So Fell The Sparrow
Page 30
“I’ll look up missing persons’ reports for the area from around twenty years ago and get you some names to start with,” Lark offered.
“Good.” Matt squinted up at the darkening sky, then whistled to the forensics team members, waving them over. “Time to go for tonight, guys. It’s getting too dark to do much good.”
A brisk wind blew past them, shivering through the trees above. Lark zipped up her jacket and nudged Russ with her elbow. “Ready to hike back?”
“Sure.” He held out a hand to shake Matt’s. “Always a pleasure, Detective. See ya around.”
“I’ll have Bev fax over the reports to you as soon as possible,” Lark told Matt, giving him a curt nod before following Russ through the trees.
Russ, for all his childish humor and laid back attitude, was a trained outdoorsman. Much like her, he had been going out in the woods his entire life, learning everything it took to survive. It was because of this that she valued his addition to her team, even if his immaturity got under her skin from time to time.
People often mistook them for siblings, if only because they had the same sable-brown hair and similar eyes, though his were more hazel than green. Lark felt the resemblance ended there, as Russ was all long limbs and height while she was lean and athletic in a compact, five-foot-seven frame. One time he had nearly outrun her during a training exercise, and she had learned not to underestimate his physical abilities. Despite his habit of inhaling an entire pepperoni pizza on his own, Russ was no slouch.
He was a good partner and the closest thing she had to a best friend. The five-year age gap between them made her feel slightly his superior, even if he was just as much of a deputy as she was.
The drive back to town took only minutes. They curved around a tight bend with a wall of trees on both sides, then crested over a ridge that took them within eyesight of Eden Falls.
No matter how many times she saw it, the town tucked among the rocky-faced mountains and towering pines took her breath away. Even now, with the sun long gone and the sky murky and dark, the view of log homes with warm yellow light shining through windows and smoke rising from their chimneys calmed her. This was home. Always had been, always would be.
The road straightened out into a mile-long strip that made up the heart of Eden Falls, lined with wood-paneled buildings with sloped roofs in varying sizes and colors. There was the Eden Falls General Store, the tiny shack-of-a-Post Office, the hardware and snow equipment store, the steakhouse slash cocktail bar where most of the locals spent their evenings, the sheriff’s department, ranger station, and several small boutique shops carrying Native American trinkets and wildlife souvenirs for the touristy crowd. Tiny roads twisted off the main strip into the hills around the town, branching off every which way so that the old-fashioned, log style homes had both privacy and stunning views of the Lolo National Forest and the jagged, white-tipped mountains.
Eden Falls was, in Lark’s opinion, the best kept secret in Montana. Over the years more and more people had discovered its abundance of hiking trails, scenic falls, and majestic mountain views, allowing the town to grow and flourish. Lark had watched it all happen, but as much as she valued progress, part of her wished for nothing to change at all. She wanted her little portion of heaven on earth to remain just as it was—charming, rugged, and a little bit wild.
With just shy of seven hundred residents year-round, there was very little that went on in town that everybody didn’t know about within one twenty-four-hour gossip cycle. The body would be the latest victim of a slew of rumors and bullshit, making it all the more important to get a jump start on identifying the remains and the exact cause of death.
Until then, her goal was to keep Russ from losing all control and spilling the beans prematurely.
She parked the cruiser in her usual spot in front of the sheriff’s department, latching onto Russ’s forearm before he could hop out. She fixed him with a no-nonsense stare.
“As much as it kills you, I need you to refrain from telling everybody in town about this, okay? I mean it.”
Russ patted her hand. “Gotcha. I won’t tell everybody. Just some people.” He grinned and exited the car before she could stop him again.
She sighed and followed him up the wooden steps to the station, envisioning strapping duct tape over his mouth. Her lips twitched at the thought seconds before she was bombarded by a wave of questioning from her team.
“Well? What did it look like?” Dispatcher Bev Campbell fluttered over from her desk at the front of the station. She was a pleasantly heavy-set woman in her early fifties with jet black curls that framed an excitable, surprisingly youthful face. She always applied a bit too much blush to the apples of her cheeks and enough mascara to make spider legs out of her eyelashes, but Lark thought her joyful, albeit gossipy, personality made her lovable all the same. “I want details. All the details.”
When Lark said nothing, Russ jumped in. “Bones, Bev. Nothing but bones left out there. With a bullet hole to the forehead.”
“Oh, my.” Bev fanned herself, beyond horrified and excited all at once. “That poor soul.”
Lloyd Miller, an older deputy with a balding head of scruffy brown hair and guileless, laughter-lined eyes, placed a calming hand on Bev’s shoulder. “Now, Bev, don’t look too thrilled. A man—or woman—is dead, after all.” He winked at Lark, who appreciated his move to inject seriousness back into the conversation.
Russ was bouncing on the balls of his feet, unable to stand still. “Hey, I get it. Dude’s dead. But what’s done is done. I just want to know who did it. And why.” He faced Bev with wide eyes, his mouth falling open. “What if it’s a serial killer and we’re gonna find more bodies in the woods? What if he’s still out there, biding his time to kill again?”
Bev cried out in alarm and looked ready to faint. Lloyd helped her back to her desk where she plopped into the squeaky desk chair, her hand clutching at the gold cross she wore around her neck. While Russ continued to bounce theories off Bev and Lloyd and fill them in on all the details, Lark shook her head and started for her office. She paused when her father stepped out of it.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” she asked, straightening her stance out of habit. He may have been her father, but he was also a fellow deputy. Though these days, he was enjoying a well-deserved retirement.
Roy Galloway fixed his gaze upon his only daughter and offered her a grave smile. “Bev called me. Said a hiker found a body up on Heller Ridge.”
Lark gave a brisk nod and rested her hands on her hips. “The forensics team came up from Missoula to cordon off the area and exhume the remains, but we won’t know more until they have a chance to really look at them.” She hesitated, feeling that heavy weight fall over her again as she recalled the details. “There was a noticeable entry wound in the forehead. A bullet hole.”
Her father blew out a long breath. “Hell of a thing.”
“Yeah.” Concern came over her as she noticed the strain in his eyes. “Everything all right? You look tired.”
He brushed off her question. “Just a bit upset, is all. Nobody ever likes hearing about things like this.”
Lark snorted. “Unless you’re Russ or Bev. I swear, if I hear this around town tomorrow morning, I’ll—”
“You know how this town works as well as I do. Nothing stays secret for long.” Roy gave her shoulder a friendly pat. “Get some sleep, honey. There’s nothing more that can be done tonight.”
Although she disagreed with him— in her mind there was always more work to be done—she gave him a placating smile. She took in his thick, graying hair and the familiar features of his cragged face, his green eyes edged with stress lines and laughter lines and everything in between. He had a reputation for being a fair, balanced man with a firm but charismatic disposition, never quick to anger but always prepared to serve justice.
He had been with the Missoula County Sheriff’s Department for all her life and for most of his. Ever since she had been a teena
ger, he had groomed her to become a deputy herself and take over for him at their little station in Eden Falls. He had never once asked her if she wanted the job—he simply expected her to take it. As with many things in her life, whether she wanted it or not didn’t matter to him.
She followed him as he headed out of the station, coming to a stop before Bev’s desk. Russ was busy on his cell phone ordering a pizza and Lloyd had taken a bathroom break, so Lark seized the opportunity to actually get some work done.
“Can you pull up all the missing persons’ reports for the county from say 1990 to 1994? I need to send them over to Matt so he can pin down the identity of our victim.”
Bev motioned to Lark’s father just as he was about to leave. “Roy, you’ll remember this. Wasn’t George Murray the only missing person’s report we filed in the early nineties?”
Lark’s brows rose. “There was only one?”
Bev donned one of her bless-your-heart looks. “I think I’d remember filing any others. This is a safe place, honey.” She caught herself, her amusement fading. “At least, it was. Goodness, do you think that might be George up there on that mountain, Roy?”
He chuckled, still halfway out the door. “I always figured George just ran off. But if it is him, we’ll know soon enough. Goodnight, ladies.”
After he was gone, Lark pointed to Bev’s computer. “Search for any other reports just in case, and get everything over to the Missoula Office as soon as you can. Oh, and see if Dr. Grogan has dental records on file for Mr. Murray and send those over to Matt, too.”
“Will do, sweetheart.” Bev tapped at the keyboard, though her eyes raised to Lark before she could walk away. “You remember George, don’t you? Big tall man, balding. He walked with a limp but nobody knew why since he was barely forty years old. He lived in that old cabin on Elkhorn Drive.”
Lark stared at her blankly for a moment as the memories came back. “Oh, right. Everyone called him the hermit because he never talked to anyone and rarely left his house.”
Bev hit a few keys and the printer jolted to life, spitting out a report. She handed it to Lark and lowered her voice conspiratorially, a subtle grin lifting the corner of her painted mouth. “Way I remember it, one day he was just gone without a trace. Left behind all his things, little that he had. Now what makes a man do such a thing?”
Lark stared at the report, running over Bev’s words in her head. She said nothing as she took it with her into her office and shut the door, recalling the eerie, bone-chilling feeling she’d gotten up on Heller Ridge.
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Table of Contents
ABOUT THE BOOK
PRAISE FOR
SO FELL THE SPARROW
ALSO BY KATIE JENNINGS
DEDICATION
GYPSY OF SPIRITS
SO FELL THE SPARROW
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
EPILOGUE
COMING HALLOWEEN 2017
ABOUT KATIE JENNINGS
PREVIEW OF UP IN THE PINES