Queen of wands

CHAPTER ONE

“What do we got?”

Sonny Cribbs had been sheriff in Claiborne County since before the deputy he was addressing was born. On his return from two tours in Vietnam, he’d figured it was off to the mill for a life of cutting trees into lumber. But there was an opening in the sheriff’s department and he was a veteran in good standing. That and a poppa who’d been managing the sheriff’s campaigns for ten years was all it took.

Slim, dark and tanned, his wife still occasionally had to deal with nightmares of tunnels and bodies.

Back then there’d been nothing like “certification” for a deputy. You put on the badge and you got to work. By the time it’d come up, he’d been elected sheriff and nobody had asked about his credentials since.

Mostly his credentials were pushing forty years of seeing what man could and would do to man.

The single-wide trailer had seen better days. Probably decades ago. Set back in Mathis Hollow off Slate Creek Lane, its existence was marked only by a dirt road and a battered mailbox.

And now police tape.

“Two victims.” Deputy Sheriff Randell Smith was what Sheriff Cribbs could not avoid calling “The New Breed.” Five-seven and stocky even without his body armor, he looked like a Marine, which he had been. He’d been through all the right schools before applying to be a deputy. He came in knowing the lingo and all the right buzzwords. Good boy, but sometimes Sonny wondered if they permanently implanted a stick in officers’ asses in the Academy. On the other hand, maybe it was a Marine thing. “Male, thirty-eight, one Elvis Cowper. Female, age thirty-seven, one Amy Cowper, his spouse. Missing subject is Lora Cowper, age fourteen, daughter.”

“Damn,” Sheriff Cribbs said, spitting out a stream of tobacco juice. “Walk me through.”

“Nine-one-one received a call from the missing subject’s school when missing subject failed to make the bus,” the deputy said, occasionally glancing at his notes. “Phone calls to the residence were unanswered. A call to the mother’s work determined she had not shown up. At which point they called nine-one-one. Officer arrived on scene at eight forty-seven AM. Door was open. Officer entered and found subjects in state of rigor mortis. Officer called for investigation team.”

“And the officer was…?” Sonny asked.

“Myself, sir,” the deputy said, closing his book.

“See anything ain’t in that little book, son?” the sheriff asked.

“Lots, sir,” the deputy said, his face working. “And it’s not easy to describe. Which is why it’s not in the little book.”

“Let’s go,” Sonny said, sighing.

The interior of the trailer wasn’t neat, but Sonny had seen a lot worse. However, it was also obvious that there’d been some sort of a struggle. A table was overturned and a corner of a wall was busted.

“Looks like somebody was fighting,” the sheriff said.

“That’s what I thought, sir,” the deputy said. “But you might want to wait on that.”

Inside the “master bedroom” were the victims.

“We got us a sicko,” Sonny said, walking carefully to the bed.

The mother and father were spread-eagled on the bed. The mother’s nightdress was pulled up and she clearly had been violated. For that matter, the father’s pants were bloody. So were their mouths, and a ring of redness was around both victims’ ankles and wrists.

“Forensics still hasn’t gotten here,” the deputy said, swallowing. “But there’s a bunch of stuff strange about this.”

“Got that right,” Sonny said, bending over to look in the father’s mouth. “There’s blood in there. Like it’s all cut up. But I don’t see no cuts.”

“Yes, sir,” the deputy said.

“And what the hell’s that smell?” the sheriff asked, sniffing. He didn’t really have to, the whole trailer reeked of it. “It ain’t dead bodies. These ain’t been here long enough to smell that bad. But that’s what it smells like.”

“Yes, sir,” the deputy said, clearly relieved. “You see what I meant by this is stuff I couldn’t exactly note. I’m not sure how to. And there’s a couple of other things.”

The daughter’s room was obviously in transition from girl to teenager. There were still dolls piled on the floor, but there were more pictures of rock bands on the wall than “My Little Pony.” And the window was open. The screen was pushed out.

“She get away?” the sheriff asked.

“I don’t…think so, sir,” the deputy said. “There are marks on the door frame like somebody scratched at it. Like…”

“They were dragged out,” the sheriff said, sighing. “Real sicko.”

“Knock-knock,” a voice sounded from outside the trailer.

“I hate it when the FBI gets here before Forensics,” the sheriff said, his face turning to a snarl. “Randell, find out where the hell Forensics is!”

“Yes, sir,” the deputy said, carefully sidling out of the trailer.

“Outside,” the sheriff said when he got to the door. “God only knows what we’ve already fucked up.”

“As you say, Sheriff,” one of the agents said, nodding.

Once well away from the crime scene Sheriff Cribbs took the time to switch out his chew, then nodded at the agents.

“Sheriff Sonny Cribbs,” he said. “And you be?”

“Special Agent Clement Adams,” the first one said, nodding back. “And Special Agent Rain Diller.”

Adams was from the same block that created Randell. Medium height, light brown hair, stocky but not quite the lifter look. More like he’d wrassled in college. Diller was slimmer, with dark brown hair, but when he took off his glasses for a second, Sonny caught a look he hadn’t seen in a long time. It wasn’t the look that boys back from Iraq usually had. It was more like the Vietnam Thousand-Mile Stare. Diller might be an agent, but he was a killer at heart.

“Mother and father murdered, daughter appears to be a kidnap victim,” Sonny said. “The killer’s a real sicko. You’ll see what I mean. I don’t think we’re getting the girl back.”

“Any idea how long?” Adams asked.

“Now that my fucking forensics team has bothered to show up, maybe,” Sonny said as the he saw two of the forensics team hoofing it up the drive. “But it’s been at least six hours. Rigor mortis had set in when my officer found them just before nine.”

“Thirty hours and counting,” Diller said, looking around. If a victim of a kidnapping like this wasn’t recovered within thirty-six hours, they weren’t going to be.

“Amber alert’s out,” the sheriff replied. “What?”

“What’s that drag mark?” the agent said, walking away.

“Looks like the dad shot a deer,” Sonny said, walking over. “I know it’s out of season, but the family clearly ain’t got a pot to piss in…”

“Look closer, sheriff,” Diller said. “The brush is bent away from the house.”

The path was broad, with not only the loam disturbed, but small saplings and bushes pressed down. If it had been a deer, it had been the biggest buck in Claiborne County history.

“Don’t know what it is,” the sheriff said. “But it ain’t the body of a fourteen-year-old girl. Ain’t a body drag mark at all. Seen them.”

“So have I,” Diller said, looking into the woods. “But it’s also odd. Maybe a tarp with something piled on it.”

“Sheriff, we’re going to have to have copies of all your findings,” Adams said, walking over. “If you’d like we can bring in forensics support.”

“Appreciate that,” Cribbs said distantly, rubbing his chin. “Don’t look like the dad raked the leaves much.”

“I’d like to see where it leads,” Diller said.

“Randell!” the sheriff said, shouting across the yard. “Go with this FBI guy.”

“Roger, sir,” the deputy said, trotting over.

“Stay off the path,” the agent said. “Be back.”

“You’re going to mess up your shoes,” Randell said as they walked through the woods.

“I’ve done that before,” the agent said, sniffing. “What’s that? A dead deer?”

“Maybe,” the deputy said. “But it smells like what I smelled in the house.”

The agent approached the still-obvious path of whatever had been dragged through the woods, and bent down.

“It’s coming from the trail,” he said, sniffing around like a dog. “There’s a dark discoloration.”

“You want my thoughts?” the deputy asked as they started off again.

“We at the FBI always welcome input,” the agent replied, looking around.

“I think this guy is a real sicko,” Randell said. “I mean seriously deranged. I think he brought a dead body with him. Maybe more than one. That’s the only way to explain the smell in the house.”

“And it would explain the drag marks,” the agent said, stopping and cocking his head. The brush and trees had thickened as they headed up the ridge, and at one point the dragged area narrowed down between two trees to barely the width of a body. “But I don’t think you could drag many bodies through that gap.”

“Tarp with leaves?” the deputy said. “The lawn didn’t look raked.”

“Maybe,” the agent said. “In which case we’re wasting our time. But why would someone drag leaves through a forest, deputy?”

They continued to follow the path up the hill until it stopped at a small opening in the ground. Diller bent down and held his hand to it. There was airflow coming out.

“Cave,” he said. There were more signs that something had been dragged into the cave. Something large that had, somehow, shrunk down to fit. The edges had that same foul stench.

Caught on the rock was a thin strand of golden hair.

The agent rocked back on his heels and paused for a moment, frowning. Then he blanched.

“Shit,” he muttered. “Son. Of. A. Bitch! I’m an idiot.”

“What?” the deputy asked. He was standing well back to avoid contaminating a possible crime scene.

“Nothing,” Diller said, standing up and backing away from the hole. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me.”

“Sir, what’s wrong?” the deputy asked, looking around for the threat.

“You used to be a Marine, right?” Diller said, pulling out his cell phone.

“Shows, huh?” Randell said.

“Then understand this, Marine,” Diller said, turning around and pulling off his sunglasses. He looked the Marine straight in the eyes while dialing from memory. “You did not see anything unusual about this. We didn’t take this walk. If called to testify about anything, you will be as uncommunicative as a stone. Do you understand me?”

“No, sir,” Randell said, his eyes wide.

“This is Agent Diller,” the agent said into the phone. “The Claiborne case has Special Circumstances.”