excrement and fear. It was the smell of violent death.
He edged up the lid of the trunk with his stick and looked in.
Staring up at him, wide-eyed mouth open in a rictus grin of fear, was the body of a young woman. Her throat had been cut and it looked as if she had bled to death there. Her clothing and the inside of the trunk itself were saturated in blood.
Richardson could imagine her lying there terrified and helpless in the confines of the trunk as her executioner stood over her, knife in hand. There were severe slashes on her hands. She had tried to defend herself. Closer examination showed blood on and around the front passenger seat. She had been hit there, he surmised, and then dumped as she was dying. The callousness was chilling.
Subdued and depressed, he called in. He could take traffic accidents except where they involved the injury or death of children.
This kind of wanton butchery shook him. He thought of Susan. It could have been she in there.
Procedure dictated that he wait for the scene-of-crime team, but he had to do something and he knew he was professional enough to do it right. He started searching the clearing slowly and thoroughly, working to an imaginary grid.
There were clear signs of the reported helicopter and of activity surrounding it. Leaves and small branches had been dislodged by the downdraft, and some branches in the center of the clearing by landing skid marks suggested that the pilot had maybe clipped the tree tops coming in. Out of practice, inexperienced, or just a hotshot? Hard to know. Richardson favored out of practice. A novice would scarcely try landing in a narrow clearing like this.
After twelve minutes of searching, he saw a glint in the sandy earth fairly near the skid marks. Whatever it was seemed practically covered. Dropped by accident or deliberately.
He bent down and scratched the earth away with his stick. It was an unusual charm bracelet made of two types of gold, by the looks of it. He hunkered down, hooked the bracelet on the stick, and brought it close. The design was abstract, but one of the charms looked like a harp. It was an expensive item and had both a clasp and a safety chain. This had not fallen off by accident.
He read the inscription inside.
Richardson took an evidence bag out of his hip pocket and slipped the bracelet inside. He was thinking. The kind of gutsy person who dropped this will have tried to drop something more than once. But he had found nothing on the track, and the car's windows were, as he had expected, closed. Maybe she had been kept in the trunk with the other woman. Hell, maybe there was only one woman and the witness had been mistaken. She had struggled as she was being put on board and had been killed.
No, that did not feel right. The witness had proved out so far, so why not give him the benefit of the doubt and assume two women? That meant the kidnap victim could have been kept either in the trunk or in the back of the car.
Either way, it meant searching the car, and that was very much against the rules.
On the other hand, in a kidnapping – and now he was fairly certain there had been one – time was crucial.
He found the telephone message slip pushed down behind the upholstery of the backseat. It was the kind of thing you would jot down to remind you what room you were in. There was no date, but the paper looked fresh.
They now had a dead woman, murdered for sure, a probable kidnapping, and some guy named Hugo was involved. The message slip was from Fayetteville.
Richardson called in again. He did not do any more searching. A kidnapping – and a helicopter being used – was going to mean federal involvement for sure.
And the feds could be more than difficult if they felt their scene of crime had been screwed up.
Sergeant Richardson did not think he had screwed up, but as with most things in life it was going to be a matter of perception.
He checked his watch and hoped that the scene-of-crime team would get their ass in gear. It was going to be dark soon.
Shelby Jacklin, sheriff of Fayetteville, put down the phone and thought. When he had been younger he had been a great believer in immediate action. Now he liked to get the flavor of a situation before moving.
It had taken just one phone call to identify this "Hugo." The question now was what to do. Hugo Fitzduane might be the killer or he might be entirely innocent. But the probability was the either the dead woman or the kidnap victim was closely connected to him. And it was a statistical fact that most murders were carried out by someone you knew and most probably were close to. Like married to.
This business was going to get complicated. The body had been discovered by the state police outside his jurisdiction, but this Fitzduane was staying right in the sheriff's patch. And before long the feds would be on the scene.
They could question Fitzduane immediately or go for a search warrant first. Then they could search this Irishman's room with impunity. It was the safer route. A search warrant would not take long. Judge Rikel was a hard-liner with strong views on violent crime.
It would also be a good idea to check Fitzduane with the FBI. Sheriff Jacklin was not overly fond of the feds, but he had learned to sup with the devil if it got the job done.
8
Country and western music filled the air and a demonstration team of line dancers in yellow shirts, red kerchiefs, and white Stetsons sashayed and pivoted with drill-team precision.
Several hundred exhibitors were gathered around the poolside and the open bar was having its predictable effect. Tables covered in checked tablecloths had been set up and the barbecue team were in full action.
After a long hard day, people drank and ate and networked and relaxed. There were many more women present that were actually attending the exhibition. Wives and girlfriends who had steered clear while their menfolk played with weaponry had surfaced.