The Bones Will Speak (14 page)

“I'll be there.” I'd have to ask Robert for the money. That wouldn't go over well at all.

Dre's gaze drifted past me toward my car. “Where's your daughter?”

“Home.” I folded my arms. “Why?”

“Just wondering.”

I chewed my lip and stared at him.

He shrugged. “You okay with leaving her alone and all?”

“She knows not to open the door to strangers. And that's better than dragging her where there's a dead body.”

He nodded. “Makes sense.”

The farmer bobbed his head at us. “So, I was saying, when the house caught fire four years ago”—the man jerked his chin in the direction of the structure—“the wife and I moved closer to town. Seemed like a good idea, us getting older and all. Sold off a few cows too. Simplify, that's what we agreed on.”

“And you returned?” Dave prompted.

“Oh, yeah. So, this morning I drove out here. Would have been here sooner, but the wife was sick, so I didn't get out here for a couple of days to check on the calves.” He shook his head. “Doc was already here. Couldn't believe it when he told me about the calf.” He kept his gaze averted from the dead animal at his feet. “And I saw the carcass. Beefalo. Paid a pretty penny to inseminate my herd.” He kicked a dirt clod. “Anyway, while we were lookin' at the calf, we heard the buzzin'.”

“Buzzing?” Dave asked.

“Flies,” Dre said. “The girl's been dead for a spell.”

Beth's face paled a bit, but she gamely followed us as we strolled away from the road and toward the far edge of the field. The small herd of Herefords, many with chunky beefalo offspring, paused in their grazing to watch.

“Stay in single file,” Dave said.

We passed the remains of a shredded plaid coat. Ahead, cottonwoods and alders outlined a small stream, while a steeply pitched hillside, covered with dense pines, formed a backdrop.

The light wind shifted.

I flinched and pinched my nose. Beth spun, bent double, and vomited. “Sorry,” she said, still bent over.

My stomach lurched. Fortunately we were at the end of the line and no one turned or noticed. I stepped over to where Beth stood. “Are you going to be okay?” I whispered. “Do you want to wait by the car?”

“How can you endure that stench?” Beth croaked and wiped her mouth.

“I usually don't work on stink cases. I tell the law enforcement agencies to send photographs. Anyway, we'll move upwind and you should take a couple of deep breaths.”

Face pea green, Beth did as I suggested, gagging a bit on the first few breaths.

The sound of a car came above the soft murmuring of the wind through the pines. Wes Bailor's pickup pulled up next to my vehicle.

I kicked a clod of dirt. “What's he doing here?”

“The Forest Service?”

“That's Wes Bailor's truck.”

“Ah. The bottom-feeder.”

“Come on.” I turned my back on Wes, pretending I didn't see him wave at me. Soon, too soon, we caught up with the men now standing in a semicircle. The girl's body sprawled in the center. After the wolves were through, the inevitable decay of a body left unburied had made her almost unrecognizable.

Except for her long, ginger-colored hair.

I felt as if someone punched me in the stomach. She'd been young and tiny, like Mattie. And Aynslee.

Coincidence.
This girl wasn't a victim of a serial killer.

Are you sure?

I checked her hands, looking for the same signs of torture as Mattie had experienced. Her fingers appeared unbroken on her left hand, but under her right was a hint of white. “Dre, there's something under her hand.”

Dre joined me. “I see it.” He pulled on exam gloves, then using tweezers, he picked up a torn piece of paper and placed it in a clear, plastic evidence bag.

“Can I see that?” I asked.

He handed me the bag.

I stared at the paper. “Beth, do you have the map I drew to get us here?”

“Sure.” She rummaged in her purse for a moment. “Here.”

I took the map, then held up both so Dave could see them.

Dave rubbed his mustache, then cleared his throat. “So what's a dead woman in a cow pasture doing with something you drew?”

“You remember the one-woman art show I had two years ago? I called it
Last Best Places
. I had an artist's statement—”

“That's very nice, Gwen,” Dave said. “But—”

“Don't interrupt,” I said. “I'm getting there. Anyway, I wrote about the paintings and drew maps showing the location of each site. This”—I raised the evidence bag—“is a copy of that map.”

Dave snapped his fingers. “Then you would have also drawn a map of the McCandless farm.”

I nodded.

“What does all this mean?” Beth asked.

“I don't know yet.” I lay the bag on the ground and quickly snapped a photo before handing it to Dre. Something was different from the original map I drew, but I couldn't think of what. “I painted both the McCandless place and the pole barn
over there. We've found dead women now in both locations, so there's a connection. And we found raw meat leading to the McCandless place.”

“Raw—” Dre said.

“Yeah,” I said. “As if someone was luring my dog to find Mattie.”

“I see,” Dave said. “Did you recover the meat?”

“It was covered in flies,” Beth said. “Quite disgusting.”

“Plus, I found a dead cat on my doorstep this morning, laying on a piece of paper with a symbol.”

“Okay.” Dave smoothed his mustache. “There seems to be personal and directed actions against you, Gwen. Can you build me a scenario?”

I stared at the burned-out house. “She got away from him and—”

“She? Him?” Dave asked. “What are you talking about?”

“She.” I pointed to the body. “Him. The killer. Look at her wrist. Don't you see a slight ligature mark? And she looks like Mattie.”

“I don't understand,” Dr. Hawkins said. “Who's Mattie? Meat? Killer? Dead Cat? And what's with the map? This girl was killed by a wolf. Look at all the blood. And the ripped—”

“Yeah, we see.” Dave nodded toward Beth, who'd turned even paler. “Gwen, start over. I think you're going down the wrong path on this one.”

“I think it's a perfect place to start. The killer goes to my opening, or just stops by and picks up the handouts. Now he has a handy guide to remote locations. His choice of victims is similar. This girl resembles Mattie, the hair, the build. She's near an abandoned house and has marks like she might have
been restrained. What if she was tied up in the house, managed to get away from her abductor, and was running for her life. She interrupted the wolves and . . . well . . .”

The farmer cleared his throat. “She wasn't in my house. Couldn't be. Floor's gone, burned clean through. Least on the first floor.”

“And she has no sign of charcoal on her,” Dre said. “If she got near that place, she'd have black soot all over.”

“It can't be a coincidence,” I said.

“Before we run off with a bunch of theories, let's see what we've got here,” Dave said.

“Well,” Dre said. “No identification on her body or that coat. No sign of a purse. Is there enough left of her face that you could draw her?”

“Yes.” I placed my drawing case on the ground. The more I studied the body, the more my conviction grew. She was a victim of the serial killer. She looked like Mattie. A possible signature. “Dave, Dre, is there a chance that she was murdered and the wolves simply . . . uh, chewed on her body?”

“The medical examiner will be able to tell for sure.” Dave folded his arms and stared at me. “You seem to be pretty obsessed with linking her with the serial killer.”

Unless I could prove my theory, Dave wouldn't believe me.

Before I could frame an answer, Dre spoke. “There's a whole lotta blood here.” He crouched by her leg. “Dead folks don't usually bleed.”

No one spoke for a few minutes, the silence filled by the chuckling creek and cheeping ground squirrels.

“She's not a hiker.” Dre finally spoke again. “Look at her clothes and shoes.”

Her turquoise sandals were missing the heels. Though now covered in flies, I could see matching turquoise polish on her toenails. High-cut shorts exposed what at one time had been shapely legs. The tattered remains of a black leather camisole encircled her chest.

“What was she doing way out here?” Dre's voice interrupted us.

We gazed at the surrounding mountains. The only answer we heard was the call of a pair of ravens riding a current overhead.

“She
must
have interrupted the wolves attacking the calf,” Dr. Hawkins said. “Wolves are very territorial about their kills.”

“Okay, Gwen,” Dave finally said to me. “She couldn't have been in the house, and she isn't a hiker. Build another scenario.”

“Well,” I said slowly. “She might have been on the road, hence the map. But if that's the case, where's her car?”

“Maybe someone dropped her off,” Dre said.

“Hardly a main highway out here, but let's assume she was walking on the road. If she saw the wolves chewing on that calf, she'd run for the farmhouse. If they caught up to her, her body would have been over there.” I indicated the direction.

Beth pulled out a lavender-colored notebook and started writing.

“If, on the other hand, she was coming from the woods,” I continued, “with the wolves pursuing her, that structure would look safe. You can't tell there was a fire from this side. Wires are still attached to power poles, like people live there. And she's facing that direction.”

They all nodded.

“What's over there?” I asked the farmer, pointing at the steep hillside in front of us.

“Nothin' much. You're looking north. The other side of that ridge is the Copper Creek drainage. I know that a few years ago they did some logging, so I'd expect you'd maybe find some overgrown logging roads, skid trails, that kind of thing.”

I slid the sketchbook into my case and moved toward the stream, examining the ground before placing my foot.

“Don't believe we have any snakes out here,” the farmer said.

“I'm not watching for snakes. I'm making sure I don't disturb any clues.” Reaching the creek, I squatted and stared at the ground. The churned-up mud showed numerous recent cow tracks. “If she ran through here, the cattle stomped the evidence into oblivion.” I turned and looked at Hawkins and the farmer. “I would guess that both of you have been tromping around this field as well.”

Hawkins shrugged and the farmer gave a sheepish grin.

Returning to the men by the same route, I tugged my camera out of my bag. “Her coat is about halfway toward the calf, as if they were dragging it, and the calf is partially eaten.”

The farmer glanced at the calf, then down at his shoes.

I jerked my chin at the fence. “Assuming she's running from the woods, she had to slow down to crawl through that barbed wire. Simple enough if it's daylight, but if it were night, she'd run right into it. That would slow her down quite a bit. I'd suggest someone walk the fence line. Look for fabric or hair caught in the barbs.”

“Without identification, how do you find out who she is?” Beth asked.

“You start with who's missing, then how she's dressed, until my sketch is done. The ‘who's missing' works if someone reported her. As for how she's dressed, as Dre said, we should start with her shoes and clothing.”

“Oh, sure,” Beth said.

“You know . . .?” I asked with a suggestive nod toward the body.

Hawkins and the farmer apparently didn't have a clue.

“Okay, what I'm trying to say is her choice of clothing might make her a prostitute.” Dave and Dre nodded.

“But that's another reason I think it's the same predator who tortured Mattie Banks. I think he picked her up and drove her up one of those logging roads. I think she escaped and was running for freedom.”

Dave carefully closed his notebook. “Then indirectly, she was killed by a different type of predator.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I LIFTED MY CAMERA AND STARTED PHOTOGRAPHING
the girl.

Wes sauntered up wearing pressed jeans, a maroon plaid shirt, and tan oxfords. This time he hadn't bothered to slip on blue nitrile gloves. I didn't know if that irritated me more or less.

“What are you doing here?” Dave frowned at the man.

Wes moved to where he could clearly see the woman. “Investigating.” I waited for him to blanch and vomit, but he seemed frozen, staring at the body.
Interesting.
I was pretty sure this was his first ripe-smelling death scene beyond the bodies in the grave, which had only been bones.

“Investigating?” I asked him.

He didn't respond. A sheen of sweat appeared on his forehead, and he shuffled closer to the corpse.

“Wes?”

He blinked as if waking up. “Huh?”

“I'm curious,” I said. “Investigating isn't usually the role of a forensic artist.”

“Missoula police and the state crime lab see me in a larger role.”

I winced. Why didn't I ask for a contract to do their forensic art when I had the chance?

Dave caught my reaction. “I think the Mattie Banks case has given you a serious dose of Superman Syndrome.”

The old farmer's forehead crinkled. “What's that?”

Beth answered, “A contumelious appellation epitomizing a forensic artist overstepping their function. Wow. I didn't think I'd get three words of the week into one sentence.”

“Huh?” The old man took off his John Deere baseball hat and scratched his head.

“Nice, Beth. Translation: it's not a good thing.” I looked at Wes, who'd been ignoring the whole exchange. “In other words, Wes, you are out of your jurisdiction and as far as I'm concerned, out of your league.” I concentrated on photographing the body.