Literally Offed

by Eryn Scott

  “The most confusing part is that I don’t even remember hearing about Alpha Alpha Alpha during any of my parents’ stories. They definitely weren’t one of the bigger fraternities. If they had been, I’m sure their symbol or their name would’ve rung some kind of bell.”

  The SUV continued to climb up the foothill switchbacks, the trees getting thicker as the roads turned from back highways to dirt single-car tracks.

  “Thank you for the information, Pepper. It definitely helps give me a bigger picture.” Detective Valdez cleared his throat. “Okay. Before we arrive, we need to talk about our plan.”

  I straightened. This sounded like serious business. I leaned forward.

  “I’ve called Sheriff Langley and told him about Matt Kincaid’s condition. He knows that if what happened to Matt and James is linked, this case is not only in his jurisdiction. Unlike me, he’s not convinced there is a connection, so I expect quite a bit of pushback from him.”

  Alex and I nodded.

  “Alex, your job will be to get copies of the ranger’s registration books from the weekend. I want Friday especially.” He glanced over at his son.

  “Got it.”

  “I’ll tackle the sheriff and see if I can get him to share any evidence he’s collected thus far.”

  “How do you know he’ll be there?” I asked, assuming we were going to the campground and not to the sheriff’s office down the valley.

  Detective Valdez exhaled. “He’s hiding something. If we’re snooping around, he’ll be there for sure.”

  I pressed my lips together, wondering if he’d forgotten to give me a job. Who was I kidding? He wouldn’t be giving me a job. Of course he wouldn’t. I wasn’t a part of th—

  “And Pepper,” he said, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Yeah.” I looked up eagerly.

  “Stay out of the way.”

  15

  Just as the detective had predicted, Sheriff Langley was waiting for us at the campground office as we pulled up minutes later. His arms were crossed, his expression even more so.

  Swallowing, I pouted a little about being left out. I suppose I had invited myself along, but… it still stung.

  The detective parked the SUV and we hopped out, congregating in front of the sheriff like some sort of superhero squad, here to defeat evil and ensure justice for all. And the detective didn’t waste any time.

  “Langley.” He nodded in hello, then turned to Alex. “Head on inside, son,” he said, pointing to the office.

  Before Langley could even argue, Alex was gone. I stayed put, half in awe, half unsure of how things were going to play out after this. I’d seen Detective Valdez work before. I knew he was good at what he did, but I’d never been on his side, never had his trust enough for him to involve me. To be honest, I wanted to soak it up.

  “I’m going to need those files on James Mercer’s death.” Alex’s dad squared his shoulders.

  The sheriff set his jaw.

  “You did bring them, correct?”

  Langley’s eyes were masked by dark sunglasses, but from the red tint creeping across his face, it was easy enough to see he was glaring, seething really. “I brought them,” he said through gritted teeth, then pivoted and stalked over to his car, motioning for us to follow.

  With a yank of the door to open and a slam to shut it, the sheriff proffered a file toward the detective. If it had been me, I would have snatched it from the man’s hand triumphantly, rubbing it in, but Detective Valdez took it gently and began flipping through its contents.

  “Throat cut… brake lines cut…” he read, then looked up. “No weapon has been recovered yet?”

  The sheriff recrossed his arms and shook his head.

  Detective Valdez returned his attention to the file. “And what of this journal found under the truck?”

  “Nothing much, just notes and stuff.” I could feel the sheriff’s eyes lock on the detective through his tinted lenses.

  I suppressed a gasp. Nothing important? What was wrong with him? That journal outlined the existence of an illegal fraternity, wrought with dysfunction and very possibly the reason James was dead and Matt was in the hospital. I wanted to call him on his lie.

  But I kept it all to myself, because I was supposed to stay out of the way. Plus, the one thing more interesting than him lying was why.

  Alex appeared in that moment, a few copies clutched in his hands. He came straight at us. Looking up, Detective Valdez noticed Alex, too. Snapping at me and his son, he pointed us over to a nearby picnic table.

  “We’ll let you know if we have any questions,” the detective told Langley.

  Once seated at the table, he spread out the papers in the file while Alex leafed through the camping registry. I stood, refraining from sitting next to Alex as that might look like I was getting involved. But I couldn’t help leaning down and letting Alex know the latest development.

  “The sheriff lied about the journal,” I whispered, moving my mouth as little as possible in case Langley was secretly a lip reader.

  Alex blinked. “Really?” He looked over at Langley who turned to walk inside the rangers’ office.

  Free to speak now that the sheriff was gone, I dipped my chin once. “Said it wasn’t important. I know you guys have this whole Jaws theory where you think Langley could be downplaying this whole murder thing to preserve the last few weeks of camping season. I have a different idea.” I leaned in close. “You guys ever read the book, The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson?” When they both shook their heads, I continued. “Well, it’s about a small-town sheriff who is actually a serial killer. And, while your Jaws theory was cute, I’m thinking we could be dealing with a slash-happy sheriff.”

  Both cops, the men didn’t seem as accepting of my theory.

  “Pepper, accusing a cop of obstructing justice is one thing.” Alex cringed.

  “A very serious something,” Detective Valdez said.

  “But saying he is the one going around slashing people’s throats and beating twenty-somethings to a pulp on the street is…”

  “Not going to be something we consider unless more evidence points us in that direction,” the detective finished for his son.

  I put my hands up. “Okay, I’m not trying to undo the fabric of your entire career. It was just a thought.”

  The guys went back to looking through the papers and I turned the other way, glancing around the quiet campground, pretending my job was to be on the lookout for the sheriff. When he didn’t come out after a few minutes, I got bored and pivoted so I could look the other direction… which just happened to give me a perfect view of the registry Alex was looking through.

  Glancing over his shoulder, I scanned the names, telling myself I was just searching for my own among the list of Friday campers. But then I came across a name I knew, one that definitely wasn’t mine.

  Gregory Wilford.

  I sucked in a quick breath.

  “What?” Alex asked, looking over his shoulder.

  I scrunched my forehead together, remembering I was supposed to be staying out of the way. “Uh—nothing—I…” Faking a yawn, I took a few steps away from the table. “I’m going to walk around a little while you guys finish looking over all of that.”

  Alex eyed me for a few moments. “Okay, stay close. We won’t be too much longer.”

  Detective Valdez looked up from his own papers and gave me a nod.

  “Take your time.” I waved a don’t-worry-about-little-ol’-me hand in their direction as I pivoted and headed away.

  Heat raced to my cheeks as I walked. That name sat like a lump in my gut. Gregory Wilford was the dean of students at NWU. My parents knew him. In fact, he’d been one of my dad’s best friends back when they were in college and for years after. But when I was in high school, Dad and Gregory had some sort of falling out and I hadn’t seen anyone from his family since.

  I kept walking as my mind worked through the surprise of seeing his name there. But as my sandals crunch
ed rhythmically along the path, my anxious stomach settled. NWU was only an hour away from this campground. It wasn’t unlikely that members of the faculty would come here to vacation. In fact, Silver Falls was a favorite camp spot among the people of Pine Crest.

  Which meant that just because I had recognized the man’s name didn’t mean he had anything to do with this whole debacle. The devil’s advocate part of my brain chose that moment to remind me about the disagreement with a dean at NWU James had written about in his journal.

  Gregory was a dean at NWU, and he’d been staying here that night.

  A light breeze flowed around me, brushing back my hair and cooling my worry-warmed cheeks. I let out a chuckle and shook my head. No. There was no way. I didn’t know what went on between Dr. Wilford and my father, but he was a good man. Plus, he had at least four inches of height on James, so he couldn’t have been the killer in the first place.

  Settled, I stopped walking. The campground was gone. I was surrounded by the creaking of tall trees, wind-rustled leaves, and the occasional, far-off birds calling to one another. My father’s voice, deep and steady as it always became when he was reading to me, drifted into the silence of the forest. It was a line from Thoreau’s diary.

  “‘The question is not what you look at, but what you see.’ Isn’t that the truth, Peps?” A boyish grin had conquered his features as he glanced around the wild, sunlight catching in the red highlights in his hair.

  I pulled in another deep breath of forest air and kept walking forward, trying to really see the beauty surrounding me.

  I marveled at the lush green mosses and ferns that encroached upon my trail; even in this heat they grew abundantly in the shade of the pines and leafy maples. I listened to the hum of the mountain range in the distance, the whistle of the nearby valley, and the soft buzz of a million summer bugs.

  There were rhododendrons of every color, some short, leafy, and pink, others tall as small trees with their winding, woody branches and white buds. A large boulder sat next to a nearby hill, settled now after tumbling down from higher up the mountain who knows when. There were fir trees standing so tall they swayed and creaked as if made woozy by their own height. Two madrona trees twisted together until their trunks melded into one. To my left there stood the hollow trunk of a giant which had long ago fallen, roots upended, like a hand emerging from the earth.

  My feet crunched to a halt.

  “It’s not what you look at, but what you see,” I murmured to myself as I squinted at the two boulders. Two. Nestled near the two twisting madronas. Higher up, their papery bark peeled in long curls, revealing new, green life beneath. But low, near the ground, their old trunks were gnarled and split. Of the larger knots, there were two which opened like holes into the tree.

  They drew me in, pulled me nearer. Dad would’ve appreciated something like this. “Two boulders by two trees with two knots. Two, two, and two. Thoreau stayed in his cabin on Walden pond for two years, two months, and two days,” Dad would’ve pointed out, and I would’ve marveled at his knowledge. We could spend hours out here reading quotes and looking for patterns just like this.

  A smile pulling on my lips, I glanced behind me and froze, all of the happiness I’d felt in that moment drained out of me. My heartbeat ratcheted up as I realized I was standing just outside the clearing, hidden by the tall rhodies, where Hammy had led us to James’s body. Spinning back toward the two trees in front of me, I saw them with new eyes. I wasn’t the only one who’d been out here who knew a thing or two about Thoreau.

  Had James noticed the same pattern I had? Was it possible he’d been out here in this specific clearing for a reason?

  Excitement traded places with my fear momentarily as I stepped forward. Maybe James had hidden a clue, something that I could help us narrow down his killer. Sticking with my Thoreau theme, I skipped the first knot in the twisted trees and went straight for the second. A primal warning told me not to stick my hand into the dark crevice, so I pulled out my phone and clicked on the flashlight. Scooting a little closer, I was able to shine the light into the knot.

  And that’s when the light glinted off something metallic. My throat felt like it had dried up. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t James who had left something behind, but someone else entirely.

  Using the bottom of my T-shirt to cover my hand, I leaned in close and reached inside. My cotton-covered fingers closed around something. I pulled it out, stepping back, and my eyes widened at the knife swinging in front of me.

  I’d managed to grab the blunt edge of the probably-four-inch hunting knife and I pinched my fingers tighter, hoping I wasn’t compromising any fingerprints possibly remaining on any of the surfaces.

  Still clutching my phone with my left hand, I moved to call Alex. Before I even had a chance to turn off the flashlight, however, I heard someone clear their throat behind me.

  Jumping and spinning in one not-so-fluid motion, I let go of the knife in my surprise. Stepping back so I didn’t impale a toe, the knife hit the forest floor with a heavy thud. My attention didn’t stay on the potential murder weapon too long, however, because I was too interested—and horrified—in who was standing in front of me.

  Sheriff Langley stood near the clearing, arms crossed, a twisted smile marring his already unpleasant face. “Whatever you do, do not pick that up.”

  16

  The sheriff inched closer, reaching his hand forward. A bird squawked in the distance, making me jump. Langley was only about ten feet away at that point and I knew deep in my gut that I could not let him get his hands on this knife.

  So as he continued to inch toward me, I began to sink into a squat.

  He paused. There was a flicker of something like hatred in his eyes, but he quickly masked it with another fake smile. “You do not know who you’re messing with, missy.”

  Missy? Anger flared in my chest. Eyes locked on him, I kept squatting lower, not giving him the grace of a response.

  He began to move faster, so I abandoned my attempt to pick up the knife—what was I going to do anyway, grab it and run through the woods?—and stamped my foot down on the handle just as he lunged forward.

  “Pepper?” Alex’s voice rang through the quiet forest.

  I froze and so did the sheriff. My sandaled foot pinned the knife down, but Langley’s fingers were only inches away.

  “Alex!” I yelled, narrowing my gaze at the sheriff in triumph.

  Langley grumbled something and then moved to stand, brushing the pine needles and dirt off his uniform.

  Hearing footsteps growing closer, I kept an eye on the sheriff, yelling, “Over he—!” But my voice cut out as I watched the sheriff’s short sleeve slide up higher on his bicep from the motion of dusting himself off. Under the tan fabric was something I recognized immediately.

  A tattoo of three As in a shape like the top of a star. Just like in James’s journal. Just like in my dad’s book. Eyes wide, I thought back to Dylan saying past members of the fraternity seemed to be the most upset about James’s plan to move the organization.

  The surprise of seeing the TriAlpha’s symbol on the sheriff’s arm was like swallowing too big a bite of oatmeal all at once. I couldn’t speak, swallow, barely breathe.

  Could I have been right? Could the sheriff really have been the one to kill James? He was just the right height, after all. The man didn’t seem to notice that I’d seen, however, continuing to pat the dirt off his shins as Alex appeared around the group of rhodies. Sweat beaded on his forehead and his eyes were wild as he looked me up and down.

  “You okay?” he asked, jogging over and quickly eyeing the sheriff who’d stepped a few feet back.

  Gulping, I nodded.

  “Dad, they’re over here,” he called over his shoulder.

  I heard more footsteps crunch down the path. Alex turned back to me, his forehead creasing in worry as he took in my probably pale, shocked expression.

  “You sure?”

  Between the way my heart was trying
to pound through my chest and the yelled exclamations crashing through my brain, I couldn’t put any words together. Instead, I just pointed down at the knife I still had pinned under my sandal. Dirt and pine needles had kicked up in our struggle and it was slightly buried. But I could tell from the way the muscles in Alex’s jaw tightened that he knew what he was looking at.

  He stepped toward the sheriff, pushing back his shoulders. “What was going on here?”

  The sheriff pointed straight at me and yelled, “Ask the one compromising my evidence!”

  Detective Valdez skidded to a stop in the clearing just as the sheriff finished shouting. The detective’s eyebrows rose up and he looked to me.

  Shaking my head, I finally found my voice. “That’s not true. I found the knife and just as I was about to call you he lunged at me and tried to take it.”

  Kneeling next to me, Alex gently lifted my foot off the knife. He looked to his dad. “You have an evidence bag on you?”

  “No, but I have a glove. It’ll have to do until we can get this back to the car.” The detective stepped forward, pulling a plastic glove from his pocket.

  Just as he was about to pull the glove over his fingers, the sheriff cleared his throat. “Actually, I’ll be taking the knife,” he said, voice cold and calculated. “So you can give me the glove.” He held out his hand.

  Detective Valdez raised an eyebrow. “I thought we established that this was now—”

  “We established my victim’s friend was killed with a knife, not yours. This knife is the murder weapon in my case, which I very much doubt is even linked with yours.” He snapped his fingers and then curled them in and out, gesturing again for the glove.