The Daughters Of Alta Mira (Quill Gordon Mystery Book 4)

by Michael Wallace

  They nodded.

  “Let’s go.”

  At the tape, they met Lovejoy, who turned out to be a civilian in his late thirties with a medium build and sandy hair. Gordon later learned that he kept a photo studio behind his bookkeeping office, and remembered Bob’s remark that everyone in town had a sideline.

  “The road’s barely 20 feet wide,” Chris said to Howard. “Can you cover half of it?”

  “Sure.”

  “You take the left side; I’ll take the right. We take a step forward, look carefully around, and don’t move forward until we’re satisfied there’s nothing to be seen.” She turned to Gordon, Sam and Lovejoy. “When we’ve gone in ten to 15 feet, slip in behind us and match us step for step. If you see something you think we missed, holler.”

  She took a pair of latex gloves from a pants pocket and pulled them on. Howard did the same, and they ducked under the tape.

  Slowly and meticulously, they made their way up the road. No one saw anything out of the ordinary for 20 minutes, before Chris exclaimed, “Hold it!” She was standing near a slight pothole.

  “The road surface is too hard for any kind of tracks, but in this pothole, there’s some loose gravel and what looks like a tire track. Shoot it, Lovejoy.”

  The photographer obediently came forward, looked at the pothole, and moved to one side, where he knelt, took one photo, and rose, taking a step backward.

  “From four sides,” Chris said.

  “But, ma’am, that’s going to use up a lot of film.”

  She glared daggers at him for several seconds.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he finally said, and shot it from the other three sides.

  It was the only “clue” they found before reaching the stretch of road parallel to where the body was below. All five of them looked over the side. The female body, topless but for a bra, lay cradled in branches 20 feet below the roadway. A large red stain in the middle of the torso was visible from where they stood. Howard spoke first.

  “Looks like the buzzards got one of her eyes.”

  Chris raised her binoculars and looked.

  “Both of them, actually. Howard, is there any way in hell we can get someone besides her mother to do the ID?”

  Gordon stepped back from the edge, feeling faint. For some reason, one of his father’s sayings popped into his head. Judge Gordon had been talking about evidence given at a trial, but the sentiment held in this instance as well:

  “That which has been seen cannot be unseen.”

  “It can probably be arranged,” Howard said, bringing them back to the moment.

  “Everybody stand back,” Chris said. They did as told.

  “If what I’m thinking is right, he told her to undress, she fought back, and was shot, with the recoil knocking her over the edge. Damn! I wish I’d known about that wound before we came up here. There may be blood spatters on the ground we just walked all over.” She got on her hands and knees and began looking closely at the ground. With an exclamation, she picked up a small rock with her gloved hand and put it into a plastic bag. She found several more potential spatters over the next few minutes.

  “We’ll see what the lab says,” she said, “but I’m pretty sure.”

  “What I don’t get,” Howard said, “is why he’d bring her up here and have her start undressing at twilight — that is, if Akers was right about the shot. It’s kinda … kinky.”

  “For some serial killers, Howard, it’s not just about the killing. It’s about having power over the victim. Making her take off her clothes in the cold, in the middle of nowhere, would have been a form of torture, a way of showing he owned her.”

  Howard looked skeptical, but held his counsel.

  They worked up the road a bit, finding nothing else of interest, and returned to where the body was.

  “All right,” Chris said. “Let’s start working on getting her out of here.”

  “How would you do that?” Sam asked.

  “I’ve never seen a situation like this before,” Howard drawled.

  “For crying out loud,” she said. “Can we get a utility truck with a cherry picker? That would be a start.”

  “I’ll put Dawson on it.” Howard started for the tape.

  He returned a few minutes later, with a thoughtful look on his face.

  “I just thought of something,” he said.

  Chris eyed him warily.

  “A mile and a half ahead, the road dead-ends at an old logging camp. It’s been empty since mid-August, but the company uses it to park machinery. If someone was looking for a place to hide a kidnap victim or a body …”

  “We have to check it out,” Chris said. “Let’s get the civilian posse on it. I want them away from the crime scene.”

  “I HOPE I’M RIGHT ABOUT THIS,” Chris said, as she, Gordon and I led the convoy up the road toward the abandoned logging camp. “It’s a question of where these well-meaning amateurs will do the least amount of harm.”

  “Aren’t we amateurs?” I asked.

  “I suppose so, but you know enough to wait for instructions and do as you’re told. Half the people in this posse want to be helpful, but they have no impulse control.”

  I took that as a modest compliment and noted that Gordon showed the slightest of smiles. He was in the front seat, of course, so I could see them both. Turning around, I could see the three vehicles following us. It was three o’clock now, and the autumn sun was getting lower. After several minutes, the road moved away from the edge of the mountain and into a natural flat, or shelf, in the side of the mountain. There it ended in a large clearing. Actually, it ended at a locked gate, a large log blocking the road, and chained to a metal fence post. Behind it was an open area and, back by the trees, three wooden buildings. One had an almost squarish front and was two stories high. On either side of it were long, one-story buildings, extending about 60 feet in either direction.

  Howard and six members of the posse jumped out of the van behind us. Behind them, Sandy Steadman, John Armstrong, and two other posse members clambered out of a Highway Patrol SUV. Behind that, another four posse members got out of another SUV, the last in the line. I recognized Norv DeShayne and Lovejoy in Honig’s bunch, and a couple of the others looked somewhat familiar from around town.

  Quite a few amateurs underfoot, if you ask me.

  Chris vaulted the log gate, and others followed with varying degrees of athleticism. Gordon, with his long legs, simply stepped over it. She motioned them to follow her and led the way to the large building in the middle.

  “This is the dining hall and offices,” Honig said. “Or it used to be. The two buildings on the right were bunkhouses.”

  “I should have thought of this sooner,” she said, “but I don’t suppose anyone has a key to these buildings.”

  DeShayne stepped forward. “Not a problem,” he said. “I know the regional manager. He told me this place is so remote they don’t bother locking it.”

  He grabbed the doorknob with an ungloved hand, turned it, and opened the door inward.

  “See?”

  I looked over at Chris, and if the situation hadn’t been so serious, I would have stifled a laugh. She was doing a slow burn worthy of Yosemite Sam, and it was all she could do to hold her anger in.

  “Honorary Deputy DeShayne,” she said after several seconds, the strain of not screaming coming through in her voice, “I sincerely hope that hand of yours did not wipe out any fingerprints on that doorknob.”

  “Aw, shit,” he said. “How was I supposed to know that?”

  She motioned him aside and stood with her back to the building, facing the group. In the shade now, we could feel a bit of chill in the air.

  “All right, listen up. We’re going to break into three groups. Howard, you take half the posse and go over every square inch of the bunkhouse on the right. “John, Sandy, you take the other half of the posse and do the same with the bunkhouse on the left. Posse members!” She barked the two words, and the civilian
s clearly took notice. “You will put on latex gloves before entering these buildings, and even so, you will not touch anything with your gloved hands unless you have explicit approval from one of the law enforcement professionals. Does everybody understand?”

  It took a few minutes for everybody to get ready, and only when she was satisfied that they were did she give the order to go into the buildings. Gordon and I followed her into the dining hall.

  It was dark, cold and musty, smelling of mold, dust and disuse. The floor was concrete, which added to the chill. The roof was a good 20 to 25 feet above us, which also did nothing to add warmth. People had presumably been here as recently as the past summer, but it sure seemed a lot longer ago than that. Along the walls on either side were overhanging balconies, each with several doors presumably leading to office or storage rooms. It was so still that when a gust of wind came up and falling pine needles hit the roof, it seemed as if we could hear each one land.

  “It’s a good place to be lonely,” Gordon finally said. “How come you took this building instead of one of the others?”

  “Because Howard said there were offices in here. Better place to hide or hold someone than a large open bunk area.” She sighed. “I really hope there’s nothing here, and even more than that, I hope there’s nothing in the other two buildings.”

  “You don’t trust the posse?” I asked.

  “I don’t trust Howard. He came up through the cowboy school of detective work. Sandy and Armstrong I feel better about. Unlike our department, the highway patrol actually trains people. But you saw what we’re up against with the civilians.”

  “What do you want us to do?” Gordon asked.

  “There’s nothing in this main area. We need to check out the balconies and the kitchen.” She pointed to separate sets of stairs on the other side of the room, climbing to the balconies on either side and gestured to the right. “You take that side, Gordon, and I’ll take the other one. Sam, the kitchen and pantry are through the doors on either side of the stairs. Check ‘em out. And remember. No touching anything unless I say so.”

  As we walked across the empty floor, I tried to imagine what it would have been like full of tables, with a hundred lumberjacks eating a hearty breakfast or dinner. It hardly seemed possible. When we got to the other side, Gordon started up the stairs on the right and Chris went up the ones on the left.

  I pushed through the swinging doors to the kitchen, touching wood, not the metal part, which might have prints. I came in on the skeleton of a kitchen. Counters, stove tops and freezer doors were still there, but all utensils and signs of food were absent. On the right, a window with six panes was missing one of them. On the left was a door partially open, leading to what looked like a pantry. I grabbed the wood frame of the door and pulled it open. It seemed to go a ways back and was dark toward the rear. I saw a light switch just inside and flipped it up. Nothing happened.

  Wishing I had a flashlight, I left the door wide open to provide as much illumination as possible and started toward the back. There appeared to be a few boxes and bundles back there, and I moved deliberately toward them. My eyes were just adjusting to the gloom when I heard another gust of wind outside.

  The door to the pantry blew shut and I was in total darkness.

  Every man has his irrational fears, and my two biggest are snakes and the dark. Actually, it’s not that irrational to be afraid of snakes, especially in the tropics. Being trapped in this pantry, literally unable to see my hand in front of my face, put the other fear into overdrive. Very slowly, I turned around, then put out my left hand. It touched nothing but air. I stepped slightly to the left and it contacted what I assumed was one of the pantry shelves.

  Moving forward one tentative step at a time, I tried to get back to the door. It was probably 15 feet away, but it seemed like a thousand. It must have been nearly a minute before I got to it, but it seemed like an eternity. I fumbled for the doorknob, and as I did remembered Chris’s directive not to touch anything. Never mind that. As cold as it was, I could feel sweat running down the back of my neck, and a panic attack was not far away.

  I found the doorknob, grabbed it with my gloved hand, and turned it to the right.

  It wouldn’t move.

  I took a deep breath. Eventually, I knew, they would find me, but it was a cold comfort to know that. I thought about trying to kick the door down, and about the chewing out I’d get from Chris if I did that. But it wasn’t getting any lighter in there, and I decided to risk it. But before I did, it occurred to me to try one more thing.

  I turned the doorknob to the left. It moved, and I pushed the door out. As I stepped out, I could hear Gordon shouting in the main room, and a clatter of running feet, presumably Chris on the stairs. I pushed open the swinging kitchen doors and smacked her dead on as she was running toward the stairs on Gordon’s side. She cried out in pain and grabbed the left side of her face.

  “Sorry,” I said, for lack of a more original response.

  “Keep going!” she snapped, and ran up the stairs ahead of me.

  Gordon was standing in front of one of the doors. As we drew nearer, I could smell a foul and overwhelming odor of putrid decay. He didn’t need to say why he’d called us over.

  “What do you want to do?” he asked Chris.

  “Don’t touch the doorknob,” she said. “Do you think you can kick it in?”

  “I’ll try.”

  The door was flimsy, and he only needed two tries. When it flew open, the stench was almost unbearable. Chris pulled a handkerchief out of her pants pocket, put it over her nose, and stepped across the threshold. Gordon and I moved behind her.

  Then I saw the body, or what was left of it, and it was all I could do not to throw up.

  At one time it had no doubt been a fine specimen of a raccoon, but it had been dead long enough that it was bloated with gas and set upon by maggots, which were crawling over the corpse in unimaginable numbers. Acting as one, the three of us moved out of the room and down the balcony toward the stairs, trying to get as far away from the smell as possible.

  At the top of the stairs, Chris lowered her handkerchief, and I could see a bruise forming under her left eye. I’d given her what, by tomorrow morning, would probably be a shiner that would be the talk of the town.

  She started laughing, and so did Gordon and I. After a minute, gasping for breath, she pointed toward the room we’d just departed.

  “Well, we found a body anyway. Good call, Howard.”

  NONE OF THE OTHERS FOUND ANYTHING, and everyone headed back but one deputy and one posse volunteer, who were watching the crime scene until the state crime lab professionals could get there in the morning.

  Shortly before seven o’clock, Gordon was stalling the waitress at Danny’s Diner about dessert when Bob walked in. Gordon had asked for a small booth at the back, and when Bob joined him, they had as much privacy as possible in a public restaurant. It helped that the Sunday dinner rush was generally from four to six, and the place was only a third full.

  “Cherry pie,” Bob said, when the waitress came again. “And coffee.”

  “Apple for me,” Gordon said, “with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. And you can top off my coffee when you bring his.”

  “You’re not worried about getting out of shape?” Bob said as she left.

  “The process is already under way. And I’m feeling old and tired now, though not hungry, thanks to Danny.”

  “Danny died 15 years ago.”

  “His heirs and successors, then. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.” Gordon swallowed the last of his coffee. “It’s been a busy day, as I’m sure you’re aware.”

  “We just did a special report on it. Awful business, but in one sense I’m relieved. At least we know what’s going on now.”

  “But not much more.”

  “That’s always true at the beginning. I have faith in our new sheriff. She isn’t going to let this go.”

  “She’s wound up tighter than a vio
lin string right now.”

  “Can you blame her? She not only has to deal with the pressure of solving the case, but also the political consequences. Either one would be a dead weight, and she’s carrying two.”

  Pie arrived, and they ate and sipped coffee for several minutes.

  “So where were you this afternoon?” Gordon finally said. “I’d have expected you to beat us to the crime scene.”

  “Dropped the ball on that one,” Bob admitted. “But I had my reasons.” He shoveled a piece of pie into his mouth.

  “Care to tell me about it? For old times’ sake.”

  “Sorry, Flyboy, but I can’t just yet. Let’s say I’ve been doing a bit of detective work and leave it at that.”

  “And this detective work of yours, is it turning up any results.”

  “Maybe. I just might be on to something really big.”

  “Shouldn’t you tell the sheriff?”

  “Oh, I intend to. I fully intend to. When I get a definite answer from a certain someone.”

  “And how close to definite are you?”

  Bob shrugged, and Gordon pressed on.

  “Are you 20 percent of the way there? 40? 75 or more?”

  “You know something, I’d forgotten how bothersome you can be when you want to know something. Let’s say more than half at this point. You’ll know when it’s time.”

  “Have it your way.” Gordon finished his pie, washed it down with the last of the coffee. “Are we on for some fishing tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Possibly, but I hope not. Tomorrow afternoon may be when I have something definite.”

  “That soon?”

  “No promises, just a hope. By the way, what happened to Akers and Pains?”

  “He’s been summoned to a private meeting with the sheriff. She wants to talk to him more about the shot he heard. Pretty routine, I suppose.”

  I GOT TO THE COURTHOUSE promptly at seven. It’s a pretty impressive building for such a small town. I’m no expert on architecture, but I’d call it a classical style, with a wide row of limestone steps across the front, Grecian columns, and a dome at the top that lights up at night. The front door is at the top of the steps, but I’d been told to go around back, enter through the basement, take the stairs to the first floor and proceed to Room 101. I was a bit surprised to find that it was the District Attorney’s office.