Scene of the Crime: Deadman's Bluff

by Cassidy, Carla

  Heart starting to pound an uneven rhythm of fear, he yanked his cell phone from his pocket and quickly punched in Linda’s phone number.

  One ring. Pick up, Tamara, he thought urgently. Two rings. He clenched the phone more tightly to his ear. Three rings. Why wasn’t she answering? Four rings and then the click of the answering machine coming on. Linda’s voice filled his ear with her prerecorded announcement to wait for the beep to leave a message.

  “Tamara, it’s Seth. Pick up the phone,” he said when the beep had sounded. He was vaguely aware of Tom stepping closer to him. “Tamara, please, pick up the phone.”

  The urgency inside Seth grew to mammoth proportions. Where was she? Why wasn’t she answering him? Because the Sandman had fooled them all. Because she wasn’t there to answer the call. She was with the Sandman.

  His heart crashed against his ribs in sheer terror. “He bluffed us. He set it up so that all of us would respond to a body in the dunes so he could get to his real target.” Seth could barely keep the tremble from his voice.

  “Tamara.” Tom said her name flatly, as if she were already nothing but another tragic victim in a madman’s game.

  “Send somebody over to my sister’s house,” Seth said, although he was certain they would find the house empty...Tamara gone.

  He didn’t want to leave here. He needed to think. He needed to crawl into the mind of the clever man who had set up such a ruse to obtain his ultimate goal. He desperately needed to figure out if he had Tamara, and, if so, then where was he going with her? And how long did Seth have left to try to save her life?

  Seth had to do what he did best, delve into the mind of a killer.

  Chapter Fourteen

  If Tamara wasn’t certain she was going to die, she might have found her current situation almost peaceful. She couldn’t move, there was no question of somehow escaping or fighting back. And with final resignation all the missing pieces of her memory came rushing back to her.

  Steven had been the man with the dog at the rest area, and she hadn’t been afraid because he’d been wearing his khaki uniform. He’d looked official and respectable and worked for the city of Amber Lake. Why would she have any reason at all to fear him?

  She’d made it so incredibly easy for him, bending over to pet the cute little terrier she now remembered seeing in the animal pound. She also realized that when she’d been in the pound and had needed to get out, had felt as if she was suffocating, it had been because on some deep level she’d recognized the scent that had clung to Steven...a scent of dog and heat and feces.

  When she’d gone with Seth, Linda and Samantha to the animal pound to pick out Scooter, it hadn’t been her first visit. She’d spent a night and half a day locked in a cage in a back room next to a caged German Shepherd that looked like he’d like nothing better than to tear out her throat.

  Each time she’d started to come around, to get the feeling back in her body, Steven would appear to give her another shot, rendering her helpless all over again.

  The next afternoon when he’d taken her out of the cage and moved her to the trunk of his car, he’d muttered to her as if she were somebody else...as if she were his mother.

  “Just like an ostrich,” he’d said. “Bury your head in the sand, that’s all that you did when he beat me to within an inch of my life. Mothers are supposed to protect their kids, but you just hid your head in the sand and now I’m going to hide your head for you.”

  She’d wanted to scream at him, to tell him that she wasn’t his mother, that she’d never done anything to harm him, but she couldn’t speak. Her lips wouldn’t move, her mouth refused to form a single word. She was trapped in her own body with only her brain working overtime.

  Along with the memories of what had happened to her immediately following Steven grabbing her came others, as well. Her unhappy marriage to Jason, the final straw that had broken their marriage and finally the reason she’d dreaded going home, the reason for the core of grief inside her.

  The casket had been white and barely bigger than a shoebox. The baby had been a little girl, born too early and never having drawn a breath of life.

  Grief tore through her and it was impossible to blink away the tears that filled her eyes. It had been that sorrow, along with an abiding loneliness that had filled her apartment in Amarillo, which had made her reluctant to go home.

  It had been Seth who had filled up that loneliness, eased any pain that might have been left behind and made her want a future with him, a future filled with all the things that had been absent in her life.

  And now it was too late. It was all too late.

  The Sandman was going to put her to sleep forever. Her heart beat a slow rhythm despite the fear that filled her as she thought of the scrape of a shovel against the sand, as she thought of the weight of that sand falling first on her feet and legs, then on her midsection and finally covering her face, smothering her to death.

  She wished she’d told Seth she loved him. She wished she’d said the actual words to him. Even if he didn’t love her back, she wished she had given him the gift of knowing that he was deeply loved.

  Too late. Now it was all too late. She hoped it wouldn’t be him who found her. She hoped he wouldn’t frantically dig in the sand to find her, to try to save her when it was evident she was gone. She didn’t want his last image of her to be her dead body.

  She forced her thoughts away from Seth and to her current situation. Steven was driving relatively slow, an occasional bump shifting her body. The last bump had shifted her into a position where something sharp poked her in the back, but there was no way for her to move into a more comfortable position.

  Was this what it had been like for Rebecca Cook and Vicki Smith? What had been their final thoughts as they’d been driven to their deaths? Had they entertained regrets? Clung to happy memories? Or simply wished for another bump to allow their body to get more comfortable?

  The car slowed and the whine of asphalt beneath the tires was replaced by something softer and more bumpy. The dunes? Surely he wouldn’t take her there. That’s where Seth and Sheriff Atkins and all his men were working a crime scene.

  But Seth had mentioned at one point or another that there was more than one way into the dunes and that the area was big enough that it couldn’t all be seen by mere eyesight, and by now it was surely dark. Nobody would see him bury her.

  Tears once again filled her eyes and fell down the sides of her cheeks as the car came to a stop and the engine was cut. No more time. She’d heard that drowning was a relatively painless death. What about drowning in sand? She had a feeling it was going to be a terrible way to die.

  The trunk lid opened, the small light inside radiating out enough that she could see Steven’s face. The smile on his lips read of pleasure, but the darkness in his eyes spoke of the need for revenge.

  I’m not your mother, her brain screamed inside her head. Please Steven, don’t do this. Don’t kill me for any sins you think your mother committed. I didn’t commit them. She tried to put all those emotions into her eyes as he bent over and picked her up in his arms.

  “Time for the ostrich to bury her head, just like you did when I was little and Dad was beating the hell out of me,” he said as he began to walk.

  She could hear the whisper of sand beneath his feet and the terror inside her peaked to where she wished she’d lose her mind, prayed that her heart would stop beating before she heard the very first scrape of the shovel against the sand.

  He bent down and dropped her onto the grainy surface and then walked away. They were at the dunes. Someplace, perhaps not so far away from where Seth and the other lawmen were working. If only she could just scream, if she could just crawl, but she could do neither.

  “Let’s get this show on the road,” Steven said from nearby and she heard the first rasp of the shovel against the sand and she knew he had begun to dig her grave.

  * * *

  IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG for Seth to get the informa
tion that Tamara wasn’t at Linda’s place and the front door had been standing wide open.

  She was with him. The Sandman. He’d already directed several of the deputies to get in touch with Henry Todd and with Jerome Walker and Ernie Simpson, the other two young men who had been with Sam when Tamara had been discovered.

  Raymond Michaels was officially off Seth’s suspect list. He couldn’t be here and with Tamara at the same time. The one thing Seth refused to do was run out of here half-cocked, with no specific suspect and no known location in mind.

  He knew the key to the whole thing was an ostrich. That memory that Tamara had of the perp calling her an ostrich held the key to the killer’s identity.

  There was no way he could run fast enough to catch a person he didn’t know; he couldn’t knock on doors and try to gain answers. The time bomb had exploded and if he didn’t figure something out fast, Tamara would be dead.

  Ostriches. As he paced across the sand, he considered what he did know about the oversize birds. They were too big to fly. They could kill a man with a kick of their powerful legs. He frowned. What else? There had to be something else.

  With each tick of his heart, with every blink of his eye, he felt as if time had run out and Tamara was gone and when he thought about that the absence of her nearly cast him to his knees.

  Darkness had fallen complete across the dunes, the only lit area being the main entrance where the deputies’ car headlights provided illumination.

  Ostriches. Don’t bury your head in the sand. The descriptive saying jumped into his consciousness. “Don’t bury your head,” he muttered aloud. He’d heard that somewhere recently. Where? Where had he heard something along those lines?

  You’d be surprised by how many people just bury their head in the sand. It had been at the animal pound. Steven Bradley. Thoughts flashed through Seth’s brain, processing like a minicomputer. Steven in his official uniform would appear safe to a woman alone. Steven had access to a dozen different dogs...dogs to walk in a park...dogs to lure a woman closer.

  Seth remembered how the dogs had silenced at Steven’s command, how the little terrier had instantly rolled over on his belly when Steven had approached. Had the little pup been looking for a belly scratch or had he been showing complete submission?

  The killer liked power and who better to have power than an animal control officer who wielded authority over cage after cage of helpless animals?

  “Steven Bradley,” Seth said to Tom as the sheriff approached. “I think it’s Steven Bradley. Get somebody to the pound and to his house. See if he can be found at either place.” Seth spoke at warp speed, his brain still processing.

  “What should I do about Sam?” Tom asked.

  “Cut him loose...no, wait.” The killer had a pattern. Like an ostrich. Bury their heads in the sand. Seth shot a glance out into the darkness of the dunes beyond where they stood.

  “Hold him in custody,” Seth said as he hurried toward Sam’s quad runner. He heard Sam shout a protest through the closed car window as Seth started it up with a roar.

  How cunning, to have all the law in town gathered right here while the Sandman completed his work in another area of the dunes. It was the kind of in-your-face thing that Steven would enjoy...just like leaving the little pile of sand behind when he’d tried to break into Tamara’s bedroom.

  Seth gunned the engine, grateful that the machine had twin headlights. He powered them on and then began the search, certain in his heart, certain in his very soul that Steven was here someplace with Tamara. The only thing he didn’t know for certain was if it was already too late.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tamara wished the stars were out. As she lay unmoving on her back, listening to the sounds of her grave being dug she wished there were stars twinkling down on her, a full moon to witness the very last moments of her life.

  Steven had been silent as he dug, the scuff of the shovel against the sand a rhythmic white noise as she focused on the last thoughts she wanted in her mind when he buried her.

  Seth. She wanted to be thinking about being wrapped in his arms as her feet were covered with sand. She wanted to fantasize that it was his weight covering her as the sand weighed down her middle. She wanted to remember the glow of his eyes, the taste of his lips as the sand finally fell over her face and she drew in her final breath.

  She’d been afraid to embrace her love for him fully because of her feeling of something hanging over her head back home. But now she remembered what that something was and realized there was nothing holding her back from loving him completely and forever.

  She would die loving him.

  Her heart squeezed tight in her chest as the sound of the digging stopped and Steven’s face loomed over hers. “Time for bad mommies to face their punishment.”

  He crouched down beside her and even though the only light source came from a flashlight he held in his hand, she could see the madness that radiated from his eyes. “You shouldn’t have pretended that you didn’t see when he beat me with that belt, when he broke my nose. You shouldn’t have buried your head in the sand when he twisted my arm until I screamed, when he kicked me so hard I couldn’t walk for two days.”

  Tears oozed from her eyes and she realized they weren’t only tears for herself, but also for the little boy Steven Bradley had been, for the torment he’d apparently suffered when he’d been young and helpless.

  He’d obviously been a victim of an abusive father and a mother who wouldn’t protect him, but that didn’t excuse the choices he was making now. That didn’t excuse the fact that he was trying to heal his past by killing innocent women.

  He’d become a monster and now the monster was about to strike and she couldn’t move a muscle to stop him. As he grabbed her arms and began to drag her across the sand to the pit he’d prepared, terror blasted through her head. Seth, her brain cried out. She brought into focus in her mind a picture of him smiling, that crazy, sexy grin that filled her with warmth.

  She hung on to the vision as she felt herself fall into the pit and as the first shovelful of sand covered her feet.

  * * *

  SETH DROVE WITH RECKLESS abandon, seeking a light, a vehicle, something that might give him a clue as to where in the dunes the Sandman was at work.

  Was it already too late? So much time had already passed. He couldn’t even be sure how quickly Steven had moved in to take Tamara from Linda’s place. She would have opened the door to him. She would have assumed he was stopping by to check on the dog and see Samantha. There would have been no sense of danger because she thought the Sandman was already in custody.

  He couldn’t stand the thought of having to dig Tamara out of the sand again, only this time too late to save her.

  The thought of having to dig her up, of never seeing her smile again made his stomach roil as if he needed to vomit. They had to be here somewhere and he had to find them in time.

  Back and forth he raced in a gridlike pattern, hanging tight over the bumps, flying over the tops of the dunes as his heart beat a heart attack rhythm.

  He’d been riding for only about five minutes or so when it struck him. Deadman’s Bluff. He had a feeling Steven would find it amusing for Tamara to be buried at Deadman’s Bluff after the bluff he’d pulled off with the fake arm.

  Seth headed in that direction, praying that his instincts were right and he wasn’t wasting precious minutes going in the wrong direction.

  He had to go with his gut instincts; it was all he had left. His heart had been ripped out the moment he’d realized that the hand in the sand was plastic and the Sandman wasn’t seated in the back of Tom’s patrol car.

  Although he had a need for speed, he also knew that if he approached Deadman’s Bluff too fast in the dark he’d fly right over the edge and could be seriously injured. Despite the urgency that drummed inside him, he eased back on the gas.

  As the bluff approached the clouds momentarily broke up and a faint shaft of moonlight filtered down. In that
moonlight, Seth saw him...Steven Bradley in his uniform, a shovel in his hand.

  With a roar of rage, Seth jumped from the quad, which continued to race forward and flew off the edge of the bluff. He raced toward Steven and the young man turned, his face radiating a killing rage. Steven raised the shovel and swung it, managing to connect with Seth’s shoulder.

  Pain seared up his arm, but the pain was minimized by the fact that he could see Tamara in the sand, her legs covered, but the rest of her sand-free.

  He’d gotten to her in time and knowing that numbed the pain and gave him a strength that surged up inside him. But Steven had the strength of madness, of nothing to lose shining from his eyes.

  He advanced toward Seth again with the shovel but this time when he swung Seth sidestepped the blow and dove for Steven’s legs. Steven fell to the ground with a grunt and let go of the shovel handle.

  Instead he used the end of a flashlight in an attempt to pummel Seth’s head and shoulders. A hard smack to the side of the head had stars dancing in Seth’s head and he realized if he didn’t get control of the situation, there would be a double tragedy tonight.

  Seth managed to grab one end of the flashlight and together the two men wrestled. Sand flew into Seth’s eyes, making them burn and tear. Any skin that was bared became quickly abraded by the rough land surface.

  He punched Steven, an uppercut to his jaw that snapped his head upward. Steven’s hold on the flashlight momentarily released. Seth threw the light to the side of where they lay, precariously close to the edge of the bluff.

  Steven appeared stunned as Seth pulled himself to his knees and went for his gun in the holster. He should have had it out and ready before now, but all he’d been thinking about was finding Tamara alive. Now he had to make sure he lived to keep her alive.

  Before he could grab his gun to end the fight, Steven was on him again, punching and kicking as they once again rolled on the ground, first Steven on top of him and then him on top of Steven.