by Brant, Kylie
She jogged toward the cluster of four people waiting nearby. The three men wearing suits each held a hand over his tie to prevent it from dancing in the breeze generated by the chopper’s rotors.
“Director Jeffries.” The hand she offered was engulfed in the older man’s pawlike grip and squeezed until she had to hide a wince. The chief of Tennessee Bureau of Investigation hadn’t changed much in the years since she’d left its ranks. His craggy face might be a little ruddier. His mop of white hair a bit shorter. But his six-foot frame was still military straight and as lean as ever.
“Good to see you again, Clark. I hear you’ve been makin’ quite a name for yourself with Raiker Forensics.”
Since the director wasn’t prone to flattery, and since he could have heard it only from Adam Raiker himself, Ramsey allowed herself to feel a small glow of satisfaction. “Thank you, sir. I think I’ve learned a lot.”
Jeffries turned to the two men flanking him. “TBI agents Glenn Matthews and Warden Powell. You’ll be assigned to their team. If you need more manpower, give me a holler and I’ll talk to the boss.”
Ramsey nodded her appreciation. Jeffries had no superior at TBI, so they were being given carte blanche. Raiker had told her to expect as much.
The director turned to the man in the sheriff’s uniform on her right. “I believe you know Sheriff Rollins.”
Frowning, she was about to deny it. Ramsey knew no one in Buffalo Springs, Tennessee. But the sheriff was taking off his hat, and recognition struck her. “Mark Rollins?” She shook her former colleague’s hand with a sense of déjà vu. “I didn’t know you’d left TBI.”
“Couple years ago now. Didn’t even realize I was interested in movin’ back home until the position of sheriff was open.” Rollins’s pleasantly homely face was somber. “Have to say, tonight’s the first time I’ve regretted it.”
“I assume you’ve looked at the case file.”
Ramsey’s attention shifted back to Jeffries at his comment. She nodded and he went on.
“Rollins has his hands full here calmin’ the local hysteria, and after a week, we aren’t progressin’ fast enough to suit the governor’s office. The area is attractin’ every national media team in the country, and the coverage is playin’ hell with his tourism industry expansion plans.” The director’s voice was heavy with irony.
“I understand.” And she did. Being brought in as a special consultant to the TBI pacified a politically motivated governor and diminished some of the scrutiny that would follow the department throughout the investigation. If the case drew to a quick close, the TBI reaped the positive press. If it didn’t . . . The alternative didn’t bother her. Ramsey had served as shit deflector many times in the past in her capacity as forensic consultant. If the investigation grew lengthy or remained unsolved, she would be served as sacrificial lamb to the clamoring public. Or to the state attorney’s office, if someone there decided to lay the blame on Jeffries.
“Raiker promised a mobile lab.”
“It’ll be here tomorrow. But for certain types of evidence, we may need access to the TBI facility on an expedited basis.”
“We’ll try to speed any tests through the Knoxville Regional Lab.” Jeffries beetled his brows. “Just help solve this thing, Clark. It’s causin’ a crapstorm, and I don’t want a full-fledged shit tornado on my hands.”
Ramsey smiled. She’d always appreciated Jeffries’ plainspokenness. “I’ll do my best, sir.”
“Can’t recall a time that wasn’t good enough for me.” Clearly finished, he turned to his agents. “I’ll expect daily updates. And keep me abreast of any major developments.” Without waiting for the men’s nods, he turned and strode briskly toward a road about a quarter mile in the distance. Ramsey could make out two vehicles parked alongside it.
“I’m guessin’ you’d like to get on into town, drop your stuff off in the room we lined up for you,” Mark was saying.
Ramsey shook her head. “I want to see the crime scene first.” Since diplomacy was often an afterthought for her, she added belatedly, “If that’s okay.”
The sheriff raised a shoulder. “It’s all right with me. What about you fellas? Want to come along?”
The two agents looked at each other, and Powell shook his head. “We’ll head back.” He shifted his gaze to Ramsey. “We’re set up in the local motel on the outskirts of town. One room serves as our office. We got you a room there, too, when Jeffries told us you were comin’.”
And by not so much as a flicker of expression did he reveal his opinion on her being brought in on the case, Ramsey noted shrewdly. She’d have to tread carefully there, with both agents, until she was certain how her presence here affected them.
“I’ll check in with you when I get to town, and you can bring me up to date on your notes so far.”
When the agents headed in the same direction Jeffries had gone, she turned to Rollins.
“Let me get that for you.” He reached for her bag, but she deflected the gesture.
“I’ve got it, thanks.” She fell into step beside him as they walked toward the tan jeep emblazoned with SPRING COUNTY SHERIFF in black lettering on a green background. “Tell me about the case.”
“Same ol’ Ramsey.” A corner of Rollins’s mouth pulled up. “Always with the small talk. Chatter, chatter, chatter.” His voice hitched up a notch as he launched into a mock conversation. “Well, I’m just fine, Ms. Clark. And how have you been? How’s that new job of yours? The wife? Oh, she’s fine, too. Still adjustin’ to small-town life, but the two little ones keep her pretty busy. What? You’d like to see pictures? Well, it just so happens I have a couple in my wallet. Got them taken at the local Wal-Mart just last month . . .”
“I can play the game if I need to,” she replied, only half truthfully. “Didn’t figure I needed to with you.”
He stopped at the vehicle, his hand on the handle of the driver’s door, his face serious again. “No, you don’t gotta with me. Figure we go far ’nough back that we can just pick up. But you’ll find you’ll get further with some folks in these parts if you put forth the effort. I know you never had much patience for mindless chitchat, but the pace is slower ’round here.”
She was more familiar than he knew with the unwritten customs and tradition demanded by polite society in the rural south. Had, in fact, spent her adult life scrubbing away most of those memories with the same ruthless determination with which she’d eliminated her telltale drawl.
Rather than tell him that, she gave him a nod across the roof of the car. “I’ll keep it in mind.” She opened the back door and tossed her bag on the seat behind the wire mesh used to separate prisoners from the law enforcement personnel. Then she slid into the front passenger seat.
He folded his tall lanky form inside and started up the Jeep while she was buckling in. Several minutes later, he abruptly pulled off the road and began driving across a field. After the first couple of jolts, Ramsey braced herself with one hand on the dash and the other on the roof of the car.
“Sorry.” Rollins seemed to move seamlessly with each jar and bump. “It’d take half an hour for us to get there by road. The kids that found the body hiked across through the woods on the other side, but going in from this direction will be an easier walk, though I’m told it takes longer. Brought the body out this way.”
“Has the victim been ID’d yet?”
“Nope. White female, between the age of eighteen and twenty-five. Found nude, so no help with the clothin’.” A muscle jumped in Mark’s jaw. “Not from these parts, is all I know. No hits from any of the national missin’ persons databases. The medical examiner took a DNA sample, and we submitted the results to the FBI’s system, but no luck.”
So a Jane Doe, at least for now. Ramsey felt a stab of sympathy for the unknown woman. Maybe she hadn’t even been reported missing. She’d died alone and away from home. Was that worse than being murdered in familiar surroundings? Somehow it seemed so.
“How valua
ble have the wits been?”
“What, the kids?” Mark shot her a look. “Told us what they knew, which didn’t turn out to be much. Both scared silly, of course. Spoutin’ nonsense about red mist and screamin’ and dancin’ lights . . . Tell you what I think.” The Jeep hit a rut with a bone-jarring bounce that rattled Ramsey’s teeth. “I think half is fueled by that blasted legend folks ’round here insist on feedin’ regularly.”
“Legend?” The case file contained only facts of the case. But when facts were in short supply, other details took on more importance.
Rollins looked pained. “Guess you’ll be hearin’ it from ’bout every person you talk to in town. I know I can count on you, out of anyone, not to be distracted by nonsense.” Still, it seemed to take him a few moments to choose his words. Or maybe he was saving his strength for wrestling the Jeep. Beneath the spread of grass, the terrain was wicked.
“We’ve got somethin’ of a local phenomena called the red mist. Someone else could explain it better, but it’s caused by some sort of reaction from certain plants in the area comin’ in contact with iron oxide in stagnant water, coupled with contaminants in the air. Once every blue moon, the fog in low-lyin’ areas takes on a red tinge for a day or two. Nothin’ magical ’bout it of course, ’cept the way it makes folks ’round here take leave of their senses.”
“So the kids that found the body saw this red mist?”
“That’s what they’re sayin’. And I do have others in these parts that claim they saw the same thing, so might’ve been true. But local legend has it that whenever the red mist appears, death follows.”
The Jeep hit a rut then that had Ramsey rapping her head smartly on the ceiling of the vehicle. With a grim smile, she repositioned herself more securely in her seat and waited for her internal organs to settle back into place. Then she shot the man beside her a look. “Well, all nonsense aside, Sheriff, so far it appears, your local legend is more grounded in facts than you want to admit.”
Rollins brought the Jeep to a halt a few hundred yards shy of the first copse of trees. “Don’t even joke about that. My office is spendin’ too much of our time dealin’ with hysterical locals who set too much store by superstitious hogwash. The truth is, this is a quiet place. The crime we do have tends to be drunk and disorderlies after payday at the lumber mill, or the occasional domestic dispute. Once in a while we have a fire or a bad accident to respond to. But violent crime is a stranger here. And when it appears, people don’t understand it. They get scared, and when folks get scared, they search for meanin’. This legend is just their way of gettin’ a handle on how bad things can happen near their town.”
Ramsey got out of the car and stretched, avoiding, as long as possible, having to look at that expanse of woods ahead of them. “That’s downright philosophical, Mark. Didn’t learn that in the psych courses at TBI.”
He reached back into the car for the shotgun mounted above the dash, and then straightened to shut the door, a ghost of a smile playing across his mouth. “You’re right there. I understand these people. Lived here most of my life. I know how they think. How they react. Don’t always agree with ’em. But I can usually figure where they’re comin’ from.”
They headed for the woods, and Ramsey could feel her palms start to dampen. Her heart began to thud. The physical reaction annoyed her. It was just trees, for Godsakes. Each nothing but a mass of carbon dioxide. And she’d mastered this ridiculous fear—she had—years ago.
Deliberately, she quickened her step. “You hoping to go hunting while we’re here?” She cocked her head at the shotgun he carried.
“Not much of a hunter. But we do have some wildlife in these parts. Those kids were downright stupid to come in here at night. There’s feral pigs in these woods. An occasional bobcat. Seen enough copperheads ’round in my time to keep me wary.”
When her legs wanted to falter at his words, she kept them moving steadily forward. Felt the first cool shadows from the trees overhead slick over her skin like a demon’s kiss.
“Wish I could tell you there was much of a crime scene,” Mark was saying as he walked alongside her. “But apparently a bunch of kids dared each other to come into the woods and fetch proof they’d been here. First ones back to town got braggin’ rights, I ’spect. So they paired off and trooped out in this direction. Shortly after the two found the victim, a few others arrived. And then the whole thing became one big mess with tracks and prints all over the damn place.”
Ramsey felt a familiar surge of impatience. No one liked to have the scene contaminated, but one of the few down-sides to her job with Raiker Forensics was that she was rarely called to a fresh crime scene. By the time their services were requested, the crime could be days or weeks old. She had to satisfy herself with case files, pictures of the scene, and notes taken by the local law enforcement.
“The way Jeffries talked, you’ve gotten more than your share of unwanted media attention.” They stepped deeper into the woods now and the trees seemed to close in, sucking them into the shadowy interior. She resisted the urge to wipe her moist palms on her pant legs. “Seems odd for national news to be interested in a homicide in rural Tennessee.”
“I suspect some local nut job tipped them off. It’s the legend again.” Mark’s face was shiny with perspiration, but Ramsey was chilled. She would be until they stepped back out into the daylight again. “Every two or three decades there’s this red mist phenomena, and a couple times in the past there’s been a death ’round the same time. The two circumstances get linked, and all of a sudden we have people jabbering about secret spells and century-old curses and what have you.”
She made a noncommittal sound. Part of her attention was keeping a wary eye out for those copperheads he’d mentioned so matter-of-factly. But despite her impatience with idle chitchat, she was interested in all the details that would be missing from the case file. Evidence was in short supply. It was people who would solve this case. People who’d seen something. Knew something. The tiniest bit of information could end up being key to solving the homicide. And with no murder weapon and no suspects and little trace evidence, she’d take all the information she could get.
“Have you eliminated each of the kids as the possible killer?”
“Shoot, Ramsey they’re no more than sixteen, seventeen years old!”
When she merely looked at him, brows raised, he had the grace to look abashed. “Yeah, I know what you’ve seen in your career. I’ve seen the same. But ’round here we don’t have kids with the conscience of wild dogs. They all alibi each other for up to thirty minutes before the body’s discovery. Witnesses place the lot of them at Sody’s parking lot for the same time. Pretty unlikely a couple hightailed it into the woods, committed murder, and dumped the body knowin’ more kids would be traipsin’ in any minute.”
Unlikely, yes. Impossible, no. But Ramsey kept her thoughts to herself. She was anxious to hear what Agents Powell and Matthews had to say on the subject.
There was a rustle in the underbrush to her right, but it didn’t get her blood racing. No, that feat was accomplished by the trees themselves, looming like sinister sentinels above her. Hemming her in with their close proximity. She rubbed at her arms, where gooseflesh prickled, and shoved at the mental door of her mind to lock those memories away.
Some would have found the scene charming, with the sun dappling the forest floor and brilliant slants of light spearing through the shadow. They wouldn’t look at the scene and see danger behind every tree trunk. Wouldn’t feel terror lurking behind. Horror ahead.
The trail narrowed, forcing her to follow Rollins single file. “Whose property are we on?”
“Most of it belongs to the county. We’ve got little parcels that butt up against the land of property owners, but we’re standin’ on county ground right now.” They walked in silence another fifteen minutes, and Ramsey wondered anew at any kids foolish enough to make this trek at night.
Sixteen or seventeen, Mark had said they were
. She knew firsthand just how naïve kids that age could be. How easily fooled. And how quickly things could go very wrong.
One moment they were deep in the woods. The next they walked out into a clearing with a large pond. It was ringed with towering pines and massive oaks, their branches dripping with Spanish moss and curling vines. The land looked rocky on three sides, but it was boggy at the water’s edge closest to them, with clumps of rushes and wild grasses interspersed between the trees.
Ramsey’s gaze was drawn immediately to the crime scene tape still fluttering from the wooden stakes hammered into the ground. A plastic evidence marker poked partway out of the trampled weeds near the pond, overlooked by the investigators when they’d packed up.
And in the center of that taped perimeter, crouched in front of the pond, a man repeatedly dunked something into the water and then held it up to examine it before repeating the action yet again. A few yards away, a jumble of equipment was piled on the ground.
She eyed Rollins. “One of yours?”