by PJ Fernor
“Did you hear about the bears and mountain lions up here?” I asked. “Or the fact that over that mountain it gets so treacherous that if you got lost, nobody would even bother to try and find you.”
Rick shook his head. “I just read about the haunted stuff. I know this town had coal mines at one point. And there were collapses. Deaths. There’s got to be ghosts all over this place!”
As Rick started to sound a little bit excited, my mind flashed to the image of the girl in white I saw running through the streets.
A ghost? Really, Allie?
“This isn’t a joke,” I said. “This is dangerous up here. And you’re not going to find ghosts.”
“If you’re looking for the haunts, go into town,” Garrison said. “There were coal mines all over here, sure. Houses were built on them. A lot of those houses are sinking because of that. You want directions?”
I looked at Garrison and shook my head.
I didn’t need his help.
Rick wasn’t sure where to look.
“Rick, I want to know the truth. The whole story. Because it seems convenient that you show up here and there’s a dead body”
“You think I did this?” Rick asked. He looked at Ben and laughed. “Why would I kill my girlfriend and call you?”
“Your girlfriend?” I said. “That’s narrowed down.”
“No, wait,” Rick said. “Listen. I came up here against my girlfriend’s wishes.”
“Is she the one over there dead?” I asked and pointed to the trees.
“No!” Rick yelled. “I was just walking around, okay? I wanted to get to the top and get some pictures. It’s what I do. I collect pictures of myself in haunted places. I look for ghosts and stuff in the pictures. I was cutting through the trees over there when I tripped and fell.”
“You fell?” I asked.
“I looked to my left and there was…” Rick leaned forward and lowered his head. He coughed.
“Come on, Rick, spit it out,” I said. “We don’t have all day here.”
“I saw the girl… the woman… whatever you want to call her. She’s young if she’s a woman. She was… the blood… her eyes…”
“And then what happened, Rick?” I asked.
Rick looked up at me. His eyes were glossy. “I ran to get cell service. As I was running, I fell. I twisted my ankle on a rock and fell. Okay? I managed to get cell service and I called the police. I crawled out here into the open and waited.”
I slowly crouched down and stared into Rick’s eyes. “That’s such a stretch of a story.”
“It’s not,” he yelled at me. “Why would I do this? Huh? I could have just left. I could have left and called in an anonymous tip or something.”
“I bet that’s what you were going to do,” I said. “But you hurt your ankle.”
“Allie,” Ben said through gritted teeth. “Enough.”
“My partner doesn’t like this,” I said. “He thinks I’m being unfair. What do you think, Rick?”
Rick shrugged his shoulders.
“Feel like answering more questions at the station for me?”
“Okay,” Rick said. “If that will help. I don’t know anything though. I just told you everything that happened.”
“Well, we can get you something to eat and drink.”
“I have water and energy bars,” Rick said.
“Even better,” I said. “Won’t cost the taxpayers in this town a dime. Right?”
“Yeah, sure,” Rick said.
“So that young woman in those trees isn’t your girlfriend?” I asked.
“No,” Rick said.
“And you didn’t kill her?”
“No!” Rick yelled.
“You didn’t bring her up here knowing this place was desolate… the perfect place to kill someone…”
“Allie,” Ben growled.
I stood up and backed away.
I pointed to Garrison and then to Rick.
When I turned to go toward the trees where the body was, Ben moved fast at me.
“What was that about?” he asked.
“Just asking questions.”
“Kind of rough there.”
“That’s life. He shouldn’t have been up here.”
“Wait a second,” Ben said. “If he wasn’t up here, we wouldn’t know about the body we’re about to see.”
That was a valid point.
“I just wanted to get him while he was still raw,” I said. “Then we’ll talk to him again at the station and make sure everything matches.”
I pushed through the trees with Ben by my side.
A few seconds later, we saw the body.
It was an intense scene.
A young woman, on her side, blood covering her shirt.
Her right hand outstretched on the ground.
Her eyes open, a pretty color of blue, but completely lifeless.
I put my hand to my mouth and looked away for a second to keep my breathing steady.
“This is terrible,” Ben whispered. “She’s… young…”
I nodded. “Yeah, she is.”
I looked at the young woman again.
I turned my head a little and blinked fast.
This one was hitting me a little hard.
She looked to be Lo’s age. Maybe a couple years older.
That comparison sent chills through my entire body.
Chapter Thirteen
I bent my knees and got lower to the ground.
The scene was pure macabre, considering the time of the year it was.
Here was this beautiful backdrop of bright yellows, warm reds, rich browns, and charming oranges - the smell of the wet leaves and the dirt - everything you’d expect for a perfect October day… and I was staring at the dead body of a young woman.
As I took a minute to myself to think, a yellow leaf broke from its branch and danced down to the young woman’s body, landing on her right shoulder.
I pointed to the blood and looked back at Ben.
“Yeah,” he said. “She was stabbed to death.”
“And her face?” I asked.
There were marks on her face and her neck.
They were fresh.
They weren’t aged to an ugly purple color.
“I know,” Ben said.
“This young woman was beaten and then stabbed,” I said. “And she was brought here to die. Left here by someone. Someone who probably knew that this area was never occupied. Thinking they had found the perfect spot to dump someone.”
“Which is why I said to take it easy on that hiker,” Ben said. “He’s a fool for being up here, but he found her. Imagine if he hadn’t…”
I nodded.
I wouldn’t admit anything other than the nod.
“Go get Garrison and send him back here for a second,” I said.
“Sure thing, Allie Down,” Ben said.
I stood back up and couldn’t take my eyes off her.
“What do you need?” Garrison asked as he took Ben’s place.
“Anything on her?” I asked.
“Nothing,” Garrison said. “I looked around for a quick minute. I was making sure the hiker didn’t take off or try anything stupid. I called Laura. Called Ben. That’s about it. I’ll let someone else handle the scene. They’re trained for it.”
I looked at Garrison. “What exactly do you do?”
“Hey,” he said. “I took the hiker’s call, didn’t I?”
“Someone else did and told you,” I said.
“Lucky me,” Garrison said. “I’m part of this now.”
I gritted my teeth. “Think hard for a second, Garrison. I know that’s painful for you to do. Anything like this happen up here before?”
“You know the story…”
“Not some old story that nobody knows the truth of,” I said. “I’m talking this kind of thing.”
“Look, Allie, every now and again we’ll hear about someone climbing the fire road, okay? It’s usually teenagers.
Or some dumb adult looking for adventure. Like we have over there.” Garrison pointed in the direction of Rick. “But a body? No. And a murder like this? This is gruesome. She was beat up. And stabbed.”
“No ID on her?” I asked.
“No.”
“No phone? No bag or purse? Nothing?”
“Nothing,” Garrison said.
“Maybe she got robbed.”
“Up here?” Garrison asked with a laugh. “Yeah, by all means, she was taking the shortcut to get over to Donkey’s for wing night. Come on…”
“Hey,” I snapped. “Let me do my job. Go tell Ben I need to talk to him.”
Garrison showed his hands and walked away.
I looked down at the young woman again.
The pool of blood had seeped into her dirty, white shirt.
Any blood that touched the ground was either absorbed or pooled itself onto curled leaves.
I felt like I had stumbled into a horror movie.
“Who did this to you?” I asked. “Who are you? What’s your name? How in the world did you end up like this?”
She had a story.
Her life wasn’t just wasted time for this moment to come.
There was more to this young woman than some trespassing thrill-seeker tripping over her dead body.
I was going to make sure I found the truth.
No matter what.
I heard sticks breaking behind me.
“Ben?” I asked.
“The one and only,” he said.
“I’m trying to think,” I said. “Beaten and stabbed. Up here… it only makes sense that she was brought here on purpose. No ID. No phone. No bag. Nothing. Look at her clothes too, Ben. Her shirt is dirty.”
“Look where we are at,” Ben said. “Maybe she fought back.”
“I hope so,” I said. “But her jeans… they’re all torn and faded. They look like hand-me-downs.”
“Not necessarily,” Ben said.
I looked at him. “No?”
“That’s kind of the style now,” Ben said.
“What style?”
“They buy them like that,” Ben said. “All torn and faded. It’s a style for jeans.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Ben said. “She probably paid, I don’t know, a hundred bucks for those jeans.”
“What?” I asked.
“It’s a thing,” Ben said.
“Do you have a pair of these jeans?”
Ben shook his head. “No.”
“I don’t even want to know how you know that.”
“I thought everyone knew that,” Ben said.
“Something about this, Ben… I don’t think she paid that much more for those jeans. Or that shirt. This is…”
“You have a hunch?”
“No hunch,” I said. “I just sense something up here.”
“Me too. This is bad.”
“No murder is good, Ben,” I said.
Ben pursed his lips.
What about Patrick, Allie? You murdered him, right?
I stepped away from the scene and took a breath.
I didn’t like associating the words murder and Patrick in the same sentence, unless I was talking about his murderous career.
As I walked around the young woman’s body, I noticed some more blood.
It all blended in with the leaves on the ground.
Then I noticed more.
Soon my eyes focused on what had to have been a trail of blood.
I left Ben behind for the moment and kept my eyes steady so I didn’t miss any of the trail.
I bent my knees a little again, walking kind of strange.
I reached out with my hands and began to push away branches and shrubs.
The blood came to an end at a thicker part of the bushes.
To my left I noticed a part of the bushes looked uneven.
Flattened a little…
I side stepped and opened the bushes with my hand.
When I saw more blood, I stepped forward.
I tried to keep on my toes in case there were any prints that could be found and used to track the person who murdered the young woman.
I took a few steps beyond the bushes and I stopped.
My legs straightened and I sucked in a breath.
When I exhaled it, it was shaky.
Then I turned my head and called out Ben’s name.
Chapter Fourteen
I paused and waited for Ben to catch up.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I saw more blood,” I said. “It formed a faint trail. Brought me here.”
I nodded to the other side of the bushes and looked back at him.
Ben turned his head and looked back in the direction of the young woman.
“What do you think it is?” he asked.
“Not sure,” I said. “Be careful where you’re stepping. I don’t want to compromise anything that could be deemed evidence.”
I carefully stepped through the bushes and when I saw the amount of blood waiting, I touched my stomach.
“Oh…,” Ben said as though he was sick.
“It’s a lot of blood,” I said.
“She obviously lost a lot of blood,” Ben said. “She’s dead.”
I looked around. “Something is off here.”
I kept walking forward, shuffling over the damp leaves.
“Allie, look at this,” Ben said. “It’s a path. She must have… oh, jeez, she crawled out of here…”
I blinked a few times and could see what Ben meant.
Not focusing on the blood for a second allowed me to see that a path about the width of the young woman’s body was present.
I looked at Ben. “Crawled or dragged?”
“I don’t think Rick did this, Allie,” Ben said. “We’ll still question him again and make sure his story checks out.”
“So you’re telling me that young woman was brought up here to die and crawled over there?” I asked. I looked back and blinked a few times. “She crawled and…”
“Let’s keep following this path first,” Ben said.
Ben stayed on one side, I stayed on the other.
He focused on the path in the leaves and I focused on the blood.
I wasn’t sure I ever saw as much blood as this. I had been around plenty of accidents, shootings, stabbings and murders. But this was different. To imagine that young woman being fatally wounded and then pulling herself through the woods, maybe not even knowing where she was going. Finding that resolve and will to live. Whispering to herself in her mind that everything was going to be okay. That she wasn’t going to die up here alone. That in the movies and in TV shows, there was always that glimmer of hope at the last possible second to make everything right again.
The trees and bushes started to get really thick.
“It’s no wonder her clothes were a mess,” Ben said. “Crawling through this stuff.”
I crouched down and wrestled my way through a thick patch of bushes. Some had tiny thorns that scratched at any bare skin they could find.
“It just keeps going,” Ben said.
We broke upon a very small clearing and stopped.
In all actuality, we hadn’t gone maybe more than twenty feet from where the young woman’s body laid.
But to travel slowly, focused, my mind racing, it felt like miles.
And for her… to do it with at least one stab wound to her stomach…
“We need to find where she was dumped,” I said to Ben. “Maybe there’s something there we can run with.”
Ben nodded. “I agree.” He pointed down. “Look here. It looks like maybe she stopped here for a second or two. The leaves have a deeper imprint. And there’s more pooling of the blood.”
I swallowed hard.
I could see what he meant.
What happened to you? Did you get here and sit up? Look up to the…
I looked up and I felt my blood run cold.
“Look up, Ben,” I
said.
“What am I looking at?” he asked.
“The clearing,” I said. “It’s a beautiful view. The trees are all different colors and then it’s a bright blue sky ahead. What if she sat here and…”
I felt my throat close for a second.
I lowered my gaze and Ben looked right at me.
His jaw tightened and he carefully stepped toward me.
His hands touched my arms. “Allie, what is it?”
“She looks not that much older than Lo,” I whispered.
“I know,” he said. “But it’s not Lo. That will never be Lo. And we have no idea who that young woman is. But we will. And we’re going to make sure that whoever did this pays for it.”
“I know, Ben,” I said. “Believe me, I know. It’s just…”
I stood there in the middle of the woods with blood around me, a young woman’s dead body nearby, and a whole new case to tackle, and I stared at Ben, feeling things…
“Not the time or place for this,” I said. “Things have been good with Lo. At home, I mean. And then this just…”
“It rattles you,” he said. “Want to know why?”
“Why?” I asked.
Ben half grinned. “Because you’re a good mother.”
My throat squeezed again.
I quickly turned my head and focused back on the bloody trail.
Ben walked behind me, and we kept going.
Just beyond a bush I stopped again and pointed to a tree.
“There it is,” I said.
Ben stepped up next to me. “Yeah.”
It was an oak tree.
The blood on the tree and around it was where the path ended.
It was where that young woman stopped and sat up again.
I walked to the tree and noted the bloody handprints on it.
“She must have tried to stand,” I said. “And she kept falling.”
“So she crawled all the way over there,” Ben said.
“She should have just went down,” I said. I nodded. “She could have gotten into a better spot.”
“Maybe she’s not from around here,” Ben said. “It’s not easy to navigate the woods when you’re not beat up and stabbed.”
