“Well? What did it look like?” Dispatcher Bev Campbell fluttered over from her desk at the front of the station. She was a pleasantly heavy-set woman in her early fifties with jet black curls that framed an excitable, surprisingly youthful face. She always applied a bit too much blush to the apples of her cheeks and enough mascara to make spider legs out of her eyelashes, but Lark thought her joyful, albeit gossipy, personality made her lovable all the same. “I want details. All the details.”
When Lark said nothing, Russ jumped in. “Bones, Bev. Nothing but bones left out there. With a bullet hole to the forehead.”
“Oh, my.” Bev fanned herself, beyond horrified and excited all at once. “That poor soul.”
Lloyd Miller, an older deputy with a balding head of scruffy brown hair and guileless, laughter-lined eyes, placed a calming hand on Bev’s shoulder. “Now, Bev, don’t look too thrilled. A man—or woman—is dead, after all.” He winked at Lark, who appreciated his move to inject seriousness back into the conversation.
Russ was bouncing on the balls of his feet, unable to stand still. “Hey, I get it. Dude’s dead. But what’s done is done. I just want to know who did it. And why.” He faced Bev with wide eyes, his mouth falling open. “What if it’s a serial killer and we’re gonna find more bodies in the woods? What if he’s still out there, biding his time to kill again?”
Bev cried out in alarm and looked ready to faint. Lloyd helped her back to her desk where she plopped into the squeaky desk chair, her hand clutching at the gold cross she wore around her neck. While Russ continued to bounce theories off Bev and Lloyd and fill them in on all the details, Lark shook her head and started for her office. She paused when her father stepped out of it.
“Hey, what are you doing here?” she asked, straightening her stance out of habit. He may have been her father, but he was also a fellow deputy. Though these days, he was enjoying a well-deserved retirement.
Roy Galloway fixed his gaze upon his only daughter and offered her a grave smile. “Bev called me. Said a hiker found a body up on Heller Ridge.”
Lark gave a brisk nod and rested her hands on her hips. “The forensics team came up from Missoula to cordon off the area and exhume the remains, but we won’t know more until they have a chance to really look at them.” She hesitated, feeling that heavy weight fall over her again as she recalled the details. “There was a noticeable entry wound in the forehead. A bullet hole.”
Her father blew out a long breath. “Hell of a thing.”
“Yeah.” Concern came over her as she noticed the strain in his eyes. “Everything all right? You look tired.”
He brushed off her question. “Just a bit upset, is all. Nobody ever likes hearing about things like this.”
Lark snorted. “Unless you’re Russ or Bev. I swear, if I hear this around town tomorrow morning, I’ll—”
“You know how this town works as well as I do. Nothing stays secret for long.” Roy gave her shoulder a friendly pat. “Get some sleep, honey. There’s nothing more that can be done tonight.”
Although she disagreed with him— in her mind there was always more work to be done—she gave him a placating smile. She took in his thick, graying hair and the familiar features of his cragged face, his green eyes edged with stress lines and laughter lines and everything in between. He had a reputation for being a fair, balanced man with a firm but charismatic disposition, never quick to anger but always prepared to serve justice.
He had been with the Missoula County Sheriff’s Department for all her life and for most of his. Ever since she had been a teenager, he had groomed her to become a deputy herself and take over for him at their little station in Eden Falls. He had never once asked her if she wanted the job—he simply expected her to take it. As with many things in her life, whether she wanted it or not didn’t matter to him.
She followed him as he headed out of the station, coming to a stop before Bev’s desk. Russ was busy on his cell phone ordering a pizza and Lloyd had taken a bathroom break, so Lark seized the opportunity to actually get some work done.
“Can you pull up all the missing persons’ reports for the county from say 1990 to 1994? I need to send them over to Matt so he can pin down the identity of our victim.”
Bev motioned to Lark’s father just as he was about to leave. “Roy, you’ll remember this. Wasn’t George Murray the only missing person’s report we filed in the early nineties?”
Lark’s brows rose. “There was only one?”
Bev donned one of her bless-your-heart looks. “I think I’d remember filing any others. This is a safe place, honey.” She caught herself, her amusement fading. “At least, it was. Goodness, do you think that might be George up there on that mountain, Roy?”
He chuckled, still halfway out the door. “I always figured George just ran off. But if it is him, we’ll know soon enough. Goodnight, ladies.”
After he was gone, Lark pointed to Bev’s computer. “Search for any other reports just in case, and get everything over to the Missoula Office as soon as you can. Oh, and see if Dr. Grogan has dental records on file for Mr. Murray and send those over to Matt, too.”
“Will do, sweetheart.” Bev tapped at the keyboard, though her eyes raised to Lark before she could walk away. “You remember George, don’t you? Big tall man, balding. He walked with a limp but nobody knew why since he was barely forty years old. He lived in that old cabin on Elkhorn Drive.”
Lark stared at her blankly for a moment as the memories came back. “Oh, right. Everyone called him the hermit because he never talked to anyone and rarely left his house.”
Bev hit a few keys and the printer jolted to life, spitting out a report. She handed it to Lark and lowered her voice conspiratorially, a subtle grin lifting the corner of her painted mouth. “Way I remember it, one day he was just gone without a trace. Left behind all his things, little that he had. Now what makes a man do such a thing?”
Lark stared at the report, running over Bev’s words in her head. She said nothing as she took it with her into her office and shut the door, recalling the eerie, bone-chilling feeling she’d gotten up on Heller Ridge.
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Table of Contents
ABOUT THE BOOK
ALSO BY KATIE JENNINGS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
ABOUT KATIE JENNINGS
PREVIEW OF UP IN THE PINES
Of The Ashes: A 'So Fell The Sparrow' Sequel Novella Page 13
