The Skin Worshipper

by RB Schalin

Chapter 8

  Jim Hawk is leaning against his police cruiser smoking a cigarette. The car is parked off the I25, and behind him is the Colombia River. He can’t see it, but he can hear it.

  He removes the cigarette from his mouth and takes a deep breath. He still hasn’t gotten used to the fresh air out here in the wilderness. Originally from LA he was a child of concrete, the closest to trees he ever got was the ones in the park his mother would take him to. There was one, some big leafy thing, surrounded by buildings and traffic.

  It’s dark and he is thinking about heading back to the station and call it a day. Nothing has happened during the hours he has been parked here. Sometimes he gets to fine some truck driver for speeding. Compared to policing in LA, this is a vacation.

  He moved to the town of Green Tree five years ago, it’s small and the last census said there were around two thousand souls living there. Three of them are police officers, and Hawk is the chief.

  Back in LA he was a detective in the Narcotics department. He had been on the job for ten years when it happened. Some scumbag he had busted made a call, but instead of calling his lawyer he called another scumbag. He never found out how, but the second scumbag found out where Hawk lived, and when he came home, the man was waiting for him with some compadres, and a shit load of weapons.

  Hawk had hardly time to sit down to eat with his wife and four-year-old son when the shooting began.

  Hawk's house was the last in a row of five. It was built at the turn of the century and the plot was large. His wife Vivian had worked hard to make a beautiful garden, not only flowers, but also growing vegetables and fruit trees. It was her favorite place to be when she wasn’t teaching.

  The bad guys had surrounded the house on four sides, and began to shoot at the same time. When it was over Hawk had been shot in his left shoulder and a bullet had grazed his head, taking off half of his right ear. Vivian lay dead on the floor from three bullets to her chest, his son Victor lay on the floor with a bullet in his stomach.

  Victor lived for three days, and then died of complications. Hawk went home, and tried to hang himself, luckily for some, not him, he had thought at the time, the beam in the garage broke, and he fell down, but not before the rope had burned into his skin.

  Now he sported half an ear and a red scar on one side of his neck going in under the chin and ending on the other side.

  After the fuck up with the rope he had moved to Miami for a year spending time with his retired father. They spent hours and hours talking about life and how shitty it could be some time.

  "Jim," his father said one morning when they were on the golf course, "you need to get your life back on track. Vivian and Victor have been gone for over a year, and you are still young and need to think about your future."

  "Dad, I don’t want to think about anything, except my putting skills."

  "Rubbish boy, listen to me. If you don’t find a job within the next three months, I will personally kick you out of the house and you can become a hobo if you want. I’m not going to have you around the house doing nothing."

  At the time Hawk hated his father for what he had said, how insensitive he had been, but later he realized his father was right. He would never forget his wife and child, they lived inside him, but he had to move on, do something useful.

  He began to look for jobs on the internet and by a fluke, he found a website where different police departments posted jobs. He applied to three of them. One was the position as Chief of Police, Green Tree, Washington State.

  "Chief, over."

  Hawk clicks the radio on his shoulder and says, "Chief here, over."

  "Mrs. Springer just called in, she and her husband have found a dead body a few miles from your location, and I have called the ambulance. It should be there shortly."

  Harry and Helen Springer, retirees from New York, they moved to town to help their daughter with her baby when her husband left her. Then she met a trucker and moved to Seattle, but the old folks stayed behind. Nice couple, even though she runs over poor Harry anytime she can.

  "I’ll be there in a few minutes, " he says while getting into the car.

  "Here comes the police," says Helen.

  She and Harry are sitting in their car and can see the blue lights from the police cruiser coming towards them.

  "He’s not coming from town, must have been out ticketing truckers," says Harry.

  Hawk parks on the side of the road and steps out, and then walks over to the Springer’s car. He leans in and asks, "where is the body?"

  Harry uses his thumb and points over his shoulder and says, "behind us, it’s just a kid, a girl, can’t be more than sixteen at the most."

  "Wait here while I have a look."

  He opens the trunk of his car and takes out a roll of yellow tape and from a bag a camera with a powerful flash. Then he pulls out his flashlight from his belt and shines it on the ground in front of him. Harry is right, there is a body on the side of the road, one arm stretched out over the tarmac, but most of it is still in the shrubs.

  The flash from the camera lights up the entire area when he takes several photos from different angles. When he is done, he walks in a big circle while letting the tape out behind him. While walking around the body he uses some nearby trees to support the tape so it doesn't lie on the ground. He is careful not to step on anything that could be used as evidence. When he is back to where he started he looks around and finds a large rock which he uses to anchor the tape to the ground. Then he kneels and shines the light in the dead girls face. He has seen plenty of dead bodies in his career, but it’s always worse when they are kids.

  The bolt goes through her face surprises him, with kids, it’s usually an overdose or suicide, in LA there were shootings as well.

  He looks closer at the entrance wound and the exit wound. He shines his light around the body. Her clothes are ripped, and there are scratches on her hands and face. Not from nails, more like if she was running in a dense forest and was scratched by branches. He turns and shines the light into the forest behind him, nothing but trees. She must have come from in there he guesses. He turns back to her face and check her clothes for blood, but can’t find much.

  He stands up just in time to see the ambulance drive up and park close by. Its sirens are not on, the person was dead, so there is no hurry.

  "What’s up Hawk?" asks the man wearing a windbreaker and baseball cap stepping out from the ambulance. He has jeans, a sweater and boots. In his left hand there is an old doctor's bag.

  "Hey Doc, dead girl, in her mid teens I would guess. She has a crossbow bolt through her face, but I don’t think that was what killed her.

  Doctor Martin Stewart is the town’s general practitioner and the coroner. In fact, he is a bit of everything. He has delivered babies in homes, and written death certificates for the elderly. People call him Doc Martin in his face; he doesn’t seem to mind being called the same as the famous boots made popular by Skinheads all over the world.

  "Help me roll her over," says Doc and together they roll her on her back.

  "Yeah, she is around fifteen or sixteen. I would guess she is of Latin origin, and you are right, there is no way that bolt killed her."

  "What do you think did?"

  Doc Martin looks at Hawk and says, "fear maybe?"

  "Fear?"

  "Yep, look at her eyes."

  Hawk shines his light in the dead girl's eyes, they are wide open and when he steps back a bit and takes in the whole picture of her face he sees what Doc is referring to. Even with the bolt in her face, he can see her mouth is open as if she was screaming, with the wide open eyes, she looks scared.

  "C’mon Doc, she was most likely scared, she might have known she was dying, that doesn’t mean she died of fear."

  "I’ll know more after the autopsy. I’ll get the stretcher and then you can help me put her in the ambulance."

  When Doc has left Hawk walks over where the Springer’s are leaning against their car.<
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  "I need to ask you a few questions before you can leave. Who found the body?"

  "First we thought it was a deer, but when I passed her I saw an arm, and realized it was a body," says Harry shaking his head sadly.

  "So you went over to her, and did what?"

  "Well, I went to see if she was injured, and if I could help. I wasn’t sure if she was dead or not."

  "When you got close, and you saw she was dead, that's when put your jacket over her?"

  "I spoke to her first."

  Hawks face comes up from his notebook, "spoke to her?"

  "Yes Sir, she was alive when I got to her."

  Hawk wonders why Harry didn’t say this before, it was important. He sighs and asks, "OK Harry, what did she say?"

  "She spoke of a naked man that had killed her friends."

  "C’mon Harry, did she also tell you about Big Foot?"

  Harry stares at Hawk and he realizes he’s made a mistake.

  "Look Chief, I might be a city boy from New York, but I’m not dumb or deaf. The girl said a naked man had killed her friends, OK."

  "Sorry Harry, it just sounds crazy."

  "I agree, but that’s what she said."

  Hawk finishes with his notes, and tells the Springer’s they can go home. He goes back to his car and calls in, telling Mrs. Winter, the receptionist; he is on his way back and he will wait until she dispatches Deputy Fieldman to the area.

  While he waits, he smokes another cigarette and drinks some cold coffee from a thermos he finds in his car. It doesn't take long before another police cruiser shows up and a young man steps out.

  "What's up Chief?"

  "You have to wait here until the Forensic People show up. I'll call them from the car. They are coming from Jonesborrow, so it could take a while."