“This is Angela Mayer, speaking to you live from Breakers Pass. Following the furor over the sheriff taking a body to the LA morgue this morning—in a burger van of all things—I have Sheriff Shaw here to give us his side of the story.” The cameraman panned from her to the van and back. “This strange journey, together with reports that he refused to have a hunting party search for a wild animal, alleged to have killed the local vet, has many of the locals calling for his resignation. Especially—as I am told—after the surgery at the scene of the vet’s death burned to the ground in an arson attack early this morning. Allegedly, the sheriff left a rooky deputy guarding the premises.”
She might have looked young, but her mind was sharp as her tongue. Shaw knew exactly what she was doing. He could feel his already dry throat choke as the camera faced him, and she thrust the microphone up close to his face. Shaw gulped, then took a deep breath. This wasn’t time for a smile. He dug deep, prayed for the right words, and set a neutral expression at the camera.
“First of all, let me make this clear, we can’t say for definite what killed the vet. We’ve reason to believe that an animal could be involved, but it could be a pet dog that she‘d been treating, and the owner hasn’t yet come forward. So, any talk of a killer wild animal on the loose is premature. Our investigation is ongoing. A hunting party—as I told the mayor—would be pointless and only serve to slaughter the local wildlife on which our community depends for local tourism. What I would say, is to ask anyone who had a pet at the surgery for overnight treatment, to call me immediately.”
She pulled the microphone away. “So there is no killer wild animal on the loose?”
“I’m saying, this is a wildlife area and people know to be wary of approaching black bears and the like. And as for the question of leaving a rooky deputy guarding the surgery, we have two deputies. That’s what the town council set as a budget. This is not LA teaming with law enforcement officers. What I can say, is that the deputy involved is more than competent, as an ex-Green Beret, and he’s worked for many years in this area as a tourist guide, and as a tracker. If you have any questions about staffing levels, then I suggest you direct them to the mayor.
“Thank you for clearing that up, but our viewers—I am sure—they will want to know, why the burger van?”
Shaw frowned. He knew where this was headed, but he wasn’t about to let it be his epitaph as town sheriff.
“Look, I worked as a homicide detective in LA for ten years. Out here in the wilds, we have to improvise. My journey served two purposes. One was to inform the relatives before they saw any news of their daughter’s death, which I have. And the other purpose was to get the body to the morgue for autopsy to determine the cause of death, ASAP, without the tissue degrading. The rest is a misunderstanding. I think Mr. Hogan could explain. Isn’t that right?” Shaw said, and turned to Hogan.
“Yeah, yeah, that’s right. A failure in communication, that’s all. The sheriff’s replaced the old chest refrigerator with a new one,” he said, and pointed into the back of the van. The cameraman focused on the boxed refrigerator. Shaw noticed a look of disappointment on the reporter’s face. Her expression turned to a smile as the camera faced her.
“Thank you, Sheriff Shaw. It would seem that the investigation is in capable hands after all. This is Angela Maher, returning you to the studio.”
The red LED extinguished on the camera, and the operator swung it from his shoulder to his side.
“Well that didn’t go the way I thought it would,” said Angela. “You should go into politics.”
“You mean you thought you’d fry me, like you and the rest of the town did this morning?”
“Hey, it’s what I’m paid for. The rest you’ll have to take up with the townspeople. Let me buy you a coffee to make up for what was said this morning.”
“No thanks, besides all this, we have a missing teenager to find.”
Angela turned and hurried to her vehicle. She obviously had no interest in Johno going missing. Shaw was thankful it had been a live feed, or they might not have bothered to broadcast the interview. All he worried about was getting the town council to sanction the payment he’d made on his credit card to buy the refrigerator.
Driving to his office, Shaw’s thoughts turned to Amy and Ted. He’d already gone outside protocol, by checking to see if Ted had a criminal record and coming up with a blank. The school photograph of Ted not matching could have been an admin error at upload. Asking Amy any more questions about Ted would be tricky. If she knew he was checking out his background, it could cause a rift. With the fall not too far away, he thought her going to university would end the relationship. It wasn’t worth the gamble to stir up a situation because of an admin error. He decided to leave well alone.
Shaw parked outside his office, retrieved his cell phone and called the Forestry Fire Department headquarters.
“Could I speak to the investigation department? Clive Rodgers, if he’s still there?”
“One moment, sir, connecting you now.”
“Clive Rodgers speaking.”
“Sheriff Shaw here. I understand that you dealt with the investigation at the surgery this morning.”
“Yes, I’m just finishing my report. I’ll send you an e-mail copy.”
“Any physical evidence?”
“The outlet pipe from the heating oil tank. The valve handle was in the open position. We had to saw it out of a tree trunk, but I have it bagged. The pipe leading down the slope to the surgery had been disconnected as it entered the property.”
Shaw pondered. The motive for the arson attack had to be someone wanting to hide evidence that they had been at the scene of the vet’s death.
“Listen, could you package it and send it to John Bateman at LA forensics. I know it’s a long shot, because prints are hard to get from material recovered after they’ve been exposed to the elements, but maybe their super glue technique can get a result.”
“Good point. I’ll do that. Like I say, I’ll send the report today.”
Shaw closed the call. His mind elsewhere, Shaw’s body leapt at a tapping on his window. All he could see was the curled handle of an umbrella. Shaw opened the door. Mrs. Fletcher stood back, an umbrella in one hand, and holding a leather lead in her other hand, with Montague at the end of it, pulling away from her.
“I doubt it’ll rain Mrs. Fletcher. Not with the drought we’re having.”
“It makes a good walking stick though, don’t you think, Sheriff? And if there is a wild animal on the loose, I need something to fight it off,” she said, and shook the umbrella.
“I guess. What can I do for you?”
Mrs. Fletcher looked around and sidled up to Shaw.
She spoke in a whisper. “I have some news for you. I’ve just come from the church hall. The women are down there are making sandwiches to take out to Breakers Lake for the search party. They’re not pleased with you at all.”
“I already know that, Mrs. Fletcher.”
Shaw turned to walk through the front door to his office.
“Yes, but don’t you want to know the gossip about Maria, the vet?”
He stopped and turned. Maria’s parents knew nothing of a relationship and yet they had spoken to her every other day.
“What gossip?” Shaw asked.
“The women sent me away. Can you believe they said Montague was a health Hazard?”
“But what was the gossip?”
Shaw was tired. Her walking in circles around his question had him agitated.
“That’s what I’m trying to say if you weren’t so impatient. It’s your fault, Sheriff, with all this talk of the burger van. I think it has everyone’s mind on hygiene.”
“Please, Mrs. Fletcher, what have you found out?”
“Just that she had an admirer. If I could have stayed, perhaps they’d have given me a name.”
Chapter 14
FRANK was sitting on one of the camp chairs the gang had left behind at the lakesid
e. The team leader of the mountain rescue team had the townsfolk split into three grids scouring the mountains, each team having a shortwave radio. He looked at his wristwatch. It was approaching 4:30 p.m. Three and a half hours until the light faded. Frank listened in on the rescue service scanner, but for the last thirty minutes, all he’d heard was static. Six and a half hours they’d been out there. It was looking grim for Johno. He glanced at the two helicopters buzzing over the mountains. With thousands of hectares to search, covered by a canopy of pine trees, and with hidden ravines, he knew it was going to be down to luck for them to spot Johno from the choppers.
He rubbed his ankles and wondered if maybe he’d recovered enough to have a second try at joining the search. He unfolded his map. The northwesterly whipped his map over his face. He knelt, and picking up pebbles, he secured the map on the ground. He didn’t know if he could tell Shaw that his daughter had been out there probably drinking under age. Ted was the only one old enough to drink liquor. Two dozen empty beer cans and an empty bottle of vodka was more than Ted could consume at one session. He imagined Johno could have stumbled off in a drunken stupor. He hoped that for all their sakes, Jonho would be found alive. All he’d need to do then would be to have a quiet word with the gang. But if they found him dead, he wasn’t sure what he’d say. Maybe, he thought, he wouldn’t have to say anything and they’d own up. He knew it wouldn’t be easy for him to snitch on them, especially seeing as how he’d downed his own first drink at sixteen. They were just youngsters, doing what youngsters do.
Frank shook his head and studied the map. He looked at the three search grids that he’d marked in red felt. He took his marker from his pocket, and looking around, determined the position of the tents, marking their location with a cross on the map. Frank couldn’t be sure if the sneaker prints that he’d found on the silt behind the tents, and running along the shoreline, were Johno’s. The tracks weren’t in a straight line, and they were unevenly spaced. The sort of tracks someone would make if they were staggering. He stroked his chin stubble. His own boots hadn’t made much of an impression in the silt, but then he wasn’t carrying Johno’s weight. If they were Johno’s, then he’d turned onto the pebbles in the direction of the search grids.
Thinking back to his Friday nights out, boy’s night was a tradition he’d managed to keep going ever since he left the army and married June. At first, the night out helped to rid him of the nightmares he’d suffered after he returned from Vietnam. But after the memories faded, it just became a habit, an excuse. He smiled, recalling June was happy to let him have that one night as long as he returned home to her bed. He didn’t always make it in a straight line, although he somehow managed to get back to his homestead. Frank grinned at the recollection that sometimes he missed the bed by twenty yards and slept in an old chicken coop. He shuddered as he recalled the first time it happened, and June woke him up with a bucket of cold water.
He studied the map again. Maybe Johno didn’t turn at a straight right angle as the tracks suggested. When he’d pulled up alongside Ted’s vehicle as Amy drove off, Ted had said he was in his SUV unable to sleep, with his window open. He’d have heard Johno if he’d passed by on the pebbles.
The only other direction he could have taken was to turn right again, and outside the grid-search area. Frank folded his map, placed it in his pocket, and picking up the scanner, he set off walking. As soon as Frank entered the woods, he felt at home, crunching pine cones and needles underfoot. The scents and familiar creature sounds invigorated his entire being, sweeping away his exhaustion. Only his arthritic pains reminded him that the journey that lay ahead would be difficult. Twenty yards on, and the level ground gave way to the upward slope of the mountain. Frank stopped to look around every five yards or so for the sign of tracks. The slope of the mountainside steepened. Even sober, the climb was arduous, and he had to grasp at branches in the undergrowth to pull him upwards. He reached for a branch, and then stopped. The branch was broken, held together only by a slither of its bark. Someone had used it as a lever. He looked down at the ground to see a slide mark parting the fallen foliage. He ran his fingers over the break. The sap was still moist. A fresh break.
“Johno,” he called out, the critters sounding alarm at the intrusion of his voice. He strained to listen for a reply, then called again. No one returned his call. He continued, more alert to his surroundings. The trees thinned out as he reached a plateau. The cones and needles gave way to long grass, nurtured by the sunlight, but with the drought, it looked like swathes of wheat ready for harvesting. Frank took off his hat and scratched at the few remaining hairs on his head. The grass had three trodden paths. Each path was spaced around five yards apart. The furthest away to his left was the widest. It could be deer, or maybe the hunters Amy had seen.
Frank followed the path straight ahead. The ground was dried out, with no foot tracks visible, and no animal droppings. He arrived at a cliff face. Looking along to his left, the other pathways all joined along the cliff face and headed right. Frank froze, there was something shiny off to the right, and a large patch of flattened grass stalks. Something had lain there. He knelt, and picked up a dime.
He continued onward, when the cliff face turned a corner. As he rounded the bend, the grass turned green. Water trickled down the rocks from a spring onto a twelve foot, wide ledge, and he felt softness underfoot. He could see tracks in the mud. There were plenty of tracks; animal and human. One track stood out. A sneaker footprint. The same circle on the sole as the one by the shoreline. Frank put on his hat, then took out his cell phone from his pants pocket. He took photos of the tracks, and then closed his cell, putting it back in his pocket. He’d seen some of the tracks before at the vet’s property. The tracks didn’t make sense. A single dog had made tracks up to six feet from the edge of the precipice, and then they stopped, replaced by human barefoot tracks, converging with the sneaker tracks. The barefoot tracks veered to the left, around the cliff face, with multiple large cat tracks following. At the very edge of the precipice was one sneaker sole track.
He dropped to his knees, and shimmied to the precipice. His body trembled as he looked down at the ravine. It was too steep to climb down. The stream at the bottom that fed the lake was almost a trickle, with green undergrowth at either side. Frank strained his eyes. A patch of green seemed brighter than the rest. He slipped his hand in his pocket and took out his cell phone. Selecting the camera mode, he pressed the zoom to the maximum.
“Shit, it’s Johno.”
His pulse rate increased as he fumbled to put his phone away. Cupping his hands to either side of his mouth, he shouted.
“Johno, are you okay.”
There was no response, and no way down there without a full set of mountaineering equipment. Frank rolled over, then slipped the strap to his scanner from his shoulder. He grabbed the microphone from its cradle and pressed the button.”
“Anyone, can you get me a helicopter. I’ve found the target, Fox Two, over.”
“What’s your location, Fox Two, This is Whirly Bird One, over.”
Frank’s hands trembled as he took his map from his jacket pocket. The frequency was buzzing with a jumble of voices. He thumbed the microphone button.
“Get off the damn air, ya’ll. Whirly Bird One, map reference C for Charlie, two, H for Hector, one, three. South West of the map grid. He’s in the ravine. I’m on a ledge above and I reckon I’m half-way up the mountain, Fox Two, over.”
“ETA five minutes, Whirly Bird One, out.”
An adrenalin rush took away his aches and pains. For a brief moment, he felt as though he were a youngster again, calling in an air strike. Frank wasn’t about to get caught in the downdraught, he’d made that mistake once before in Vietnam. He moved to the cliff face, pressed his back to the rock and waited. The helicopter was two minutes early, when it thundered overhead. The spotter saw him, waved, then the chopper turned and hovered over the ravine.
“Whirly Bird One, Target directly bel
ow, Fox Two, over.
“Affirmative, Whirly Bird One, out.”
Frank watched as two of the crew descended on a cable with a stretcher. It took maybe fifteen minutes before the stretcher came back into view with the crew, and they were hauled into the chopper. The second chopper arrived and hovered nearby.
“Whirly Bird One, any news for his parents, Fox Two, over?”
“Target safely onboard. He’s unconscious, but good vital signs. We’re taking him to the UCLA medical center in LA. Whirly Bird One, out.”
Frank thanked God inwardly. He needed to improvise quickly. His ankles were throbbing.
“Any chance of a lift to the beach? I’ve twisted my ankle,” he lied.
“Fox Two, we’ll take you, Whirly Bird Two, out.”
Frank grinned as they pulled him inside the chopper, his thoughts once more taking him back to his youth in the Army. He was beginning to think that being a deputy was better than being a tourist guide. He knew that until twenty-four hours ago, his mind hadn’t been attuned to the job, not taking it seriously. Frank considered it akin to being in the boy scouts, when compared to his army days. He decided he owed it to Shaw to up his game. Frank’s thoughts turned to the vet, then to Johno. Guilt struck him for feeling elated that their misfortune had revived his zest for life, and the drudgery of having to work. On the journey to the lake, he looked out of the cockpit and over what he considered his domain.
Something was out there. Something he didn’t understand.
Chapter 15
PEOPLE just don’t go wondering off in the night, Shaw thought, as he listened to Amy finishing of her story of events. They were sat in his apartment living room. Something was missing from the story. It wasn’t a formal interview; even so, he had to probe to fill in the detail. Louise was clearly anxious. They were all anxious, as if his questions were an intrusion.
“Listen, Dad, we need to get to the church hall with the sandwiches. We’re going with the women to the camp shortly. Ted and Oliver are with the search party.”
The Killers Amongst Us: Chimera Dawn Chronicles Page 10
