A Stranger in Town

by Kelley Armstrong

  I try sending Dalton into the forest with Storm to search for a potential survivor. That goes about as well as one might expect, complete with profanity and pointed comments about the dead people on the ground, who should serve as a Klaxon-loud warning against separating. I let him talk me into postponing further crime-scene investigation while we search for our potentially missing man.

  Storm takes the lead there, joyfully, as we give her a reason to leave the death tableau behind. She always struggles with a search ending in people she cannot wake with a lick and a bounce. I have to wonder, though, if this scene upset her even more because, well, what’s lying on the ground isn’t so much people as meat. Either way, she can hardly contain her delight at being asked to do a proper task and leave this place.

  I don’t have anything for her to sniff—the tent had been cleared of all belongings. Still she understands she’s looking for a person. We don’t use her to hunt, so work means finding people, preferably alive. She snuffles the scene, and then she’s ready to go.

  Newfoundland dogs are not trackers. However, they are used in search-and-rescue, and they have an excellent sense of smell, which are the excuses Dalton used to get me the dog breed of my dreams. I never handled a tracking dog down south. Never even owned a pet. So, despite my deep-dive studies, I am quite certain that the fact that Storm has become a very fine tracking dog is entirely owing to her innate intelligence and eagerness to please. If she is not quite on par with a bloodhound, well, that isn’t her fault. We both try our damnedest, and at the risk of bragging, we make a good team.

  Storm takes a quick sniff of the torso, knowing that’s not who she’ll need to find, which helps her weed them out from the scents around the campsite. I’d also brought her Sophie’s jacket to exclude her scent, but I swear Storm gives me a look when I hold it out.

  Umm, I met that woman last night, Mom, and she’s in town—why would I think she’d be out here?

  Like I said, smart dog, one who does indeed find a scent leaving the campsite. But something about it bothers her. She doesn’t whine anxiously. She just seems … This is one of those million times when I wish we could communicate. Something is amiss with this trail, and she cannot tell me what it is, and I cannot ask.

  When she follows it, I see the problem. It leads to the remains of another camp. There’s a firepit ring and logs pulled over for sitting, and when Dalton digs through the ashes, he finds tinfoil, suggesting a cooked meal. He also finds evidence that the fire was extinguished properly.

  So, someone made camp here. Someone from down south, judging by the tinfoil and matches. There’s also evidence of a tent—rope fibers where it’d been strung between trees.

  This might seem perfectly logical. Storm followed the missing Dane’s trail from their most recent camp to their previous one. Except that the two are maybe an hour’s walk apart. No one is going to pull up stakes and make a new camp that close by.

  This could be someone else’s former campsite. The Danish quartet found it and considered making camp there to take advantage of the preexisting firepit, but ultimately they chose another site. There, anomaly explained.

  Except for one problem. The firepits are identical: a double ring of stones with a log-cabin-style fire built within. The similarities extend beyond that—enough that I know the same people constructed both camps. The Danes, I presume. So why the hell are they a mere hour’s walk apart?

  “Maybe one came after the attack,” Dalton says. “Guy’s injured and, as he’s recuperating, he builds—” He stops short. “Well, that makes no fucking sense, does it?”

  It does … until you work it through. If you’ve just seen two of your companions brutally murdered and the third stabbed in the stomach, you are not going to flee and build yourself a nice campsite while you recuperate.

  Even if your brain was somehow addled enough for you to merrily construct a new camp a kilometer from the murder site, where would the tent come from? The tinfoil-wrapped meals? The matches? The rope? The attackers took their supplies. That’s presumably why they attacked.

  I crouch in front of Storm. “Can you find his trail again?” I repeat “trail” with the appropriate gestures, but she is unsure. I understand now what bothered her earlier. The sequence of events. Trails have an age, based on strength, and she’s had enough training and experience to know that the trail between this campsite and the murder scene seemed older than others. She’d been backtracking along a trail. That means this is the earlier site.

  She snuffles around and indicates the entrance trail to this site by walking down it a bit and then pointing. He came from that direction, Mom, and I can follow it if you’d like, but I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for.

  No, it is not.

  I do a thorough examination of this campsite as I tell Dalton my thoughts. He doesn’t have a solution to this particular mystery. There’s nothing left here but signs of habitation. No marks in the dirt or the vegetation to suggest a struggle. A campsite used and cleared as they moved on.

  We return to the crime scene, and I resume my investigation. Here we do find those signs of violence, and not just in the bodies left behind. There’s blood in the dirt, more spattered on the tent and the campfire rocks. Scuffle marks in the soft ground. Footprints, too. I take pictures of them—I have a digital camera, and there’s a screen in Rockton for me to enlarge them on, a reasonable use of our limited solar power.

  I have the one hiking boot. That’s it—Sophie came to us barefoot. I match this boot to some of the prints. I also see ones with a similar tread but smaller. I measure what remains of the dead woman’s foot and roughly size it at a seven or eight. I’d sized Sophie’s earlier, so I could locate her prints, and she’d been an eight. Two women with similar shoe sizes and likely similar footwear. The boot I’m holding matches Dalton’s size ten. In other words, average for a man.

  Two men and two women, wearing the same brand of hiking boots, all with average-size feet. Useless.

  What’s more important, though, is that I don’t see any significantly different treads. I do, however, spot prints from footwear without treads. Different treaded boots would mean other hikers or miners or trappers. Some settlers also traded for modern boots, and everyone in Rockton has them. These, however, are the soft-soled outlines of the homemade footwear worn by most settlers … and all hostiles.

  As I’ve already noted, the supplies are gone. That’s not surprising. It doesn’t matter if they were attacked by settlers or hostiles or fellow hikers—their gear wouldn’t be left behind. There is only the tent, which appears to have been slashed in the attack. It’s nylon and lightweight, perfect for camping, but too flimsy for settlers or hostiles.

  The tent …

  Something about the tent …

  I contemplate it for a moment before turning back to the bodies. My gaze goes straight to that lone hiking boot with the foot inside.

  An image flashes. Dalton and Kenny and me in a clearing, not unlike this. Surrounded by hostiles. The leader telling Dalton to undress. For a moment, I thought it was about humiliating our leader. Then I realized the truth. They were going to kill him, and they didn’t want his clothing ruined.

  I shiver at the memory. Dalton steps behind me, fingers going to my elbow.

  “Okay?” he murmurs.

  I turn and hug him—a fierce, quick hug. He kisses the top of my head as I pull away, and I pause a second before regaining my composure.

  “I’m trying to determine whether they took the clothing,” I say. “The packs, yes, and there’d be clothing in them, but what they were wearing…”

  “Ah.” One arm goes around me in a quick embrace as he understands that sudden hug. “May I speculate?”

  “Please.”

  “What we encountered last spring was a hunting party in what Maryanne described as a ‘down’ phase.”

  “Lucid,” I say. “Thinking clearly enough not to want to ruin our clothing.”

  “Yep. In the ‘up�
�� phase—the manic one—they wouldn’t have thought of that, she’d said. It’d be a frenzied killing.”

  “Which this could be, except they did take all the hikers’ pack goods. What happened to us was a clear-thinking ambush. They tracked and cornered us. Which should be the same here. They saw the camp and orchestrated an attack, like they did on Maryanne’s group. When they attacked Maryanne’s group, it was at night, and they didn’t order them to undress first. The goods weren’t as important as the captives. Except I’m not sure they took a captive here and…”

  I exhale and rub my temples.

  “Yeah,” Dalton says. “It’s not quite adding up.”

  “Maybe it is. We only have one boot. Both bodies are wearing shirts, which were damaged, like the tent. Both are wearing only underwear. No jackets for either of them. The lack of jackets could suggest either those were taken or it was a daytime attack and they’d discarded their warm outerwear. But the lack of pants … I’m going to speculate that this happened at night. That’s what Sophie said.”

  “The killers caught them asleep, wearing T-shirts and underwear. Someone manages to pull on a boot, and afterward, when the killers are gathering the goods, they don’t realize there’s a missing boot.”

  I nod. “We thought Sophie lost her shoes. She was probably never wearing them. Surprised at night, like Maryanne’s group. Bodies left in what they were wearing. The rest of the goods taken.”

  I turn to the tent and stare at it. What’s bothering me …

  “Shit,” I say.

  “Yeah. One tent.”

  I turn to him and arch a brow. “When did you figure that out?”

  Dalton shrugs. “At the other site. Just waiting on you.”

  That wasn’t a test. He hasn’t done that since our earliest days. Instead, he was being respectful and trusting my process. It’s like when I’d been a newly minted detective. On my first crime scene, I’d been poking around, rattling off observations, until my partner handed me a notebook and pen, and said, “Write it down. Time-stamp it if that helps.”

  He’d understood that I wanted to prove I deserved my detective shield, but my machine-gun observation patter disrupted his own musings. If I needed to show that I’d noticed clues before he did, the time stamp would do that. I got the hint and mentally stored up my observations until he would inevitably turn to me with “Whatcha got, kid?” and I could show him.

  Dalton has identified the problem that niggled at me earlier, back-burnered while I concentrated on other observations.

  There’s only one tent. Only signs of one tent. I check all the nearby trees, and I inspect the ground, and there’s nothing to suggest another shelter occupied this clearing.

  “How about the other site?” I say. “I only recall evidence of a single tent there, too. Did I miss something?”

  He considers and then shakes his head. “I didn’t think to look closer, but I only recall rope marks for one.”

  I walk to the ruined tent and consider it. Open the flap and peer inside. It’s definitely a two-person tent.

  When I say that, I add, “Unless the four of them liked getting real cuddly, and if they did, no judgment.”

  Dalton chuckles.

  “However,” I continue, “whatever their living arrangements at home, they aren’t going to be squeezing four people into a two-person tent after a long day of hiking. Even the two-person one doesn’t leave much stretching room.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What we’re seeing, then, isn’t two couples who like a lot of together time, but the opposite. Two couples who’ve had quite enough together time, thank you very much.”

  He glances over and then shakes his head. “Shit. Of course. Two tents. Two campsites. They wanted a break from each other.”

  “Could have been a fight. Could have just been a privacy issue. They’d been traveling together for days, and they didn’t particularly want to ‘keep it quiet’ for another night. I believe we know the feeling.”

  “Hell, yeah.”

  “That’s a theory, then. They separated for the night to get some private time. But there are no signs of attack at the other camp, and Sophie clearly was attacked.” I rub my temples. “No point speculating when I can—hopefully—ask her for more details tomorrow. For now…”

  I look at the remains of the two victims. “Do we transport them back to Rockton? Or bury them? I’m not sure we’ll get anything from them in an autopsy, but I hate to lose a chance. If we bring these bodies back, though, and anyone sees them, no ‘it was scavengers’ explanation is going to keep people from freaking out.”

  “Mobile autopsy. Cover the remains. Bring April out.”

  I nod, and we set to work.

  TEN

  The autopsy is hard. Holy shit, is it hard.

  The day I arrived in Rockton, Dalton and Anders brought in a corpse from the woods, one who was missing his lower legs. This, though? This is the most disturbing crime scene I’ve ever come across, and dealing with it is not even the worst part of my day. The worst is having to show it to my sister.

  I commit an unforgivable sin here. The sin of misunderstanding April and her neurological condition. I have grown up with a sister who is coldly competent, and in my head, I have substituted “unfeeling” for “emotionally detached.”

  Even knowing her condition and researching the hell out of it, I cannot move the monolith in my head that is “my sister, April.” When April looked askance at my own displays of emotion, I saw judgment instead of confusion. So I expected I would warn her about the crime scene, and she’d brush off my concerns and snap that she’s a doctor and suggest that I lacked the fortitude to handle such things.

  The real April? She does all of that, and I’m sure when she says I’m overreacting, she thinks I truly am. That doesn’t mean she is prepared. It means she cannot comprehend being unprepared. She’s spent her life slicing into the human body, and it has never bothered her, so why should this?

  Why indeed?

  April has been working on the woman’s torso for twenty minutes now, and she has to keep stopping, balling her hands to stop the faint tremor, her breath rasping against the surgical mask I insisted she wear to stifle the smell. Every few moments, her gaze moves to the side, accidentally catching a severed limb, and she closes her eyes, steeling herself to start again.

  Another hand flex, and she murmurs, “I believe I overindulged in coffee this morning.”

  “It’s okay to say you find this difficult, April.”

  “I do not. It is simply…” A furtive glimpse around. “It is outside my experience, and I am adjusting.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Please stop saying that.”

  “I can’t. I’m just … I’m so, so sorry.”

  “You warned me. I failed to comprehend the situation fully.”

  I nod.

  She glances over. “Are you crying, Casey?”

  I blink back tears. “N-no. It’s just…”

  “Allergies to a substance in the vicinity that you have somehow never encountered before?” Her brows arch. “You are crying.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop. The apologies, I mean. You are permitted to cry, even if you do not need to feel bad on my account. I will adjust.”

  Silence. Then her fingers tentatively rest on my arm.

  “I am fine, Casey.”

  I nod, tears flowing freely. “I’m just. I’m—” I instinctively throw out my arms to hug her and then stop, horror seizing me as I mumble yet another apology.

  “You wanted to hug me?” She eases back on her haunches. “You haven’t done that since you were a toddler.”

  I manage a weak smile. “I learned it wasn’t your favorite thing.”

  “It is not. However, you may hug me now, if it helps.”

  I throw my arms around her in a quick embrace. As I pull away, she grips my shoulder, leans in, and whispers, “Yes, it is difficult. I will be fine. I would not, however, object to
a very strong drink when we return to Rockton.”

  I pass her a wry smile. “Sounds like a plan.”

  “Excellent. Now let’s finish this.”

  * * *

  I put April through the hell of that scene, and we learn absolutely nothing new for it. As she points out, though, I needed her to confirm my suspicions, and without that, I’d be running a constant mental loop of doubt, kicking myself for burying the bodies before I was sure.

  With the state of the corpses, an autopsy isn’t 100 percent conclusive either. Yet April feels confident saying that both victims died of knife wounds. The condition of the wounds says they were alive at the time—their hearts were still pumping blood. The woman’s neck slice bisects the carotid artery and would have been fatal. One of the man’s stab wounds perforated his heart. Also fatal.

  Both injuries are consistent with blades. April may specialize in neuroscience, but she spent years in emergency wards, and she knows the difference between a knife wound and an animal bite. Plenty of the latter here, but the killing blows are not among them.

  She also confirms that the severing of the limbs was postmortem and appears to have been the result of animal predation. There are no marks on the bones to suggest cutting.

  There’d been a time when Dalton speculated that the hostiles may have practiced cannibalism. Looking back, I think he’d been genuinely confused by our horror. Killing humans as prey would be abhorrent to him. Eating those who’d already died would be repugnant. But in a desperate situation, lost in the winter wilderness with no way to catch game, it would be a necessary evil.

  There is absolutely nothing about this crime scene that suggests cannibalism. Nor any solution other than the one we’d already theorized. Sophie’s group had been set upon by hostiles, who’d killed at least two people, left the bodies, and raided the camp.

  The second campsite complicates the situation slightly—were they all hanging out together at the first one when the hostiles attacked? If so, why weren’t they fully dressed? It’s not a theory-breaking complication. Just something to address with Sophie once she’s lucid.