Farraday Road

by Ace Collins

  She thought of her husband, her children, both teenagers. Scott was a junior and looking forward to basketball season. Jennifer was fourteen and just beginning to flirt with boys. They were great kids, independent, self-sufficient; they could pretty much take care of themselves. But she wanted to experience their proms, homecomings, and graduations. She didn’t want to die on this lonely Ozark hill.

  But what if that were my kid lying up there? What if that were me?

  She knew what she should do, but knowing and doing were much different matters. No one would know if she chose self-preservation over duty. What difference did it make? The person was surely dead. But another force, one she couldn’t shove out of her mind, made her look again at the hill, at where the body was, maybe someone she knew.

  Dear God, please help me. I can’t do this. I need to do this. Please, God, help me.

  With her prayer came a memory. Something about “the least of these.” A Sunday school teacher had taught her that part of living out faith was to reach out to those in need. In fact, that message was why she had become a cop. Stuart sensed an unseen protection wrap around her and knew it was time to place others first, to put that old Sunday school lesson into practice. Maybe this was why she was here on Farraday Road on this stormy night. Maybe this calamity needed both her training and her faith. Maybe everything she had learned in both had made her ready for this moment. Even though she still wanted to run, she held her ground as her eyes drew a sharp, steady bead on the unmoving form halfway up the hill. Though most of the torso was cloaked in darkness, Stuart could see enough to know that the person lying face down in the mud was a woman.

  Stuart straightened from her crouching position and hurried back to her radio. “James …”

  “Yes, Mikki.”

  “We’ve got a possible homicide. Get me an EMT team.”

  “One just left an accident a couple of miles away. They’re empty. They’re just beyond Union. I’ll have them there in a matter of minutes.”

  “And get out here with backup. Something’s very wrong on this hill.”

  “What do you mean ‘backup’?”

  “Send everything you’ve got and get it here as fast as you can. We have a crime scene with one dead.”

  Not waiting for a reply, Stuart tossed the mike into the seat, jumped across the water-filled ditch, and sloshed up the muddy hill, her steps staying far to the right of the trail of footprints on the hill. She was on a mission. Working her flashlight beam back and forth as she climbed, she hurried past the woman’s shoe, past what looked like a coat, and continued to slog up the slope until she arrived at the body. Falling to her knees in the red Arkansas mud, she grabbed the woman’s wrist and felt for a pulse. The arm was still warm. There was no pulse. Taking hold of the victim’s left arm, Stuart eased the woman over onto her back.

  The face was caked in mud and blood from a massive head wound. Much of the forehead had been blasted away. Stuart felt bile in her gut but forced herself to look even more closely at the fatal injury. The woman had been shot from the back as she tried to flee. She probably was dead before she hit the ground.

  Reaching under her raincoat, Stuart brought a folded wad of tissues from her pants pocket and wiped away the blood and mud from around the woman’s nose and eyes. The face that emerged from this quick cleanup confirmed what she had feared but tried to deny. She knew the woman. The victim was her friend.

  A close friend.

  “Oh Lord, why Kaitlyn Evans? ” she whispered. “Kaitlyn, what happened to you?”

  The roar of a truck engine drew Stuart’s attention away from her dead friend. She tightened her grip on her revolver, but before she could move, emergency lights flashed through the trees; the EMTs from the fire department had arrived. She pulled back from her high-alert mode and watched the ambulance park behind her car. The vehicle had barely come to a stop when two paramedics jumped from the cab. They spotted Stuart’s flashlight beam and rushed up the hill toward her.

  “What happened? ” EMT Thomas Griffin said as he stooped to examine the body.

  “Murder. Kaitlyn Evans.”

  Griffin just looked at Stuart, as if frozen by some unseen force. In the few seconds of silence, Stuart heard the rain falling on the leaves of the sycamore tree, the rumble of Burns Creek, and the idling ambulance. It had been generations since the local courts had prosecuted a case of manslaughter. In this area, people rarely locked their doors. Violence was limited mostly to the football field. She couldn’t fathom what she must now investigate. Kaitlyn had been brutally assaulted. Killed. Why? She was the kindest person Stuart had ever known—that the town had ever known. Stuff like this didn’t happen here.

  Griffin’s stunned partner, twenty-five-year-old Tammy Nagal, still out of breath from her climb, finally found her voice. In a whisper, she said, “Anyone else?”

  Stuart reacted as if hit by a bolt of lightning. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Yes, where was Lije? Had he been with Kaitlyn?She shined her light up the hill. A quick scan of the landscape showed no signs of a struggle or footprints beyond where Kaitlyn had fallen and died. Still, she knew at least three more people had been right here; she had seen their footprints in the mud. So where were they now?

  Stuart quickly replayed everything she had done and observed since arriving at the scene. She had noticed no one along the road or on the slope, yet she had smelled gunpowder on the hill and found both the SUV’s hood and Kaitlyn’s body warm. This shooting was recent, maybe just minutes old when she arrived. Shining her light to a point below them, she saw two sets of prints that appeared to be leaving the body in the direction of the road.

  “There should be another set of tracks,” Stuart said.

  “What?”

  “There are four sets of footprints coming up the hill,” she explained, shining the light on the muddy trail leading to Kaitlyn’s body. “There’s only one body. Look at the tracks going back down the hill. Only two people left this spot. What happened to the other person? There has to be a third person somewhere.”

  She glanced back toward Nagal. Driven by a hunch, Stuart worked her way back down the hill toward her cruiser. Standing in the middle of the road in the glow of the emergency lights behind her, she bounced her flashlight beam back and forth along the ditch. A dozen feet from where she had first stopped to view the Explorer, Stuart spotted something almost hidden beside an old tree stump.

  “Over here!” she cried, hurrying to the spot. She pushed through the heavy brush and fell on her knees, landing in half a foot of muddy water. She shined her light into the face of a man she’d known since grade school.

  “It’s Lije Evans!” she yelled to the EMTs as they rushed toward her.

  Griffin got there first. He stooped and checked for a pulse. There was none. A few seconds later, Nagal arrived and the EMTs checked for signs of life.

  “He’s still warm,” Nagal said.

  “He’s not been here long,” Griffin said. “Do you think we arrived soon enough to use the AED?”

  “Only one way to find out,” Nagal said. “Let’s get him out of this water and into the wagon.”

  While Stuart and Nagal wrestled Evans from his muddy resting place, Griffin hurried back to the ambulance to retrieve a body board. He returned and positioned the board next to Lije, then they all rolled him onto the board and carried him to the truck. They slid him and the board onto a gurney. While Nagal worked on Lije’s airway, Griffin cut open his shirt and undid the pants.

  “He’s been shot in the gut,” Griffin said.

  Nagal applied the pads for the automatic defibrillator to the man’s bare chest, then made sure the AED unit was ready. “Clear!” she called and, certain no one was touching the gurney, pressed the button. Lije’s body reacted to the sudden jolt of electricity, then sank back to the gurney.

  Griffin searched for a pulse. “Nothing.”

  “We’ll do it again,” Nagal said.

  For a second time, Lije’s chest heaved u
pward as the powerful current raced through his body, then it fell back. Still no pulse.

  “It’s been too long. It’s no use,” Griffin said.

  Nagal nodded. “You’re probably right.”

  “Maybe the injury was simply too destructive,” Griffin said as he examined the wound.

  “The wound doesn’t look that bad to me,” Nagal said. “I think it’s timing. We’re too late. But the AED won’t work if the heart is flat-lined. And it did work, so there’s something.”

  “Do it again,” Stuart said. “Now.”

  “It’s no use,” Griffin said. “It would take a miracle, and I’m no miracle worker.”

  “This man’s my friend,” Stuart said. “You do your job and keep trying. I’ll pray for a miracle. I will not let him go without a fight.”

  Griffin shrugged and moved away from the gurney. Nagal again checked the pads on the bare chest.

  “Clear!” she called. This time there was no urgency in her delivery or tone.

  Maybe the old wives’ tale is true; maybe the third time is the charm. Maybe Griffin and Nagal did work a miracle. Or perhaps Stuart’s prayers got through. As the electrical charge lifted Lije Evans’ body from the gurney, his mouth opened and he gasped for air. His lungs filled. Suddenly there was a heartbeat. And another, and another. Suddenly there was life.

  “He’s alive!” Nagal shouted, her voice echoing out of the ambulance and all up and down the hills that lined Farraday Road.

  “He’s … alive,” Stuart whispered, not taking her eyes from the chest that was now moving up and down. “Thank you, God.”

  Griffin reached for his kit. “Okay, let’s keep him going, Tammy. We’re going to have bleeding, we need to deal with that. And we have to get him stabilized. Let’s get an IV started.” Continuing to spit out orders as he worked, he looked over at the deputy. “Mikki, alert the hospital to have a trauma team set up and waiting for us. We just might be able to save him after all.”

  Stuart hurried to the cruiser and made the call, wondering as she waited for a response why the backup she had requested hadn’t arrived yet.

  Soon the EMTs turned their vehicle around and, emergency lights still flashing, drove into the rainy darkness toward Salem.

  The deputy stood in the road and shined her light up the hill. What in the world happened here? Her beam once more fell onto Kaitlyn’s lifeless body. Who on God’s green earth would want to kill Kaitlyn and Lije Evans? How did Lije end up at the bottom of the hill?

  A bolt of lightning hit so close it made Stuart duck. The thunder exploded with such fury it shook the ground. The storm was getting worse. Night was being turned into day by flashes of lightning. While waiting for her backup, Stuart peered down the road in the direction of Burns Creek. She saw deep ruts leading down the hill toward the river. They looked fresh.

  She opened the cruiser door to radio in, then, on an impulse, headed toward the bridge, just fifty yards away. She started jogging to Burns Creek, then picked up the pace. The closer she got to the stream, the harder the rain fell, the raindrops flinging mud three or four inches into the air. In all of her thirty-six years, Stuart had never experienced such a downpour. It was as if all the energy in the universe had been unleashed at once right over Burns Creek. She ducked her head and kept running. Something drove her to see Old Iron.

  Darkness closed in around her. That odd sense she had had before returned. She slowed to a jog. The rain had found its way under her slicker and soaked her uniform. Finally, breathing hard, the roar of rushing water constant, Stuart stopped and aimed her beam toward the crossing at Burns Creek. Her jaw grew slack and her legs turned to jelly. She couldn’t see Old Iron’s girders. She couldn’t see Old Iron. Chilled to the bone, Stuart stepped cautiously toward the creek. Less than twenty feet from the stream, she once more shined her light where the road ended, where the bridge should have been. The old bridge from which she and Lije Evans had once jumped was not there. Not yet fully believing what her eyes saw, Stuart moved closer to the roaring stream. It was only when the rising waters were licking her shoes and a white bolt of lightning illuminated the night that she accepted the reality that lay in front of her. The waters had torn Old Iron from its anchors. Old Iron was gone.

  Cold rain pummeled the Fulton County deputy standing alone in the middle of Farraday Road. Mikki Stuart looked at the void where Old Iron had once rested securely. She felt a sense of great loss, as though nothing in her world would ever be the same again.

  THE SUN HAD BEEN UP FOR THREE HOURS BY THE TIME Barton Hillman, head of the Arkansas Bureau of Investigation, arrived at the crime scene on Farraday Road. The forty-five-year-old took a last gulp of lukewarm coffee before slowly exiting his state-issued white Crown Victoria. Standing beside the car, he surveyed what lay in front of him.

  The woods were alive with both local and state officers. It was hard to see the trees for the uniforms. No matter what direction he turned, Hillman saw cops. And worse, just a few feet behind the taped-off scene were a crowd of locals speculating on what had caused the nightmare on the hill. Half the county must have made the trip. What a freak show!

  “Too many people,” Hillman muttered as Fulton County Sheriff Calvin Wood strolled over to greet him.

  “What did you say? ” Wood asked, sticking out his right hand and adding, “Calvin Wood, Fulton County Sheriff.”

  After the handshake, Hillman sized up the man standing before him. Wood probably had not seen the inside of a gym since high school some four decades before. Though the sheriff was doing his best to look serious, it was obvious he was enjoying his brush with tragedy. Before Hillman could answer his question, Wood smiled and waved at a television crew that had come in from Springfield, Missouri. “I’ve already filled them in three times,” the sheriff said. “I’m doing their noon show live.”

  Shaking his head, Hillman leaned down, placed his face directly in front of the sheriff ’s, and said, “Too many people. The scene’s been so compromised I don’t know how my team’s going to figure anything out.”

  Wood glanced over his shoulder. “We had a lot of rain, a man in need of urgent medical care, and a missing officer. My people didn’t have time to gingerly tiptoe around in the dark. There were lives at stake. Besides, our top concern was and remains Deputy Stuart. So you can understand our rush.”

  Hillman didn’t raise his voice but spoke a bit slower when he said, “Yeah, I know about all that, and I truly sympathize, but now I want your folks out of here. This is my crime scene, and if we have any hope of tracking down your deputy and finding out who did this, I need to have this location completely secure. I assume you have filled my lead investigator in on all that you know?”

  Wood’s tone showed his disgust. “She’s been told, but there’s not much we could give—”

  “Figured as much,” Hillman muttered. “Now round up your guys and let them get some breakfast or something. Take the civilians and the news crews with you. We’ll take over. Remember, Wood, my people will run the investigation from here on out. Don’t butt in and don’t tell the press anything without my approval. If you do, I guarantee I’ll have the governor’s office investigating your books before you can get back to your desk. Do I make myself clear?”

  Wood nodded, started to reply, then whirled away before he said something he might regret.

  “Curtis!” Hillman barked, turning toward his lead investigator up on the hill.

  Looking up from the place where the body of Kaitlyn Evans had been discovered, ABI Special Agent Diana Curtis placed an evidence marker and then picked her way through the brush and down the hill toward Hillman’s car.

  Diana Curtis was twenty-eight, single, and driven, with a degree in forensics from the University of Arkansas and a master’s in anthropology from the University of Tennessee. Sensing that her abilities might lighten his own workload, Hillman had secured her for his team three years ago. She had quickly become the engine that kept the team humming. He now had such complete f
aith in her judgment and powers of observation that he had let her lead two major cases in the past three months. If the victims of this new case had not included one of the governor’s closest friends, she probably would have been the supervising investigator on this outing as well. But there had been no choice; the governor had demanded Hillman make the three-hour drive up from the state capital and ramrod the whole affair.

  “Should have been a local job,” he muttered.

  Hillman removed his hat and stroked back his thinning brown hair. He lazily inventoried the scene as he waited for Curtis to reach him. Lots of ruts, scores of footprints, and rain-soaked, washedout gullies. He also noted broken branches, a discarded coat.

  “Yeah, it’s a mess,” Curtis said. She leaned against the hood of Hillman’s car. “We’ve got one dead. I don’t think there’s any doubt she was running from her assailants when she was shot. The male victim appeared to be dead when the deputy happened upon the scene, but the EMTs got his heart pumping again. Last I heard he was in surgery in Salem, but that was a few hours ago. Gunshot wound to the abdomen. They think he’ll make it, but it’ll be a while before we can question him. The strange thing is the missing deputy, who just happened on the scene, probably soon after the shooting.”

  Hillman continued to scan the scene. “They phoned me on that. She just disappeared?”

  “Her car’s right over there.” Curtis pointed to the Fulton County squad car parked in the center of the muddy road. “When the backup team arrived, the emergency lights were on, the door was open, but Deputy Mikki Stuart was gone. From the time the ambulance left until the backup car arrived was less than five minutes. The two vehicles met each other not two miles up the main road. Yet in that short time, Stuart vanished. More than a dozen men did an extensive search for most of the night. Sheriff Wood even brought in a tracking dog. Nothing. We’ve turned things upside down since we arrived, and nothing. It’s like she evaporated.”