Page 68 of Long Gone

We centered our search around that area for the next ten minutes. There wasn’t a body, but we did find a piece of a necktie, a black dress shoe and a men’s black sock. All were soaked with mud and in varying states of decay.

“People don’t just leave a shoe and sock lying around,” I said. “Let’s presume they belong to Hugo. How did they get here? If they buried him, why is this stuff just lying around? Did an animal dig him up?”

“Anton said the concrete mixer wasn’t here after his father died, but we both know he was likely dead. What if the killer left his body here and then came back later to dispose of it?”

“And I bet it made him nervous to have all those teenagers hanging out so close to a murder victim.” I took a breath. “Even if they buried him in the woods. The root system of the trees would have kept them from burying him very deep.”

“They might have been concerned that kids might be hanging out in the woods,” he said. “What if they came back and moved it later? That would explain the mixer showing up later.”

He started backing up and pointing to the items we’d found and left on the ground. His eyes widened. “They dug him up and dragged him.”

“What?”

“They dug him up and dragged his body, leaving the things behind. Look, they’re all in a jagged line.”

I moved over to where he stood, at the edge of the clearing, and I could see it now. They had dragged him across the clearing and lost items of clothing along the way.

“That had to be disgusting,” I said. “Depending on how long they waited, he was likely decomposing.”

“We had weather below freezing for multiple days around the time of his disappearance. It would have preserved the body.”

“Not if they waited until summer.”

“True.”

“You said Anton didn’t see the mixer here, but the last time he was here was a few days after Burton went missing. If I were the killer, I wouldn’t move the body right away either. I’d be worried about getting caught. I’d wait until things died down. And the frozen snap lasted off and on for two weeks. The killer could have moved him them.”

We both stared at the path through the woods. Now that I saw it I couldn’t unsee it.

“But why wouldn’t they pick up his personal items and bury them with him?” I asked. “They’re just a giant sign that Hugo was dead in those woods.”

“They were sloppy for one,” he grunted. “They left a damn cement mixer. And if they really didn’t want to get caught, they probably moved him at night. Maybe under a full moon so they wouldn’t have to use lights. It would have made it hard to find the shoe, let alone the other stuff that was smaller and more easily camouflaged.”

“What we really need,” I said, “is to talk to someone who was a teenager that summer to see if they were not only out here but saw a concrete mixer.”

“I can take care of that one,” he said. “Misti has a million nieces and nephews who love to party. Some of them were bound to be teenagers four years ago. I’ll have her ask them.”

“Okay. That’s good. But we’re still stuck looking for a body.”

Malcolm turned his back to the trees and scanned the land. “The clearing.”

“Where the pool was supposed to go?” I asked in disbelief.

“It stands to reason the person behind Larkspur Limited was the one who killed him. They made damn sure no one ever found him. They had absolutely no intention of putting in a pool.”

I stared at the clearing. “So they dug him up from in the trees and moved him out into the open? That seems incredibly stupid.”

“Apparently this county is full of stupid men,” Malcolm said.

I shot him a look and he shrugged. I started to tell him that he lived in the county too then stopped. No one could ever accuse James Malcolm of being stupid.

“They probably dug down a bit,” he said, “covered him with concrete, then covered the concrete with dirt.”

It wasn’t how I would have disposed of a body, but given everything we’d found, I suspected he was right.

“I heard a potential buyer for the property was considering putting an apartment complex in here,” he said absently.

I whipped around to face him. “Larkspur Limited?”

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