The Girl In The Woods E-Book

Jim Riley

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

After the body of teenager Rachel Chastain is discovered in the national forest, the town of Evergreen is surprised and shocked.

What's even more surprising are the secrets the victim left behind. Sheriff Sam Cates is called in to investigate, along with her fiancee, Wade Dalton.

Soon, connections with Rachel and people in high places come to light. Something is not right in this small town. But who could have wanted to murder the young woman, and for what reason?

Leseprobe

THE GIRL IN THE WOODS

WADE DALTON AND SAM CATES MYSTERIES BOOK 1

JIM RILEY

CONTENTS

1. How can heaven and hell be so close to each other?

2. Life is but a vapor

3. Even the lowest measure of common sense is lost on most people in a time of crisis

4. Why would he intentionally leave incriminating evidence behind?

5. I’d bet our mayor has something up his sleeve

6. Still others think it’s an abandoned garage in Detroit

7. If Heaven is this good, I can’t wait to get there

8. I wouldn’t steal a dime

9. A teenage girl looks like candy and smells like a fresh-baked pie

10. What would Sam think if she could see me now?

11. What is he hiding?

12. We mainly raise a lot of havoc

13. We figured if any man could turn down a freebie, then we could trust him

14. Where would Rachel get the money?

15. How did a nineteen-year-old get into the middle of a mess like this?

16. This may be hazardous to your health

17. I just hope the twins can keep a secret

18. He will eventually come out and the plan will come together

19. They are a seductive little pair, aren’t they?

20. What did she say to him?

21. Where in the world was she keeping that gun?

22. A single tear rolled down Bruce’s cheek

23. Why do I feel so guilty every time somebody mentions the twins?

24. It must be a Woman thing

25. So, as much as I hate to admit it, you are right again

26. There’s a little over three hundred thousand

27. Be perfectly still, Sam!

28. Son, somebody’s gotta pay for what they did to Sam

29. So much for security

30. I swear he had more hands than an all-night poker game

31. They were in that odd stage of life between childhood and adulthood

32. Who was Otis Anderson?

33. I really think she was tired of the whole charade and wanted a way out

34. Okay, Gus. Let me have it

35. You guys don’t have much faith, do you?

36. It was like smelling the rose and ignoring the thorns

37. How can a coward like this lead a city?

38. He said he didn’t want to share her with anyone else

39. Written in white powdered sugar beneath the towel was “H E L P”

40. I’m going to notice you now

41. Sam, you’re a genius

42. Protocol, hell. There are some things more important than protocol

43. Destiny and Disaster are never far apart

44. Does a boyfriend really make you feel special?

45. We just killed an entire family

46. Who knows what the twins are thinking?

47. You know how secrets aren’t secret long around here

48. We’ve got boobs, Wade

49. We shouldn’t have brought the twins with us

50. Now what the hell do I do?

51. As we seek answers to the riddles of life, sometimes the answers are directly in front of you

52. She really didn’t fit in with the rest of us there

53. I won’t pretend I’m a puritan

54. One down and one to go

55. How can a father endure that?

56. This must be important

57. You’ve got this figured out, don’t you?

58. I guess I just didn’t want to believe you

59. Sometimes the Lord needs a little help

Notes

Next in the Series

About the Author

Copyright (C) 2020 Jim Riley

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

To the Most Beautiful

You always were and always will be

1HOW CAN HEAVEN AND HELL BE SO CLOSE TO EACH OTHER?

A gray squirrel heralded the dawn of a glorious day with incessant chatter. It could not have been more wrong.

The hunter strained to get an unobstructed view of his prey.

One more step! C’mon! Just one more step!

The hunter’s pounding heart shattered any hope of keeping the cross-hairs steady on his target. The onerous task stood in stark contrast with the natural beauty of his surroundings. Sweat poured from his forehead despite the chill in the air. His finger gently squeezed the trigger slowly and carefully, preventing him from jerking the rifle. The explosion of the cartridge startled him.

The crash of the body and subsequent thrashing disturbed the serenity of the forest as the prey fell immediately to the ground. The hunter tip-toed over to the fallen figure in the leaves, knowing he had made a perfect shot that would cause the termination of life. He stopped about two feet from her with a self-satisfied smile of a job well done. He did not want her to suffer an agonizing death.

The hunter had watched the morning sunrise over the horizon on this crisp November morning in the National Forest in south Mississippi a few hours earlier. He realized this was one of the purest and most fulfilling pleasures in life. The bright orb glistened off of the dew-laden leaves in the early fall as the woods came to life. It wasn’t long before the squirrels were busily gathering up the fallen white oak acorns, scurrying across the forest floor for these prized possessions. The hunter had learned what the animals instinctively knew; the white oak acorns were larger and much sweeter than the acorns from the other oak trees, such as the live oak, red oak or pin oak. In the rites as old as nature itself, mating time abounded in the animal kingdom, and the males of the species chasing the females. The old male squirrels were hard pressed to keep up with their younger counterparts as the young females made life difficult for all of them by performing the most acrobatic of leaps from tree to tree seemingly effortlessly. A grin crossed the hunter’s lips.

If only I had those kinds of hops. I’d be the best basketball player ever!

A tom turkey gobbled on the other side of the creek bed, probably spotting an owl or maybe just showing off for one of the many hens in the area even though the primary mating season in spring had long since been over. The hunter imagined the strutting bird spreading his enormous tail feathers and fluffing up his body until he presented an image twice as big as normal. The purr from a hen affirmed nature once again would provide the resources for the future of the species when the two of them would get together. The old Tom wouldn’t stop with just one hen, however. His drive, embedded in him by nature itself, would force him to mate with as many hens as he could in the short breeding seasons available to them.

The hunter smiled at the simplicity of the wild.

Why did humans make it so difficult to perform the same tasks of life; gathering enough to eat, finding a place to sleep and perpetuating the species?

He knew the basics of life were not enough to satisfy the human spirit. More impressive tools and toys drove mankind throughout their lives only to leave them behind. In fact, that is precisely why he was out in the woods on this gorgeous morning. The complexity of the human spirit drove mortal men to do more than just survive.

He watched the little whitetail doe stop at the creek for her first drink of the morning or more than likely her last drink of the night since she normally would have fed all night and now was seeking a thicket to lie down for the day. To the hunter, the symmetry and grace of the whitetail deer set them apart from the rest of the entire animal kingdom and made them one of the most sought after game animals in the world. While he spent only a modest amount on the sport, he knew of the billions of dollars spent each year by the hunting industry in the pursuit the elusive whitetail deer, only for most hunters holding a deer tag to come up empty-handed. When the little doe turned sideways to feed her way back up the oak flat on the other side of the creek bed, the hunter slowly raised his rifle and focused the telescope right behind her front shoulder. He knew the heart and lungs were the vital organs to pierce and by doing so would limit the distance the doe could run after being hit. Looking through his scope, he could discern the intricate details of the deer’s body and marveled that nature could manufacture such a graceful creature right here in south Mississippi.

Bang! You’re dead! But not this morning!

He lowered his rifle, knowing before he had taken aim this was not the prey he was after this morning. The little doe slowly meandered right and left up the other side of the creek, munching on the few white oak acorns the squirrels had not already stashed in their winter dens. The doe was old enough to know that the first hard frost would turn the sweetest of the acorns bitter to the taste, and she would then feed in the open food plots the hunters had constructed around the edges of the forest. A much more dangerous prospect than reaping the nutritious bounty provided by nature. She had been fortunate so far because most of the hunters in this area did not readily discriminate between harvesting the bucks and the does. This hunter, as most other hunters in the South, loved venison. For most of them, the tender sweet tasting flavor of the does was preferable to the testosterone-laden meat of the old bucks.

The hunter leaned back against the enormous beech tree, dressed in blending camouflaged hunting clothes. The old beech tree was hollow, which made it available as home to a whole nest of cat squirrels with their cotton-white underbellies and the equally white flashes on their long tails that flashed as they quickly maneuvered through the forest tops.

A squirrel came out of the hollow tree and descended directly down the immense trunk above the hunter’s head. When the squirrel reached a spot three feet above the hunter, it stopped and tried to figure out what this big blob was at the foot of his tree. He wildly chattered in the unique high-pitched voice of his kind, setting off alarms throughout the immediate vicinity. As he raced back up the beech tree, the woods became alive with birds chirping and squirrels chattering. Each knew a danger lurked, though none knew what the danger was or how close it was. The hunter chuckled as he witnessed the effectiveness of nature’s Neighborhood Watch program.

It doesn’t require meetings with a quorum of members of the community once a month to set up the rules and assign the tasks. There is no budget and no disagreements on scheduling.

The hunter didn’t budge and waited for the forest to settle down. After only a few minutes, life returned to normal, and he slowly turned his head from side to side, waiting for the singular prey that would fulfill his plans. A big Whitetail buck stepped into the small opening around the beech tree, hastily gobbling down acorns and beech nuts as he fidgeted down the same path that hundreds of his ancestors had in previous decades. The hunter had once heard a whitetail buck described as a mere bundle of nerves wrapped in skin. He believed it because he knew they had to be afraid of everything that moved just to stay alive. The quick jerks of the buck’s head verified its concern that the forest was full of predators dependent on the death of the whitetail deer to sustain their own species. The whitetail had to be smarter or faster than the best of these predators just to survive. This deer was a mature buck, estimated by the hunter to be three and one-half years old and weighing well over two hundred pounds. His rack, riding tall on his head, sported four tips on each side, making him an eight pointer in the local vernacular. Sweat broke out on the hunter’s forehead, for this magnificent animal was truly a prized trophy, especially for hunters limited to pursuing their game on public land.

The hunter again slowly raised his rifle and focused on the hairs right behind the front shoulder.

Bang! You’re dead! But not this morning!

The temptation to squeeze the trigger was overwhelming, but the hunter knew this big buck, as beautiful as he was, did not fill the requirements of today’s hunt. He reluctantly lowered his rifle and watched in genuine admiration as the buck vanished as quickly as he had appeared. The hunter had deep doubts as the white flickers of the buck’s tail became indistinguishable among the brambles and the briars surrounding the small opening in the woods. He stared in the direction the buck had disappeared for several minutes after all traces of the deer were absent.

Still very early in the morning, the hunter determined to be patient in his quest for the day’s perfect trophy. As the morning passed, the sun warmed the forest floor and an overwhelming dreariness overcame the hunter, unaccustomed to getting up so early in his everyday routine. As he leaned against the big beech tree, his eyelids became heavy and had trouble staying open. He nodded off despite his best efforts to stay alert. Before long, he was fast asleep dreaming about all the good things in his life.

A snapped branch brought him wide awake in an instant; his bleary eyes struggling to focus on the source of the sound. Another branch broke, and he knew the intended prey wasn’t far away. He brought the rifle to his shoulder and slowly turned in direction of the sound. As soon as the figure filled the scope, his heart rate jumped and his breathing became erratic. Although he could only see the outline of his intended target, he knew he could not afford to pass up this opportunity. He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled; his aim through the scope becoming much steadier as the air escaped his lungs.

One more step. C’mon! Just one more step!

The explosion from the rifle barrel violated the serenity of the morning.

The hunter's shaky knees threatened to give as he stood over his prey. The body of nineteen-year-old Rachel Chastain twitched uncontrollably at his feet, her big hazel eyes searching out his.

She mouthed the question, “Why?” as her very lifeblood oozed from the exit wound into the moist dirt beneath her.

He did not answer, but knelt down beside her and stroked her long brown hair as the final seconds of her being slowly faded into the black oblivion of the afterlife. Those bright hazel eyes that had brought delight and joy to so many during her short time in this world clouded over and closed for the last time.

How can heaven and hell be so close to each other?

2LIFE IS BUT A VAPOR

Sam Cates, the petite Sheriff of Evergreen County, drove her patrol car amid the growing number of hunters alongside the gravel road in the National Forest. She strode to the pickup truck containing the small body of Rachel Chastain in its bed. The men, almost all of them wearing camouflage with orange hats or vests, parted ways for the petite sheriff as she neared, allowing her immediate access without having to shove her way to get near. Sam instantly recognized Rachel even in this cold, lifeless form. Rachel was a little younger than Sam’s sister, Connie, and attended the same small Baptist church in Evergreen. She saw Luke, Rachel’s father, being consoled by some of his fellow hunters at the other end of the procession of trucks. He could not look at the body of his precious daughter lying in the pickup like a sack of potatoes as he sobbed uncontrollably.

Sam looked at Pete Jenkins standing beside the truck.

“I don’t know how Luke can cope with this. Knowing someone shot your daughter, and she is lying unceremoniously in the back of a pickup truck in the middle of the National Forest is something no parent should have to endure.”

Pete only nodded.

Sam reminded herself to go to him and express her sorrow after she questioned the hunters out of his earshot. Sam’s stomach roiled and nausea swept through her body from being so close to someone she had known who had been so vibrantly living just a few short hours ago.

How fleeting is life? Had she heard this at one of the many sermons she and Rachel had listened to together, or was it something she had read in the Bible in one of the many Sunday School studies her Dad had forced her to attend?

She could not remember, and it really mattered little. The internal turmoil did not help her outward disposition, and she was brusque when questioning the other hunters.

“How long ago did you find her?”

Sam stared at Rachel's body while asking the question.

“About thirty minutes ago, Sam,” Pete answered after spitting a wad of chewing tobacco in the ditch.

“Was she dead when you found her, Pete?”

“Yes, Ma’am. Shot deader than a door-nail.

Pete shoved another wad of tobacco in his mouth without thinking. The tobacco seemed to calm his nerves.

Sam glanced up to make sure Luke was still too far away to hear the conversation.

“So why did you move her?”

Nobody said anything.

Sam glared at the men standing around the truck.

“You may have messed up the crime scene and destroyed valuable evidence.”

Sam slammed her fist against the truck bed.

Pete shuffled his feet nervously. He stammered, but had to shift the tobacco in his mouth.

“We didn’t want to—the flies and the ants would have got on her and then Luke might have found her covered up with insects, Sam.”

Sam could understand the well-meaning but misdirected intentions of the men who found her.

“Who found her?”

Pete stammered, stuttered, and kicked the dirt with his boot. He had always found Sam to be so easy to talk to in the past, but the thick tension in the air made it almost impossible.

“I did, Sam. Least-ways me and Bob did.”

His chin jutted out toward the hapless man standing next to him, as if this revelation would spread the blame a little for moving the body.

Just as Sam examined the body a little closer, a green Ford truck with the caricature of a huge whitetail on its frame pulled up and Wade Dalton jumped out and raced to Sam’s side. Wade was an ex-FBI agent and was now operating a commercial hunting ranch in Evergreen. He was Sam’s fiancé and her confidant when she most needed one. He had worked with her on the only other murder case she had ever investigated in Evergreen without her dad’s help, one of victims in that case also being a young girl.

And Sam desperately needed help.

3EVEN THE LOWEST MEASURE OF COMMON SENSE IS LOST ON MOST PEOPLE IN A TIME OF CRISIS

“Are you doing okay, Sam?” Wade hugged her. “Where can I help?”

She looked at him with wide eyes. “I can’t believe this is happening again in Evergreen. Thanks for coming.”

“You know you can always call me, Sam.”

He released his hug.

Sam nodded her head and almost imperceptibly stepped even closer to Wade, seeking his protection once more.

“I don’t think we’ll find much evidence here.”

Sam pointed towards a thick stand of trees.

“They found Rachel shot in the woods and carried her out to the road.”

Wade shook his head. “They really didn’t do that, did they?”

“I’m afraid so.” She stared at Rachel's body.

“They don’t get it, do they?” Wade rubbed his temples.

He understood that the local hunters knew little of the disciplines of detective work or modern forensics and did what their instincts drove them to do. He looked around at the couple of dozen hunters and guessed about half of them had already visited the crime scene looking for clues leading them to the identity of the shooter.

Wade immediately took control from Sam of this tragic situation, even though he was no longer officially in law enforcement.

He was careful to keep his voice low enough so Luke could not hear.

“All right, guys. Can you guys move in here a little closer so you can hear me? Not you guys with Luke, but the rest. Thanks. Now, how many of you have gone back there in the woods to where they found the body?”

Four hands went in the air, but the rustling of the small crowd told Wade that some of them were probably not being forthright.

“Okay, here’s how it'll be. I’m going there to rope off the area. We’re gonna bring in a team of detectives and take a mold of every boot print back there. If your boot print shows up and you tell me you haven’t been back to the scene of the shooting, then I’ll consider you a suspect in the shooting. Do you understand?”

The crowd of men murmured, looking around at each other. Most reluctantly nodded.

“Now, how many of you have been back in those woods?”

Almost every hand went in the air. Wade groaned. The chance of finding the boot print of the shooter just went from difficult to almost impossible.

“How many of you urinated, uh, took a piss back there?”

Two hands inched toward the sky.

“Okay, all of you that went into the woods; take off your boots and put them in the back of my truck. You’ll be able to pick them up in a few days at the Sheriff’s office. Anybody that took a piss close to the body needs to let me or Sam know. We’ll need samples of your DNA.”

Wade watched as the men undid shoe strings and laces and ambled to Wade’s truck and tossed their boots in the bed.

“Hold on, guys. How am I supposed to know which boots belong to whom? Take a piece of masking tape from the cab of my truck, write your name on it, and attach it to your boots. Pete, you make sure everybody puts their name on their own boots.”

Wade shook his head again as the grumbling men retrieved their boots from the bed of his truck and began the search for the masking tape. He moved back beside Sam.

“Even the lowest measure of common sense is lost on most people in a time of crisis.”

Sam looked at the crowd of hunters and nodded.

Wade looked in the truck bed.

“We might as well send her to the morgue in the back of the truck instead of waiting on the ambulance to get out here. Baking out here in the sun won’t do her or her father any good. We’ll get what evidence we can off the body back at the morgue.”

Sam nodded. “I’ll get Pete to take her in and let Luke ride with them.”

Sam squirmed through the hunters to reach Luke and explained what they had decided and expressed her condolences. She put her hand on his shoulder and gave him a brief hug, feeling inadequate trying to console a father who had just lost a daughter in such a violent manner.

As Pete’s truck pulled out with the body, the other trucks lined up behind him in a processional that mirrored a funeral. The events of the morning deeply affected all the men, some more than others. The most macho of these strong-willed hunters cried. With the trucks gone, Sam and Wade stood by themselves in the middle of the gravel road, each lost in private thoughts.

Finally, Wade broke the silence.

“Did they find anything at all traipsing around in the woods?”

Sam pulled out a small clear evidence bag containing some long strands of brown hair mixed with several pieces of pocket lint.

“One guy found these next to the body, but I think almost every one of them had to look. So they passed them around, and then Joe put 'em in his pocket to save for me.”

Wade’s gaze shifted down to the ground, and he shook his head in wonder.

“I think those guys should get together and collaborate on a book together: How to Screw up a Crime Scene in Ten Easy Steps!”

Sam grinned, and a little of the pent-up tension left her body. She had not realized just how tight her muscle tissues had become since getting the unexpected and unwanted phone call an hour ago. But now, Wade was here to help her.

“Or ‘Crime Scenes for Dummies’. That should be a best seller in New York,” she responded.

“Let’s go see where she was shot. Maybe, just maybe, they left something of value behind.”

4WHY WOULD HE INTENTIONALLY LEAVE INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE BEHIND?

It wasn’t hard to find the spot where the men found Rachel lying on the forest floor. The hunters trampled a trail leading to the body in their quest to exchange opinions about who did it and how it had happened.

When he spotted the small circle of dried blood, Wade stopped and pointed for Sam to see. He put his finger to his lips, indicating his need for silence. For a reason he had never fully understood, when he talked it dulled his other senses, and he wanted all of his other senses to be on full alert at the crime scene. He motioned for Sam to sit down and he eased up to the blood on his hands and knees and cringed when he saw the number of fresh boot prints in the soft soil. When he reached the spot where Rachel fell, he tried to figure out the line of the direction of the blood splatter. The iron-like odor filled Wade’s nostrils and confirmed the time-line of the heinous event. Wade grimaced when he saw the hunters had overturned most of the leaves. It made it almost impossible to correctly interpret the line of the spray. After circling the scene several times, he laid flat down on his belly and closed his eyes. He conjured an image of Rachel lying on the forest floor. The ex-agent opened his eyes, his body still prostrate on the bed of leaves just outside the ring of dried blood. Wade positioned his body up with the most probable line of splatter and looked up to see where the shooter might have been. His line of sight directed him to a huge beech tree one hundred and fifty yards across the creek.

Wade quietly inched his way across the creek bed and up the other side, keeping his gaze peeled on the ground, hoping to spot something of value. Finally, he found what he was looking for.

“Sam, can you come over here?” he asked only loud enough for her to hear.

When Sam closed behind him, he pointed at a small bare spot on the ground. Almost in the middle of the spot was a perfect depression outlining a boot print.

“Do you think that is his boot print, I mean the shooter’s?”

She looked quizzical with her eyebrows arched at the bare spot.

“Without a doubt the shooter left this print,” he answered, still staring at the imprint on the ground.

“How do you know?”

Sam put her hands to her temples, showing she was not as sure.

“Those guys that came in here after her death were mostly curious and wanted to see where she was shot. After seeing the blood, probably ninety percent of them just turned around and walked back to the road.”

Sam thought about the logic behind Wade’s reasoning and nodded.

“That makes sense. They wanted to tell everyone in town they’d been to the actual scene of the crime and had seen her blood on the leaves. But for most of them, that would have been enough, and they had no desire to stick around a dead body.”

“That’s the way I’ve got it figured. The other ten percent probably didn’t find much and stayed on the other side of the creek. It’s a natural barrier and they wouldn’t cross it without a reason. The way the leaves got trampled, I don’t think any of them figured out the shot came from the base of the big beech up there.”

“Gee, you learned something at the Academy. Maybe our kids won’t have to get ALL of their smarts from their mama. They might even get into that little junior college in Baton Rouge.”

Wade smiled and for a fleeting moment wondered how their future kids, if they had any, would turn out. He laughed.

“We'll probably have girls who look like me and boys that look like you. If the girls turn out favoring my looks, they'll get a lot of ribbing from the other girls.”

He hit the side of his head with his hand.

“Why am I even thinking of kids at a time like this?”

“Seeing Rachel in the back of that truck reminded me just how quick life passes us by.”

“Maybe if we have kids, they'll go to that little junior college that has put a whipping on those two Mississippi powerhouses in football for the last decade, if I recall correctly.”

Sam was not giving up that easily.

“That’s because we focus on academics, not on recruiting the best freaks of nature money can buy like you guys.”

“I hit a nerve. Anyway, can we get back to this minor problem at hand?”

He did not want to get into an argument with Sam.

“Sure,” she smiled. “I wouldn’t want to derail the great train of thought from the Bayou Detective.”

She smiled and laid her hand on his shoulder, looking back down at the boot print in the middle of the bare spot.

“Anyway, Sheriff.” he said sarcastically. “My guess is the shooter planned for us to find this print. I believe he might have deliberately left it here for us to find.”

“What makes you say that?” Sam lifted her hand from his shoulder and had a puzzled look on her face.

“First, there is no natural reason for a bare spot to be right here. No animal makes a perfectly concentric circular pattern when scraping for acorns. Even a whitetail’s mating scrape is more oblong than it is circular.”

Sam nodded, having seen plenty of whitetail scrapes at the Evergreen Plantation, Wade’s exotic farm. Bucks scraped leaves and twigs away with their front hooves, and then urinated in the fresh dirt, indicating to the does in the area that he was ready to service them.

“Then, do you see there are no human scrape marks where someone inadvertently brushed aside the leaves and the twigs with his boots?”

Sam nodded, even though she had not quite caught up with his logic yet.

“Okay,” Wade continued. “That means, in all likelihood, he carefully removed the leaves and debris with his hands to clear this spot out. Then he left the boot print right in the middle of it so we would be sure to see it.”

Sam shook her head.

“That makes no sense, Wade. Why would he intentionally leave incriminating evidence behind? Won’t that make it easier for us to identify him?”

“Normally it would. Do you remember what Gus told us when we found those panties on Dixon’s farm when we were trying to figure out who took Michelle?”

Sam thought back to everything the old grizzled Deputy told them during that murder investigation, but she couldn’t recall anything that would relate to a boot print in the middle of the National Forest. And besides, most of what Gus ever said was not repeatable by a respectable young lady, anyway.

“No, I don’t.”

Wade remembered.

“He told us something your Dad had taught him. He said, ‘If it swims like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a decoy. That’s what we have here. I believe we have a decoy.”

“Wait a minute,” she protested. “You just said this is the shooter’s boot print, and he left it here on purpose.”

“That’s why it’s hard to teach a woman anything. You guys don’t listen.”

Sam jabbed her hand into Wade’s shoulder.

“Now hold on Wade Dalton! I may be rattled finding one of my sister’s best friends shot to death in the middle of the woods, but I distinctly heard you say this was the shooter’s boot print. I haven’t gone daffy yet.”

Sam trembled, her nerves again on edge and her temper on the verge of eruption.

Wade put his arms around Sam to comfort her. “I wasn’t trying to be cute. I'm just sorting it out in my mind and sometimes I say things before I completely get them straight myself. What you heard me say was the shooter deliberately left this boot print here for us to find. Let me show you what I mean.”

Wade picked up a long slender stick and pointed toward the center of the boot print.

“Do you see how the heel and the middle of the boot print are deeper than the front and the edges along the sides in the middle?”

Sam nodded as the meaning slowly came to her.

Wade continued pointing with the stick.

“What that means to me is he put his hand in a boot that wasn’t the same size or brand as his and pressed the print into the ground with his hand. That caused the deeper impression in the middle of the print instead of on the toes or the heel.”

Sam understood.

“So we don’t know if his real boot print is larger, smaller or the same size as this one. We only know this is not his boot print.”

“That’s about the gist of it, Sam. I would eliminate the possibility of this print being the same size as his. I don’t think he would have gone to this much trouble to plant a print like his, but we can’t be sure. This is a smart guy.”

“That narrows down the list of suspects,” she said sarcastically. “This clown could wear larger boots, smaller boots, boots the same size, tennis shoes or his Sunday-go-to-meeting loafers for all we know. Heck, he could be barefoot and we wouldn’t know it.”

“You’re, Sam. But we have learned a lot about this guy because of the print, however.”

“And what would that be?” Sam was now skeptical this single circle of dirt could reveal much else of consequence.

“He’s cold and calculating. He planned this shooting well in advance and has good organizational skills. He is familiar with law enforcement policies and he knows even if we’re skeptical of the authenticity of the boot print, we’ll make a mold of it and his defense lawyer, if it gets that far, will use this as evidence pointing towards his innocence.”

Sam didn’t want Wade to know just how amazed she was that he gleaned all this from a single boot print.

“Anything else, Agent Dalton?”

Wade ignored the sarcasm and continued.

“According to the generic profile, he’s probably white, over twenty-five, well-educated and a little shy. He feels comfortable in the woods and believes he is smarter than we are.”

Sam nodded. “I would agree with him on the last point, at least for me anyhow.”

She had now given up pretending she was not impressed with Wade’s analysis of the scene. There is no way she would have had any idea what this one boot print could divulge.

“Anything else?”

Wade nodded. “My guess is that he wouldn’t have left everything to the chance we find this single print and assume it was his. So I’m guessing we’ll find something up by the beech tree, something like a discarded cigarette butt or a candy wrapper.”

“I'll take a stab.”

Sam turned attention to the base of the tree.

“The DNA on the candy wrapper or the cigarette butt doesn’t’ belong to the shooter. He picked them up off the street just to plant them here.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, Sam, but I’m not sure. See, it’s easy when you think like him. The one thing in our favor is he underestimates us. He believes we’re dumb and he can lead us wherever he wants us to go. That will work to our advantage if we use it right.”

Wade rose and walked up to the beech tree, not wasting much time in between the bare spot and the tree. By now, he was fairly certain they would only find the evidence the shooter wanted them to find and the next logical spot to find that evidence was beside the tree. Sure enough, when they got to the tree they found what he’d left behind.

“Peanut shells,” Sam exclaimed. “It’ll be almost impossible to get DNA from those. Why would he leave those if he wants us to get DNA from the wrong person?”

“Precisely because of what you just said. He knows how difficult it'll be to get DNA from these hulls. But he also knows we’ll spend the time, energy, and money to do it and eventually we’ll come up with at least one sample if not more of somebody’s DNA. The time, energy and money we spend on the DNA analysis will be that much that we can’t spend on looking for him. My guess is only one or two of these belonged to someone else. The rest of them he cracked using gloves and mixed them in so we wouldn’t find anybody’s DNA on most, no matter how sophisticated the tests.”

Sam’s respect for Wade just reached a new high.

“You know, our kids might get into Mississippi State.”

Wade just grinned, soaking up the admiration from the one person in the world that really mattered to him.

“Only the girls. The boys are going to LSU. You would have figured it out, given a little time. I just beat you to the punch.”

Sam didn’t want to tell him she could have spent years looking at the same evidence and would have not come up with the same conclusions he did in the last thirty minutes. Just then, something popped into her mind.

“Wade, what was Rachel doing out here, anyway?”

Wade’s eyebrows furrowed as he wasn’t sure where this was leading.

“I assumed she was hunting. Doesn’t everyone around here hunt on a Saturday morning hunt during deer season?”

“Oh, I agree, she was hunting.” Sam paused for effect. “Then where’s her gun?”

“Damn,” was all Wade could say, his gaze turned toward the sky.

5I’D BET OUR MAYOR HAS SOMETHING UP HIS SLEEVE

“There you are.”

Wade grinned at the sisters.

He met Sam and Connie in the parking lot of the church the following morning just before services began. Several of the church members loitered in small groups around the lot, most of them talking about the events of the day before.

“You guys look nice.”

Wade gazed appreciatively at the two sisters, each very distinct in her own way. In his opinion, both would draw the overt attention of most men. He tried to be cheerful despite the pall hanging over the community because of the murder.

“Good morning, Wade.”

Sam gave him a quick kiss.

They hugged when an impeccably dressed man in his mid-thirties approached.

“We’ve got company.”

Sam’s stiffening body indicated to Wade she was not happy to see the man approach.

“Good morning, Mayor. You know Connie. Let me introduce you to Wade Dalton, my fiancé. Wade, this is Ed Moore, our Mayor.”

Sam forced a grin.

“Thank you, Sam. Good to see you, Connie. And Wade, I’ve heard so many good things about you. It’s good to finally meet you.”

The mayor shook hands with Wade and kissed both ladies on the cheeks.

“Ed, what brings you here? Aren’t you a member of First Methodist?”

“I’m still a Methodist. I wanted to see you this morning and ask if you had some time this morning. We need to discuss the—er, events that happened yesterday.”

“I’d be glad to Ed, but I’ve already promised Wade and Connie I would attend services with them.”

“Why don’t we have lunch after the services?” the mayor asked.

Glancing at Wade and Connie, he added, “Wade, I wanted to talk to you about the events of yesterday also and I would never miss a chance to have lunch with you, Miss Connie.”

The Mayor gave Connie a long look from head to toe, even though his gaze didn’t spend much time on her head or her toes.

“Miss Connie, I’d love for you to join us for lunch.”

Wade wondered how politicians became so glib. Was it something they were born with, or did they learn to lie at an early age? They never seem to be at a loss for words and can turn any conversation to what they want to talk about, which is usually themselves.

“Okay, Ed. Where would you like to meet us?” Sam said with a hesitant voice.

“How about the Gulf Club?” Ed smiled. “We can have a little more privacy there.”

“That sounds good. I haven’t been there in a long time. We’ll see you right after the services, Ed.”

After Ed hurried back to his vehicle, Sam whispered to Wade, “You’ll love the food if you can stand the company. It’s kind of highfalutin’ for Evergreen.”

“I don’t usually do highfalutin, but I’ll make an exception for you,” Wade responded.

Sam watched the mayor retreat.

“I don’t either, but I’d bet our mayor has something up his sleeve.”

6STILL OTHERS THINK IT’S AN ABANDONED GARAGE IN DETROIT

The trio settled in a pew near the back of the sanctuary and sang with the rest of the congregation. They enjoyed the special song a mother and daughter duet sang right after the offertory. As Wade learned from his previous visits to the church, the Pastor had a unique custom, asking if anyone had questions they wanted to discuss before he began his sermon.

One young lady raised her hand.

The Pastor nodded to her, and she asked, “Brother Jeff, where is Purgatory and who's there?”

“Miss Elaine, that is an excellent question. Some folks believe it's where the soul resides until the coming of the Lord. When He comes back at the Rapture, the souls will rise to meet Him. Others think this is where the Old Testament followers of God went after their deaths and doesn’t apply to people who died after Pilate crucified Christ. Some in another denomination think it’s a place we go where our imperfections are perfected after death through the prayers of the living and we go to Heaven if the live faithful say enough prayers on our behalf.”

He paused for a second or two.

“Still others think it’s an abandoned garage in Detroit. They think it’s kind of like the teenage boy’s appreciation for a girl’s mind. It really doesn’t exist, although it’s talked about a lot. The Bible is not clear on this subject, so the best answer is I don’t know.”

“Thanks, Brother Jeff. I was just wondering.” Elaine nodded at the pastor.

Another young man stood up.

“Pastor, I guess you heard about Rachel, my friend who got killed up by Beaver Creek. Why would God let someone kill her when, according to what everybody is saying, she was just walking through the woods? I mean, she wasn’t doing anything wrong.”

Tears streamed down the young man’s face.

“Amen,” an elderly lady shouted.

“Yes, Yes.” One of the older ladies added.

Many of the members attending that morning nodded and started dabbing their eyes with tissues.

“Joe, we don’t know why some things happen to good people. But we know two things: one is that God gives us over to our own wills, and some folks are not bound by His will. Number two is that the Bible states that everything, whether we understand the circumstances, works together for the good of those that love Christ. So, we can take comfort in that while we mourn her death, something good will eventually come out of it.”

“What good can come out of it, Pastor?”