by Ed Robinson
“Where’s the dog come in?” she asked.
“I’m not sure yet,” I said. “But if we get a scent on something curious, he’ll follow it wherever it leads.”
“Might come in handy,” she said. “What’s his name?”
“Red,” I said. “Red, this is Angelina.”
She knelt down and scratched behind his ears just the way he liked it. He licked her face and tried to give her his paw.
“He’s a handsome one,” she said. “Just like his father.”
I could feel my cheeks turning red, and I was embarrassed to be so obviously affected by her charms. I was a hard man. I’d been through a lot of dangerous situations in my life. I was competent and capable in almost any situation, but I’d never been able to resist the magnetism of a beautiful woman. It was my Achille’s heel. I’d done some really stupid shit on behalf of pretty girls in my life. Now was not the time for a repeat performance.
“We’ve got work to do,” I said. “Follow Red and pay attention. If he or I see something worth investigating, I’ll let you know.”
“I like a man that takes charge,” she said. “Lead the way.”
I did not imagine her flirtation. It may have been real. I wasn’t a bad looking guy after all. On the other hand, it may be her way of controlling the situation or even controlling men. It wouldn’t be the first time a woman used her looks to her advantage. She could use me to solve this crime, then take all the credit. I’d be a useful idiot, spurred on by her feminine guile. I could live with that. She was nice to be around either way.
We entered the woods at the shoreline and started wandering about. I figured that whatever went down had to have happened close to the water. I concentrated on a twenty-foot swath, working back and forth, taking everything in. Red did the same. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he knew we were after something. Angelina stayed behind us, keeping quiet. Whenever I looked back at her, she gave me a sweet smile. It was all just a walk in the park.
What we needed was more information. Have they found evidence of foul play? Is there an indication of the cause of death? Who is she? We were on a snipe hunt with nothing to go on. Normally, I would take every available piece of data and roll it all around in my head until I hit on a likely solution. I wasn’t in a position to solicit more information from law enforcement, but Angelina was.
I stopped and sat on a log, waiting for her to join me. She sat too close to me, giving me a fresh whiff of her perfume. Her shoulder touched mine, and she gave me a little nudge.
“This could be romantic under different circumstances,” she said.
“A romp in the woods with a complete stranger?”
“Depends on what you mean by romp,” she said. “I suppose there are too many prying eyes in the woods today. What are we supposed to be looking for anyway?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I replied. “Why don’t you call someone and ask for any new details. Anything that will help us.”
“Such as?”
“Who the kid is,” I said. “Was she local? Reported missing? Any obvious wounds? History of drug abuse? They’ve got to know something by now.”
“Got it.”
She stood and paced about while she talked on the radio. The only thing they’d found was a deep gash on the back of the victim’s head. There was obvious blunt force trauma. They had not identified the victim. No teenage girls were reported missing. They would update us as new information became available.
“Someone whacked her on the head,” she said. “That’s all we know, so far.”
“Not a suicide,” I said.
“Nope, we’ve got a murderer on Beech Mountain.”
We continued zig-zagging along the shoreline. The further we got from the park, the thicker the brush became. Red didn’t seem to mind, but the waist-high weeds were a pain in the ass. Angelina walked in my wake as I knocked them down. It made for tough going, but it turned out to be a blessing. Red hit on something in a small area where the weeds had already been knocked down.
It was a man-sized depression in the undergrowth, bolstered by additional sticks and grass piled around the edges. My dog was all over it with his nose. He circled around it then looked at me. He gave me one quick bark. He was smelling something or someone.
“What do you think he’s found?” Angelina asked.
“Looks like someone bedded down here,” I said. “Made themselves a comfy pallet and blocked the wind.”
“Can your dog track him from here?”
“As soon as I say go,” I said.
“Let’s get after him.”
“Find him, boy,” I told Red. “Sniff him out. Let’s go.”
The dog circled two more times before finding which way the mystery man went. He wanted to run, but I had to reign him in. We couldn’t run after him through the thicket, but it was clear he had the scent. I increased my pace just a little, and Angelina soon fell behind.
“Wait up, mountain man,” she said.
I tugged at Red’s leash to slow him down. He protested but obeyed my command. My partner caught up, and we continued to follow his nose. We soon came upon a second area of interest. It was less obvious than the first, but Red was certain. Under the low branches of a big pine, the needles had been piled up to form primitive bedding. There was no other sign of man, no trash or personal items stashed away. We would never have discovered it without the dog.
I let him sniff it over until he was satisfied. He wasn’t sure which way to go, which indicated to me that the man had been here more than once, coming and going from different directions. Red would go with the freshest scent, so I waited for him to decide. It gave us a chance to catch our breath.
“What do you think we have here?” asked Angelina.
“A vagrant living in the woods,” I said. “Not necessarily our killer.”
“Not until we find more clues,” she said. “But who could live out here? I thought the homeless would avoid the mountains. Tough way to go. No services, no heat, no help.”
“You’d be surprised,” I said. “I once befriended an old codger who’d been living on my mountain for years. Long story.”
“I’d like to hear it sometime,” she said.
“Maybe someday,” I said. “Red’s ready to go. You good?”
“Good to go,” she said.
The woods got even thicker from there. Even Red was having a difficult time making headway. Our mystery man had made no trails or left any trace that he’d been this way, but Red was insistent. He led us back to the water’s edge and stopped. He looked confused. Had the man entered the water here? I took him back inland and had him circle the general area. He gave no sign of picking the scent back up. Our trail was gone.
“What do we do now?” Miss Will asked.
“We can either stumble around blindly trying to pick up his trail again, or we can go home and regroup.”
“I for one vote we call it a day,” she said. “I wasn’t prepared for cross-country mountain hiking. We need some water at the very least.”
“I agree,” I said. “This is going to take more time and effort than I was ready for.”
“Maybe they’ve learned more about the girl,” she said. “Let’s head back to the park.”
Red was disappointed. He didn’t like not being rewarded for finding his target, but continuing to search that day was not a great idea. We’d given it our best shot. We’d learned something. Whether it was relevant to the girl’s death remained to be seen.
Two
Back at the park, we reported to Johnson. He seemed to have taken control of the command post. We told him what we’d found. Another team had searched the opposite side of the lake and come up empty. No one had covered the area around the dam, but workers were still there repairing the gate valve. It didn’t seem like a killer would want to be too close to that much activity. For all we knew, the killer could be a thousand miles away by now. Maybe Angelina and I had been chasing a bum who lived
in the woods, nothing more.
“I don’t think there’s much more we can do here today,” said Johnson. “Running out of daylight.”
“Will you be back out here tomorrow?” I asked.
“Probably,” he said. “Maybe we’ll get some more information from the Medical Examiner. Maybe the girl’s parents will hear about this. A lot can happen overnight. Are you willing to come back tomorrow?”
“I’ve got nothing better to do,” I said.
“I’ll be here too,” Angelina said. “Breeze and I are good together. I’d be happy to assist.”
Johnson gave me the look. He knew about Brody and seemed to question Angelina’s motive to stay close to me. I gave him a shrug and walked to a bench and sat down. I was soon joined by my new female friend.
“He seems to think we’ve got something going on,” I said. “You do know that I’m spoken for?”
“I gathered,” she said. “Doesn’t mean we can’t work together. Whatever happens as a result, I can’t say.”
It was the moment in time when I should have drawn the line. All I had to do was tell her that I was in love with Brody, that I’d never cheat on her, and that nothing was going to happen between us. I didn’t do that. It wasn’t the first time in my life that I knew my decision was wrong, but did it anyway. I had a long history of that. Going against what I knew was proper, had been the reason for most of the grief I’d encountered. I told myself that it didn’t mean I would sleep with Angelina, necessarily. We were simply sharing a little male and female attraction. No harm done.
She seemed to sense that we’d crossed some imaginary line. She’d pulled me over it, and I let her. It was not a full surrender, but she’d won the first skirmish. I should have gone home immediately. Instead, I stayed and talked for a few more minutes. I was finding it hard to pull myself away.
“How did you become a cop?” I asked. “What made you decide?”
“I was a big fan of strong woman characters on the TV shows,” she said. “Marg Helgenberger on CSI. Mariska Hargitay on SVU. Gillian Anderson in X-Files. I wanted to be like them.”
“Avery County ain’t exactly New York City,” I said.
“Real life ain’t TV,” she said. “There are still a lot of barriers for women in the real world of law enforcement.”
“I’ve had some experience with the good old boy network in these parts,” I said. “You’d be better off in a more progressive area if that’s what you really want.”
“This is my home,” she said. “I tried to get hired in Asheville, but no go.”
“So you settled for a deputy position with Avery County,” I said. “You must be the hottest deputy to ever wear the badge, Miss Will.”
“I think my looks hurt more than they help,” she said. “I wouldn’t mind being Sheriff someday, though.”
“Your picture will look great on campaign signs,” I said. “I’d vote for you.”
“Thanks for being so sweet.”
The conversation had gone far enough. I was playing with fire, and I knew it, but I couldn’t help myself. This woman flipped all of my switches. She was hot, smart and capable, just like Brody. I had to get out of there.
“Look,” I said. “I’ve got to go home. Red wants his dinner and Brody is waiting for me. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”
“Sure, partner,” she said. “It’s been nice getting to know you.”
“Likewise,” I said over my shoulder. I was already walking to my car.
I wallowed in guilt on the ride home. I was way out of line allowing things to progress so far with Angelina. I absolutely adored Brody. She was my life and reason for living. Why had I been so foolish? Miss Will had a magnetism that I had a hard time resisting, but Brody and I had a lifelong commitment. I would not betray that, no matter how hot Angelina was. When I got home, I relayed the events of the day, leaving out the fact that my cop partner was a beautiful woman. Red lay in front of the fire, twitching and dreaming about hunting down our mystery man.
After dinner, and after a shower, I took Brody to bed and used my sexual frustration to please her to the fullest. I held her tight afterward, confirming to myself that I was committed to her, always. I’d find the moral strength to resist Miss Will, knowing that if I didn’t, I’d lose Brody forever. I couldn’t let that happen. I almost confessed to my attraction for the lady cop, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Nothing was going to happen, so Brody didn’t need to know.
There was a much smaller crowd at the lake the next morning. Johnson had sent whatever officers he could spare to knock on doors and interview folks that lived near the lake. There weren’t many houses nearby, and many of them were seasonal. Two deputies from the Watauga County Sheriff’s Department were already working on the opposite side of the lake. Johnson was talking with Angelina when I arrived with Red.
“The victim is still a Jane Doe,” said Johnson. “We’ve got no ID on her. The word is out over a three-state area. We circulated a photo after cleaning her up as best we could. The ME says the blow to the head didn’t kill her. COD is drowning.”
“Did you bring those deputies up to speed on what we found yesterday?” I asked.
“I told them,” he said. “They said they didn’t see anything similar, but they were looking for more obvious clues. They don’t have a dog either.”
“When do they plan to start refilling the lake?” I asked.
“Later today,” he said. “If there is anything useful out there in the mud, it will be under water tonight.”
“You going out there?” I asked.
“I’ve got my waders in the truck,” he said. “I’m not hopeful, but it will be my last chance before any evidence gets flooded.”
“I’d shoot for finding the weapon,” I said. “The perp wouldn’t know that the lake would get drained. Good chance he tossed it into the water.”
“My thoughts exactly,” he said. “You sure you don’t want a job?”
“Positive,” I said. “That would never fly anyway, and you know it.”
“Just wish some of my coworkers were as sharp as you,” he said. “It would make my job a lot easier.”
“I haven’t met too many people as sharp as Breeze,” Angelina said. “He’s got a real aptitude for this kind of work.”
“He’s been a great help to us more than once,” Johnson said. “Adding that dog to the team has worked out well too.”
“Don’t expect any miracles this time around,” I said. “We have zero clues except for a dead girl and the fact that somebody had been sleeping in the woods nearby. It’s practically a Bigfoot hunt.”
“If you find the guy, have Will detain him for questioning,” he said. “Call me right away.”
“I’m going to venture further away from shore today,” I said. “I’m concentrating on the mountain man rather than the girl. It’s all we have to go on.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “If I get any new information I’ll let you know.”
I led Red and Angelina over a wooden walking bridge and onto a hiking trail that rose upward from the park. I took note of the high-quality hiking boots that my partner wore. She had a backpack with water and snacks as well. She wore a wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun off her face and a bandana around her neck. She could have been a model for L.L. Bean.
“At least we’re better prepared today,” I said.
“I hope I don’t look too frumpy for you,” she responded.
“I’m sure you’d make anything look good,” I said. “But let’s try to stick to business, if you don’t mind.”
“We won’t find any clues on this trail,” she suggested. “Too frequently traveled.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I doubt he would set up camp so close to the park either. I want to get up a little higher, then veer off into the bush.”
“Should we split up?”
“That’s a strategy worth considering,” I said. “But we can’t get too far apart. We’ve got no way to communicate
with each other.”
“We use the trail as a centerline,” she suggested. “You and Red go down towards the lake. I’ll go the other way. We backtrack and meet on the trail. If I find anything curious, we’ll take the dog to it. Keep going back and forth like that until we hit on something good or run out of daylight.”
“Okay, but here’s the deal,” I said. “If there is a person of interest roaming these woods, it would be best not to announce our presence. Do you think you can move with enough stealth that he doesn’t know you’re there?”
“You mean sneak around the woods?” she asked.
“Move like smoke,” I said. “Make no sound. Make yourself invisible as best you can.”
“Is that it?”
“Not exactly,” I said. “You sure you want to hear how I do it?”
“Positive,” she said. “You are the master, and I am your student.”
“Promise not to laugh,” I said. “But it works for me.”
“I’m ready to learn,” she said.
“Use your ears to listen as you’ve never listened before,” I said. “Use your nose to smell every detail of the woods. Be aware, then increase your awareness. Take in all the sights, sounds, and scents that you can. I mean really amplify your senses. I call it mountain Zen.”
“Zen and the Art of Mountain Hiking,” she said. “I think you’ve got a book title there.”
“It takes a little practice,” I said. “And you’ve got to be open to it. Sort of let yourself get into it.”
“This is how you track people?”
“It was my sole method before I got Red,” I told her. “I’ve managed to outwit experienced woodsmen that way. They move, they smell, they make a sound, and I’m on them.”
“I think I understand the general idea,” she said. “Putting it into practice is something else entirely.”
