Rough Country: A gripping crime thriller

by T. J. Brearton

  Reed asked MacKinnon if she knew the area well.

  “A little bit. I’m originally from Plattsburgh. I’m Troop C, but this is my first time hoofing it back in these woods. You’re out of Latham?”

  “Yeah, I guess you guys lost someone?”

  “Jarecki. He just retired. And Pendleton is out west somewhere with his father who’s sick. Like, end-of-life sick.”

  “Sorry to hear that.” Reed continued scanning the forest – sparse trees, good visibility. Nice, woody smells: pine and fresh air. “Kids come back here, ever? Mess around?”

  “Ah, not much, I don’t think.”

  He looked down at the path, still showing dirt, but compact, nothing loose. Footprints would maybe show, but barely, just partial.

  “Back in the day,” MacKinnon said, thinking aloud, “maybe you’d have kids coming out into woods like this, but not today. They don’t smoke cigarettes – they vape. They’re in the house on their phones and tablets.” She shrugged. “But you see beer cans in the park from time to time, things like that. Older kids, though, I think. Or even adults.”

  He spotted a crime scene person walking through the forest, about ten yards off the path, in the tangle of trees and shrubs. MacKinnon called over, “How’s it going?”

  The crime scene tech looked up, saw them and focused on Reed, taking a second to maybe think about who he was. The hair and beard did tend to throw people a little. “All good here,” said the tech.

  MacKinnon: “See anything? Got any beer cans or butts or anything like that?”

  The tech was carrying evidence bags and held them up, empty. “Nothing yet.”

  MacKinnon nodded and walked on, Reed following, as a couple more crime scene people in white Tyvek suits moved like ghosts through the thin trees. Then MacKinnon slowed, and Reed came abreast of her, looking down the path, where he saw the feet sticking out.

  You got used to seeing dead bodies. In the sense that it unnerved you, you got mainly used to it.

  But what didn’t change was how much the adrenaline started going. Because you saw that victim and you knew, this was it. You were locked in now. And nothing would stop until both your souls could rest.

  The woman squatting beside the body stood up as Reed drew closer. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt that said SUNY on it. Reed knew it meant State University of New York. Her blonde hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. The little bit of darkness under her eyes said she’d been woken up for this, too.

  She wore plastic gloves and, instead of offering her hand, nodded at him. “Terri Shepard. Stock County medical examiner.”

  Reed greeted her and introduced himself. Then he crouched down for a closer look at the body, and Shepard did the same.

  The victim was on her back. A third of her body was on the hiking trail – feet and lower legs. More bright green ferns cradled her upper two-thirds. Open eyes, parted lips. She stared up at the sky as if something had startled her so badly she’d just dropped dead.

  Reed snapped on the gloves he carried in his back pocket. After gently pushing aside some vegetation, he leaned closer. But she hadn’t just dropped dead. The bruising around her neck suggested manual strangulation. It was light enough to perhaps indicate death had been quick, but that was a determination for the medical examiner to make.

  Meantime: the victim wore a corduroy skirt and a black, long-sleeve shirt that was pushed up at the waist, showing the bloody, cut stomach.

  He stared at the shape on the stomach, trying to make sense of it.

  Everything was quiet, just a low rumble of engines out by the road, the chirping of birds in the trees, the sound of breathing.

  Shepard asked, “You see the runlets of blood there?”

  He did. Some of the dried blood looked like it had run off the sides of her abdomen, as if drawn to the ground. The rest had pooled.

  The shapes beneath the dried pool of blood were visible as a darker red, almost black, suggesting their form. Something geometric, like a hexagon, and then some crisscrossing lines. Hard to be sure.

  “So this happened after she was down,” he said.

  “Yes. The marks are clean, so she was either unconscious or deceased by this point. She wasn’t struggling or thrashing.”

  “Any signs that there were multiple people? Someone to help hold her down? Bruises along those lines?”

  “No.” Shepard pulled in a quick breath. “That’s part of why I’ve formed this early opinion.”

  Reed nodded and tipped the victim’s chin back to get a clearer look at the bruises – faintly purplish impressions from fingers and thumbs.

  He flashed on a memory: barely a teenager himself, at a party with a bunch of kids, playing a knockout game; a guy came up to you and squeezed your carotid until you passed out. The one time Reed had been foolish enough to play, he’d had a long dream after being squeezed unconscious. When he’d come to, his buddies said he’d only been out for a second. They were grinning about it and marveling like it was the world’s best free drug. Kill a few million brain cells; have a good time. Life before the internet.

  “No phone with her,” Reed asked, looking from Shepard to MacKinnon. “Right?”

  MacKinnon answered, “No phone, no personal effects, no ID. Nothing. She’s not even wearing jewelry.”

  “Or makeup,” Reed noted. He looked the victim over some more. Aged fifteen, maybe sixteen. Fifteen was Mike’s age. His son.

  When the parents find out, Reed thought, oh boy…

  He looked around at the two women again. “No one’s popped up yet, right? No one with a where’s-my-daughter?”

  They shook their heads.

  “It’s Monday,” he observed.

  “There’s school today,” Shepard confirmed. “My kids have been at our school for half an hour now. Different district, but there’s no holiday today.”

  He thought about it, then his attention came back to the blood and the phantom shapes beneath. “Any idea what it is?”

  “I’ll have to clean it.”

  “You gonna do that here?”

  “I’d rather not.”

  “Agreed,” he said. “All right. So, what do we got? I’d be happy to hear your preliminary findings.”

  Shepard leaned back and brushed the tip of her nose with the back of her gloved hand. “We’ve got a teenaged girl strangled to death sometime around 9 p.m. last night. That’s what the lividity and rigor tell me – blood is pretty good and settled down. After she was strangled, her killer carved that thing into her stomach, whatever it is. To me those incisions look like a razor blade, not a knife, so probably a box cutter. But it could be… I don’t know…”

  “How long after?”

  She faced him with a frown.

  He clarified, “How long after she was strangled did the cutting happen? Right away? Couple of hours?”

  “I’ll know more once I can get the samples processed. I’m going to say right after. At least pretty soon after.”

  Reed rose to his feet. Obviously there was a difference between someone strangling the girl and doing the cutting right away, getting the hell out of here, as opposed to someone strangling her, sitting around, maybe leaving, coming back. The latter was unlikely.

  The autopsy would tell them if there was any drinking or drugs going on before she died. The neck was everything, though – if the killer wasn’t wearing gloves, they might have touch DNA. That would take weeks, though, even if they pushed it. If there was some grease on the killer’s hands though, maybe a partial print… But the neck looked clean. Reed worried about gloves. Today’s kids were smart. YouTube and everything.

  You’re already thinking it’s a kid?

  He realized Shepard and MacKinnon were watching him as he stood there having a conversation with himself. “How many people have been back here this morning?” he asked MacKinnon.

  She frowned, thinking. “Well, I mean, there’s been a few of us moving through this area by now. And this hiking path gets used regularly.
The woman who found her walks every morning. This trail branches off to others; one or two of them go out to Route 12…”

  He started walking that way. “I’m going to have a look around.”

  MacKinnon said, “We’ll be here.”

  “Just a quick one. Be right back.”

  He wanted to check the outlying area, but he also needed to get away from MacKinnon and Terri Shepard, because he suddenly felt nauseous.

  Ah God, a dead girl about the same age as his own son, Mike. Not only that, but a dead girl Mike’s age who looked a hell of a lot like Sarah would have looked if she’d lived past six.

  Reed walked through the woods, taking deep breaths, trying to push past this personal business mixing in, the anxiety.

  This was the girl who needed him now, he reminded himself. Strangled last night, Sunday night, at 9 p.m. Then carved up, left in the ferns…

  Focus. Dig into the details. Start with the body’s location, position, everything. What did that say?

  For one thing, that the killer could have dragged the body just a few more inches to hide her more thoroughly in the ferns. This could have led to a delay of hours, maybe even days, until she’d been found. But that wasn’t what the killer had done.

  Then again, the teacher who discovered the body had a dog. People probably walked their dogs on these trails all the time; any one of those animals might’ve sniffed something out. Maybe the killer said, screw it, what’s the point of trying to hide the victim? Maybe leaving the body like that meant a familiarity with the area, a foreknowledge that hikers, someone, would be along sooner rather than later.

  Maybe…

  Leaving the body like that was even purposeful, as in, the killer hadn’t wanted to slow its discovery. Because when you made a mark like that, like those cuts on the stomach, you thought you were special.

  You thought you had something to say.

  3

  In the family

  Still walking the trails, scanning the woods, not sure what he was looking for, but that he’d know it if he saw it. After a few minutes, Reed turned around and came back, and the BCI guy was standing with Shepard.

  “Daniel Pyle,” the BCI guy said, extending a hand.

  Reed pulled out his earbuds and shook it. “Reed Raleigh.”

  Pyle watched as Reed stuck the earbuds in his coat pocket. Then he glanced down at the body. “We want to get her out of here, or what do you want to do?”

  “Nobody has recognized this girl so far?”

  Pyle shook his head.

  “And no missing person reports, even just phone calls, nothing?”

  Pyle and Shepard and MacKinnon exchanged looks.

  Reed said to MacKinnon, “Let’s get you guys going around to the schools. Start with Eastern Adirondack and up to Peru. Peru is the bigger one, right?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, lots bigger. But no Peru kid is going to be down here in Carmen. I’m sure she goes to EAC.”

  “Right, so…”

  “We’ll check there first, like you said.”

  He met with Britney Silas next, supervisor of the crime scene technicians. An attractive woman in her forties with chin-length auburn hair, crow’s feet starring her eyes. The sun was higher, the forest warming, black flies coming out; Silas waved one away. “We’ve got it taped off for a hundred yards in every direction, and we’re combing,” she said. “Right now, there’s nothing.”

  Reed tapped his foot on the rooted hiking trail. “And this?”

  “It’s our preferred path – no one should be walking anywhere in the brush – but we’re not going to get anything. It’s too compacted, too groomed. Unless there’s a cigarette butt or something. But so far, nothing.”

  Reed pointed into the trees. “I saw something back there. Old foundation?”

  “Yeah, there’s a couple of them up in here. Old stone foundations. You see a chimney?”

  “Part of one. On the other side of a valley back there, where the trail branches in two.”

  Silas nodded. “One of those trails goes up a ways, then circles back around. The other one goes through the woods and comes out near Betty Beaver’s. That’s a truck stop and diner right near the Carmen trooper barracks.”

  Pyle heard them talking and drew near again. Reed asked him, “Can we get a map in here? I’ve got no coverage on my phone.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty spotty in here,” Silas said.

  Pyle pointed around in various directions. In his brown Brooks Brothers suit and navy tie, the diminished hair in a horseshoe shape on his head, Pyle looked like a cop from 1970s TV. Explaining the area, he said, “You’ve got Route 9 as the western border, okay? And Ray Woods Road to the east, and Route 10 right on the edge of the park, which is also known as the Carmen-Wadhams Road. It all forms a triangle. Say eight, nine square miles. Or triangular miles – however that works.” Finished, he scratched the bald spot.

  Reed turned to Silas. “Let’s get some of your people looking for any rubber on the road, impressions along the shoulder, right at the main entrance to the park.”

  “Will do.” She moved off toward the white-clothed ghosts coming out of the woods.

  Reed watched her and thought for a minute. “Okay,” he said to Pyle, “everything’s been photo-docked, samples are taken…”

  Pyle said, “Body collection is here. I called them myself. Hope that’s all right.”

  “Yeah, that’s good. Let’s get it moving. Because I think–”

  The radio on Pyle’s belt crackled, interrupting. A voice said, “Investigator Pyle? Danny?”

  Pyle picked it up. “Yeah?”

  A burst of static, then: “We got a family member here. It’s the mother. She’s, ah, she’s pretty upset.” A pause. “She’s trying to get in there.”

  Pyle started to respond, but Reed was already moving fast back down the trail, headed for the road.

  On the shoulder of Carmen-Wadhams Road, a dozen troopers and county cops stood behind Reed, blocking the way into the park. The victim’s mother looked past them, her eyes darting over the wooded terrain, as if mapping a route. She blushed with tension and worry.

  “What is this?” She searched faces, her intense gaze finally sticking on Reed. Deep wrinkles creased her eyes. “Huh? What is this? What is everybody talking about? Why are people saying my daughter is in the woods?”

  Reed spread his hands. “Ma’am? Let’s just start with your name.”

  “Ida Stevens. What does that do ya?”

  “Helps me keep my head straight. And your daughter?”

  “Name is Kasey. With a K.”

  “Thank you. Can you describe to me what Kasey looks like?”

  Ida stared at him, then blinked and turned around, calling to someone in the road. “Griff? Griff!”

  The fire cop who was out there in case of traffic started over. “Okay, Ida – easy, Ida.”

  When he was a little closer, Ida said, “They’re asking about Kasey and about what she looks like.”

  Griff was nodding as he took Ida by the shoulders carefully. She was wearing sweatpants and a fleece jacket. Crocs on her feet, bright orange over white socks. Her arms were slightly akimbo, like she was ready to grapple with anyone getting in her way.

  Griff said, “Okay, Ida. You know how it is. Just try to answer their questions, all right? And we’ll get this thing figured out.” Over her shoulder, Griff looked at Reed.

  Reed said to her back, “Ma’am – can you tell me what Kasey was wearing last night? Or the last time you saw her?”

  She wheeled around on him, her face hectic again. Instead of answering, she pushed past him, headed straight for the line of cops who held their arms out as a barrier. “Get out of my way!”

  When two of the cops in the middle made a grab for her, she did an end run around them – she was quick – and then she was running between the trees, down to the brook, across the short bridge.

  “Ah, shit,” Reed said.

  Two troopers took off after her
; the other cops glanced at Reed for direction. “Yeah, get her – get her! Be careful, though! Be gentle…”

  He followed them as she ran up the slope into the deeper woods. No one wanted to hurt her, and she kept slipping their grip, as if covered in oil. One of the cops tripped and fell in the undergrowth, crying out in pain.

  “Ma’am!” Reed called. He jogged to keep up. “Ida, hold on!”

  She grabbed an exposed root at the steepest part, and her breath exploded as she hauled herself up. The Crocs didn’t provide good traction, but she was determined. Four cops were right behind her – the trooper in front kept reaching, and she’d bat his hand away. Reed couldn’t risk what she might do to the crime scene. It had already been trampled on, and now there was a civilian getting close.

  “Okay guys,” he shouted. “Come on!”

  The closest trooper lunged and got Ida in a bear hug. She started pushing back against him, really digging in with her heels, whacking at his arms. She was silent, though, just her intense breathing, and in that instant Reed got the picture of a woman who was no stranger to violence.

  The other trooper was there next, helping – they had protocol to follow, but it was never easy in the moment; they didn’t know what to do, how much force. So Reed got around in front of her – narrowly missing getting his bell rung by flailing feet – and put himself right in her line of sight.

  “Ida! Stop!”

  She struggled for another few seconds, but she was breaking, calming. Her face scrunched up, and tears formed in the corners of her eyes.

  Reed, panting a bit, said, “There’s a girl up there. Okay? A teenage girl. She’s up there in the woods, and she could be your daughter. And she’s gone. Ida, she’s dead.”

  A sound emanated from Ida’s throat, low, a moan; it rose and became shrill, like a siren. Reed realized it was a long Nooo… Then she went limp, and the troopers eased her down, and she pooled on the ground, her face hanging, her shoulders slumped.