by Lakota Grace
It looked to be about five hundred feet ahead of me. Gingerly dodging prickly pear and yucca, I walked to the top of a large knoll. I once again peered over the edge of the cliff. I was close. Far below me, the police barrier tape stretched out in a yellow square and the last of the sun glinted off the tailings pond.
Up ahead, smoke marks on still standing tree trunks increased. It looked as though the fire had spread outward from the campsite, igniting the lower manzanita brush and then leaping upward to char the shaggy-bark junipers.
The crew had countered by drawing backfire lines in the dirt and clearing the underlying duff. They had managed to hold the fire to the size of a large vacant lot. I broke into an open area and in front of me lay the makeshift campsite. No fire or smoke remained, but the ground was trampled and sooty. The bare outline of a tent flapped in the breeze, mostly destroyed by the fire. No sign of a vehicle. Had the man hiked to this location?
A few feet beyond the tent, the cliff dove straight down several hundred feet to the gravel pit below. The soil was crumbly and disturbed near the edge of the cliff, but that could be from the men fighting the blaze. I peered over the edge, holding onto a juniper branch. The earth sunk beneath my feet and I jumped back. A long way to fall. I picked up a handful of dirt and rubbed it between my fingers to cut the stickiness of juniper pitch.
It wasn't an official crime scene yet and might never be if the commissioner’s budget had anything to do with it. Indeed, the fire crew had trampled much of the crime scene, if it were such. Still, I was curious. My life goal in joining the sheriff’s department was not pounding the street writing tickets. I was destined for bigger things, like homicide detective.
What better way to prepare for that future than gain a little surreptitious practice, out of the watchful eye of my superiors? The good angel urged caution, but the dark angel was performing a victory dance. Here, in the solitude of this late afternoon forest, I could practice my ultimate goal of becoming a CSI expert with nobody looking over my shoulder.
I performed a visual grid search of the area near the ruined tent. Nothing obvious. Then, using the tent as a pivot point, I walked a spiral search pattern out from the center. It was a dusty business. My boots crushed the black ash sending up clouds of flume, and I coughed as the particles entered my throat.
Some of the prickly pear and bear grass, missed by the fire, created a patchwork of green in the midst of the black scar. But other than a few scraps of clothing, almost everything of human origin appeared destroyed in the blaze. I returned to my car and retrieved the evidence kit I'd bought myself as a present when I graduated from the Police Academy and gathered what fragments of cloth I could.
Then I spotted a single, pointed-toe boot print hidden in the shadows beside a large rock. Cowboy boots weren’t regulation footwear for a hotshot crew. There was ample evidence of their hobnailed wear throughout the burn site. I traced my memory: the dead man had been wearing loafers. And the print seemed fresh, set down within the last day or so, which would mean it could have been made just prior to the fire.
Had there been two people at the campsite? Perhaps someone meeting the dead man had left this footprint. The earth had been sheltered from the rains by the overhanging boulder, but shifting storm winds could destroy potential evidence.
I hadn’t taken an impression in the field before, but the steps of evidence collection came back to me from the Academy lectures. First, I used my camera to take pictures of the general location of the print relative to the tent fragments. Then I placed a scale next to the print and photographed it at both a low oblique angle and then from directly overhead. The tedious work that underlay creating an evidence framework quieted my mind.
Thunder growled in the distance and I picked up the pace. I'd only seen how to make an impression of a footprint in a demonstration, but it didn't look hard. Just mix up some dental stone to the consistency of pancake batter, they said, and pour it in the depression. Simple easy.
I returned to the trunk and dug out the jug of emergency water I carried there. Tipping some of the water into the bag of powder, I squished it a few times to moisten. A tongue depressor deflected the stream of liquid to prevent distortion as I poured the mixture into the print. How long did it take to harden? I checked the bag. No directions on that critical element. I'd have to wing it.
I squatted on my haunches to wait and tried to recreate the scene in my mind. Had the dead man been drinking alcohol? No evidence of more empty bottles or cans up here, but he could have visited a bar and then come up here to sleep it off. If he had walked all this way, wouldn’t that sober him up? Would me, I know.
Still, a misstep in the dark was a definite possibility. Perhaps the dead man had been making a campfire to spend the night when a thief showed up. Why a thief? I played the scenario out in my head. What would this man have that would be valuable enough to kill for? No personal possessions remained intact after the fire. If the man had backed away from an attacker, the result would be the same, death at the bottom of the fall. The pine trees surrounding me were silent, offering no answers.
I touched the dental stone mixture with my finger. Oops! Too soon. My fingertip left an ugly mark on the warm surface. I smoothed the indentation, hoping the lab wouldn't notice my beginner’s mistake. A few minutes later it was ready. By the time I had enclosed the now-hardened impression in bubble wrap and stowed it in the squad car with the rest of my gear, the threat of storm had passed, but the sun was going down.
The burn site turned ominous and dark in the gathering dusk. The adrenaline rush I’d felt at the murder scene earlier receded as well, leaving me cold and empty. Time to head for Mingus.
The tree shadows receded from the headlights as I reached the spot I'd met the two men. My grandfather’s pickup had disappeared and they were gone, too. I continued along the dirt road to the paved highway. When I got there, an old Jeep Wagoneer blocked access to the main road.
My irritation rose. Any idiot could see this side road had been traveled recently. Why park in front of it? Sighing, I unclicked the seat belt and got out.
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About the Author
I've called the American Southwest home for most of my life. Although Peril in Silver Nightshade is fiction, the House of Apache Fires does exist in Red Rock State Park, and the Navajo Reservation remains, at times brooding and desolate,but incredibly beautiful. I hope that someday you might be able to visit both.
I have an abiding love for the high desert plateau and the abundance of life it supports. Quail and red-tail hawks visit my feeders; bobcats and coyotes wander by. I maintain a cautious co-existence with the scorpions and javelinas who visit my backyard. Most of all, I enjoy getting up before dawn, watching the sun hit the red rocks, and sharpening my pencil for yet another writing session.
Thanks for reading! Visit me at LakotaGrace.com to see what Peg Quincy is up to next.
OTHER PEGASUS QUINCY
MYSTERIES
If you liked Peril in Silver Nightshade, you might enjoy the first book in the series, Death in Copper Town, about Pegasus Quincy's introduction to policework in the small town of Mingus, Arizona:
Pegasus Quincy, brand-new police academy graduate, is the sole law enforcement officer in Mingus when a dead body appears in an old mining pit. Peg’s boss rules the death an accidental fall.
But the investigation takes an ominous turn when the sheriff’s office is ransacked and a computer stolen. Then it becomes personal when a brick crashes through Peg’s window with a note warning her to “back off.”
Will she catch the murderer before he strikes again? NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON!
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In Book 2 of the series, Blood in Tavasci Marsh, Pegasus acquires a new partner, Shepherd Malone, and investigates a suspicious drowning at a local marsh:
When Pegasus Quincy reports back to work after m
andatory suspension for killing a crazed murderer, she hopes for some peace and quiet in her small town of Mingus. After all, the fall equinox and Halloween are approaching. Instead, she meets a new partner hostile to her way of doing things, and a dead body floating in a nearby marsh.
Then she encounters the Nettle family: an insanely jealous wife, a banished son, and a sister whose little girl has been traumatized by an explosion at the illicit family whiskey still. All have good reason to kill the patriarch and nobody's talking. Peg is furious when her own life is threatened.
Somehow, she must discover who killed old man Nettle before it is too late.
NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON!
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In Book 3, Fire in Broken Water, Peg Quincy takes the call to resolve violence on a Friesian horse ranch in Arizona.
Intent on his own personal vendetta, her partner Shepherd Malone refuses to declare a murder in a fatal fire at the ranch. Peg unwisely circumvents the law to investigate anyway.
Two families feuding over water rights, a Gypsy clan suspected of drug dealing, and a blackmailer on the loose, all lead Pegasus astray on her quest to find the killer in a desert mountain town beset by flash floods and arsenic-laced creeks.
When Peg refuses to stand down, the Water Wars turn deadly, and she becomes the ultimate target. Can she stop the killer before more lives are lost—including her own?
NOW AVAILABLE THROUGH AMAZON!
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