Killing Dreams: A Sam Mason Mystery Book 5

by L A Dobbs

  Sam tugged on the scrap. It was stuck. Judging by the condition, it had been buried for quite some time. This corner must have worked its way up over time, but a larger section was buried deeper.

  Ranger had worked the piece of tarp off his claw and resumed digging.

  Sam shot his hand out to grab Ranger’s collar.

  “Hold up, boy.” Sam glanced back at Frank. “Can you call him back?”

  Frank craned his neck to look into the hole. “Sure. What do you think that is? Some kind of dump?”

  Sam didn’t think so, but he remained silent and focused on scooping out more dirt ever more carefully now so as not to disturb what they might find. Wyatt crouched down beside him to help. Lucy sat on the other side of the hole, her eyes flicking from the scrap of blue tarp to Sam and then to Wyatt.

  About six inches down they hit a bigger section of tarp. Sam tugged on the edge. Even though it was full of small holes, it didn’t budge. The material sure was strong. He cleared away enough to lift the corner. Underneath was a scrap of red plaid flannel and the unmistakable thin white shards of metatarsal bones. Human foot bones.

  “Crap.” Wyatt voiced what Sam was thinking and then took out his phone and started taking photos.

  “Frank, you’d better take Ranger back to your house now.” Sam glanced over his shoulder at the old man.

  “What is it?” Frank strained to see what they’d uncovered. His eyes grew wide. “That ain’t no old dinosaur, is it?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Sam stood and clapped Frank on the shoulder, studying him to make sure the realization of what they’d found wasn’t too much for him. He saw steel in the old man’s eyes. Frank was a tough old bird, like Sam’s grandfather. He could handle it. “That bone you found wasn’t a dinosaur bone, but it was something important. You need to let us take over now. Can you make it home okay by yourself?”

  Frank tore his eyes from the shallow grave and looked at Sam. “Yeah. Sure, Sam.” He turned reluctantly and started down the path, whistling for Ranger, who, fortunately, trotted obediently to his side. Even Lucy seemed relieved that the other dog was gone.

  Sam turned back to the grave and studied what they’d uncovered, forming a plan of action in his mind. Wyatt was already taking photographs from all angles. That was good. Next they’d need to carefully uncover the rest.

  He’d need crime scene markers and more evidence bags. He’d have to notify Bev Hatch right away and get John Dudley out here to look things over before they were disturbed. He had no idea how long this body had been buried or if any evidence had been preserved. But he knew one thing: Killers always leave clues. Sam’s job was to find them.

  Instead of uncovering the body of a missing hiker, now they were knee-deep in a crime scene. Sam wanted to make sure they processed it the right way. Someone was clearly inside that tarp, and finding out who, and what had happened to him or her, was even more important now.

  “Guess this person just didn’t wander off and get lost hiking,” Wyatt said.

  “Nope. Someone definitely put him or her in there, and we’re gonna have to find out who.”

  Chapter Five

  Jo tapped the eraser end of her pencil on her desk blotter and returned Major’s glare as she waited for Kevin’s brother. She couldn’t wait to join Sam and Wyatt in the field to search for the bones of the lost hiker—and to clear her conscience by telling Sam about the private investigation she’d been conducting into her sister’s disappearance.

  Not telling him in the first place seemed so stupid now, but when she’d first arrived in town she had no intention of staying and no intention of opening up about her life. But she’d grown attached to the town. Attached to Sam. They’d formed a solid working relationship and friendship based on trust, and the more that trust grew, the more she felt like a traitor. It just became harder and harder to tell the truth, which was a shame because now that she knew Sam, she knew he’d be on board with doing everything he could to help her. He probably still would… once he forgave her.

  “I’m here to see Detective Jody Harris,” a male voice wafted from the reception area.

  Kevin’s brother. Right on time. Jo put the pencil down and stood as Reese led a tall, slightly nervous, dark-haired man around the post office boxes into the bullpen.

  Reese gestured toward Jo. “Sgt. Jody Harris.”

  Jo stepped forward and held her hand out as Reese retreated back to the reception desk. The man switched a white plastic bag from his right hand to his left and clasped her hand. His handshake was warm and firm. His eyes held a hint of pain mixed with curiosity. “Brian Deckard. Kevin’s brother.”

  “Thanks for coming. I’m sorry about your brother.” Jo was sincere. She wondered if Kevin had been close with his brother. He’d never mentioned him, and Brian looked much older. She saw a slight family resemblance around the chin, but where Kevin was blond with light eyes, his brother was dark-haired with brown eyes. Half-brothers, maybe? Or maybe they didn’t look much alike. Jo didn’t look much like her sister, Bridget, but that was probably due to Bridget’s haggard appearance from poor lifestyle choices. Still, she knew there were many siblings who bore no resemblance to one another.

  Brian dropped her hand and glanced around the room. “Thanks. Me too.”

  “Have you been to the hospital? I visited him a couple days ago. I wasn’t sure if there was an update.” Jo hoped Brian would have optimistic news. The last time she’d visited Kevin the doctors had seen no change, but she was still hoping for him to pull through. Although they hadn’t actually bonded from the start, Kevin had been a great officer. After all, he had taken a bullet for Lucy.

  “Not really, but the doctor said there is some brain activity. I guess that’s a good sign, but he also said it could be a long road.” Brian scrubbed his hand through his cropped brown hair. “I think he was bracing me to not get my hopes up.”

  Jo scowled. “Don’t think that way. Kevin is strong. He’ll pull through.”

  “I hope so.” They were silent for a few seconds as Brian’s gaze flicked around the room. Then he held up a bag as if he just remembered he was holding it. “Oh, I brought these things. Some of his belongings that he had when he was admitted to the hospital. Seems like they should be at the police station. His badge. Computer stuff. Police T-shirt. It’s all laundered.”

  Jo accepted the bag with a heavy heart. “Thanks. We’ll keep these for when he comes back. And he will be back. Kevin’s a hero in our eyes.”

  “So I heard. What exactly happened?”

  Jo didn’t see the harm in telling him what went down that night. The investigation was closed, the events a matter of public record. No sense in revealing the gory details, but she’d tell him enough to give him some closure on the events that put his brother in that hospital bed. “We were confronting a murderer, about to arrest him, when things went sideways. Our K-9 dog, Lucy, was in danger and Kevin jumped in front of her. He put himself in harm’s way to save that dog.”

  “And the guy who shot Kevin is dead.”

  “Yep.” Brian didn’t look like the vigilante type, but maybe it was a good thing he didn’t have someone to focus his anger on. Or maybe not. Would she feel better if she knew her sister’s abductor was dead?

  Brian gave a wan smile. “Kevin and I weren’t that close. He didn’t talk about his work much, but he did mention Lucy. He really liked her. I hope she wasn’t harmed.”

  “She’s fine. We love having her here at the station.” A hissing came from the direction of the filing cabinets, and Jo glanced over. Major turned in a circle, fluffing his tail at her before curling in a ball. He tucked his face under his tail but left one watchful eye slit open, aimed in Jo’s direction.

  Brian didn’t seem to notice. He was looking around the room again, his gaze stopping at each desk. Probably trying to picture his brother seated at one of them.

  Jo pointed to Kevin’s desk in the corner. “That one is your brother’s.”

  Brian walked
to Kevin’s desk. Pens were scattered on the desktop. A keyboard sat in the middle, with a lined legal pad next to it. No one had the heart to remove anything from the desk, so the pad still had notes Kevin had taken to be typed into the system. Brian traced the writing with his forefinger then looked up at Jo.

  “Was my brother working on any undercover investigations?”

  Why would he ask that? A police force as small as White Rock’s didn’t conduct undercover operations. Those would be done by the county sheriff—unless it was personal, like Jo’s investigation into her sister’s disappearance. Or the off-record investigation she and Sam conducted into the death of their fellow officer, Tyler Richardson.

  She was sure Kevin wasn’t investigating anything. Not for the department, anyway. Sam would have told her. But there had been a time when she’d suspected Kevin was up to something. And just before the shooting, the killer had said something about Kevin working for the wrong side. But that had just been crazy talk by a cornered suspect, hadn’t it? Of course it had. Kevin had jumped in the path of the bullet to save Lucy. And the last few months before that Kevin had proved himself more than trustworthy and loyal. “We don’t really have much call for undercover work here. Why do you ask?”

  Brian shrugged. “It’s just that he seemed a little vague when I talked to him. Like he was working on something secret that he couldn’t tell anyone about. It was probably nothing.”

  Yeah. Probably nothing. Because if Kevin had been working on some secret investigation, surely Sam would’ve told her, right? And besides what would he have been investigating? They didn’t have much call for undercover work up here in northern New Hampshire. Kevin probably didn’t want to spill any specifics to his brother, and he took that as being secretive.

  “Well, I guess I should be going. Thanks for taking the time to talk with me.” Brian shook her hand again and exited, leaving Jo clutching Kevin’s bag.

  She hurried to Sam’s office to put the bag in Sam’s closet so that it would be ready for Kevin’s return.

  She shoved the bag on the top shelf and grabbed a lime-green vest from the rack. With that task out of the way, her thoughts turned to assisting in the search and seeing with her own eyes that the bones were those of a lost hiker and had nothing to do with the monster who had taken her sister.

  Chapter Six

  Jo coasted past the medical examiner’s van and parked in front of the WRPD Tahoe on the dirt road near Frank Buckner’s house. Sam had summoned John already? That meant they’d found the rest of the bones.

  Sam had relayed the coordinates of the search site to Reese, and Jo had plugged them into a navigational app on her cell phone. The app was like a GPS that would direct her toward the coordinates. Now all she had to do was follow its directions through the woods.

  The going wasn’t easy. The site was on conservation land composed of acres of undeveloped forest that abutted Frank Buckner’s property. She wasn’t following a groomed trail, so she found herself navigating boulders, stumps and tree roots. At least the woods weren’t dense, so she didn’t have to battle too many low-hanging branches or bushes. It was only midmorning, but the nylon police vest didn’t allow for circulation and sweat trickled down her back. The exertion from walking and the nerves that made her heart race didn’t help. She probably shouldn’t have had that third cup of coffee, either.

  What would she find when she caught up with Sam? The remains of a hiker or something worse?

  The humidity made her thick copper curls frizz. She got sick of pushing them out of her face, so she grabbed a band from her pocket and tamed them into a tight ponytail at the base of her neck.

  As she came up a hill, she spotted Sam’s tall frame first. He stood with his hands on his hips, looking down. Below him John crouched, working at something. Wyatt had his phone out, taking photos. This must be where they found the rest of the hiker’s bones. But why did it look like John was a few inches below ground level? Had the hiker fallen into a ravine and been injured? Jo repressed a shudder at the thought of becoming injured during a hike and then slowly starving to death, delirious, in pain, and unable to fend off animals and bugs.

  Sam glanced up at her approach. Her chest tightened at the grim look on his face. “How did things go with Kevin’s brother?”

  “Good…” Jo’s voice trailed off as her eyes fell on what John was doing. It wasn’t just a pile of bones lying on the forest floor. John was leaning into a six-inch-deep depression, meticulously scraping dirt like an archaeologist uncovering a rare find. Ivory-colored bones lay amidst scraps of red flannel. Only part of the skeleton was uncovered; the rest was still hidden under stringy remnants of bright blue tarp. This was no hiking accident. As Jo had feared, this was murder.

  Jo stared at the bones. Though most of the skeleton was still covered by the tarp, she could clearly see the knee bone, femur and foot bones. She could also see that these were not the bones of a child. It wasn’t her sister.

  Relief washed over her, followed immediately by a wave of guilt. Even though it wasn’t her sister, it was likely someone’s sister. Some family had been missing this child for years. She knew how that hurt and how it could tear a family apart. Her heart ached for them.

  “Kevin’s brother?” Sam asked.

  Jo tore her eyes from the bones to find Sam looking at her funny.

  “Oh. Sorry. It went well. He just wanted to know what had happened and to drop off some clothes from the hospital and his badge.” Jo’s gaze flicked back down to the shallow grave. “So clearly this isn’t a lost hiker.”

  “No. Didn’t Reese tell you?” Sam brushed his hand through his short-cropped dark hair that had recently become peppered with gray. Jo had a few gray hairs creeping in herself, but where hers made her look old, Sam’s made him look distinguished. “I guess maybe I didn’t tell her. Been kinda busy here. Thanks for talking to Kevin’s brother.”

  “No problem.” Jo watched as John peeled back more of the tarp. “Any idea how old the victim was? Gender?”

  “Hard to tell. I need to get the rest of the bones back to the lab to know for sure, but my guess is female, young adult.” John gestured toward the top of the tarp. “You guys got enough photos of this? I want to push back more of the tarp.”

  “Yep,” Wyatt said.

  John slowly lifted another section of the tarp, careful not to dislodge what was beneath. It was important for them to see exactly how things were laid out.

  “Where’s Lucy?” Jo had thought something was missing. Now she realized it was the dog.

  “She’s off sniffing,” Wyatt said as he crouched to take some close-ups.

  “How long has she been here?” Jo gestured toward the grave. She used the pronoun “she,” but John had said he didn’t know for sure whether the skeleton was male or female. Something intuitively told her it was a female. Perhaps it was the delicate look of the bones or maybe the scraps of clothing or maybe just because she had thought of her sister.

  “Hard to tell till I get things back to the lab, but I’m gonna guess maybe not less than three years, not more than ten. They weren’t wrapped tight and the tarp didn’t do much to preserve them. My guess is its main purpose was to move the body.” John pointed to a clawed-up section of tarp. “See here? Looks like an animal dug here long ago and it got filled back in over time. Might not have the full remains underneath. The bugs have gotten in, and this earth is a little damp. As you know, the conditions of the ground have a lot to do with bone preservation. I’ll take some soil samples back to the lab.”

  “Not much left for identification. Hopefully we’ll be able to find out who it is from their dental records,” Sam said.

  “Hopefully.”

  Lucy barked from somewhere behind them, and they turned to see the wide brown brim of a Coos County sheriff’s hat crest the hill. Bev Hatch was in her mid-fifties with shoulder-length salt and pepper hair and a don’t-mess-with-me attitude. Her shrewd gray eyes took in the scene, sizing it up in seconds.
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br />   “So it’s true. Not a hiker, a victim?” Bev glanced down at the grave and Jo knew she was cataloging it in her mind. Jo had worked with Bev before and liked the woman.

  “Unfortunately, it is,” John said.

  John kept working the site, pulling the tarp away little by little, while Wyatt took photos.

  Jo glanced across the grave, and her eyes met Sam’s. His reflected empathy for the family and something else. Puzzlement? She guessed the puzzlement was for her. He was probably wondering why she looked so relieved. She never was good at masking her emotions. More guilt stabbed her. She needed to tell Sam about Tammy right away. But not here. She didn’t want anyone but him to know about her sister. She’d tell him later back at the office when she could catch him alone.

  “Huh, that’s odd,” John’s voice jerked her attention back to the shallow grave. He’d peeled away most of the tarp and was looking down at the bones.

  “What is?” Bev asked.

  “I don’t think this is the body you guys were looking for.”

  “How do you figure that?” Bev asked.

  John gestured toward the tangle of bones near the feet.

  “This one has both femurs. If I had to hazard a guess, this isn’t the only shallow grave in the area.”

  Woof!

  Sam jerked his eyes away from the pair of femurs in the shallow grave to Lucy even as he was still trying to process John’s revelation. More graves?

  “So that’s why she’s been so busy sniffing.” Wyatt was halfway toward Lucy. The dog stood stock still, her ears at attention, her tail motionless, eyes riveted on a patch of earth. “She must have smelled the other graves.”

  Lucy stood next to a fallen log. The log was rotted on the inside and mushrooms grew on the outside, but what was under it was of interest. Something had been digging, and Sam saw the unmistakable ivory-colored bumps of vertebrae.