Deadfall

by Patricia H. Rushford

  “What else am I supposed to think? We’ve had an army of people out there all day combing every inch of those woods. He isn’t there.” Rachael took a long sip of water.

  “Maybe he just took off.” Todd tipped back his head, his Adam’s apple moving up and down as he drank nearly half of the sixteen ounces of water. “He could be back at the cabin right now, wondering where everybody is.”

  “Have you tried calling him?” Vicki asked hopefully.

  Todd nodded. “Every hour. But he could have gotten a ride with one of the truckers. Maybe he decided to split for a while.” He nodded toward Jessica. “Maybe he wanted to get away from her.”

  “He wouldn’t do that without letting us know,” Vicki insisted.

  “We don’t know that.” Todd ran a hand through his wet hair, displacing his cap and knocking it to the ground. He stooped to snatch it up.

  “Jessica said he’d been drinking.” Vicki’s voice trembled with barely disguised anger.

  “Maybe we should check out places he likes to go,” Rachael offered. “He could have gone up to Mount Hood or Bachelor to snowboard. With all this rain, there’s bound to be new snow. You know how he likes to be out in that stuff.”

  “We should check with his friends,” Todd said.

  “I’ll do that,” Rachael offered. “I need to get home anyway. Kip and I can make some calls and go to all Brad’s haunts—ask if anyone has seen him. Like you said, he could have come down and seen that Jessica was gone and then hitched a ride into town.”

  Vicki allowed herself to get caught up in their whirlwind of hope. She kissed her daughter good-bye and then grasped her husband’s hand. Watching Rachael leave, she prayed they were right and that Brad was at home—or somewhere, safe and alive.

  AT FOUR O’CLOCK, Mac’s cell phone vibrated. He and Dana had been following the upper trail. Flipping open his cell, he answered, “Mac here.”

  “Fun’s over, Mac.” His partner, Kevin Bledsoe, sounded none too happy. “We got a twelve-forty-nine. Body was found by a real-estate assessor at the old Cazadero Mill on Faraday Road, east of Estacada. A guy was found in the old sawmill out here. Sawed in half.”

  “You’re kidding.” Mac glanced at Dana, who joined him on the trail.

  “Wish I was.”

  “Have you ID’d him?” Mac wondered briefly if the murder victim might be their missing guy, then dismissed the idea. No reason to make that kind of connection.

  “Not yet. The assessor said it was a male. I’m en route—M.E. should be there within the half-hour. Where are you?”

  “Wah-kella Falls area—about two miles from the top of the falls.”

  “How soon can you get out here?”

  Mac wished he’d taken his own car. He hated to pull Dana out of the search. “Hang on, Kevin.” He told Dana about the murder.

  “You’ll have to take me out there, or I’ll try to catch a ride.”

  Glancing at her watch, Dana said, “I’m with you.”

  “We’re on our way. Should be there within the hour.”

  “We?” Mac could picture Kevin’s raised eyebrow. “Don’t tell me; let me guess. You’re with Trooper Bennett.”

  Mac grinned, not really minding the implication. “Yeah. You got a problem with that?”

  “Not at all, partner. Just curious.” Kevin chuckled. “This one sounds pretty grisly, Mac. Dana might want to think twice about coming in on it.”

  “I’ll tell her.”

  As he and Dana jogged down the trail, Mac’s concerns about Bradley Gaynes returned, but he didn’t voice them. He wanted to be wrong. He wanted Gaynes to walk out of the woods a few miles down the road. He wanted the girlfriend to be an innocent bystander. There was nothing thus far to indicate foul play, and he hoped it stayed that way.

  “You think Brad might be the victim at the sawmill?” Dana asked after they had checked out with the command center and were pulling out of the parking lot. Her flushed cheeks, sparkling aquamarine eyes, and breathless voice made her more appealing than usual.

  “Crossed my mind.” Mac pulled his gaze from hers. Down, boy. She’s got a boyfriend and you—you’re in limbo. “Estacada isn’t all that far away. They haven’t ID’d him yet.”

  “Guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Dana said, merging into the freeway traffic.

  “Are you familiar with the Cazadero Mill?” Mac asked.

  “Yeah. The sawmill went out of business a little over a year ago. The owners left it as is, hoping to sell it, but nothing so far. There’s still thousands of dollars in equipment in the building with a razor cyclone fence around it, but like any abandoned property, after a while it starts looking attractive to the bad guys. Some creeps were dealing drugs out of it for a while. We closed them down.”

  “Right. I heard about that.” Mac glanced at her. “Maybe they started back up again.”

  She shrugged.

  “Kevin said a real-estate assessor found the body. Makes me wonder how well the security guys are doing their job.”

  “I think it’s one of those agencies that checks in once a shift. If the bad guys knew the routine, they could stay under the radar.”

  Mac shifted in his seat. “Kevin said you might want to stay out of the foray on this one. It’s pretty gruesome.”

  Dana bit her lower lip. “Aren’t they all?”

  “Yeah, but this guy was sawed in half.”

  Dana sucked in a sharp breath and gave Mac a quick glance.

  “Sawed in half!”

  “Don’t know if it’s postmortem or notou sure you want to see it?” Mac raised an eyebrow, already knowing the answer.

  “Not really, but yes. If you don’t mind me tagging along.”

  Mac shrugged, “It’s your time, Dana.”

  Dana cut through Gresham on Highway 26, then down to Highway 224 from the town of Sandy, turning off onto Faraday Road toward the condemned Cazadero Mill on the Clackamas River. They pulled off the road, parking between a Clackamas County Sheriff ’s SUV and an OSP Cruiser. Mac noted that the medical examiner’s truck was there, as well as the Ford pickup belonging to the crime lab. The Camry probably belonged to the reporting party. It was hemmed in by two official vehicles, which in all likelihood belonged to the original responding officers.

  Yellow crime-scene tape had been set in place over one hundred yards from the mill’s entrance. Mac recognized Kevin’s influence there. “An outer perimeter to a crime scene can never be too big.” Mac could almost hear Kevin’s deep voice. “Start big, and you can always make it smaller. Start small, and if you need to go bigger, you’re in trouble.”

  Mac and Dana logged into the crime scene, waiting to make eye contact with Kevin before walking to the front entrance of the mill to avoid disturbing the evidence.

  “Watch your step.” Kevin peered at them over his clipboard.

  “Follow the yellow-brick road.”

  “Follow the what?” Dana asked Mac.

  Mac chuckled as he pulled some rubber shoe covers from the trunk. “That yellow strip of crime-scene tape on the ground.” Mac pointed to the four-inch-wide yellow plastic tape that ran from the parking lot to the mill entrance, where Kevin was standing with the chief medical examiner, Dr. Kristen Thorpe. With her usual getup and short, spiked burgundy hair, the M.E. was hard to miss. He smiled remembering the first time he’d seen her. He couldn’t stop staring at her, and she’d fixed his curiosity good by accusing him of flirting.

  “Humph. Looks like someone needs to tie their crime-scene tape a little better.” Dana nodded toward the tape.

  “Well, that’s Kevin’s yellow-brick road. He wants us to walk the same path to the mill entrance, which I assume he already searched for evidence. If we walk on the tape, it should be a safe path into the building so we don’t disturb anything. Here, put these rubber booties over your boots so we don’t leave any shoe prints in the sawdust. I think Kevin secretly likes seizing shoes for evidence from emergency personnel, especially firemen.”
/>   “Why does he take their shoes?” Dana asked, slipping the large rubber slip-ons over her small boots.

  “If he finds shoe prints in the crime scene, he has to compare all the shoes that emergency personnel wore into the scene. It’s a process of elimination. Sometimes they don’t ever get their shoes back; they just sit in evidence for years if no suspect is arrested.”

  “Yikes. I just paid a hundred and sixty dollars for this pair. I’d rather keep them, so thanks for the rubber covers. They look like the boots my mother made me wear to the bus stop when I was a kid, except for the smooth soles.”

  “Perfect for not leaving prints. Here, wrap some duct tape around the top so they stay on your feet. We can just throw them away when we are done. I go through a lot of them.” Mac tossed Dana a roll of tape.

  When Dana finished securing the rubber covers to her boots, they walked the tape to the entrance.

  “Sorry I’m so late, partner,” Mac said. “We got here as fast as we could.”

  “No problem.” Kevin looked pale, and Mac noticed a line of perspiration on his upper lip. Mac had never seen Kevin get sick at a crime scene.

  “You feeling okay, Kevin?” he asked.

  “Yeah, nothing to worry about. I just need a little air.” He glanced over at Dana. “How have you been?”

  “Great. I just completed a crisis negotiation course last week.

  Should come in handy someday.”

  “Good for you.” Kevin studied Dana a moment, then he said, “Listen, I don’t mind you coming into the scene. Just don’t get into hot water with your patrol sergeant if you should be taking other calls.”

  “Not to worry, Detective. This is all on my own time. He knows what my career goals are.”

  “All right, then. Come on in. This one is not for the faint of heart, so prepare yourselves.” Kevin led the way into the lumber mill’s main saw room. Once inside the enormous dark room, he gestured toward a large table where Kristen Thorpe was taking photographs. “Looks like we have a transient living in an office in one of the outbuildings. We found a cot, a few toiletries, and some clothing—nothing that helps us ID the guy. The guys from the identification bureau are hoping to lift some prints from the room where the guy was staying, but it’s going to be tough with all this dust floating around.”

  “So we think the victim was the transient?” Dana asked.

  We, Mac thought. Didn’t take her long to feel at home.

  “I think so. The victim is dressed in a camouflage shirt and jacket, with wool hunting pants. It’s the same type of clothing we found in the room. He isn’t wearing any shoes or socks, and we found a pair of boots under his bunk that look like his size. This old mill is up for auction, along with all the heavy equipment. An assessor from the auction house was the one who found the body.

  He came by this morning to itemize the mill’s equipment when he made the discovery. I think the victim was living out here for whatever reason, killing wild game to stay alive. There are several deer hides and meat hooks in the back of this main room. I can’t imagine one man eating that much meat, unless he’s lived here for years, so I haven’t quite figured that out yet. With his sleeping bag turned out and his lack of shoes, I think someone paid a visit to our victim last night—probably surprised him.”

  “Any clues from the body on cause of death?” Mac asked.

  “There’s no doubt about this one, Mac. Come take a look.”The three stepped carefully over to Kristen, who was still taking photographs of the gruesome scene. The victim had been cut into two pieces, from the tip of his head through his pelvis, with a giant band saw that was designed for cutting heavy timber beams. The saw had dried blood on it, along with what were probably chunks of hair and bone dust. Blood spatter reached all the way to where they were standing.

  “Hey, Mac. Welcome to the slaughterhouse.” Kristen’s broad smile showed under the large camera. “Looks like a case of split personality, if you ask me.”

  Dana grimaced. “Split personality?” she mouthed to Mac.

  “You’ll get used to her,” Mac said.“Our Dr. Thorpe thinks she’s a stand-up comedian.”

  “Oh, well in that case . . . breaking up is hard to do.” Dana grinned. “I’m Dana Bennett. I was at the Tyson body dump scene working the crime scene tape.”

  Kristen chuckled. “I remember you, Dana. ‘Breaking up’— that’s a good one.”

  Feeling the need to add his own pun, Mac said, “I’m thinking maybe he was killed because he was two-faced.”

  Kristen and Dana both groaned.

  “Enough with the gallows humor, guys. Maybe we all should just do our job.” Kevin cast each of them a withering look. “Dying is rough enough without having you yahoos mocking his corpse.”

  Mac raised his eyebrows at Kristen, who shrugged her shoulders and continued to take photosothing bothered her, but Mac was a little put off. Kevin and other senior detectives had made jokes like that dozens of times, and Kevin never seemed to mind.

  In fact, most of the detectives indulged in some sort of gallows humor. It made the horrendous tasks they had to face go down a little easier. Maybe Kevin wasn’t feeling well. Or maybe something was going on at home. Mac decided to ignore Kevin’s surly attitude. Instead, he focused on the crime scene, which was indeed horrific.

  The band saw blade looped through a giant steel feeding table, around a floor guide, and then back into the saw engine that was mounted twenty feet above the table. The victim had been forced through the blade, nearly through the center of his head and torso, slicing through one wrist before completing the cut. The victim’s wrists had been bound in the front by a heavy wrapping of silver duct tape. Mac made a mental note to secure the tape at autopsy in case the killer had left prints.

  “I’m thinking the guy was alive when he went through the saw.”

  Kristen lowered the camera. “It looks like he took a blow to the head prior to death; you can see the bleeding by the left temple.

  The tape on his hands leads me to believe he was knocked out and then bound, probably prior to the saw blade finishing the job.”

  “Whew.” Dana shuddered. “What a way to go. I hope he wasn’t conscious.”

  Kevin nodded and turned to Mac. “The latent guys lifted a partial boot print mold from the area around the saw prior to printing the room where the guy lived. They didn’t have much luck around the saw blade or controls. The killer was probably wearing gloves.”

  “I’ve got plenty of pictures,” Kristen said. “Let’s load him into a body bag and schedule an autopsy. You guys go ahead and bag those hands now, so we can protect that tape and his fingernails.”

  “Why do you need to bag the hands?” Dana asked.

  Since Kevin had elected to do the job, Mac answered. “We bag the hands with paper sacks so nothing is lost in transit. We’ll examine his fingernails at the postmortem examination, in case there is forensic evidence under his nails or on the tape.”

  Dana stepped back as Mac donned gloves and helped Kevin and Kristen prepare the body for transport. They transferred the bagged body to the waiting stretcher and then wheeled it out to Dr. Thorpe’s Dodge pickup.

  “When can you get to the post on this guy, Doc?” Kevin asked.

  “How does tomorrow look for you?” She glanced in Mac’s direction. “Say, eight-thirty?”

  “Fine with me.” Mac ripped off his gloves and tossed them in the disposal box in Kristen’s truck.

  “Are you coming to the post, Dana?” Kristen removed her gloves as well.

  “Um—you mean post as in autopsy?”

  “Right.”

  “I’d like to, but I can’t. Have to work. I’ll take a rain check, though.” She grinned up at Mac then let her gaze slide to Kristen. “I’m hoping to make detective, and Mac tells me I should get all the experience I can.”

  “Good,” Kristen said in a clipped tone, her jocular manner gone. “Call me anytime. I’ll arrange it.”

  Kristen climbed into her tr
uck, put on her headphones, and started the engine. Strains of rock music lingered as she drove away.

  “Interesting woman,” Dana said. “I like her. She’s eccentric and funny and very smart.”

  Mac watched the truck exit the gate and turn onto the road.

  “Yeah. She’s eccentric, all right.”

  “What do we do now?” Dana folded her arms, her gaze moving from Mac to Kevin.

  “Go home,” Kevin answered. “The crime lab guys will finish up and take care of the scene.” He headed for his car. “See you tomorrow, Mac.”

  “Right. Did you want me to pick you up at the office?” Mac asked.

  “Would you mind swinging by my house?” Kevin tossed Dana a smile. “Mac’s been acting as my chauffeur, so I might as well take advantage of his generosity while I can.”

  Mac and Kevin worked as a team. Mac usually drove, but he’d never picked his partner up at his home. Though his gut told him something wasn’t right, Mac didn’t comment. “Sure,” he teased.

  “I’ll just put in for overtime and list chauffeuring Kevin on my time card.”

  “Smart-mouth.” Kevin rolled his eyes at Dana. “See what I have to put up with?”

  “Such a hardship. Hey, thanks for letting me observe.”

  “You’re welcome. Anytime.”

  As Mac and Dana headed in a northwesterly direction across the Glen Jackson Bridge toward Vancouver, Dana chatted about Bradley Gaynes, saying she hoped the search party had found him by now.

  “We could ask,” Mac suggested.

  “We could.” Dana pulled up her radio and contacted Deputy Wyatt. The news wasn’t good. They’d called in the searchers at dusk and would resume the search in the morning.

  “That poor family.” Dana sighed. “I wish I could go back out.”

  “I know.”

  “I also wish I could go to the autopsy. It would be nice to follow through with this case. See how you and Kevin operate.”

  “I’ll try to keep you posted. Want to meet for coffee Wednesday morning before work?”

  “I’d love that.”

  Dana’s obvious enthusiasm made him laugh. She looked and sounded delighted. He wished Linda could be that excited about his job. Mac could relate to Dana. He’d been and still was eager to learn. Even now with some experience under his belt, Mac could hardly wait for tomorrow and for the autopsy. The evidence and the criminal process would eventually tell them who the unfortunate victim was, and hopefully the trail would lead them to the killer.