Damn.
Eight
The next day started at 0726, when I got a call from the office telling me that there had been a development and that I should be there within half an hour. Sue, who had been awakened by the phone, and who had been sort of listening to me, asked what time it was. I told her.
‘‘God.’’ Then: ‘‘What time did you get in last night?’’
By that time I was sitting on the edge of the bed, trying to remember where I’d left the floor. ‘‘Oh, I dunno… four or five, I think…’’
She was now sitting. ‘‘Three hours’ sleep?’’ Obviously she was more awake than I was. I could tell because she could do the math. I thought for a second, still trying to get the cobwebs out.
‘‘Yeah,’’ I said, ‘‘I guess you’re right.’’
‘‘That’s terrible,’’ she said, lying back down. ‘‘It was that state officer being killed, wasn’t it? The one I saw on TV.’’
‘‘Yep.’’ I thought for a second. ‘‘Actually, it’s bullshit.’’
‘‘What?’’
‘‘Nothing,’’ I said as I dialed the phone. ‘‘Just calling the office.’’
The phone was portable, so I carried it into the hall as it rang.
‘‘Sheriff’s Department…’’
‘‘Yeah, hey, it’s Carl. What’s the development you called me about?’’
‘‘I don’t know, they didn’t say. Just said to call you.’’
‘‘Is this Brenda?’’
‘‘Yes.’’
Brenda was pretty new at this. ‘‘Okay, Brenda, who told you to call me?’’
‘‘Nine.’’
Nine was the call number for Deputy Eddie Heinz, also relatively new. We all liked Eddie. He was one of the most enthusiastic people I’d ever worked with.
‘‘Where is he?’’
‘‘In his car.’’
‘‘Right, Brenda, look… have him call me when he gets in.’’ I yawned.
‘‘Uh, he wasn’t going to come in. He wanted you at the scene.’’
‘‘What scene?’’ Regardless, I had now talked so long it would be impossible to get back to sleep.
‘‘Up near the park area. I think he’s found something…’’
‘‘All right, Brenda, thanks. I’ll get up there as soon as I wake up.’’
I had a cup of coffee, and left the house at 0812. Sue had come downstairs with me, and tried to persuade me to eat something healthy. I scarfed down a banana with my vitamin pills and my blood pressure meds. Ten years ago, I thought, I would have been there by now. Closer to the truth than I wanted to dwell on.
I kissed Sue as I left. ‘‘Thanks for the breakfast.’’
I contacted Eddie via radio when I was about six miles from him, and got directions. It’s a fairly wild area up there, and I didn’t want to waste time looking for him. As I dropped down into the heavily wooded valleys, the fog was thick just below the tree line. The tops of the trees looked like islands sticking up out of the sea. Then I dropped below the ‘‘water level’’ and was in a fairly thick, very damp fog. Windshield wipers on. I still could see about fifty feet. I was almost past Eddie when I saw his car in one of the little picnic areas cleared by the state. He was outside, and motioned me in beside his car. I got out, and sloshed as much as walked through the wet grass over to where he was.
‘‘Hi, hope you don’t mind, but I thought you should see this.’’
‘‘Whaddya got?’’ Reserving judgment as to whether or not I ‘‘minded’’ until I saw why he’d called.
He led me over to an area of very deep grass at the edge of the mowed picnic area and pointed to a spot where the grass appeared bent. There were what seemed to be several cardboard boxes, some just plain cardboard-colored, and some red, white, and blue printed boxes. They all appeared to be empty. The colorful ones said ‘‘USA Made Quality Assured’’ and ‘‘Famous Quality Ammunition.’’ And then, stamped in black on the white ends, ‘‘Cal. 5.56 mm FMJ.’’ As I peered over the pile, I could make out the printing on the brown boxes. ‘‘Republic of China.’’ ‘‘7.62 mm Ball.’’
‘‘Glad you called me.’’ I straightened up. ‘‘How in the hell did you find these?’’
‘‘I pulled in here to take a leak, and I always shine my light around just a bit before I do.’’
‘‘You didn’t…?’’
‘‘Oh, no, I did over there a ways.’’
‘‘Good, I’m short of rubber gloves.’’
I looked around, but couldn’t quite orient myself. ‘‘How far are we from the crime scene?’’
‘‘About two hundred yards.’’
‘‘Fog’s thick.’’ And I’m still not quite awake. Didn’t say that, though.
We returned to my car, where I unpacked my camera and fumbled through the bag until I had everything I thought appropriate attached to the frame. Made a little small talk as I did.
‘‘Whaddya do, drive around all night lookin’ for a toilet?’’ Said with a grin and in a lighthearted manner. We often did. As it transpired, he hadn’t. It seems that he was bringing some coffee to the reserve officers we had watching the crime scene and keeping the curious out. He had decided to relieve himself when he arrived, but was followed by a female trooper to the scene. He was too embarrassed to head for a convenient bush with her standing there, so he made an excuse and drove down here. Well, you take ’em when you can get ’em.
I radioed the office and told them to get word to the DCI that I was going to need one of them up at the new scene as soon as possible. Then we went back, and photographed the little pile of debris very thoroughly. I used a 70-210 mm zoom lens, as well as a standard 55 mm, and took about half the shots with a flash. It was really foggy. As I maneuvered around the trash pile I saw a couple of small round cans whose labels indicated they had contained green cammo makeup. Fascinating.
When Hester got there, we spread out a bit and checked out the area. Got soaked to the knees, but it was worth it. We found a freshly dug hole, where somebody had buried a bunch of modern military rations. MREs. Stood for ‘‘Meal, Ready to Eat.’’ You could get these at about any surplus or sporting goods store. But if these had been used by our suspects, they’d been here for a while. There were twenty-four empty MRE bags.
‘‘Okay,’’ I said. Trying to be a math major. ‘‘That’s eight people, three meals a day. Or one person for eight days. Or…’’
‘‘Right,’’ said Hester. ‘‘I’ll go for four people for two days myself.’’
That was one combination I hadn’t thought of. Among many, I admit.
‘‘Or maybe I’d prefer two people for four days,’’ she said, grinning.
Eddie, who was known for allowing his concentration to overwhelm his sense of humor, got more to the point. ‘‘There aren’t any breakfasts here,’’ he said. We were silent for a moment, clearing the threes out, and doing twos. Pointless. There were twenty-four bags. That’s what we knew. It told us they, however many, had stayed for a while, for however long. But if they were related to the crime, and it sure looked like they could be, then they didn’t pull their people out at sunset like we did. That meant, at least as a possibility, that they had watched our people enter and leave the area. Spooky.
The sun was finally starting to burn the fog off as we finished collecting and labeling the evidence. It started getting hot, and the humidity was already unbelievable. I suggested we go back to the crime scene and walk a much wider area. And I suggested that we should proceed to the scene from where we were standing. Just like ‘‘they’’ would have.
It turned out that to get there we had to go up and over a large steep, slippery hill that was covered with damp fallen leaves, and hotter than hell. The trees were thick, and the area between them was covered with thorny brambles and thick, reedy weeds. Took us about two hours. I hate it when people take my suggestions. I was pretty well shot when we got to the top of the hill, and called a halt.
‘‘Hey,’’ I managed to get out, ‘‘let’s stop and catch our breath.’’
Hester, whose hair looked like she had just gotten out of a shower, said, ‘‘Why?’’ and promptly sat down. Eddie looked like he could keep going the rest of the week, but squatted down beside us just to be polite.