“That’s because it’s in regular use. Someone came through here as recently as yesterday.
“Really?” He looked down at his feet and up at the trees around them. “I can’t see it, but I’m sure you’re right.”
Eulalie couldn’t comprehend that level of forest blindness. For her it was like not being able to see a public highway in broad daylight.
They walked for almost an hour when she turned to Chief Macgregor and told him that the clearing was coming up.
“I hope it’s lighter there than here,” he said. “It’s getting very gloomy.”
“It will be a bit lighter. The trees have been cut down and cleared away to let in more daylight.”
“There’s no chance we’ll meet anyone, is there?” His hand went automatically to his weapon.
“Wait here. I’ll go and check.”
He turned his head to answer her, but she was already gone. A rustling sound made him look up, and he saw her leg disappearing into the canopy above. Then there was nothing except the sounds of the forest.
He didn’t have long to wait before she reappeared on the path in front of him.
“It’s empty. We can go ahead. You really need to see this, Chief. It’s is even more interesting than when Fleur and I were here.”
She led him to the clearing where the last fingers of daylight reached almost to the ground.
Chief Macgregor took out an evidence bag. “You say it wasn’t like this when you were here before?”
“No, it was just an empty clearing. You could see where the ground had been flattened by heavy packing crates, but that was all.”
It was certainly not all now. There were wisps of straw and torn newspaper scattered all over the ground. There were traces of packing materials like foam peanuts and bubble wrap.
Eulalie stood back so Chief Macgregor could photograph the scene. Then he put on a pair of gloves and went around with his evidence bag collecting samples.
“Here’s a nail and some splintered wood,” she said, pointing. “It looks like someone split open a crate right here.”
“And here are some bottle tops.” Chief Macgregor stooped to pick them up. “They’re a bit bent and twisted, but you can see they come from premium-label brandy.”
“It seems our smugglers had themselves an impromptu party.” Eulalie looked at the bottle tops. They weren’t all from the same brand. Two were stamped with the initials LC, and one with the word Courbet. The fourth was just a smooth burgundy bottle top.
“Maybe their supervisor was off that day.” Chief Macgregor slipped the bottle tops into his evidence bag and resumed his search.
When he was finished, he photographed the scene again, using a flash because the night was now completely dark.
Eulalie checked the time on her phone.
“It will be after eight by the time we get back to the beach. Good timing.”
They set off through the forest. Eulalie would have preferred to use no artificial light so that their eyes could become accustomed to the dark, but Chief Macgregor was too out of place in this environment. They switched on powerful Maglite flashlights to light their way through the forest.
“Why do you keep sweeping your light into the forest like that?” Eulalie asked, as the crisscrossing beam of Chief Macgregor’s flashlight appeared in her peripheral vision.
“I can see things with the flashlight that I didn’t notice during the day. In daylight, this forest is just a dark mass – at least to my eyes. But the flashlight penetrates quite deeply into it. It’s interesting. I keep seeing eye-shine from animals.”
They had only walked another few minutes when a chill swept over Eulalie’s skin. She shivered and hoped it was just the temperature that had fallen.
“Wait.” The urgency in Chief Macgregor’s tone brought her up short.
“What is it?”
His flashlight swept the forest floor about twenty feet to the left of where they were standing.
“Somewhere in there. The light reflected off something. It looked as though it could be manmade.”
She added her light to his. “I don’t see it.”
“There was definitely something.”
“There,” she said excitedly. “Is that what you saw?”
“Yes, that’s it. It looks like something stuck in the ground. Something glassy… or metallic. It caught the beam of my flashlight and reflected it back at me.”
“Let’s go and see what it is.”
“Wait. Don’t they say you’re not supposed to stray from the path when you’re in a forest? We could get disoriented.”
“Chief, you could kidnap me, blindfold me, and drop me anywhere in here and I’d still find my way back. Getting lost is the one thing we don’t need to worry about.”
“Then let’s go.”
They turned towards the metal thing that gleamed palely in the light of their flashlights. With every step she took, Eulalie felt colder and colder until her arms were covered in goose flesh and she was shivering violently.
“Is it just me or is it really cold in here?”
“Cold? It must be nearly ninety in here, and humid too. I’m sweating.”
Now a feeling of dread followed hard on the heels of the cold.
“Wait…”
“What’s wrong?” He stopped and looked at her.
“Something’s not right. I can feel something. There’s mud against my skin. It is so cold in here. There is no light - just the dank earth. So long here. So long in here with no light. Just the cold, cold earth.”
She shivered so violently her teeth chattered.
Chief Macgregor looked at her for a long moment. What he saw in her eyes made him decide against trying to reason with her. He turned back to the metal rod.
“This is a marker of some kind,” he said. “Something is buried here, and I think I know what it is.”
“Alone,” Eulalie moaned. “Alone, for so long. So cold and alone. Why? Why?”
Of all the things she had made him bring, a spade was not one of them. He would have to use the metal marker instead.
He tugged at it and found that it was buried much deeper into the earth than he’d suspected. He put his back into it, shoving the marker back and forth to loosen it in the damp soil. When he finally pulled it out, he found it was fully three feet long and as broad as a man’s hand. Somebody had put it there to last.
Deciding that it made a pretty good spade, he set to work, digging up the ground, and trying to ignore Eulalie who rocked and moaned nearby.
He dug faster and faster, holding his flashlight between his teeth to keep it trained on the ground beneath him. Eulalie’s light hung limply from her hand as she moaned and shivered.
He had dug a small hole about a foot deep when he encountered resistance and immediately stopped digging. Now he scraped at the soil in an effort to reveal what the marker had connected with. He could feel the outline of something roughly oval in shape. He knelt on the ground and shortened his hold on the rod to scrape carefully away at the sand. Then he put the rod down and held the flashlight up to see what he had uncovered.
Two blank eye sockets stared blindly up at him. A gaping mouth with elongated teeth and scraps of tissue still clinging to it was open in a soundless scream. Twin nostrils were clogged with dirt.
Slipping his hand into a latex glove, Chief Macgregor brushed away more soil around the occiput of the skull. Long strands of artificially lightened hair clung to the skull like pale ropes.
He looked up. His eyes widened for a second when he couldn’t see Eulalie. Then he noticed that she had slid to the ground in a dead faint.
He brushed more dirt from the eye sockets and cheekbones.
“There,” he said. “Now you can see the sky.”
Then he gave himself a shake, because that was a ridiculous thing to say. He hauled himself to his feet and went to revive Eulalie. At least, he hoped that’s who she would be when she woke up.
Eulalie became aware of
warmth. She was warm at last, and there was a steady drumbeat against her ear.
Flub-dub. Flub-dub.
She could smell aftershave, a piney deodorant, and fabric softener. And under it all, the musky scent of a man.
Her eyelids fluttered open. Her cheek was pressed against a canvas shirtfront. It was dark, but the quality of the light and the sounds she could hear told her she was still in the forest.
Her head came up. “What happened? How long have I…?”
“Just a few minutes, I promise.”
Chief Macgregor eased her into a sitting position. He kept a grip on her shoulders, as though trying to tether her to reality. In the gloomy chiaroscuro of the forest, cut by the bright beams of the flashlights, he waited until she made eye contact with him.
Then he said, “I found her. I found Jessica Manilow. I spotted the marker, but it was your reaction that let me know something was buried here. I need to know if you’re okay now. Have you thrown it off?”
“Yes.” She nodded impatiently, already feeling embarrassed. “That was nothing. Just a… well, nothing really. I’m fine now. You found her? She’s been buried here all this time?”
He stood up and pulled her slowly to her feet, keeping one of her hands in his in case she wobbled.
“Come and see for yourself. Dr. Autry will have to say for sure, but I think this represents five years of decomposition.”
He shone his flashlight into the shallow grave.
Eulalie managed not to flinch. Her recent hallucination was too fresh in her mind. She wasn’t able to be objective about this.
“Okay.” She touched Chief Macgregor’s wrist to move the pitiless beam away from the young woman’s face. “I’ve seen enough. Should we leave her here, or will you call in a team to get her out tonight?”
“I think it will have to be tonight. There’s too much danger of someone coming along and removing the evidence. We’ll have to go back to the docks, so I can get a signal to phone out. I just hope it’s okay to leave her here for that long.”
“I’m sure it’s fine. We can cover her up and put the metal marker back in place. And, yes, before you ask, I will be able to find her again. That way the site will pass a casual inspection, especially at night. Besides, there’s no one nearby. I’d know if there were.”
They did as she suggested, and when the scene looked reasonably undisturbed, they set off towards the beach.
“The part I don’t understand,” said Chief Macgregor. “Is how she could have been here all along. The search team brought in trained dogs and went over every inch of this island. They found nothing.”
“What kind of dogs were they? Search and rescue?”
“Probably, yes. You think they wouldn’t have detected her unless they had been cadaver dogs? It’s possible, I suppose.”
“She might also have been moved off Monk’s Cay while the searches were going on, and brought back to be buried afterwards.”
It was after nine by the time they got back to the beach. They hurried up the cliff path and towards the dock. The ferry master’s office was usually a reliable spot for getting a signal.
Chief Macgregor phoned the police station and requested two police officers, a crime scene technician, and someone from the medical examiner’s office to be dispatched immediately in a police launch to Monk’s Cay. Only the information that the remains of Prince William Island’s most high-profile missing person had probably been found generated enthusiasm for the task.
He made it clear that he was expecting to see the police launch not a minute later than eleven o’clock. Then he disconnected the call.
“Look over there.” Eulalie pointed out to sea.
He slipped his phone into his pocket and followed the direction of her finger.
“A light,” he said. “Is that a boat?”
“I think it must be. Looks like we’re about to have company.”
Chief Macgregor sighed. “I’ll have to arrest them and hold them here until the launch arrives. That’s nearly two hours of awkward conversation. You’ll have to help me.”
Eulalie smothered a laugh. “I’m more concerned that we won’t be able to overpower them, but yes, the awkward conversation is a factor too.”
“We should wait for them on the beach.”
Eulalie felt as though she were very close to unravelling the mystery of Jessica’s murder. She wondered whether the people on the boat would confirm or refute her suspicions.
They had almost reached the beach when the wind picked up and began to whine in her ears.
“Can you hear that?”
“What?”
“It sounds like chanting.”
Eulalie’s feet slowed as she listened. The wind carried the sound of men’s voices chanting. A chill arrowed down her spine and the feeling of dread began to creep back into her bones.
“Where is it coming from?” said Chief Macgregor.
“It’s all around us.”
Chapter 25
This was it, Eulalie knew. This was what had driven countless people away from Monk’s Cay over the years.
It was this feeling of dread - the cold tendrils of fear that wanted to pull you down into a place where it was dark, and you were alone.
Chief Macgregor looked out to sea with a hand up to shade his eyes from the glare of lights coming from the ferry master’s office. There was a puzzled look on his face.
“It’s not the boat. I thought it was the boat that was giving me this low-grade anxiety, but it’s not. It has something to do with that noise. Every time the wind gusts from the east I can hear it. It sounds like Gregorian chanting. There must be speakers set up somewhere.”
“It’s not the boat and there are no speakers.” Eulalie shivered. “It’s this place. This horrible place.”
He straightened up as though a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. “It’s gone now. Do you feel that? The feeling is gone.”
“No.”
Eulalie could feel it more strongly than ever. Despair. Hopelessness. Anxiety. They were all there, clutching at her and trying to pull her under.
“We’d better take cover. They’ll see our shadows on the beach.”
Eulalie had to fight against the heaviness in her limbs that made her want to lie down where she was and give way to the darkness. She had to fight against the voice in her head that told her it was all hopeless - that no matter what she did they would get her in the end and she might as well give up now.
Chief Macgregor took her hand in his as he led her towards the forest. He almost recoiled from her touch.
“Your hand is like ice.”
“Don’t let go,” she said through chattering teeth.
“I won’t.”
Some of his warmth seemed to seep into her, taking the chill from her bones and putting new heart into her. The chanting in her ears became fainter and optimism reasserted itself.
“Don’t let go of me.”
“Eulalie… I might have to soon. We both need to take our weapons out.”
“Okay, yes. But not yet.”
They took cover in the dense brush near the beach and watched the approaching lights of the boat.
“There are three of them,” Chief Macgregor said as the boat cut its lights and engine and allowed momentum to carry it up to the beach. Dark silhouettes appeared as the men stood up. Two of them jumped out of the boat and into the water to help pull it out of the reach of the tide. The third stayed in the boat, hands on hips, apparently feeling no obligation to help.
“That’s the boss,” Eulalie whispered. “If we can take him out, the others ought to fall into line.”
“They’re armed,” he whispered back. “Or at least two of them are. Those look like R5 rifles. That makes it more complicated. If they start firing at us, we’ll be chopped to pieces.”
“The boss man is key. If we can cut him out from the herd, we can control them. I’ll make a commotion here in the forest. The two with the guns will come looking
for me. Then you can circle round and arrest the boss. Once you’ve got him under control, he will tell the others to lay down their weapons.”
“What if all three of them go into the forest?” he asked.
“Unlikely. Look at him. He’s not even helping to tie up the boat. He’s just standing there weighing the boat down and making it harder for them to do their jobs. He won’t get his hands dirty looking for something in the forest.”
“What if they go looking for you in the forest and find you?”
“They won’t.”
He thought about this and decided that she was probably right.
“Okay, let’s do it.”
Eulalie took a deep breath and let loose a scream that chilled Chief Macgregor down to the souls of his feet. The men on the beach froze. The boss snapped out an order and the two armed men turned and ran towards the source of the noise, shouldering their weapons.
When Chief Macgregor turned around, Eulalie was already gone. He had to force himself not to worry about what she was doing. He had to concentrate on his own job.
Sticking to the shadows, he ran silently along the beach with the intention of looping around behind the man and taking him by surprise.
The man was standing rigidly staring at the forest. The total focus of his attention made it easier for Chief Macgregor to pass out of his line of sight and approach him from behind.
Just as he was walking up to the boat, his footsteps silent in the soft sand, there came a blast of sound that turned his bones to water – gunfire.
It was Eulalie. It had to be. They had found her and were shooting at her.
For a moment, his brain rang with a cacophony of terror.
No, it wasn’t possible. She was like a ghost. There was no way they could have found her if she didn’t want to be found. Her instinct for danger was too well-developed. She would be all right. She had to be.
In front of him, the man had crouched down low in the boat in response to the gunfire. Eulalie was right – his first instinct was to save his own skin.
Before he could over-think it, Chief Macgregor stepped into the boat and held his pistol to the man’s head.
The Eulalie Park Mysteries Box Set 1 Page 64
