Dead Point (Maggie Blackthorne Book 1)

by LaVonne Griffin-Valade

  I heard Dan Nodine yelling frantically in the background and their yelping Rottweiler. Then two blasts from what sounded like a shotgun. “What’s going on? I’m headed there right now. Joseph? Jesus! Tell me what’s going on!”

  His phone clicked off. I hit redial and let it ring. I locked up, moved to my police vehicle, and continued punching redial. I switched on the emergency lights and siren and headed south on 395. There was no calling Hollis for backup. Besides, whatever mess I was charging into might be nothing more than a brawl between the Nodines and the miscreants they pissed off. Yet I sensed it wasn’t just a tiff between two factions of the outlaw element. Knew in my gut it was more. Also knew I should report the call to J.T. Lake, or at a minimum, contact dispatch to request assistance from Burns. Instead, I gunned the Tahoe up Canyon Mountain.

  Loose fencing surrounded the deserted mill property, shuttered now for thirty years. The single gate hung from its twisted hinge, a battered and broken birdwing. In the darkening twilight, I scanned the five acres of cracked concrete overgrown with salt grass, knapweed, and planer junk. A wigwam burner—a teepee-shaped colossus at least sixty feet tall and nearly seventy-five feet wide at the base—stood near the fence line, its metal shell rusted, decrepit but intact. An outhouse for millworkers, the only other structure remaining, had fallen to ruin. Besides an owl and a beady-eyed possum, the old industrial site was largely occupied by silence, and from where I sat in my rig, there was nothing to indicate the presence of the Nodines or their muscle-bound dog.

  In my headlights, a gale-swept flurry of corn snow hurtled across the sparse plot of cement and thrashed at the wigwam burner’s loose metal siding. I cut the engine and warning lights and opened the gate.

  In the mill yard, I gripped my Maglite and Glock and called out for the brothers. The scent of rot and blood wafted from the maw of the wigwam burner’s open access door. I entered the immense, annular space of the burner, my flashlight illuminating the domed peak of steel mesh at the top of the structure, the decaying walls, and the Nodines’ Ram 3500. Cow pies littered the sooty earthen floor nearest the vehicle along with cigarette butts, gum wrappers, and an unopened can of Red Bull.

  A large silver livestock trailer was parked beside the red diesel truck. One of its wheel wells had been shot-gunned. Squatting near the ground, I shifted the Maglite’s yellow beam under the trailer. The twins’ Rottweiler lay among the filth, gut-shot and dead.

  Stifling a scream, I used the battered wheel well to pull myself erect. Something other than the dog emitted a thick, foul stench. I eyeballed the camouflage tarp draped loosely across the pickup bed.

  “Fuck.” Even as a whisper, my voice echoed from the charred walls of the burner.

  I holstered the Glock and warily yanked back the tarp. The remains of yesterday’s poached deer lay in a putrefying mess in the glare of my flashlight. I dropped the camouflage canvas and placed the back of my forearm over my mouth and nose to quell the overwhelming urge to retch.

  Advancing along the interior wall of the wigwam burner, I flashed the Maglite toward the ring-shaped base of metal and sod. The Nodine twins sat on the ground in the shadow of the diesel truck and livestock trailer. Their legs extended forward, their backs slumped against the rusted edifice. Each wore cheap Wrangler jeans and a down jacket. One had on Nike cross trainers, the other wool socks and Birkenstock knock-offs.

  I recognized the dour serenity of death. It had been present in the lifeless bodies of my mother and father, and in Alligator Paulus, my best friend in high school lying cold in her coffin, and in the kid who crashed down a ravine when I was still a rookie officer.

  I checked each man for a pulse, knowing I’d find none. Both had been shot in the chest and torso with what appeared to be a high-powered weapon. Blood, still with sheen, seeped crosswise over their jackets and soaked into the earthen floor. Joseph’s arm draped aimlessly across Dan’s. A phone, presumably the one Joseph had used to call me less than forty minutes ago, lay on the ground between them.

  Gaping at the carnage, a wave rolled through me—nausea, disgust, disbelief. One brother’s scream surely followed the other’s, a greater agony to have endured. What kind of beast kills like this? The kind who’d blow away a tiny girl-cop, alone and without cover, in a desolate and abandoned lumber mill.

  I drew my weapon, activated the tactical laser, and braced my body against the sooty wall. Forcing myself to breathe, I moved outside. With my left hand, I pointed the Glock straight into the dark. Cold air clattered with movement, footsteps padded across the mill yard. The beady-eyed possum passed through the green beam of light projecting from the laser mounted on my pistol barrel.

  “Mother of God.” I tucked the butt of the Maglite in one armpit and pulled up the night vision binoculars that hung from my neck. I rotated slowly in an awkward circle, perusing the property and desert beyond. Through the optics, I detected only the arc of storm clouds pressing in, lit by a mass of hot stars.

  I holstered the Glock, stashed the binoculars, and walked back to my vehicle. Those men, the tow-headed boys of my childhood, what had they done to deserve this? I trembled and held in check a rage of tears.

  I reported the murders to regional dispatch and waited for instructions, the Tahoe’s heater cranked to high. At six forty-five, a Detective Alan Bach with the State homicide unit out of Bend radioed that he was en route.

  His voice crackled across the airwaves. “I’m on my way to pick up Dr. Ray Gattis, the medical examiner. We should be there by twenty-one thirty or so, and I’ll need the scene rigged with lights by the time we get there.”

  “Yes, Detective. I carry portable light towers with me.”

  “Good. Collect whatever preliminary evidence you can and contact the county sheriff.” Chatter from a police scanner droned in the background. “Wait. Remind me of his name?”

  Our sheriff had a certain reputation around the state. He was known for picking and choosing which laws he would follow and for making up his own on occasion.

  “Rhinehart, sir. Sheriff Dirk Rhinehart.”

  “Right, right. On second thought, I’ll call the sheriff myself. Later.”

  That suited me fine. “Yes, sir.”

  “Sergeant? Blackthorne, is it?”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  “Did you know the deceased?”

  “Yes, sir. I grew up here. So did they.”

  “Any criminal history?”

  “A few years back they both served time at the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institute for a range of offenses.” I decided to wait to tell the detective in person about yesterday’s attempt to cite the twins for poaching.

  “You have a sense of who might have wanted to kill them?”

  “Conceivably the list could be long. But I’ve got no specifics.”

  “We’ll meet you there as soon as we can.” Bach’s radio crepitated madly as he signed off.

  Before setting up the portable light towers, I phoned Sam Damon, the town funeral director and mortician. “Sam, it’s Maggie Blackthorne.”

  “Evening, Sergeant.”

  Although I’d been his babysitter when he was in elementary school, Sam always referred to me by my rank.

  “The medical examiner and a State homicide detective are on their way from Bend. Wanted to give you a heads-up that I’m going to need your services tonight, probably late, sorry to say. There are two bodies.”

  “Two, huh?”

  “That’s right. Anyway, I’ll call you later once the ME gives the go-ahead.” I planned to notify next of kin after the detective and Dr. Gattis finished their work at the crime scene. So I wasn’t about to tell Sam which two bodies he was coming to collect. In addition to being the town funeral director and mortician, he was also the town gossip. No need to crank up the Dogpatch talking-circle any earlier than necessary.

  “I’ll be waiting for your call,” Sam said.

  Outside the wind had settled, making it easier to carry the light towers from my ri
g to the interior of the wigwam burner. After positioning the lights, I photographed the Ram 3500, the damaged livestock trailer, and the littered burner floor. I slipped on a pair of latex gloves and bagged the empty shotgun cartridges at the burner entrance and tossed the cigarette butts, gum wrappers, and can of Red Bull into separate plastic sleeves.

  Steeling myself, I photographed the brothers from various angles and slipped their phone into an evidence bag. Then I waited in my rig, listening to Lucinda Williams and Tedeschi Trucks Band. I was about to doze off when my phone buzzed loudly. It was Hollis. I let it go to voicemail. I didn’t feel much like having one of our little chats, but afterward, I listened to his message: their newborn son was healthy and beautiful.

  The joy contained in Holly’s voice was immense. But I wondered how I might reconcile the two events—the birth of his son and the death of the Nodine brothers—taking place on the same night, maybe at the same hour, out here on our solitary speck of Earth.

  Shortly after nine thirty, the utility headlights from an OSP Ford Interceptor appeared in my rearview. I cut the Tahoe engine and greeted Detective Bach as he emerged from his vehicle.

  He snapped shut the chinstrap on his down aviator hat and shook my hand. “I wish we could have met under more pleasant circumstances, Sergeant Blackthorne.”

  The man appeared to be in his mid-to-late fifties, slim and fit, likely an indication of a tedious workout schedule. He’d probably been a handsome guy in his day, with a clean-cut military style that screamed self-assured and righteous. I also noticed the cross relief on his wedding ring. Old school, no doubt—Mormon or Catholic or something else regimental.

  The medical examiner joined us outside the wigwam burner. She wore tall Frye boots over her jeans, a leather bomber jacket, and an expensive wool scarf. I had expected the doctor to be a man, of course, and I could see she had expected the same of me.

  Bach took care of formalities. “Sergeant Margaret Blackthorne, this is Dr. Ray Gattis.”

  “Nice to meet you, Sergeant. Freaking cold out here, Al.”

  “I don’t think this will take too terribly long, Ray,” he said.

  True to his reputation, Detective Alan Bach was all business. Apparently, though, he never wanted to be accused of making eye contact with a subordinate.

  Speaking to his forehead, I relayed what I knew. Told him about the Nodines and the poached deer. Also explained they’d been driving the red truck when I attempted to cite them yesterday. “Neither man was the registered owner.”

  “Stolen?”

  “Nothing reported, sir,” I said. “It’s registered to a Frank Sylvester with a Burns address.”

  He suggested we move on to look at the scene, and I led the way through the wigwam burner’s open access door.

  “My God, that smell,” the doctor said.

  “Mostly the remains of the deer they killed yesterday,” I said.

  She studied the iron mesh opening at the top of the structure. “I hadn’t realized how large these things were.”

  “I hadn’t either,” I said. “They hid that huge one-ton and a livestock trailer inside. Never would’ve guessed it was possible.”

  “Pretty clever of them, too,” she said.

  “Until today, anyway,” I countered, sans the usual snarky edge.

  “I remember these old things,” Detective Bach said. “They were used to burn sawmill wood waste up until the late seventies or so.”

  I pointed to the livestock trailer. “You can see the shotgun damage to the trailer’s rear left wheel well, also the dead Rottweiler underneath. A different weapon killed the Nodine brothers.”

  “How’d you know where to look for them, Sergeant?” Bach asked.

  “They called the station earlier this evening, asked me to meet them here.”

  “Time of the call?”

  “Approximately five forty-five, Detective.”

  “And everything is the way you found it?”

  “I took photos and collected the shotgun cartridges, cigarette butts, that kind of thing. I assumed you’d want to see where the shell casings landed near the bodies.”

  “Good thinking, Sergeant.”

  “I’d like to examine the two men now,” the doctor said.

  “Over here.” I pointed to the second portable lighting tower erected at the far wall fifteen or so feet from the Nodines’ vehicle and trailer. As we approached, the grisly scene unsettled me as much as it had a few hours ago. Even more so. The brothers’ faces were now fully ashen, and rigor mortis had begun to set in.

  “Jesus,” the doctor said. “Whoever these two crossed was one pissed-off mother.”

  The detective crouched to get a closer look. “Seems they were shot at close range, but I’ll leave those particulars to you, Dr. Gattis.”

  “How thoughtful of you,” she intoned. “I’ll fetch my kit from the backseat of your SUV and get to those particulars, then.”

  “I don’t mind getting your kit for you, Ray,” Bach said, moving toward the access door.

  The ME knelt and studied the dead men, removed a pair of latex gloves from her coat pocket, and closed their eyes. “What’s your first name again, Sergeant Blackthorne?”

  “Margaret. I go by Maggie.”

  “I loathe titles myself. Okay if I call you Maggie?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I prefer Ray. Or Doctor, if you must. But never ma’am, all right?”

  I made a mental note that ma’am had gone out of fashion. Probably explained its prevalent use by law enforcement types.

  “I need to conduct the autopsies tomorrow, but there’s not a morgue in the county, right?” Ray asked.

  “Correct. I gave the local undertaker a heads-up we needed him to collect two bodies tonight.”

  “It’ll take less than a half an hour to do what I need to here.”

  I stepped outside and phoned Sam Damon at home, let him know the ME would be ready for him by the time he got out here. Next I put in a call to the after-hours line at Whitey Kern’s tow company, told him we needed his heavy-duty wrecker and a separate flatbed tow truck out at the old Seneca lumber mill site.

  Bach returned with the doc’s exam kit and his pack loaded with an assortment of crime scene tools. He asked me to join him at the Ram 3500. “Have the next of kin been informed?”

  “No, sir. One of my troopers was with his wife at the hospital tonight about to have a baby. Our third officer is out on vacation.”

  “I see.”

  “And I thought I should be the one to inform the parents. I’ve known them since I was a toddler,” I added.

  “That could make it more difficult,” he said.

  “Not as difficult as finding the bodies of their sons, sir.”

  “I know it’s the usual practice, Sergeant Blackthorne, but there’s no need to call me sir.” His invitation to be less formal was surprising. “How fresh?”

  “How fresh?” Again, I was speaking to the man’s forehead.

  “The manure. How fresh is the manure?”

  “Looks pretty fresh to me, but I’m not really an expert.”

  “Today fresh, if you had to guess?”

  I squatted to examine the cow pies more closely. “I’d say it ranges from very recent to today fresh.”

  “And how many cattle would that trailer hold?”

  “Typical size and weight, I’d say about five or six,” I said.

  “Five or six beef cattle worth much these days?”

  “Up to ten grand for a full load, depending on the condition of the animals.”

  “Any recent incidents of cattle theft?”

  “Not that I’m aware, Detective. But I did have a strange encounter earlier today with a local rancher. He was escorting a truckload of his Black Angus.”

  “Was he armed?” Bach asked.

  “Mr. Trudeau’s likely always armed. It was the truck driver I was interested in, though.” I explained Jess Bennett was the cousin of the Nodine twins, and she dr
ove for Frank Sylvester Trucking.

  “Sylvester? The owner of our diesel pickup here?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Interesting. Is that just a coincidence, you think?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “And no citation was handed out?”

  I shook my head. “None required.”

  The detective mulled that over a moment. “So there’ll be no police report either.”

  It was hard to discern whether he was perturbed or not.

  “Be sure to include that encounter in your incident report on the victims. I’m not finding much to go on in the vehicle except a few sets of latent prints. Although this might be something.” He held out a small plastic evidence bag containing a sticky note with BRADY scrawled across it. “Found it in the glove compartment. Is that name familiar?”

  “Might be a last name, a first name, a place name, a company name. Not one I recognize, though.” I pointed toward the ignition. “Also, I noticed earlier the key was missing, possibly on one of the bodies.”

  “Would you mind dusting the passenger-side doors? I need to check for shoe and tire tread marks.” He handed me his fingerprint kit and retrieved a can of aerosol dust and dirt hardener, along with a casting frame.

  He indicated the burner floor. “I doubt I’ll be able to recover any tracks in this muck of cow manure, but I’ve been surprised before.”

  While Bach attempted to find tread marks worthy of making a cast, I finished checking for prints. Afterward we bagged and labeled the paltry array of evidence we’d collected.

  Frowning, the detective eyed the few items prepped for the lab. “Let’s check on Ray.”

  Blood covered her smock and gloves, and she’d inadvertently wiped a two-inch streak above her left eyebrow. She removed her protective gear and gathered a pack of wet towelettes from her kit. “A fucking mess, Al. Semiautomatic handgun. And like you said, each shot twice at close range. The bullets caused extensive internal damage before exiting.”

  Bach pointed to another smear. “There’s still a dab of blood on your forehead.”

  “Christ.” She peeled off another towelette. “Both men had been roughed up. Hard to say right now if that occurred just before the shooting or hours earlier. But I’m certain they were killed where Maggie found them. They were undoubtedly forced to sit against the wall, so I’d rule out self-defense on the shooter’s part.”