by Domino Finn
As the trigger eased back, the powerful 12-gauge butted Maxim's shoulder back and reminded him of the pain in his elbow. Sparks joined the sound of a tire explosion, and the RV continued barreling wildly towards the train tracks.
Both men chased the vehicle as it pulled further from them. Red attempted to turn it to the side but the steering was shot. The heavy truck rammed into the metal rails and skipped into the air, tumbling down awkwardly on its front end. The momentum of the RV propelled it ahead anyhow.
Right into the trees on the other side of the tracks.
"He crashed!" yelled Maxim, running ahead. He was beat, but the adrenaline would not let him slow. He hopped over the tracks and approached the vehicle from the left side, next to the blown out tire. Maxim raised the shotgun to the window, but the cab was empty. The passenger door on the other side was open.
Diego rushed to the other side of the RV. Maxim crossed into the tree line, sweeping his weapon over the horizon. When he didn't see anything, he continued around and saw Diego stepping into the motor home.
Damn it. Diego didn't have a weapon. If Red was inside, the biker was in serious danger.
Maxim jumped through the open cab door and climbed past the seats, noting the blood where Red had sat. With the barrel of the 12-gauge, Maxim swept the curtain aside. There wasn't a lot of light, but he already saw that it was only Diego inside.
"Step aside," said Maxim, marching to the back room. "We need to clear the back."
"He's not in there," said Diego, pointing to the padlock on the door. "This is where he keeps her. Don't fire that gun."
Maxim pushed past to see the door was obviously locked from the outside. It would have been impossible for Red to get back there. With a hiss, Maxim leapt out the side door and scanned the area. The rain was starting to slow now, easing up visibility some, but he didn't see Red either way down the tracks. Maxim knew the man had slipped away again. He was hiding in the Sycamore woods.
The detective scowled and stepped back inside the vehicle. He handed his cell phone to Diego. "Call 911. Tell them there are officers down at Echo Canyon."
Maxim moved to the back and studied the locked door. "Back away from the door if anyone is in there."
Diego put his hand on the detective's shoulder. "You can't shoot in there."
"I know," said Maxim as he cleared the rounds from the autoloader. He stuck the tip of the barrel into the loop of the chain and pulled back on the handle like a lever. The rusted metal shattered under the might of the new steel. Without bothering to reload, Maxim opened the door.
It was a small room with a bed. Maxim had known one of the rear windows was broken and patched with plywood, but he now saw the other ones were covered over with wood as well, from the inside. A metal bar stretched over the bed. Several extra-long shackles hung from it. Juice boxes littered the floor and Maxim detected the faint smell of urine.
This was a prison. The only problem was, it was empty.
Act 3 - Whispers from the Dead
Chapter 39
"This is definitely a dump," said Brody, the Coconino medical examiner. Diego watched as the older man pointed out notable features on the bones. "Notice the clean soil. The lack of insects. All that on top of the obvious."
The ME's student was a young crime scene technician named Damian. Diego had, unfortunately, crossed paths with him before. He was bright for his level of experience.
"The fact that the bones are stacked in neat piles?" Damian offered sarcastically.
Brody nodded with a laugh. "Bingo. You're a sharp one."
Diego noted the cold distance with which they regarded the victim. It was strange to think they'd seen so much death as to be numb to it. He wondered if Maxim was like that too.
The three men were surrounded by several others. Some deputies had cordoned off the area and were searching nearby for more remains. Other techs were snapping photos and sectioning off the area of loose soil to be examined piecemeal. It all looked to the biker like menial setup that would take many hours. Like painting a house, most of the job was the prep work.
Brody's laughter stopped. "Unfortunately, this will make our job much more difficult. The surrounding soil will be inconclusive without meat or fat present in the ground. These bones appear to have been boiled." He sighed at the imagined hours ahead. "At least whoever did this saved us that much work. We can get to analyzing these straight away in the lab. In fact, this scene is so clean I think it might be worth getting everything to Flagstaff ASAP."
"Is that all then?" asked the biker, eager to get moving. The police were a burden at this point. Whether they smiled or warned, they slowed him down. Diego would be happy to leave them in the dust.
"Huh?" Brody seemed startled by Diego's presence.
"Is that all you need me for? Can I take off? I have a little girl to find."
The medical examiner scrunched his brow. "You're talking about the one that went missing Monday?"
"Who else?"
"Well," stuttered the man, "no one else. I just assumed this was her."
Diego took the invisible blow admirably, but he stepped backward a few steps as if he'd received a stunner to the head. He pieced together his next question carefully. "How could this be her?"
Brody pulled away from the bones. "Well, keep in mind I'm not saying this is her. There isn't enough information to even determine the sex of this child. Before puberty, the differences in skeletal structure are quite subtle. But I'd estimate this victim to have been between seven and ten at the time of death. How old is your little girl?"
The biker's legs almost buckled but he held strong. "Eight."
"Exactly. And this soil's all loose. That indicates a fresh grave."
"But the tree could've caused that when it uprooted."
Brody nodded. "That's true. Between that and your digging and that of possible scavengers, it's just another set of inconclusive information. I'm afraid my tank of speculation is empty. We'll know more in a few hours." Diego mulled over the facts quietly, so the ME answered the biker's original question. "As long as the officers have your information, I think you're free to go."
Diego nodded absently. All the police departments in the county had his contact information.
But now he was listless. A few seconds ago, he'd had a mission. He'd assumed these bones weren't Hazel's, that she was still alive somewhere. That was the only reason he didn't want to be slowed down here. Now, if these were the girl's bones, where would he be rushing off to?
How would he tell Julia?
"But..." he started feebly, grasping for anything to keep his mission, and Hazel, alive. "But these bones are old. Look at them."
Brody sighed. His eyes revealed that he knew now. Knew that Diego was invested in the girl. Knew that he was a liability at the crime scene. But the ME's face softened with the realization.
"I'm very sorry, Diego, but like I said: These bones were boiled. They were cleaned and boiled. They don't appear very old to me—I would expect more yellowing—but I can say with confidence that they could be as little as a few days old."
The outlaw didn't have the heart for any more. He keeled over. The techs and the deputies seemed concerned about him contaminating the scene. He tuned them out. Nothing mattered in that moment.
Chapter 40
Maxim approached the thick-wheeled Range Rover before it parked at the edge of the crime scene. The rain had stopped and everything was soaked, but the black SUV was an exception. Not only was it dry, but next to all the used law enforcement vehicles, it appeared to have just come off the showroom floor.
The spatter of activity around Maxim was to be expected, but the Range Rover was a surprise. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen it in the field.
"Good morning, Marshal," said Maxim as the door opened.
The short man pulled the jacket of his power suit from the back seat hanger and slipped it on. He scanned the RV while fixing his cuffs. Maxim waited patiently.
"W
here's the suspect?" asked Marshal Boyd.
"Coconino has the dogs out. Williams PD's assisting with the perimeter. But if you ask me, we're looking for a man who's more comfortable in these woods than many of the animals. He's old but he's fast, and he's already had the chance to outrun the lockdown."
"So the sheriff's office allowed him to escape?"
Maxim smiled. The blue-eyed marshal was young but no boy. He was already preparing for blame assignment, and even though Maxim had been present during the bust, County had taken the lead.
"The weather played a part. It was a monsoon for an hour out here."
Boyd dismissed the explanation with a quick shake of his head. Then he locked his glare on a motorcycle beside the tracks with a shine that rivaled his Range Rover. "What's he doing here?"
"Nothing, sir. Diego did not participate in the bust, although I did use his shotgun to disable the suspect's vehicle. Right now, Diego's leading Coconino detectives to the bones that started all this." Maxim paused as they approached the RV and turned back to his boss. "Truthfully, we could use the help. Lachlan Munro's dangerous. Took out the entire arrest team."
The marshal straightened his jacket and avoided eye contact. "About that... What are their conditions?"
"Well, I was kinda hoping you could tell me. The last word I got was half an hour ago. Renteria's dead, of course. Beheaded with a metal pole that's still missing. Detective Harper got banged up: a broken rib, some internal bleeding—they say he's in and out of consciousness. Deputy Garza was the luckiest of the bunch. Since she was first, the old man just left her with a bump on the head. Didn't even need stitches."
Boyd nodded. "You okay?"
Maxim sighed and continued leading the marshal to the vehicle. He didn't like to think about how close things had been. "The soggy underwear's gonna give me a rash, but otherwise I can't complain."
"I was beginning to get worried, Detective Dwyer," said the marshal sternly. "It had been almost a year since your last close call." Boyd stepped ahead of Maxim and into the RV. The marshal didn't crack a smile, but that was the closest he got to telling a joke.
Maxim followed him inside. The open window and propped-out door helped light the small space.
"Tell me what we've got," requested Boyd.
The detective didn't bother referring to his notes. "The first thing to understand is that we have two interrelated scenes. One is an unearthed body some ways north. A dead child's bones. I haven't visited the crime scene yet, but the bones show signs of being cleaned. That means we don't know how old they are. County has their technicians looking at it." The marshal didn't respond so Maxim continued. "That scene was superficially linked to Lachlan Munro by a piece of clothing found with the bones. A kilt that was believed to be in Red's possession the day before."
Boyd's face lit up. "So Mr. Munro visited the body, proving he knew its location."
"Pretty much. The kilt is no longer in the RV so it's likely the same one. There may be extenuating factors but it was good enough for reasonable doubt. Because the link was tenuous, Detective Harper didn't want to go in hard. He approached Red peacefully but the old man resisted from the start. He got behind us, somehow."
"So," said the marshal, taking in the interior of the motor home, "we have to assume our initial supposition was correct. Mr. Munro is a murderer. Are there any links to Annabelle Hayes or Hazel Cunningham?"
The detective sighed. "That's the catch. Most of these conclusions are circumstantial. There's no evidence of a link to the girls yet."
The marshal pressed his lips together in concern. "What have you found?"
Maxim jumped into motion and opened the back door. "This room has been used to hold someone against their will. Likely a small child. We're analyzing DNA on the juice boxes and we recovered blood from the shackles. Also, there's this."
The detective walked to the fridge and opened the freezer door. A tinfoil package had been unwrapped to reveal two frozen pieces of steak. "One of the techs said this meat was possibly human."
Boyd pulled away from the appliance. "Cannibalism?"
"Looks that way. Don't ask me how they can know that from an ice cube. It jives with the cleaned and stacked bones, though. Coconino's gonna get this to Flagstaff, but they said keeping it in the freezer for now was the best thing." Marshal Boyd covered his mouth and fled the RV. Maxim closed the freezer and stepped outside after him.
"Disgusting," said Boyd after a dry heave.
The detective nodded and noticed Park Ranger Dan Briggs in the distance. He was approaching.
"Detective Dwyer," said the marshal under his breath, "you're taking over this case. I've consulted the sheriff. With Detective Harper sidelined, you're the one with the most experience. You'll still coordinate with the sheriff's office, and they may resume lead in the long term, but for now you're on point. Do you have an objection to that?"
Maxim stared into the marshal's piercing eyes. "Hell no, sir."
Boyd nodded and stepped away. Maxim could feel the rush sweep through him. In his heart, he'd already committed to the case. Now the might of the sheriff's office was behind him. The responsibility for Hazel Cunningham was on his shoulders. And the target for blame, in case of failure, was painted squarely on his back.
"Detective!" called out the ranger as they met.
Maxim shook the man's extended hand. "Ranger Briggs."
The law enforcement officer crossed his arms over his vest, radio in hand. "I hear you're running a manhunt in there. You know how impossible that is, don't you?"
The detective nodded.
The ranger's radio barked with someone checking in. Brigg's spoke a confirmation and lowered the volume. "So Red's a weirdo after all, huh?"
"I don't know what he is, Briggs."
"Well, if it helps at all, that coot's either going to town or to water. He's used to living off the land, but only within the comforts of a recreational vehicle. Without his tools or supplies, he's gonna need to come up for air real quick."
Maxim had already wondered about Red's survival skills. "That might help. Coconino's running the search. Can you coordinate with them?"
Dan Briggs smiled and flexed his forearms. "Copy that. Anything to get that scumbag out of my forest."
As he spun to walk away, Maxim called after him. "It's the people's forest, Briggs. Even if you don't like them calling it Sycamore."
"Actually," rejoined Briggs, turning for a single moment, "I don't think these woods belong to anything we'll ever understand."
As the ranger headed on, Maxim was left wondering if there was any levity in the statement.
Chapter 41
Diego hiked through the brush, lost in his head. The same images kept repeating in his mind. The same moments. Julia's smile. Hazel's class picture. The discovery of the RV. Had Hazel been alive then? The biker should've broken the door down when he first found it.
Second-guessing was a harrying game. It was impossible to know if he could've made a difference. He didn't even know for certain whose bones he left behind in the forest.
Diego desperately wanted to hope. He didn't know if it was more for Hazel's sake or for his. But his grit was an act. He was moving, but he was slowing down, and he had no goal in mind. He started with the long walk back to his bike.
Although Diego made progress through the forest, he felt like he was on a treadmill: sprinting forward, but getting nowhere. The day had started promisingly. Now the sun was nearly set and everything seemed a waste.
As he trekked back, he passed through familiar ground and was startled to see a woman kneeling on the forest floor. Diego reached for the knife at his wrist before recognizing her.
"Kayda?"
The young woman quickly rose, eyes red, distressed but calm. "You're alive."
She said it matter-of-factly. There was relief in her face, at least, but Diego realized her tears were for another.
"The crow that died. It was yours."
Kayda's eyes fell to the
spot in the dirt where she had buried it. It was the same spot where Diego had fallen and been nearly overwhelmed by the light.
"The crow court," explained Kayda. "It's a ritual performed by tight-knit communities. Crows are smarter than many realize. And they have severe penalties for those among them who cross the line."
Diego stepped closer. "What line?"
The Yavapai woman shrugged. "Not belonging to the group. I used to be like that." Kayda studied the mound of fresh dirt with horror. "It must have been brutal."
Diego was still stuck on belonging. His fears about Hazel weighed his mind down. "How does a crow not belong with crows?"
"They were under the control of someone—or something—else."
"What kind of control?"
"There is muddiness here, Diego. It stains the water and makes it black. Sycamore is alive with spirits."
There she went again. This time, however, Diego entertained the possibility. "The lights. The children."
"They are not children. Not anymore."
After his encounter, Diego could no longer deny that. An involuntary shiver ran up his spine. "They're dangerous. I almost died right beside that crow."
Kayda Garnett circled the loose dirt at her feet. "They know not what they do. They don't consider the consequences. Their minds are not like yours or mine. They survive by staying in the shadows and dazzling intruders with lights and misdirection."
"But they showed me..." said Diego. "One of them led me to the bones."
"The bones of the girl?"
"We don't know that. The bones could be from any child. Until the DNA links them to Hazel, she's still missing." The biker wondered if his words sounded as hollow as they were. Kayda's assumption was normal. Expected. Deep down, Diego feared the same thing. But giving voice to the possibility made it more real.
