A Stranger in Town: a Rockton novel

by Armstrong, Kelley

  “What we encountered last spring was a hunting party in what Maryanne described as a ‘down’ phase.”

  “Lucid,” I say. “Thinking clearly enough not to want to ruin our clothing.”

  “Yep. In the ‘up’ phase—the manic one—they wouldn’t have thought of that, she’d said. It’d be a frenzied killing.”

  “Which this could be, except they did take all the hikers’ pack goods. What happened to us was a clear-thinking ambush. They tracked and cornered us. Which should be the same here. They saw the camp and orchestrated an attack, like they did on Maryanne’s group. When they attacked Maryanne’s group, it was at night, and they didn’t order them to undress first. The goods weren’t as important as the captives. Except I’m not sure they took a captive here and . . .”

  I exhale and rub my temples.

  “Yeah,” Dalton says. “It’s not quite adding up.”

  “Maybe it is. We only have one boot. Both bodies are wearing shirts, which were damaged, like the tent. Both are wearing only underwear. No jackets for either of them. The lack of jackets could suggest either those were taken or it was a daytime attack and they’d discarded their warm outerwear. But the lack of pants . . . I’m going to speculate that this happened at night. That’s what Sophie said.”

  “The killers caught them asleep, wearing T-shirts and underwear. Someone manages to pull on a boot, and afterward, when the killers are gathering the goods, they don’t realize there’s a missing boot.”

  I nod. “We thought Sophie lost her shoes. She was probably never wearing them. Surprised at night, like Maryanne’s group. Bodies left in what they were wearing. The rest of the goods taken.”

  I turn to the tent and stare at it. What’s bothering me . . .

  “Shit,” I say.

  “Yeah. One tent.”

  I turn to him and arch a brow. “When did you figure that out?”

  Dalton shrugs. “At the other site. Just waiting on you.”

  That wasn’t a test. He hasn’t done that since our earliest days. Instead, he was being respectful and trusting my process. It’s like when I’d been a newly minted detective. On my first crime scene, I’d been poking around, rattling off observations, until my partner handed me a notebook and pen, and said, “Write it down. Time-stamp it if that helps.”

  He’d understood that I wanted to prove I deserved my detective shield, but my machine-gun observation patter disrupted his own musings. If I needed to show that I’d noticed clues before he did, the time stamp would do that. I got the hint and mentally stored up my observations until he would inevitably turn to me with “Whatcha got, kid?” and I could show him.

  Dalton has identified the problem that niggled at me earlier, back-burnered while I concentrated on other observations.

  There’s only one tent. Only signs of one tent. I check all the nearby trees, and I inspect the ground, and there’s nothing to suggest another shelter occupied this clearing.

  “How about the other site?” I say. “I only recall evidence of a single tent there, too. Did I miss something?”

  He considers and then shakes his head. “I didn’t think to look closer, but I only recall rope marks for one.”

  I walk to the ruined tent and consider it. Open the flap and peer inside. It’s definitely a two-person tent.

  When I say that, I add, “Unless the four of them liked getting real cuddly, and if they did, no judgment.”

  Dalton chuckles.

  “However,” I continue. “Whatever their living arrangements at home, they aren’t going to be squeezing four people into a two-person tent after a long day of hiking. Even the two-person one doesn’t leave much stretching room.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What we’re seeing, then, isn’t two couples who like a lot of together time, but the opposite. Two couples who’ve had quite enough together time, thank you very much.”

  He glances over and then shakes his head. “Shit. Of course. Two tents. Two campsites. They wanted a break from each other.”

  “Could have been a fight. Could have just been a privacy issue. They’d been traveling together for days, and they didn’t particularly want to ‘keep it quiet’ for another night. I believe we know the feeling.”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  “That’s a theory then. They separated for the night to get some private time. But there are no signs of attack at the other camp, and Sophie clearly was attacked.” I rub my temples. “No point speculating when I can—hopefully—ask her for more details tomorrow. For now . . .”

  I look at the remains of the two victims. “Do we transport them back to Rockton? Or bury them? I’m not sure we’ll get anything from them in an autopsy, but I hate to lose a chance. If we bring these bodies back, though, and anyone sees them, no ‘it was scavengers’ explanation is going to keep people from freaking out.”

  “Mobile autopsy. Cover the remains. Bring April out.”

  I nod, and we set to work.

  10

  The autopsy is hard. Holy shit, is it hard.

  The day I arrived in Rockton, Dalton and Anders brought in a corpse from the woods, one who was missing his lower legs. This, though? This is the most disturbing crime scene I’ve ever come across, and dealing with it is not even the worst part of my day. The worst is having to show it to my sister.

  I commit an unforgivable sin here. The sin of misunderstanding April and her neurological condition. I have grown up with a sister who is coldly competent, and in my head, I have substituted “unfeeling” for “emotionally detached.”

  Even knowing her condition and researching the hell out of it, I cannot move the monolith in my head that is “my sister, April.” When April looked askance at my own displays of emotion, I saw judgment instead of confusion. So I expected I would warn her about the crime scene, and she’d brush off my concerns and snap that she’s a doctor and suggest that I lacked the fortitude to handle such things.

  The real April? She does all of that, and I’m sure when she says I’m overreacting, she thinks I truly am. That doesn’t mean she is prepared. It means she cannot comprehend being unprepared. She’s spent her life slicing into the human body, and it has never bothered her, so why should this?

  Why indeed?

  April has been working on the woman’s torso for twenty minutes now, and she has to keep stopping, balling her hands to stop the faint tremor, her breath rasping against the surgical mask I insisted she wear to stifle the smell. Every few moments, her gaze moves to the side, accidentally catching a severed limb, and she closes her eyes, steeling herself to start again.

  Another hand flex, and she murmurs, “I believe I overindulged in coffee this morning.”

  “It’s okay to say you find this difficult, April.”

  “I do not. It is simply . . .” A furtive glimpse around. “It is outside my experience, and I am adjusting.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Please stop saying that.”

  “I can’t. I’m just . . . I’m so, so sorry.”

  “You warned me. I failed to comprehend the situation fully.”

  I nod.

  She glances over. “Are you crying, Casey?”

  I blink back tears. “N-no. It’s just . . .”

  “Allergies to a substance in the vicinity that you have somehow never encountered before?” Her brows arch. “You are crying.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop. The apologies, I mean. You are permitted to cry, even if you do not need to feel bad on my account. I will adjust.”

  Silence. Then her fingers tentatively rest on my arm.

  “I am fine, Casey.”

  I nod, tears flowing freely. “I’m just. I’m—” I instinctively throw out my arms to hug her and then stop, horror seizing me as I mumble yet another apology.

  “You wanted to hug me?” She eases back on her haunches. “You haven’t done that since you were a toddler.”

  I manage a weak smile. “I learned it wasn’t your favorite thi
ng.”

  “It is not. However, you may hug me now, if it helps.”

  I throw my arms around her in a quick embrace. As I pull away, she grips my shoulder, leans in, and whispers, “Yes, it is difficult. I will be fine. I would not, however, object to a very strong drink when we return to Rockton.”

  I pass her a wry smile. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Excellent. Now let’s finish this.”

  * * *

  I put April through the hell of that scene, and we learn absolutely nothing new for it. As she points out, though, I needed her to confirm my suspicions, and without that, I’d be running a constant mental loop of doubt, kicking myself for burying the bodies before I was sure.

  With the state of the corpses, an autopsy isn’t 100 percent conclusive either. Yet April feels confident saying that both victims died of knife wounds. The condition of the wounds says they were alive at the time—their hearts were still pumping blood. The woman’s neck slice bisects the carotid artery and would have been fatal. One of the man’s stab wounds perforated his heart. Also fatal.

  Both injuries are consistent with blades. April may specialize in neuroscience, but she spent years in emergency wards, and she knows the difference between a knife wound and an animal bite. Plenty of the latter here, but the killing blows are not among them.

  She also confirms that the severing of the limbs was postmortem and appears to have been the result of animal predation. There are no marks on the bones to suggest cutting.

  There’d been a time when Dalton speculated that the hostiles may have practiced cannibalism. Looking back, I think he’d been genuinely confused by our horror. Killing humans as prey would be abhorrent to him. Eating those who’d already died would be repugnant. But in a desperate situation, lost in the winter wilderness with no way to catch game, it would be a necessary evil.

  There is absolutely nothing about this crime scene that suggests cannibalism. Nor any solution other than the one we’d already theorized. Sophie’s group had been set upon by hostiles, who’d killed at least two people, left the bodies, and raided the camp.

  The second campsite complicates the situation slightly—were they all hanging out together at the first one when the hostiles attacked? If so, why weren’t they fully dressed? It’s not a theory-breaking complication. Just something to address with Sophie once she’s lucid.

  The biggest question remains: Do we have another survivor? Without DNA, April agrees we cannot confirm or refute the possibility that the foot belongs to the male corpse here. By the time we got that DNA processed, any survivor would be dead from exposure. We’ll take the foot and a tissue sample from the male corpse. In the meantime, Dalton and I must search for a potential survivor.

  * * *

  April returns to Rockton with Anders. We’d left him with Storm and the vehicles. And no, he didn’t accept that without complaint. Anders has been to war. He’s seen friends blown up by IEDs. There was no way in hell we were letting him near that crime scene when it was completely unnecessary. So he waited and then handed over our camping gear before he took April back to town.

  Dalton, Storm, and I set out on our search. It is meticulously slow work. We take Storm on wider circles around the crime scene, in case that helps her pick up a trail. At one point, I suspect she’s following the killers. Their trail soon breaks up, and while it might seem that we’d try harder to hunt them down, they aren’t our priority. I’m not even sure what to do about them. The obvious answer should be that they’re murderers, and we need to bring them to trial. Which is kind of like tracking a grizzly and bringing it to trial.

  Catching the hostiles responsible doesn’t solve the problem. The situation must be resolved in a permanent manner, preferably by the council stepping up and following Maryanne’s recommendation to begin the process of capture, assessment, deprogramming, and reintegration.

  For now, I want to focus on finding the potential survivor. Of course, he may be with his hostile captors. If so, then I hope he’ll play along until we can rescue him. He will be safe enough if he does that. My bigger concern is that he’s alone in the forest, without supplies, possibly wounded.

  We return to the second campsite in search of anything we overlooked. A clue or, perhaps better, a piece of clothing we could use to ensure Storm has the right scent. We only confirm that there did indeed seem to be only one tent here, which is now gone, the entire camp cleared as thoroughly as if it’d been packed up.

  Are we misinterpreting the evidence? If this camp looks like it was properly dismantled, then maybe the two couples hadn’t decided to sleep apart.

  “Or they did and then didn’t,” Dalton says.

  I nod slowly, processing. “They plan to sleep apart, and then have second thoughts. Maybe it was a fight, and they resolved the issue. Maybe they had dinner together at the other camp, and couple number two decided to just stay and sleep on the ground. No, wait. That wouldn’t explain the packed camp. They must have made up and reunited but it was too late to set up the second tent. Warm night. They have their sleeping bags. Set those up outside.”

  “That would explain how Sophie escaped. She was in the tent with her partner. Hostiles attack the two outside and kill them quickly. Go after Sophie and her partner next.”

  “They kill him, and Sophie escapes. Or he makes a run for it, and she’s injured, and he doesn’t come back to check. Presumes she’s dead.”

  Dalton snorts. “Asshole.”

  That’s harsh. Yes, I would come back to check. So would Dalton. Of course, we wouldn’t run in the first place, not unless we could escape together. I’m sure most people would say the same. Only a coward runs. Only a coward doesn’t return. But until you’re in that situation, it’s impossible to judge it.

  I only know that we’d both stay because we can fight. If Sophie’s lover didn’t have those skills? If he’d been sleep-groggy and panicked? If he’d been so certain she was dead that he never considered returning? I won’t judge. I just want to find him.

  We do not find him. Nor do we find any sign that he survived. The more we search the more certain I am that his body was dragged off by a predator. Maybe our local cougar or one of her full-grown cubs. Take the body. Cache it in a tree. We’ve seen her do it with a settler.

  When the sun begins to drop, we declare it a day and declare our searching at an end. If he’s out here, he’s not close by, and we could hunt for weeks and never find him. At the very least, we can get more information from Sophie. And we can take that DNA test to Dawson and ship it south for testing.

  We debate going back to Rockton. It’s barely dark, but it’s 11 p.m., and we’ve been awake since four. We’re exhausted, fueled for nineteen hours by water and energy bars, and too little of both. We have our camping gear. We have food packed by Anders, and when we open the box to find both dinner and breakfast, that seals the deal. We’ll head back first thing tomorrow.

  11

  It’s not yet six the next morning, and I’m cuddled on a campfire log with Dalton as he roasts breakfast sausages. The smell of venison brings a red fox, who watches Storm from the forest, as if the dog is the only thing preventing the small canine from stealing our breakfast.

  Storm glances at us, checking whether we want it scared off. There’s a cross fox that lives behind my old house in Rockton, and the vixen has made peace with Storm, realizing that the larger canine provides an excellent deterrent to any predator who’d bother her annual litter of cubs. Storm and the fox aren’t friends, but they tolerate one another, and when I give Storm the signal that chasing off this fox is optional, I’m not surprised when she only settles in to watch the beast.

  We’re dining with both a dog and a fox nearby, yet it’s Dalton who senses trouble first. Storm’s on her feet then, staring to the left, hackles rising in a warning growl that makes the fox decide it’s time to disappear.

  Dalton tilts his head, nostrils flaring. He takes a few steps and sniffs again, sampling the breeze. This isn’t some
thing he’d do with others around. He’s well aware of how it looks, and even if few people in Rockton know his past, he will forever feel like that “savage” child, brought back and taught civilized manners, which include not sniffing the air.

  Dalton’s sense of smell isn’t any better than mine. He’s just more accustomed to using it, and when I do the same, I catch what he does. Campfire smoke. Not surprising, given that there’s a campfire crackling right behind us. But this smell wafts over on the breeze. Someone else has a fire close by.

  There are approximately as many settlers in this region as Rockton residents. If I’d known that before I arrived, I’d have imagined those settlers fighting for hunting territory and fresh water. Having experienced the reality, though, I’ve discovered that thought is laughable. Dalton estimates one settler for every three square kilometers. That’s nearly a thousand acres for each person, and most share their land by choice—they live in one of the two settlements or with a family group. If you don’t want to be social, you need never encounter another person. So this fire is too close to be a coincidence.

  I motion for Storm to stay where she is. She grumbles, but she’s accustomed to this indignity. We cannot sneak up on anyone with a Newfoundland lumbering after us.

  Dalton sets out, and I fall in behind, covering him. He places each step with care, and I follow in his literal footsteps. When we’re close enough to see the fire—and two figures sitting by it—the smell of cooking meat wafts over, along with . . . Is that coffee?

  Dalton tilts his head and inhales as he considers. He peers into the bush, and we both look for other figures. There appear to be none except the two at the fire.

  He gestures for me to circle while he takes the straight-on approach. I keep my eye on him as we creep toward the campfire. Halfway there, I pause and motion to Dalton. He hesitates and then nods.

  Unnecessary risks are not my thing, but in this case, I’m compelled to make an exception.