Stutter Creek (20 page)

Moments later, following the directions from the dispatcher, Detectives Dean and James approached the possible crime scene silently. The identity of their victim had been confirmed. Both were contemplating the possibility of another. Neither had the slightest doubt that a serial killer was in their territory.

Suddenly, Dean braked and yanked off her seat belt. “In the trees, your side,” she barked. “See him?”

“Got ‘im,” Woody James said as he unholstered his weapon. “Halt!” He commanded, leaping from the vehicle. “Sheriff’s Office!”

John stopped in his tracks. He and Turk had gotten almost to the trail leading to Beth’s cabin. He’d seen the marked vehicle, but since there were no lights or sirens, he’d assumed they were just passing through on their way to somewhere else. He was glad he’d left his own gun at home.

“On your knees. Hands behind your head,” James demanded. Then he glanced at Turk. “And make sure your dog is under control. I don’t want to have to shoot him.”

John nodded curtly at Turk.

The big dog sank to his belly. Neither he, nor his master, had uttered a sound. John realized something was definitely amiss in the forest. The S.O. didn’t normally approach people by telling them to get on their knees. He felt the first fingers of dread clutch at his heart. Not for himself but for Beth. They weren’t close enough to see the cabin yet, but the very fact that they were in the area made him think something was wrong.

The woman detective appraised the situation.

“I appreciate your cooperation. And his.” She nodded toward Turk.

“Got any ID?” she asked matter of factly.

John nodded looking at her badge. “Front jacket pocket.” He knew better than to retrieve it himself. “Driver’s license. Security ID, retired.”

“Former military?” Dean asked.

John nodded again. “Many years ago.”

Dean pulled the cards carefully from John’s pocket, never letting her gaze slip from his face.

John could sense her nerves humming. The eye of the other officer’s Glock never left his forehead. He knew that the slightest wrong move on his part would result in his or Turk’s death. Maybe both. He prayed they would hurry. He wanted to check on Beth. He couldn’t bear the thought that he had just found her and now she might be in trouble.

“You’re the new guy in Stutter Creek, aren’t you?” Dean asked, examining his ID with a penlight clasped in her teeth. “Chief Brown said you’re renovating a cabin at the crest . . . ”

John kept his cool. “Yes. Recently retired. Came home.”

“Why are you skulking around in your camouflage tonight?” James demanded.

“Friend lives in that cabin down the hill.” He indicated the direction even though the cabin was barely visible. “She’s seen odd tracks, heard something near her place the last couple nights. I was checking it out.” He wanted to shift his position. Although he could kneel here for hours if need be, he wasn’t sure his patience would hold out that long. Everything in the forest had gone unnaturally quiet. Even the breeze had stopped moving.

“Sir Lancelot,” James said sarcastically, pulling a pair of handcuffs from his belt. “Maybe we’d better put you in the car. We’re going to meet up with Chief Brown right now. Maybe you should be there, too.”

John didn’t want to leave without checking on Beth, especially now that he knew the detectives from Pine River were meeting up with the Police Chief of Stutter Creek. It meant something was definitely going on. “I’m not sure why you are taking me into custody like this,” he began as James put the cuffs on his hands. “But apparently you are here for a reason, so could we at least check my friend’s cabin to make certain she’s okay? Then I’ll go with you and do whatever you want me to do.”

Dean heard the sincerity in his voice. “You say it’s close by?”

“Just at the base of the mountain.” He indicated the direction with his head again. “Her driveway intersects the road you’re on.”

Dean nodded and they loaded both John and Turk into the backseat of their car. She radioed the dispatcher and had her relay their situation to Chief Brown. He asked whose cabin they were going to, and when John said Beth’s name, he told the dispatcher to let him know the outcome immediately. He and his officer were still tracking, but it was slow going as they often had to backtrack and restart when they lost the tracks in loose piles of leaves and pine needles. They also had to be extra careful not to walk on the tracks themselves.

John asked where the Chief was, but he really didn’t think they would tell him. But Dean must have decided he wasn’t as big a threat as they’d led on, so she told him what was going on.

When John learned that a girl’s body had been found and that a local girl was missing and possibly being tracked up the mountain, he became agitated as they rounded the curve and saw the two vehicles in Beth’s drive.

“The Camaro belongs to Beth,” John volunteered. “I think I’ve seen the Lumina parked outside the drugstore in Stutter Creek. I think the owner’s niece drives it.”

The two detectives looked at each other. “She’s the one who’s missing,” Dean said, cutting her lights and slipping the gearshift into park.

Drawing her weapon, Dean nodded at Woody James and they clicked their door handles almost simultaneously, in the quietest manner possible. There were no lights visible inside the cabin.

“You can’t leave us in here,” John rasped. “If Beth is in there, she might be hurt. If she isn’t in there, Turk can track her . . . please. Let us help.” His voice broke.

“Sorry,” Dean said. “You were in the area. I don’t know you, and I don’t know what’s going on here. Sit tight, we’ll be right back.”

Woody James nodded his agreement and they eased their doors the rest of the way open.

In that instant, John also made a split-second decision. “Turk!” he commanded. “Find the woman!” Then he jerked his head toward the half-open passenger-side door. He ducked as the huge Shepherd shot over the seat, clearing the doorframe and knocking Woody James to the ground as he crashed into the backs of his knees.

“Don’t shoot!” Dean yelled as James, on his belly, trained his sights on the hindquarters of the disappearing canine.

“Wish you hadn’t done that,” she said to John. “If the dog gets in the Chief’s way on that mountain, he’ll shoot first and ask questions later. At least I know I would.”

“Beth isn’t in that cabin. She wouldn’t be sitting in the dark. Besides, if she was in there, Turk would have gone in. He wouldn’t have passed it by.”

Detective James was dusting himself off. “So you think he’s actually tracking her?”

John nodded. “I know he is.”

“Let’s check the cabin,” Dean said. “No more shenanigans from you.” She pointed her chin at John. Then she radioed dispatch again, and told them about the situation with Turk. She did it more to protect the Chief and his officer than to protect the dog. He was huge. If he came lunging out of the forest near the officers, there was no telling who might get shot.

John had taken their measure. He knew now that if he did decide to escape, they would not shoot him in the back. He would wait to see what they found inside Beth’s cabin before he acted; but if things didn’t seem right, he’d already decided he would kick out the window and follow Turk. He could think of no reason the missing girl’s car should be at Beth’s cabin if Beth wasn’t there. And it had been barely an hour since he had been here himself. Beth had not mentioned having plans with the young woman who was now listed as missing. And then there was that episode when Turk had alerted near the cabin for seemingly no reason.

The lead detective approached the front door while the junior detective slipped around behind.

John watched anxiously.

Suddenly, lights blazed inside the cabin and he could see their silhouettes searching from room to room. Then they were back.

“Signs of a struggle,” Dean said. “Small amount of blood on the floor, back door screen was sprung and hanging open.”

“Someone took her up the mountain,” James added. “And we know it wasn’t you; footprints were far too small.”

John sat up straighter. He had been in a half-crouch, ready to launch himself out the window if necessary. “Take these cuffs off and let’s get after Turk.”

“How will we track him?” Detective James asked as he removed the handcuffs.

John pulled a slim silver dog whistle from his pocket. “He’ll come and get us.” He blew into the mouthpiece silently.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Beth fought her rising panic. Where was he? What was he doing? She sat as still as possible, hoping the kidnapper couldn’t hear her heart pounding inside the cage of her ribs.

The silence was a weight; it pressed against her skin as surely as if she’d been fathoms deep in the ocean. In fact, somewhere she could hear the faint drip, drip, drip of water and while she was concentrating on its location, he found her.

He loomed out of the darkness like the shadow from her nightmare, pushing her over onto her back, grinding her still-bound hands and arms into the rough surface of the cave floor. Rocks and sharp pieces of shale cut into her flesh, and all she could hear was his harsh breathing as he struggled to remove her jeans.

She kicked and fought more wildly than even she would’ve have believed possible. Until he hit her.

It was a hard, glancing blow to her nose and cheek that brought tears to her eyes and clogged her nose with bloody mucus. He ripped at her with the steak knife, attempting to cut off her clothes, slicing her skin along with the fabric.

She cried a muffled cry and thrashed and twisted and kicked until, somehow, the knife skittered away across the floor. It was so dark she couldn’t see him until he came at her again. This time he grappled with her until he found her neck, digging in with his fingers, squeezing and squeezing, hanging on as she thrashed and kicked.

And between his hands, the tape on her mouth, and the bloody mucus clogging her nose, Beth couldn’t breathe at all.

Her movements grew weaker . . .

But still, there were thrashing sounds.

It was a great tremendous thrashing and crashing that she knew at once had to be Turk charging up the mountain, tearing through the underbrush toward the cave just as he had charged at her in her own driveway.

In her mind she cried out to him and to John and to her father but mostly to God.
Please God let him get here in time.

The man let out a string of disbelieving curses under his breath as the noise grew closer and closer. His fingers loosened and she could hear him scuttling toward the entrance to see what was coming.

She rolled over onto her knees, gasping for air, and pressed her back into the cave wall, somehow managing to gain her feet. Her jeans were halfway down her legs and she scraped them down with her feet and said a silent thank you when she was able to kick them away without falling. She gagged and swallowed the bloody mucus clogging the back of her throat, but more took its place.

Any moment, she thought. Turk will rush through the entrance at any moment. She held her breath and listened . . . the crashing sounds were growing fainter. He was going the wrong direction. It sounded as if he was going back down.

She hung her head. She prayed that her dizziness was the reason she couldn’t hear the dog anymore—but no time to wonder.

The maniac was coming at her again. This time she was on her feet and she lashed out at him with a sideways kick as soon as her peripheral vision told her he was within range. Suddenly, Beth realized that her dad’s colored lights were swirling about the cave, lighting the man’s silhouette each time he got close to her.

She heard growling coming from somewhere and for a moment she was sure that Turk had returned. But it wasn’t Turk. It was her. The growling was coming from beneath the tape still covering her mouth.

***

When Detective James freed him, John blew the silent whistle and then took off up the mountain trail at a dead run. The handcuffs still dangled from one wrist. He would worry about that later. Already he could sense that Turk was returning. It wasn’t that he could hear him from that distance; it was that he could sense a shift in the air that separated them. His lug-soled boots dug into the springy earth, and he was certain he could feel the earth pushing back, spurring him on.

In his mind, Detective Woody James was thinking, praying, that he hadn’t just released a killer. The big man had taken off as if he’d been shot from a circus cannon. The detective had the feeling there would be no slowing him either, short of a well-placed bullet. What if he and the small man were accomplices? Neither of them had mentioned the fact that there were two vehicles but only one set of footprints that could’ve belonged to a lightweight woman. Could the killer be a woman? What if the heavier set of prints belonged to the woman in the cabin, and the lighter set belonged to the girl? So many possibilities. His first big case, and he may have just released the killer.

“It’s not him,” Detective Dean said, as if she could read his mind—when in reality—she probably could read his face. “Serial killers don’t usually have trained dogs.” She scowled. “Not that polite, anyhow.”

They continued up the mountain cautiously, hands on their weapons.

Chief Brown knew Blue Cave was nearby. He just couldn’t find the entrance in the darkness. In fact, he had gone too far. Both he and Officer Hagar were now above the cave and they had lost the tracks.  

They headed back down slowly; their feet occasionally slipping and sliding in the mucky patches of half-melted snow and wet leaves. It was a lot trickier going downhill.

They stopped abruptly when they heard Turk crashing through the underbrush. Chief Brown assumed it was a buck or maybe even a bear just out of hibernation. He and Hagar pulled their weapons at the same time.

The chief motioned the officer behind him. He shined the flashlight toward the sound, but then the noise stopped and began to move away back down the mountain.

Both men exhaled shakily.