When Mackenzie stepped out of the car in the Little Hill State Park visitor's lot, she braced herself, feeling immediately the tension of murder in the air. She did not understand how she could sense it, but she could. It was a sort of sixth sense she had that sometimes she wished she hadn't. No one else she had ever worked with seemed to have it, too.
In a way, she realized, they were lucky. It was a blessing, but also a curse.
They walked across the lot and to the visitor's center. While fall had not yet fully gripped Virginia yet, it was making its presence known early. The leaves all around them were beginning to turn, teasing an array of reds, yellows, and golds. A security shack sat behind the center, and a bored-looking woman regarded them from the shack with a wave.
The visitor's center was a lackluster tourist trap at best. A few clothing racks displayed T-shirts and water bottles. A small shelf along the right side contained maps of the area and a few brochures on fishing tips. In the center of it all was a single older woman a few years beyond retirement, smiling at them from behind a counter.
"You folks are with the FBI, right?" the woman asked.
"That's right," Mackenzie said.
The woman gave a quick nod and picked up the landline phone sitting behind the counter. She punched a number in from a scrap of paper sitting by the phone. As she waited, Mackenzie turned away and Bryers followed.
"You said you haven't spoken directly with the Strasburg PD, right?" she asked.
Bryers shook his head.
"Are we walking in as friends or an obstacle?"
"I guess we'll have to see."
Mackenzie nodded as they turned back to the counter. The woman had just hung up the phone and was looking to them again.
"Sheriff Clements will be here in about ten minutes. He'd like for you to meet him at the guard shack outside."
They walked back outside and headed for the guard shack. Again, Mackenzie found herself nearly hypnotized by the colors blooming on the trees. She walked slowly, taking it all in.
"Hey, White?" Bryers said. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Why do you ask?"
"You're trembling. A little pale. As a seasoned FBI agent, my hunch is that you're nervous-very nervous."
She clenched her hands together tightly, aware that there was indeed a slight tremor in her hands. Yes, she was nervous but she had hoped she was hiding it. Apparently, she was doing a very poor job.
"Look. You're into the real deal now. You can be nervous. But work with it. Don't fight it or hide it. I know that sounds counterintuitive but you have to trust me on this."
She nodded, a little embarrassed.
They continued on without saying another word, the wild colors of the trees around them seeming to press in. Mackenzie looked ahead to the guard shack, eyeing the bar that hung from the shack and across the road. As cheesy as it seemed, she could not help but feel her future was waiting for her on the other side of that bar and she found herself equally intimidated and anxious to cross it.
Within seconds, they both heard the small engine noise. Almost immediately after that, a golf cart came into view, coming around the bend. It looked to be going at top speed and the man behind the wheel was practically hunched over it, as if willing the cart to go faster.
The cart sped forward and Mackenzie got her first glimpse of the man she assumed to be Sheriff Clements. He was a forty-something hard-ass. He had the glassy stare of a man who had been dealt a rough hand in life. His black hair was just beginning to go gray at the temples and he had the sort of five o'clock shadow bordering his face that looked like it was probably always there.
Clements parked the cart, barely regarded the guard in the shack, and walked around the bar to meet Mackenzie and Bryers.
"Agents White and Bryers," Mackenzie said, offering her hand.
Clements took it and shook it passively. He did the same to Bryers before turning his attention back to the paved trail he had just come down.
"If I'm being honest," Clements said, "while I certainly appreciate the bureau's interest, I'm not so sure we need the assistance."
"Well, we're here now, so we may as well see if we can lend a hand," Bryers said, being as friendly as he could.
"Well then, hop on the cart and let's see," Clements said. Mackenzie was trying her best to size him up as they loaded up on the cart. Her main concern from the start was trying to determine if Clements was simply under immense stress or if he was just as ass by nature.
She rode alongside Clements in the front of the cart while Bryers clung to the back. Clements did not say a single word. It fact, it seemed like he was making an effort to let them both know that he felt inconvenienced by having to usher them around.
After a minute or so, Clements swerved the cart to the right where the paved road forked off. Here, the pavement ended and became an even thinner trail that barely allowed for the width of the cart.
"So what instructions has the guard at the guard shack been given?" Mackenzie asked.
"No one comes through," Clements said. "Not even park rangers or cops unless I've given prior permission. We already have enough people farting around out here, making things harder than it has to be."
Mackenzie took the not-too-subtle jab and tucked it away. She wasn't about to get into an argument with Clements before she and Bryers had gotten a chance to check out the crime scene.
Roughly five minutes later, Clements hit the brakes. He stepped out even before the cart had come to a complete stop. "Come on," he said, like he was talking to a child. "This way."
Mackenzie and Bryers stepped down from the cart. All around them, the forest loomed high over them. It was beautiful but filled with a sort of thick silence that Mackenzie had come to recognize as an omen of sorts-a signal that there was bad blood and bad news in the air.
Clements led them into the woods, walking quickly ahead of them. There was no real trail to speak of. Here and there Mackenzie could see signs of old footpaths winding through the foliage and around the trees but that was it. Without realizing she was doing so, she took the lead in front of Bryers as she tried to keep up with Clements. On occasion, she had to swat away a low-hanging branch or wipe away stray strands of cobwebs from her face.
After walking for two or three minutes, she started to hear several mingled voices. The sounds of movement grew louder and she started to understand what Clements had been talking about; even without seeing the scene, Mackenzie could tell that it was going to be overcrowded.
She saw proof of this less than a minute later as the scene came into view. Crime scene tape and small border flags had been set up in a large triangular shape within the forest. Among the yellow tape and red flags, Mackenzie counted eight people, Clements included. She and Bryers would make ten.
"See what I mean?" Clements asked.
Bryers came up beside Mackenzie and sighed. "Well, this is a mess."
Before stepping forward, Mackenzie did her best to survey the scene. Of the eight men, four were local PD, easily identified by their uniforms. There were two others that were in uniforms but of a different kind-state PD, Mackenzie assumed. Beyond that, though, she took in the scene itself rather than let the bickering distract her.
The location seemed to be random. There were no points of interest, no items that might be seen as symbolic. It was just like any other section of these forests in every way Mackenzie could see. She guessed that they were about a mile or so off of the central trail. The trees were not particularly thick here, but there was a sense of isolation all around her.
With the scene thoroughly taken in, she looked to the bickering men. A few looked agitated and one or two looked angry. Two of them weren't wearing any sort of uniform or outfit to denote their profession.
"Who are the guys not in uniform?" Mackenzie asked.
"Not sure," Bryers said.
Clements turned to them with a scowl on his face. "Park rangers," he said. "Joe Andrews and Charlie Holt. Shit like this happens and they think they're the police."
One of the rangers looked up with venom in his eyes. Mackenzie was pretty sure Clements had nodded this man's way when he'd said Joe Andrews. "Watch yourself, Clements. This is a state park," Andrews said. "You've got about as much authority out here as a gnat."
"That might be," Clements said. "But you know as well as I do that all I have to do is make a single call to the precinct and get some wheels moving. I can have you out of here within an hour, so just do whatever it is you need to do and get your ass out of here."
"You self-righteous little fu-"
"Come on," a third man said. This was one of the state cops. The man was built like a mountain and wore sunglasses that made him look like the villain from a bad '80s action movie. "I have the authority to throw both of you out of here. So stop acting like children and do your jobs."
This man noticed Mackenzie and Bryers for the first time. He walked over to them and shook his head almost apologetically.
"Sorry you're having to hear all of this nonsense," he said as he approached. "I'm Roger Smith with the state police. Some scene we've got here, huh?"
"That's what we're here to figure out," Bryers said.
Smith turned back to the seven others and used a booming voice when he said: "Step back and let the feds do their thing."
"What about our thing?" the other ranger asked. Charlie Holt, Mackenzie remembered. He looked to Mackenzie and Bryers with suspicion. Mackenzie thought he even looked a little timid and afraid around them. When Mackenzie looked his way, he looked to the ground, bending over to pick up an acorn. He moved the acorn from hand to hand, then started to pick at the top of it.
"You've had enough time," Smith said. "Just back up for a second, would you?"
Everyone did as asked. The rangers in particular looked unhappy about it. Doing everything she could to ease the situation, Mackenzie figured it would help if she tried involving the rangers as much as possible so tempers didn't flare.
"What sort of information do rangers typically need to pull from something like this?" she asked the rangers as she ducked under the crime scene tape and started to look around. She saw a marker where the leg had been found, marked as such on a small clapboard marker. A good distance away she saw another marker where the remainder of the body had been found.
"We need to know how long to keep the park closed down for one thing," Andrews said. "As selfish as it might sound, this park accounts for a pretty good chunk of tourism revenue."
"You're right," Clements spoke up. "That does sound selfish."
"Well, I think we're allowed to be selfish from time to time," Charlie Holt said rather defensively. He then regarded Mackenzie and Bryers with a stare of contempt.
"Why's that?" Mackenzie asked.
"Do either of you happen to know what sort of crap we have to put up with out here?" Holt asked.
"No, actually," Bryers asked.
"Teenagers having sex," Holt said. "Full-blown orgies from time to time. Weird Wicca practices. I've even caught some drunk guy out here getting frisky with a stump-and I'm talking pants all the way down. These are the stories the Staties laugh about and the local PD just use as fodder for jokes on the weekends." He bent down and picked up another acorn, picking at it like he did with the first one.
"Oh," added Joe Andrews. "And then there's catching a father in the act of molesting his eight-year-old-daughter just off of a fishing path and having to stop it. And what thanks do I get? The girl yelling at me to leave her daddy alone and then a firm warning from local and state PD to not be so rough next time. So yeah…we can be selfish about our authority from time to time."
The forest went quiet then, broken only by one of the other local cops as they made a dismissive laughing sound and said: "Yeah. Authority. Right."
Both rangers stared the man down with extreme hatred. Andrews took a step forward, looking as if he might explode from rage. "Fuck you," he said simply.
"I said stop this nonsense," Officer Smith said. "One more time and every single one of you are out of here. You got it?"
Apparently, they did. The forest fell into silence again. Bryers stepped behind the tape with Mackenzie and when everyone else busied themselves behind them, he leaned over to her. She felt Charlie Holt's eyes on her and it made her want to punch him.
"This could get ugly," Bryers said quietly. "Let's do our best to get out of here post-haste, what do you say?"
She went to work then, combing the area and taking mental notes. Bryers had stepped out of the crime scene and was resting against a tree as he coughed into his arm. She did her best not to let this distract her, though. She kept her eyes to the ground, studying the foliage, the ground, and the trees. The one thing that made little sense to her was how a body in such bad shape had been discovered here. It was hard to tell how long ago the murder had occurred or the body had been dumped; the ground itself showed no signs of the brutal act being carried out.
She noted the location of the placards that marked where the different parts of the body had been found. It was too far apart to have been an accident. If someone dumped a mutilated body and placed the parts so far apart, that spoke on intentionality.
"Officer Smith, do you know if there were any signs of bite marks from possible wildlife on the body?" she asked.
"If there were, they were so minuscule that a basic exam didn't reveal any. Of course, when the autopsy comes in we'll know more."
"And no one on your crew or with local PD moved the body or the severed limbs?"
"Nope."
"Same here," Clements said. "Rangers, how about you guys?"
"No," said Holt with an evil sneer in his voice. He now seemed to be taking offense to just about everything.
"Can I ask why that might matter in terms of finding out who did it?" Smith asked her.
"Well, if the killer did his business here, there would be blood everywhere," Mackenzie explained. "Even if it happened a long while ago, there would be at least trace amounts scattered around. And I don't see any. So the other possibility is that he maybe dumped the body here. But if that's the case, why would a severed leg be so far away from the rest of the body?"
"I don't follow," Smith said. Behind him, she saw that Clements was also listening attentively but trying not to show it.
"It makes me think the killer did dump the body out here but he separated the parts so far apart on purpose."
"Why?" Clements asked, no longer able to pretend he wasn't listening.
"It could be several reasons," she said. "It could have been something as morbid as just having fun with the body, scattering it around like it was nothing but toys he was playing with. Wanting to get our attention. Or there could be some sort of calculated reasons for it-for the distance, for the fact that it was a leg, and so on."
"I see," Smith said. "Well, some of my men already wrote up a report that has the distance between the body and the leg. Just about every measurement you could ask for."
Mackenzie took a look around again-at the gathered group of men and the seemingly peaceful forest-and paused. There was no clear reason for this location. That made her think that the location was random. Still, to be so far off of the beaten path spoke of something else. It indicated that the killer knew these woods-maybe even the park itself-fairly well.
She started walking around the scene, looking closer for trace amounts of dried blood. But there was nothing. With every moment that passed, she became more and more certain of her theory.
"Rangers," she said. "Is there any way to get the names of people that frequent the park? I'm thinking about people that come here a lot and know the area well."
"Not really," Joe Andrews said. "The best we can do is provide a list of financial donors."
"That's not necessary," she said.
"You have a theory to test?" Smith asked.
"The actual murder was done elsewhere and the body was dumped here," she said, half to herself. "But why here? We're almost a mile away from the central path and there appears to be nothing significant about this location. So that makes me think that whoever is behind this knows the park grounds fairly well."
She got a few nods as she explained things but got the overall feeling that they either doubted her or just didn't really care.
Mackenzie turned to Bryers.
"You good here?" she asked.
He nodded.
"Thanks, gentlemen."
Everyone looked at her in silence. Clements seemed to be sizing her up.
"Well, come on then," Clements said, finally. "I'll give you a ride back to your car."
"No, that's okay," Mackenzie said a bit rudely. "I think I'd rather walk."
Mackenzie and Bryers took their exit, heading back through the woods and toward the walking trail Clements had brought them down.
As they sank back into the forest, the stares of the state police, Clements and his men, and the park rangers at their backs, Mackenzie couldn't help but appreciate the grand scale of the forest. It was eerie to think about how endless the possibilities were out here. She thought about what the ranger had said, about the countless crimes that took place in these forests, and something about that sent an icy chill through her.
If someone had it in them to slaughter people like the person who had been discovered within this taped-off triangle and they had a fairly decent knowledge of these forests, there were virtually no limits to the amount of menace they could cause.
And she felt sure that he would strike again.
