Skin Dancer

by Haines, Carolyn

  She almost told him, but Mel would worry. He was already worried. She could see it. “It’s not important,” she said, forcing a smile.

  “Rachel, is something wrong?”

  He could see her distress. Someone had broken into her home, dragging the past. Sending a message. “I’m just tired,” she said.

  I’ll bring those things over on Saturday, okay?”

  “Don’t bother. I’ll stop by and pick them up. Maybe have dinner.”

  “That would be great.” He kissed her cheek and returned to a group of potential investors.

  She wandered back to the bar, accepting a cola from the bartender. Jones had dropped a good amount of cash setting up the presentation with refreshments for the entire crowd. The prominent citizens of Criss County were yucking it up as they sipped wine and let the daydreams of dollar signs pile up in their minds. Mel was probably right. She needed to care more about these kinds of things but she didn’t.

  She caught a glimpse of a startlingly attractive woman in a red dress, dark curls brushing her shoulders. Frankie was working the room, too. Rachel had looked for her during the evening but figured she was busy backstage. She considered going over, but Frankie was doing her job. Rachel could see her fine hand in all of the décor, the wine, the smooth way the entire operation had turned from a selling venue into a community support gathering.

  She caught Jake’s eye and signaled that she was ready to go.

  “Had enough hobnobbing?”

  “Plenty.”

  “You still look pale, Rachel. Are you sure you’re okay.”

  She nodded. “I’ll get some sleep and be fine.” Her words were a lie. A plan of action had already formed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  In her dream, Rachel stood in the forest, aware that someone lurked at the edge of the shadows. She heard soft chanting, the low tones of what might be a prayer. She couldn’t pinpoint the place where the sound came from—it swept around her on the breeze. She could smell the fresh scent of the fir trees, and it didn’t matter that she was alone near Dixon Point where so much violence had been discovered. Instead of fear, she felt safe. The forest was a place of beauty and serenity.

  She walked through the trees, caught up in the wonder of the wilderness. The first drop of blood that touched her arm stopped her cold. All color drained from the forest. There was only the red splotch against the white of her skin.

  A second drop plopped onto her arm. And a third, fourth and fifth, falling faster and faster. When she looked up, she saw the bloody stump of Mullet Bellow’s neck as he dangled above her, his body skinned so that the muscle glistened wet and open.

  Rachel sat up in bed, her heart pounding. It took a moment for her to recognize the sheer curtains that softly undulated at the open window. She was at the Grand Falls, a renovated hotel in the heart of Rapid City. She’d delivered the figurine and photograph to the crime lab for fingerprinting and then, unwilling to go back to a home that was no longer safe, she’d taken a room in the hotel.

  Outside, two cats yowled, either in passion or anger. She lifted her hair, clammy with sweat, from the back of her neck, giving herself a moment to wake up. The dream was like quicksand; it didn’t want to let her go.

  She tossed back the sheets and went to the bathroom for a drink of water. The bedside clock showed four a.m. She needed more sleep, but it was useless. Instead, she turned on the lights and the small coffee pot and focused on the time line for the murders that she’d brought with her. She hadn’t wanted to leave it in her cottage for anyone to see. She felt violated and vulnerable, and that sensation reawakened every bad memory and pissed her off.

  But she couldn’t afford the luxury of misdirected anger. It was Friday morning. In less than a week, three men were dead and one missing. So much had transpired, and so suddenly. Focus. That was what she had to achieve.

  Why? Why had these events happened now? If she could understand what had prompted the killings, she might be able to find the evidence that would lead to an arrest.

  She’d made copies of all the interviews and crime scene reports that had come in, and she sat down and read through them. The killer was clever and well versed in police procedure.

  He’d left almost no clues. No physical evidence that he hadn’t wanted them to find. This was a calculated killer, or what a profiler would call organized. A smart person of above–average intelligence. Most serial killers were white males in their thirties. And, it was someone who knew the area.

  She got a sheet of paper and began to make a list of the things she knew about the murderer. He knew the wilderness well. He had access to an ATV, a four–wheel drive, some type of winch to hoist the bodies up to hang them, a knowledge of skinning and Native American folklore, enough strength to sever a human head with three blows of a machete, and he was watching his victims. He knew where Hank Welford and the doctor and Mullet and Burl would be.

  She stood up abruptly and walked to the open window. She was on the eighth floor with a view of a city park and the rapids that had given the city its name. So much beauty in such close proximity to evil. She’d known that most of her life, though. After all, her mother’s body had been found in a dumpster near the park she could see from the window. Junie had died an ugly death in the midst of this beauty.

  She went back to her notes. The killer was an outdoorsman. Maybe a poacher—a competitor who wanted to eliminate his rivals. Poacher–on–poacher crime, as Jake had insisted all along. She’d gone over the list of suspected poachers that Jake had given her, and Scott Amos had run each one down. Most had solid alibis for the times of the murders.

  She got a cup of coffee and looked at the reports. Hank, Mullet and possibly Burl were the intended targets. Burl had been fed to a wild creature, which was a statement of his worth to the killer. He was meat—inconsequential. And Trussell had been killed before he was skinned, as if the killer dispatched him to get him out of the way. So Burl and Trussell were collateral damage. But where the hell was Mullet Bellows? And why did the killer mutilate his victims in such a gruesome way?

  She had no answers.

  Flipping through the photographs, she stopped at the totem with the owl feather. If the pole and feather weren’t part of a Sioux tradition, they held special meaning for the killer. Or maybe the killer was clouding the water, trying to frame the Sioux.

  She logged onto her laptop and went to the Internet, surfing through various sites on Native American lore. The only information she found confirmed what Adam Standing Bear had told her–the feather of an owl was associated with a prophecy of death. Did the feather foretell Hank’s death, or was it the prophecy of Mullet’s death?

  She returned to the stack of photographs, studying the way the feather had been tied with fishing line so that it could be attached to the bamboo pole. She was dealing with symbolism, as Adam Standing Bear had mentioned, but the clues were vague, personal to the killer.

  Continuing through the photographs, she stopped at a close up of the boot guard. It was a beautiful piece, the whorls of silver elegant. Another clue she couldn’t decipher.

  She poured the last of the coffee in her cup and picked up the photograph of the hair clamp found at the mannequin site. The DNA report would come in eventually. Would Justine claim the clamp as hers? Would she consent to a DNA sample?

  What was going on between Derek Baxter and Justine? And how did that impact Richard Jones? Justine was twenty years younger than he was, but that didn’t appear to concern either of them.

  She paced the room, aware of the loneliness that followed her like a shadow, and she knew she was avoiding thinking about the dream that had awakened her. Because she knew Mullet was dead. The dream wasn’t prophetic, but it represented the message her subconscious was sending. Dixon Point—that tiny little finger of county land that stretched deep into the national forest. Though they’d searched the area thoroughly, Rachel had to give it another try.

  She checked out of the hotel and headed back
to Bisonville. It was several hours until dawn, and right now she couldn’t stand her own company or the feeling of being hamstrung. She needed a shower and a clean uniform.

  # # #

  Bisonville was a ghost town as Rachel drove through the empty streets. Even the neon in front of Bud’s Bar had been turned off. There were only darkened store fronts, and in the starlight Rachel could easily imagine the town as the gathering spot for prospectors and speculators. A bit farther north was Deadwood, which had captured the imagination of a television show, but Bisonville had a colorful past, too. A bloody past.

  She pulled in at the courthouse and got out. The pre–dawn was soft, gentle, a kiss of summer. The winters were cold with deep snows. Her mother had often talked of spending the snowy months in the Southwest. Junie had loved the idea of San Antonio. She never made it there, but that Texas town, home of the Alamo, had represented heaven to Junie. Rachel, though, was happy in Bisonville. Or she had been until the murders occurred and a man she’d known most of her life had been tainted as a possible murderer.

  In the office she wrote a full report on Derek Baxter and what she hoped to glean from interviewing him. She left the report on Scott’s desk, along with a request for Scott to interview the young man when he came in at eight. She had other things to do, but she wasn’t about to tell anyone that she was following dream images back up into the mountains.

  “Gladys, I’ve got to check something up at Dixon Point. Be sure Scott reads this first thing, okay? I’ll be back by nine. And send a locksmith out to my house. I want all the locks changed. He can leave the bill and the keys here at the office.”

  “You betcha.” Gladys never looked up from her paperback.

  Rachel picked up the keys to the ATV and the four–wheel drive pickup. Outside, she loaded the all terrain vehicle into the back of the truck. The streets had come alive while she was inside. Even though her stomach growled a demand for breakfast, she sped through town and headed to Dixon Point.

  She made one stop and picked up some canned goods to leave at the trailhead for John Henry when she passed Piker Road.

  She pressed harder on the accelerator, pushing her past behind her. Driving up to Dixon Point at daybreak wasn’t logical. It wasn’t even smart. Sometimes, though, it didn’t matter what anyone else thought. The dream had been so vivid. She had to listen to her instincts.

  # # #

  Derek walked into the sheriff’s office and looked around for Deputy Redmond, but he only saw a middle–aged dispatcher and a male deputy. The bitch who’d ordered him to appear was late.

  The deputy stood and motioned him over. “I’m Scott Amos,” he said. “If you’re Derek Baxter, take a seat.”

  Derek started to argue, but the sooner this was over the better for him. He sat.

  “Are you involved with WAR?” the deputy asked.

  The question came so hard and fast that Derek was unprepared. “What makes you think I am?”

  “Answer the question, Mr. Baxter.”

  “I don’t have to say a damn thing. I came in here voluntarily to help you out and now you’re accusing me of being part of an organization.”

  “No,” Scott said, “I’m just asking if you’re a member. Are you?”

  “What if I am?”

  Scott picked up the telephone. He pressed a button. “Sheriff, I think we’ve got our first member of WAR. Yes, sir, he’s sitting right here.”

  Derek started to stand but Scott waved him back into his seat. He put a hand over the phone. “I wouldn’t leave just yet, son, the sheriff wants to talk to you.”

  “I’ve got to go.” Derek actually gained his feet this time. He was walking toward the door when a large hand caught his shoulder. He turned to face the sheriff.

  “I’ve got some questions for you, Mr. Baxter.”

  “I have to go. I’ve got a job interview.”

  The sheriff tightened his grip. “I think you need to know your rights, Mr. Baxter, since we’re arresting you for vandalism of road equipment. Scott, would you tell them to him?”

  The deputy came to his other side. “You have the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney…”

  Derek looked around the sad little office. He felt he was slipping beneath the surface of something much bigger than he was. He’d come in expecting to answer a few questions about his whereabouts. He’d alibied himself with the other members of WAR so that each one would tell the same story.

  “What are you charging me with?” he demanded.

  “Well, I have a list of things, Mr. Baxter. Come on into my office and I’ll go over them with you.”

  Derek hated the good–ole–boy tone the sheriff used. He hated that he was powerless to resist his orders. He squared his shoulders and followed the sheriff into his office. When the door closed behind him, he knew he was in serious trouble.

  # # #

  Rachel throttled the ATV and roared up the steep incline. Loose shale rattled behind her as she increased the gas with a flip of her wrist. If she stopped now, she’d fall backward. Hunkering down over the handle bars, she gave the machine all she had and kept her gaze on the top of the ridge. When at last she reached a plateau, she stopped and surveyed the area around her. ATVs normally weren’t allowed in this part of the wilderness. Only law enforcement and state game wardens could use them.

  As soon as she switched the engine off, she was surrounded by silence. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes, wondering how the interview with Baxter was going. She was more than likely a fool to push that off on Scott. Not that he wouldn’t do a good job, but she knew what she was looking for in Derek Baxter, and Scott and Gordon would have him sitting in a jail cell, waiting for her to return.

  She left Razor Ridge, where the outcropping of granite formed what looked like a sheer, slick razor blade. Dixon Point was over the next ridge. She’d come in from the east, hoping to see something new, something she’d missed before. The dream had been so damn real.

  Shaking her head at her own foolishness, she gave the machine more fuel and took off. The sooner she checked Dixon Point the sooner she could get back to the office.

  As she approached the area where Hank’s and the doctor’s bodies had been hung, she slowed. Near a small puddle, there were fresh ATV tracks. It was possible they’d been made by the volunteer searchers, but she’d understood most of the search had been conducted on foot so that the ravines and slopes could be thoroughly examined.

  Her hand reached for the gas again, but she hesitated, yielding to the distinct sense that someone was watching her. She whirled, her hand going to the weapon at her waist. Nothing moved. Tense and anxious, she searched the area around her.

  When the large bird flapped out of the thick cover of a tree, she instinctively pulled her gun and took aim. She recognized the wingspan and grace of the eagle before she shot. As she reholstered her pistol, she realized her heart was thumping painfully in her chest. The violation of her home, on top of the old Sioux stories, had gotten to her.

  Skin dancers. Sure.

  She headed on up the trail, but she hadn’t gone more than twenty yards when she stopped in shock.

  The blank eye sockets of Ashton Trussell were fixed in her direction. A small hole centered his forehead. Next to Trussell was what remained of Burl Mascotti’s mauled head. Both had been carefully placed so that they greeted her as she slowly entered the place where Hank and Trussell had been found.

  She saw the body hanging from the same limb. Mullet Bellows, or what remained of him, swung in the gentle wind. There was no way for her to identify him, but she knew it was Mullet. His body had been skinned and his head removed. A silver ornament was skewered to his chest with a porcupine quill, and beside the remains was a bamboo pole, this one containing two owl feathers.

  Rachel had an urge to flee, to get on the ATV and ride as fast as she could toward town, but she couldn’t. She had to secure the crime scene, and hopefully unearth some evidence that would point her to the killer.
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  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The body bag zipped shut over what remained of Mullet Bellows. The technician fixed the zipper tab and stood.

  “We’ll get some prints to positively identify the body. He hasn’t been dead more than fourteen, eighteen hours,” Gus Langstrom said. Around Rachel the crime scene techs finished working the site. Rachel had had time to study the scene in depth.

  “He was dragged a good distance, but based on the blood, I think he was still alive when he was skinned. We’ll be able to give a more exact time of death once we get the body to the lab. No sign of Mullet’s head, huh?” Gus asked.

  “Nothing.” Rachel nodded toward the place where the heads of Burl and Trussell had already been bagged and removed. “The killer brought two heads back and took Mullet’s.”

  “This one is a real sicko,” Gus said. “Tell Gordon they might be able to turn this around as some kind of tourist attraction, though. Some folks like to visit the site where serial killers did their worst. And this killer is obviously fixated on Dixon Point.”

  “Mullet was alive most of the time he was missing, and we couldn’t find a single lead.” Rachel looked down at the ground saturated with blood.

  If she’d been smarter, faster, more competent, she might have saved Mullet’s life. If Gus’s time line was correct, Mullet, and she knew it was Mullet, was being skinned while she was at the Paradise meeting.”

  “Are you okay?” Jake asked as he walked up beside her. “You’re pale and you’ve been acting strange since last night.”

  “Lack of sleep.” She turned away from Jake’s probing gaze. “Mullet’s wrist and knee were broken.” Bones didn’t grow like that naturally.

  “This isn’t your fault, Rachel. None of us have been able to get ahead of this killer.” Jake knelt, searching the ground. “He wants these men to suffer. I think he’s as motivated by suffering as he is by killing.”

  “This is extremely personal, and whoever is doing it has left us plenty of clues. We just don’t know how to read them.” She held up the bag with the second silver toe guard. Gus had pulled it from the body but allowed her to hold on to it. “This one is exactly like the other one, or as exact as a hand–crafted item can be.”