“What do you think happened?” Lin repeated the earlier question, “Why was Sandy killed?”
“I think she saw something,” Jack replied, “saw something going on in the forest that was illegal maybe. She had a camera, maybe she tried to photograph someone to document what they were doing. I think someone caught her, and they killed her—killed her and took the camera. I’ve always thought that. It just makes sense.”
Apparently, the authorities thought the man they pursued to Florida might have sold the camera somewhere,” Sue said.
“I know, I heard that too,” Jack replied, “but they never found any receipt, pawn ticket, or anything—nothing to help them find the camera. Personally, I don’t think he ever had it. It’s probably been destroyed by now, but I’ve always believed that camera would’ve helped solve her killing. She found someone out in the woods, doing something illegal, and she tried to document what she saw and got caught. Supposedly, the cops searched the area near where her body was found, but they said they didn’t find any evidence of improper or illegal activities going on. I’ve always been puzzled by that fact. I don’t know, maybe they really didn’t look too carefully to begin with. They sure were quick to declare the case closed when that hiker got killed and they found the guy with his car.”
Sue began to wrap up the questions, taking a few final notes about Jack Davis’s thoughts on the case. Lin was thoughtful. It was such a sad story—a young woman at the start of an exciting new chapter in her life, taking pictures on a beautiful late summer morning—what and whom could she have seen? At just that moment a disturbing thought crept into Lin’s mind. She found herself thinking back to the “crime scene tour” she and Sue had undertaken earlier. What had they observed when they were at the scene of Sandy Hill’s death? Suddenly, Lin remembered. Remembered the panic she’d felt at the time. Remembered Eustace Hinson ordering them off “his” property right near the place where Sandy Hill met her killer.
***
It was late afternoon by the time Sue and Lin arrived back at home. The fog and mist had steadily increased during the afternoon. It had stopped raining hard, but it was almost impossible to be outside without becoming soaked by the fine droplets that pervaded the atmosphere.
“I hope Luke doesn’t decide not to come this evening; it’s awfully nasty out there,” Sue said.
“I hope so too,” Lin said. “I’m really interested in his designs for Neal’s desk. He really seems to be a talented young man.”
“If the things we saw are representative of all his work,” Sue remarked, “then I feel sure the desk will be beautiful and one of a kind.” She moved about the kitchen collecting things to set the table for their dinner. They were both glad that they’d put some chicken and mushrooms in the slow cooker that morning. Now Sue added some white wine to the mix while Lin prepared some rice and vegetables to round out their meal. Soon they were sitting down to a delicious coq au vin.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve used a slow cooker,” Sue said, “I’d forgotten how easy it is. We’ll have to do this more often.”
“I’d almost stopped using mine altogether after the kids left home, Lin replied. “Then once Neal came into my life, he reminded me of just how useful it is. He’s a terrific cook, and he uses a slow cooker often. He got me back into it.” She bit into a forkful of the tasty, tender chicken.
About that time they heard someone at the door. “Must be Luke,” Lin said, getting up to let him in. She took his soggy jacket and hung it on a chair in the entry hall. “Come on back to the kitchen. We were just finishing up our dinner. Have you eaten yet?”
“Oh, I’m sorry I interrupted you eating,” Luke seemed embarrassed, “I’ll wait in the other room while you finish. I was in town and thought I’d come by while I was here—Grandpa will have dinner ready when I get home, if he doesn’t forget that is.”
“Don’t chance it,” Lin smiled at the young man, “Here, sit down. We have plenty.” She spooned a generous helping of chicken and rice onto a plate then poured a glass of tea for the young man who appeared to be hungry indeed. He attacked the food eagerly.
“Hey, this is good,” he almost grinned, “Lot better than Grandpa’s cooking.” Lin and Sue smiled as they watched him enjoy his meal. There was something satisfying about feeding a young, hungry man.
“You make the cooks feel appreciated,” Sue remarked, “I’m glad you came early.”
When they’d all finished, Sue cleared away the dishes and leftovers, making room for Luke to spread out his drawings. Lin looked over his shoulder as he explained the points of his design for a custom-made desk. It was beautiful, a long rectangular top with a beautiful balance of shelves and drawers beneath. Luke had a couple of possible variations sketched out. Lin could just imagine how beautiful the finished product would be in cherry.
Luke finished describing his work and then they discussed the price and the timetable for completing the work. Lin noticed that Sue had finished clearing up from dinner and was making a fresh pot of coffee. She’d assembled a plate of brownies and homemade cookies left from an earlier afternoon of baking. Approaching the table she looked at the beautiful drawings. “These are gorgeous Luke, you’re a true artist. I’m sure your Grandfather, your whole family, must be very proud of you. “
Thank-you, ma’am, and thanks for the dinner too,” Luke spoke shyly but Lin noticed he didn’t mention his grandfather or any other family member. He began to fold up his drawings.
“I hope you’ll stay for some coffee and cookies,” Lin urged. “We need help eating some of these sweets.”
Luke smiled sheepishly, but he sat down and reached for a brownie as soon as Sue put the plate on the table.
After they’d all had some sweets and enjoyed their first cup of coffee, Sue got up to fetch the carafe and refill their cups. “You know Luke. We know you are talented, but where did you get your gift? Tell us about your family, if you don’t mind that is.” She hoped the young man would feel comfortable, having enjoyed a good dinner and concluding a nice business deal.
“Not much to tell,” Luke replied, staring into his cup. “My Mom died when I was about ten, my Pa had left before that—don’t really know where he went. I heard later on he was dead too. Grandpa raised me. Grandma had already died by that time. Now Grandpa’s mind isn’t good any more. Sometimes he forgets things, sometimes he wanders off and gets lost around his own place. I try not to leave him much. One of the neighbors is keeping an eye on him now. It’s hard for me to get out and do my business sometimes.”
“Who taught you how to work so beautifully with wood?” Lin asked, “Does anyone in your family do work like that?”
“No ma’am, not really. I learned in school. That was my favorite class at the high school—woodshop. I learned there.” Luke spoke about his work with true love. This was a young man who truly had found his calling.
“Well, you’re very talented,” Lin remarked, “I’m sure your business will grow. Someday you’ll have a family of your own, maybe you’ll have children to follow in your footsteps.” Sue smiled, realizing that Lin was trying to work the conversation around to more personal issues.
Lin’s tactic seemed to work. Luke sat quietly, obviously deep in thought. “I don’t know about that,” Luke said softly, “ Oh, I was in love once, was going to get married even—but she’s gone now, forever.” There were tears forming in the young man’s eyes.
“What happened Luke? I’d think any girl would be proud to marry a fine young man like you,” Sue tried to move the conversation forward.
“Oh, she didn’t leave me,” a certain spark—maybe anger—seemed to drive away some of the sadness. “Somebody killed her, killed her and our baby. The cops tried to blame it on me, but it wasn’t me; I’d never done anything to hurt Sara—I loved her too much.”
“Then who did kill her?” Sue asked boldly.
“The cops never did arrest anybody for it. Say they don’t have enough evidence. Somebody got aw
ay with murder, that’s what I say.” Luke was breathing hard, caught between anger and sorrow.
Sue knew now was the time to ask the important question. “Who do you think did it Luke? Do you know, or have a good idea?”
Luke didn’t say anything for a moment. He finally took a deep breath and asked if he could have more coffee. Lin moved to refill his cup. He took a long drink and sat back in his chair.
“I can’t prove nothing, so it doesn’t do any good to accuse anyone, but in my heart I think Grandpa did it—he killed Sara. He didn’t want me to marry her, said she’d ruin my life. I think he was afraid I’d leave home if I got married. I still think he’d do almost anything he could to keep me there with him.”
Luke sat for a few more minutes, sipping on his coffee. It was clear he still had strong feelings about Sara and the discussion had upset him. Finally he rose to leave, “I need to get going and I’m sorry I got off on all this. I shouldn’t have talked about Sara here. I don’t usually talk about it at all any more, don’t know what got into me.” He shook his head.
“Don’t worry Luke, please it’s OK. We asked you questions about your family and one thing just led to another. We understand how you must feel and we won’t say anything to your grandfather, if we see him again,” Sue tried to reassure the young man.
“I know,” Luke said, “I appreciate that. Grandpa doesn’t know what he’s doing most of the time, much less remember what happened in the past. It doesn’t really matter any more, I guess. Nothing would bring my Sara back anyway.”
“I thank you for your business,” Luke spoke to Lin. “I’ll do a good job for you, I promise. I’m glad to have a use for that old cherry tree I got. It should be real pretty.”
“It will be beautiful,” Lin smiled, “and your design will fit perfectly in my home. I can’t wait to see it.”
“I should have it roughed out in a couple of weeks if you want to come by and check on it,” Luke was refocused on his work at this point. “I just have to finish up that oak desk you saw, then I’ll get started on this one. Come by anytime.”
Sue boxed up the leftover brownies and cookies and gave them to Luke to take home. The young man thanked her and then was off, disappearing into the thick fog just beyond their porch as he head toward his truck.
Lin and Sue were both in thoughtful moods after Luke left. Neither said anything much as they finished putting things up in the kitchen and clearing up from their coffee and dessert. Finally Sue spoke, “I was a little surprised at how quickly Luke picked up the topic of Sara’s murder, frankly I expected him to be reluctant to say anything.”
“I agree,” Lin replied, “but I got the impression that he has very strong feelings on the subject. They lie just beneath the surface and are ready to come out when he’s in a situation where he feels comfortable talking. What he said really made me think.”
“Me too, and I am definitely ready to talk more about that,” Sue continued. “Let’s go down to the office. I think it’s time to pull together some of the information we’ve gathered in the last few days.”
“I agree,” Lin was eager to do this. “Do you know what I was thinking when we left our meeting with Jack Davis this afternoon?”
“Probably, the same thing I’ve been thinking,” Sue smiled, “That there’s a common link that keeps coming into the conversations we’ve been having—at least in some of them.”
“And I can’t forget who we encountered when we visited the place where Sandy Hill’s body was found—Eustace Hinson,” Lin said.
“Also,” Sue added, “some of the other crime scenes are pretty close to that one. Something is definitely going on in that ‘neck of the woods’.”
“It may all be circumstantial,” Lin remarked, “we really haven’t uncovered any concrete evidence.”
“That may be true,” Sue added, “but even circumstantial evidence bears looking into—it may lead in a productive direction.”
They had just decided to head downstairs and work on organizing what they knew and didn’t know when Lin’s cell phone rang. It was Mark Scott.
“Hello Mark, we were just talking about you earlier today—hoping you’d be able to find someone willing to look into some of these cases,” Lin said.
“ Well, that’s why I’m calling. I spoke today with one of the agents in the FBI office down in Hickory. He seemed doubtful that the agency would want to assign anyone to look into these cases, specifically, because we really don’t have much evidence to go on; however, he was very concerned about having so many unsolved cases connected to the Parkway and by the fact that local law enforcement seems to have made no real progress on any of the cases. Long story short, he didn’t make any promises, but he is coming up here with his family on vacation next week, and he did agree to take the time to talk with us about what we do know. After that, if he thinks it is worthwhile, he’ll ask his supervisor about possibly investigating. He’s agreed to meet us for breakfast on Sunday morning. That’s the best I could do at this point.”
“Thanks Mark, that’s good news. At least he’s willing to listen. I guess it’s up to us to convince him these deaths are worth a closer look. We’ll look forward to meeting him,” Lin replied. She knew this might be difficult but at least they would have a chance. She thought of something else that might help their case.
“We’ll do our best to have all our information and our questions organized,” she continued, “meanwhile, there’s something you might be able to do to help our case. “
“I want to do that,” the young ranger responded. “I know we don’t really have any concrete evidence at the moment, but I do share your feeling that something is going on here that deserves a closer look. Anything I can do to help I will.”
Lin was happy to have such strong support from Mark. “You mentioned to me that you’d been too busy keeping up with day to day concerns to look into past records and cases. When we spoke with Olivia Lee, she mentioned that Bryan had expressed concern about the growing number of unsolved deaths shortly before he was killed. He may have been looking into some things, and, if he was, maybe there might be something in his old files—if they’re still available.”
“They will be,” Mark said. “We have stuff back at least five years in the district office. I’ll see what I can find.”
Lin ended the conversation and turned to Sue, “ Mark has convinced one of the FBI agents to at least listen to what we have to say about these cases. No promises, but at least we can talk to him. Mark has also agreed to look into Bryan Lee’s old files and see if he can find anything there. This is Wednesday and the FBI agent is willing to talk to us on Sunday morning. That gives us three days to make sure our information is good enough to convince him to look into these cases.”
“Then we have our work cut out for us,” Sue seemed to relish the challenge, “We’d better get to work.”
Chapter 20
At that point neither Lin nor Sue felt like calling it a day. It was almost nine, but they were both excited at the prospect of talking to the agent and realized that a lot hinged on whether or not they could present a convincing case for further investigation. Sue put on a fresh pot of coffee, and they both changed into their PJs so as to work in comfort. They went down to Sue’s basement office.
The next hour was spent reviewing Sue’s research notes as well as the information she’d recorded following their conversations with folks close to the cases. Lin was able to add her own observations and insights to the mix. Finally they were able to produce a list of basic facts about the cases, observations, and questions.
The Cases
· From August, 2008 until May, 2012 there have been six deaths recorded that occurred along or near the Blue Ridge Parkway roughly within the area between Milepost 277 and Milepost 260. All were judged to be homicides.
· Two of the cases are considered closed, that of a hiker killed on a trail in September, 2008, and that of Sandy Hill, a graduate student killed a month earlier near the s
ame area but not on a hiking trail.
· The person deemed responsible in both these cases was killed by police in a shootout in Florida where he was found along with the car he had stolen from the hiker. No physical evidence was discovered that linked the killer directly to Sandy Hill.
· The most recent case in May 2012 resulted in the death of university student Peter Dunne and the wounding of his companion Ellen Clark. This case is currently still under investigation by the Watauga County sheriff’s department.
· The remaining three cases are still unsolved but are not currently under active investigation. They include: (1) Sara Fletcher, the pregnant girlfriend of Luke Taylor who was found shot and beaten in October 2009. (2) An unnamed victim whose partially dismembered body was found dumped along the parkway in February 2010. The body was later identified as that of a cattle farmer missing from a nearby community (Perhaps the name was withheld from press accounts to protect the family’s privacy). (3) Bryan Lee, a law enforcement ranger with the park service, who was shot and killed in the parking area at Jeffress Park in March 2010.
· The only witnesses in any of these cases were some park visitors who saw a man with a long gun sitting at a picnic table in the park. They reported this to the park service and Bryan Lee was sent to investigate. The visitors went on a hike to the Cascades. They heard a shot as they were returning. When they reached the parking lot they discovered the dead body of Ranger Lee, but the man they’d seen earlier was gone. They were unable to provide a good description of the man they saw, and he has never been identified.
Observations
· No physical evidence was ever found directly linking the death of Sandy Hill to the suspect killed in Florida. A key piece of evidence, her camera and possible photos, remains missing. Without such key evidence there is doubt that Sandy Hill’s killer was, indeed, the same man who killed the hiker.
Fogbound: A Lin Hanna Mystery Page 24