Difficult Run (3 page)

“The only thing we’re seeing are some people down the trail, which I assume are our folks,” the pilot reported.
 
“We looked at the forest all the way down to the main part of the park.
 
Nothing there but some deer,” he added.

She asked the pilot to look along the perimeter roads and check back with her.
 
As soon as she had finished talking to the pilot, Zerk came on the radio.
 
“All finished here, but I’ll need some help getting out the bicycles and evidence bags,” he said.

M.J. confirmed that Zerk had found the keys to the boys’ car and then walked over to Officer Crocker, who was talking to Jake and Dodd McMillan.

“Any way to get in there with a vehicle?” she asked.

“I’d say the best we’ll be able to do is send a four-wheeler down the trail to the place where it narrows,” Crocker replied.
 
“You’ll need to haul everything to that point, including the bodies.
 
I’ll contact the Fire and Rescue unit in Great Falls Village.
 
Should I contact the Medical Examiner, too?” he asked.

“Yeah, go ahead on both counts,” M.J. said. She walked over to the uniformed Park Police officer in the parking lot.
 
“They’re going to bring in a four-wheeler,” she said.
 
“You’ll need to follow it down the trail and help with getting the evidence up to it; same with the bodies for the M.E.”

As M.J. joined Jake and the others, Eagle One came back on the radio.
 
“We’re looking along the perimeter roads now.
 
No sign of anybody there or in the forest.
 
Do you want us to remain on station?” the pilot asked.

M.J. looked at Jake and said, “I don’t see any reason to keep them around, do you?”
 
He shook his head.

“Eagle One, go on back and thanks for your help,” she said into the radio.

She turned to Dodd McMillan and asked, “Are the horses for the mounted unit assigned to the park in the flooded area or can we get riders to them?”

“The horses are kept in a stable off the entrance road to the park.
 
Should be able to get to them without a problem.
 
In fact, they can ride from there through the forest to the area around Difficult Run,” he replied.

M.J. called the GW Station on her radio and asked them to send riders.

CHAPTER FOUR

T
HEY WERE SITTING IN Lieutenant Mike Swain’s office at the Anacostia Station in Washington where the Criminal Investigations Branch was headquartered. Swain was behind his desk and they were sitting in the two fake leather chairs that had been carefully placed in front of his desk with a full view of the wall behind him, which showcased his various certificates and awards.

“I’m leaving this case with you guys,” Swain said.
 
“M.J., I want you to take the lead.
 
Jake has several other cases pending, but he’ll be available for backup.
 
This is a big deal case, so give me regular updates. That’s it for now.”

As they rose to leave, Swain said, “M.J., stay for a minute.
 
I’ve got some ideas I want to discuss with you.”

She sat back down and feigned attentiveness, although she was still processing the images from the murder scene in her mind.
 
Even now, twenty-four hours later, they were disturbingly vivid and horrific.

“So, you may be wondering why I’m assigning this case to you, huh?” Swain asked.

“I hadn’t given it much thought, but now that you mention it, I am a little surprised that you didn’t give it to someone with a little more seniority and experience,” she replied.

“Well, seniority and experience don’t really matter on this one.
 
First of all, we don’t have that many detectives with homicide experience because the Park Police doesn’t see that many homicide cases—certainly not like this one,” he said.
 
“No, there are two reasons I’m giving you the case.
 
First, only somebody smart has any chance of figuring out who did it, and you’re one of the smartest people in the unit.
 
The other reason is that I doubt anyone else would even want it because it may never be solved at all.
 
Nobody likes unsolved cases.
 
They look bad on everybody’s record.”

“Well, I appreciate the opportunity,” M.J. said, thinking to herself that Swain was more concerned about
his
record than hers.
 
If the case was never solved, he would have a scapegoat; if it was, he would gladly take the credit.

Of course, there were homicides in national parks—several hundred since she had been on the force—but the Park Police didn’t handle all of them.
 
That was because they only had units in three locations:
 
Washington, D.C, New York, and San Francisco. Even with that, they often had limited jurisdiction over homicides.
 
Washington was a prime example:
 
Homicides on federal park land within the District of Columbia were the exclusive jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police.
 
Great Falls Park, on the other hand, was the exclusive jurisdiction of the Park Police.

In addition, some high-profile homicides in national parks had been handled by the FBI at the request of the National Park Service because of the limited resources of the Park Police.
 
The serial murders in Yosemite National Park in 1990 and the murder in 1996 of two women campers on the Appalachian Trail were good examples.

“Are we going to keep this one to ourselves?” she asked Swain.

“For now,” Swain replied. “I don’t want to ask for help from the FBI or the local police unless we absolutely have to.
 
Let’s see how it plays out.”

“How about offering a reward for information?” she asked.

“That’s certainly on the table, but let’s see what you come up with first,” he said.
 
“That’s all for now, but keep me posted.”

She left his office and went back to her cubicle, which faced Jake’s.

“So, did you and Swain finish your private discussion?” he asked.
 
“Anything I should know about?”

“Just the usual bullshit,” she answered. “Of course, if it goes south, he’ll blame it on me.
 
But you’ll probably be able to stay clear since you’re just backup.” She smiled.

“I’m really not trying to stay clear, M.J.,” he said.
 
“Keep me in the loop.”

“OK,” she said.
 
“I’m going back out to the park. Dodd McMillan said he’d give me a tour.
 
May need your help later to follow up on any leads.”

“Just let me know,” he said.

CHAPTER FIVE

I
T TOOK M.J. ABOUT TWENTY MINUTES to drive from Anacostia Station to Great Falls Park.
 
She passed the parking lot at Difficult Run and, about a half mile later, turned into the main entrance.
 
It was about another mile to the gate on a road lined with tall trees that cast dark shadows in the late morning sun. Below, to the right, she could see an expanse of flat land that seemed to melt into heavy forest on all sides, with an occasional trail visible through the foliage.

She showed her badge and was waved through by the ranger at the entrance station.
 
The Visitor Center was just past an open grassy field dotted with picnic tables.
 
The heavy rain and flooding had left large puddles of water over the entire area.

She parked her car in the restricted lot adjacent to the Visitor Center, a clay-colored block building with a cedar shingle roof and ascending ramps on each end.
 
She entered through the door to the ground level where the administrative offices were located.

It wasn’t hard to find the office marked “Site Manager – Randall D. McMillan.”
 
The door was open and Dodd was sitting behind a long table that served as his desk.
 
It was cluttered with papers from end to end and the only illumination was an old-fashioned banker’s lamp with a green glass shade.
 
The walls were lined with bookshelves, some of which contained worn leather-bound volumes that lay on their sides.
 
There were several historical pictures of the park on the wall, including some of areas under water.

M.J. was able to get a better look at Dodd now than the day before at the murder scene.
 
He appeared to be in his early fifties, with close-cropped hair that was turning gray at the edges.
 
His skin was tanned and leathery, undoubtedly from spending a lot of time outside.
 
As he stood up from his desk, she could see that he was trim and obviously in good shape.

“Hope you brought some comfortable walking shoes,” he said, removing a pair of reading glasses.

She pointed to the Merrell hiking shoes she was wearing and said, “Ready for my tour of the park.”

M.J. looked at two framed pictures on one of the shelves.
 
They were of a woman in her late forties and a younger woman perhaps in her early twenties. M.J. pointed at the pictures and asked, “Is that your wife and daughter?”

“Yes,” Dodd replied.
 
“My wife passed away four years ago from cancer.
 
My daughter lives in Wyoming now and it looks like she may be getting married soon.
 
Who knows, a few years from now I may have some pictures of grandchildren up there too.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your wife,” M.J. said.
 
“That must have been very difficult for you and your daughter.”

“It was,” he replied, “but my wife fought a good fight to the very end and it made my daughter and me strong, whether we liked it or not.
 
She made us promise that we would go on with our lives and not let her death drag us down.
 
We’ve both tried to honor that promise, but it hasn’t always been easy for either of us.
 
Every year that passes, though, seems to put things more in perspective and that helps.”

They left the Visitor Center and started down a wide path that paralleled the river and the remains of the Patowmack Canal, which had been constructed in the late eighteenth century.
 
There were two overlooks from which visitors could get a panoramic view of the falls.

As they turned into the second overlook, Dodd said “A lot of people never get farther than this area.
 
They come to see the falls and maybe have a picnic.
 
The park is much larger—about eight hundred and eighty acres altogether—and runs for four and a half miles from its northern end to Difficult Run at its southern end.
 
We’re going to follow the river all the way down to Difficult Run and then loop back along some of the interior trails.”

M.J. had seen the falls before, but she was still taken by the majestic view and the raw power of millions of gallons of water cascading over the jagged rocks.
 
Several kayakers were maneuvering the roiled water at the base of the falls, retreating to calmer pools in rocky coves, only to return to the challenge of paddling against the strong current.
 
Everywhere were signs warning visitors not to climb the steep rocks and not to enter the water.

Dodd pointed to one of the warning signs and said, “You know even with all these signs, we lose between eight and twelve people a year out here.
 
They think the river looks real calm at the base of these rocks but don’t realize there’s a current just below the surface that will drag you under in an instant.
 
The Fire and Rescue team in Great Falls Village saves some of them, but a lot of them we never find at all.
 
The current takes them down and pins them against a rock on the bottom and they never come up.
 
Sometimes the bodies show up way down river or in the Chesapeake Bay, but not for weeks or months.”

“What about the kayakers?” M.J. asked.

“That’s a different story,” Dodd said. “They all wear life vests and most of them are pretty experienced.
 
We work with them on safety issues and they’re real good about warning people away from the water. They’ve even helped rescue a few visitors that have fallen in.
 
In the time I’ve worked here, we’ve only lost one kayaker.”

As they left the overlook, M.J. stopped to look at a tall pole that had markers to record the highest floods in the park.

“The flood in ’36 was the granddaddy of them all,” Dodd said, pointing to the topmost mark.
 
“Came out of nowhere and put this whole area under more than ten feet of water.
 
Of course, this wasn’t part of the national park system then.
 
It was privately owned by the Great Falls and Old Dominion Railroad.
 
For a long time, it had a trolley line that ended at a station at the entrance to the park. There was also a road for cars and carriages and the like.
 
The trolley line is long gone, but the road is still here.
 
In fact, we’ll be coming back on part of it when we finish your tour.”

M.J. looked around the open area and tried to imagine what it would look like under that much water.
 
“How often does the park flood?” she asked.

“We get flooding almost every spring when the snow in the mountains west of here starts to melt, or if there’s been a lot of rain in a short amount of time,” Dodd said. “The river has to reach around twelve feet above flood stage before it comes over the edge of the basin here at the falls, but it doesn’t take that much for it to come over the edge along Mather Gorge.
 
Remember what I said about it being like the stem of a funnel?”

M.J. remembered the analogy.
 
“So do you have to close the trails downriver when that happens?” she asked.

“We close the River Trail all the way along the gorge.
 
Just too dangerous to let anybody in there when the water is coming up the side of the gorge,” he replied.

“What about Difficult Run?” she asked.

“Don’t need to close it.
 
The gorge opens up into a valley down there and the high water dissipates, but it’s still flowing really fast and is dangerous as hell,” he said.
 
“That’s why I said it looked like those boys had gone down Difficult Run and then cut over on the Ridge Trail so they wouldn’t encounter any of the flooding.”

They walked down a wide path lined with towering sycamore trees that skirted the picnic area.
 
Dodd turned left onto a narrower trail that led toward the river.
 
“This will take us down to the River Trail along Mather Gorge,” he said.

The trail wound through some heavy underbrush and was punctuated with puddles of water from the recent flooding. They came out of the foliage into an open area with large jutting rocks and M.J. could see the cliff on the Maryland side of the river and hear the water rushing through the narrow passage below.

They followed the trail between large outcroppings of moss- and lichen-covered rocks until they came to an open area where they could see the gorge in both directions.
 
M.J. walked to the edge and looked down.
 
The fast-moving water was splashing against the rocky walls on both sides of the gorge and in the middle there were large whirlpools that seemed to appear and disappear in the current.

“The river is still up here,” Dodd said.
 
“It normally runs about seventy-five feet below the edge here, but it will take a few days before it calms down.”

They walked another half mile until they came to a barricade warning that the trail ahead had washed out.

“We’ll need to make a detour here,” Dodd said.
 
“This part of the River Trail washes out just about every time there’s any flooding and we haven’t figured out a way yet to keep it from happening.”

They turned right and followed a path that emerged into an open area where massive stone walls lined canal locks that descended in steps to the south.
 
“These are more than 200 years old,” Dodd said. “It always amazes me that they are in such good shape.
 
It also amazes me that they were able to build them in the first place.
 
Some of those stones weigh a couple of tons and they all had to be cut by hand and then moved into place using mule teams.
 
Quite an engineering feat.”

Pointing to the right, he said, “Up that way are the ruins of the town of Matildaville.
 
During the time the canal was being built and then when it was in operation, it was a bustling community.
 
There’s not much left now, just some stone foundations and part of a chimney.”

They followed the River Trail south, paralleling the gorge, and then went up a steep incline that had cross-timbers to prevent erosion.
 
M.J. noticed that this part of the park felt more isolated.
 
The trail was less improved and the overhanging trees and massive rock outcroppings gave it an ominous quality that intensified as they hiked farther into the deep forest that covered the hillside.

“These hills are what limit the flooding to the parts of the park that aren’t right along the river.
 
They’re also what protects Difficult Run,” Dodd said, pointing to the south.

They reached the top of the hill and the trail intersected with another trail.
 
“This is the Ridge Trail and we can follow it all the way to Difficult Run,” he said. “This area is probably where the boys were biking before they were killed.”

The trail leveled along the top of the hill and wound its way through the foliage until it began to slope down sharply over large rocks. It ended at Difficult Run and M.J. recognized the section where they had found the bodies.
 
In the daylight, she could better recreate the scene in her mind.
 
The descent on the Ridge Trail was quite steep and she guessed the boys would have been going very fast before they reached Difficult Run.
 
They had probably planned to turn right and head back to their car in the parking lot.
 
If someone was waiting for them at the bottom, it would have forced them to go left, not right.
 
They had been found less than fifty yards in that direction.

“Let’s go down toward the river,” Dodd said, walking in the direction the boys had gone.

A few hundred yards later, they reached the end of Difficult Run where the stream emptied into the Potomac River south of Mather Gorge.
 
There was an otherworldly quality to the scene.
 
High cliffs framed a wide basin with the river swirling past as it traversed the bends in the river.
 
Viewing it, she thought that it was hard to believe this was only a few miles outside the urban setting of the nation’s capital.
 
It looked more like some undiscovered place in the far west.

They walked back up Difficult Run to the crime scene.
 
M.J. stopped and looked around at the steep hills to the north and the escarpment to the south that bordered the stream some twenty feet below.
 
The trail was not very wide at this point, maybe eight feet.