Page 7 of The Elementalist
Nature
I drove out to Pine Grove, a popular campground located roughly three miles southeast of town.
A large gift shop styled to resemble a log cabin sat beside an expansive dirt parking lot that held an assortment of Range Rovers, Mercedes SUVs, and a couple Saabs. People came here for two primary reasons: hiking out to a spot where they’d camp, or taking the shorter trail to the water and going kayaking. From the number of vehicles here, people hadn’t cared much about the recent attack.
Through my preliminary research, I’d discovered that no less than fourteen people in the last ten years had been killed or had gone missing in this area. There should be a big sign above the entrance to the parking lot that read: “Enter at Your Own Risk.”
Well, I was entering, and I was risking. I had a job to do, after all.
Besides, I’d been in these woods plenty of times. Dozens, in fact. Hundreds maybe. I had grown up in Shadow Pines. The forest surrounding the town had dozens of hangout spots. These days, they were a favorite venue for teen raves (although back in my day we called it partying), even from kids in surrounding areas, though other than Ironside, the nearest town sat roughly a half hour drive away. Either way, it was a coming-of-age tradition that Shadow Pines kids would go out into the forest and cut loose (read: get high and drunk). Anyway, despite all the deaths, disappearances, and reports of animal attacks, people still partied hard in these woods—and camped in them as well. Shadow Pines residents were either a stubborn bunch, or not the sharpest knives in the drawer. Sometimes, the two went hand in hand.
I got out of my old beat up F150 and shut the door quietly. Hey, no need to alert whatever the hell was out here; after all,somethingkilled those campers.
Relax, Max,I thought, reciting my go-to, rhyming mantra.
I surveyed the woods, taking in a deep lungful of fresh air, my .44 revolver tucked in a shoulder holster on my left side. This land was my land, my home. I wasn’t going to let anything keep me from enjoying them... and I damn well wasn’t going to let anything keep me from doing my job. I shouldered my backpack, walked across the parking area, and started up the winding dirt path.
There it was… The Shadow Pines stubbornness.
Or stupidity.
Anyone growing up here had that stubbornness (and/or stupidity) embedded in their upbringing, almost a God-given right to be slaughtered here in these woods. That, and the back country truly sang a siren call to people in a small town with little options for entertainment. My father always said in places like this, people only had the three Fs to amuse themselves: fighting, food, and… well, guess. Probably why the town had three elementary schools and no university. By the time most of us got out of high school, we realized if we didn’t escape soon, we’d be trapped here for the rest of our lives. For anyone but those in the Founding Families, that didn’t sound like such a great idea. They had the means to vacation wherever they cared to, buy any expensive toys they wanted. The rest of us, well… we either went shooting in the woods, got into random fights to pass the time, or repopulated the town. Hell, something like thirty percent of the Sheriff’s office’s time was spent dragging drunken, amorous high schoolers out of the forest.
The morning was unusually cool for late June. I wore a light jacket, jeans, and hiking boots. I’d packed two big bottles of water plus three peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Morethan enough for a day hike out to the crime scene.
Thanks to my old sweetheart, the sheriff, I knew precisely where the attack had occurred. Truth be told, I had been to the same spot at least two or three times. Hell, almost everyone in Shadow Pines over the age of sixteen had been out there at least once. The site was adjacent to a beautiful waterfall and a clear pool of fresh water. Probably the most photographed area within twenty miles. To think that’s where Dana Bradbury and her husband, enjoying a small party with nary a care in the world, would meet their end… Crystal had told me that the husband, Luke, came from LA. Good chance she’d pulled him away from the party to show him the ‘most beautiful spot in the USA.’
I shook my head at the tragedy of it all, and put boots to the ground. I had a lot of distance to cover. And, if this had been something more than an animal attack, their decision to walk to the falls hadn’t beenthatcritical in causing their deaths. Meaning, whoever murdered them would’ve done it wherever they could. Though, Dana and Luke obligingly going off alone into the trees probably hurried the process along. The more I thought about it as I walked, the more my gut agreed with Crystal about this not being the work of a rogue mountain lion.
The trail continued on through old-growth woods, filled to overflowing with sprawling spruces and giant oaks. An extensive canopy mostly blotted out the sun, dimming the underbrush and offering no shortage of places for feral cats—or serial killers—to hide. Despite the gloom, the rising sun warmed the air relatively fast, and me along with it. I started to regret wearing the jacket.
The hike out to the falls would take about two hours, a long way from civilization, and a long way from help, which is why I brought my .44 Magnum. It should be big enough to stop a big cat.
If the killer was a mountain lion.
Of course, I had no reason not to believe otherwise. Allevidence suggested it was. Big cat saliva? Okay, gross. But it should be an open and closed case. The instant a forensics report says “big cat saliva” and the bodies themselves (and I had seen the autopsy photos) showed every indication of an animal attack, then, yeah, I should have given the money back to Crystal. Except, of course, I had spent it. I really had needed it. Private investigators had a hard enough time finding work evenwithan office. No one would hire a homeless guy. And there was something else, right?
In fact, I pondered twosomething elses...
The wounds to the neck didn’t look like big cat fangs to me. Sure, there had been claw marks in and around the wound, each digging deep into the flesh. Sure, I had fought gagging the entire time I’d examined the photos. But the actual wounds to the neck seemed—that is, the majority of the damage—seemed too small. In fact, the spacing between the fangs looked about the size of a human mouth. Not a big cat who could hyperextend its jaws. It might have been a smaller cat like a lynx, but such creatures had never been seen around here.
I had pointed that out to the sheriff, who sagely asked if I had ever seen animal wounds before? I hadn’t, which led me to later Google a cheetah running down a gazelle. I watched closely as the cat closed its jaws around the poor creature’s neck, crushing its windpipe. The kill fascinated me because the big cat didn’t tear the creature’s throat out. No, it had killed it... then went to work on its hindquarters, where all the meat was.
The second thing that stood out to me: the crime scene had little blood. The attack had taken place at a rockier section of ground near the stream that flowed from the pond at the base of the falls. The photographer had captured close-ups of bloody animal prints, which were damning indeed. I had asked if there was any indication that someone else had been there, and I could tell by the blank look on my ex-girlfriend’s facethat she hadn’t even looked for prints from ‘someone else.’ Her people had looked for what they wanted to see: animal prints. As soon as they found one bloody paw print, it had given them enough evidence to confirm what they already wanted to believe. Granted, 99.9% of police forces in the country would have closed such a case, too, with that sort of evidence in light of the wounds on the bodies along with the saliva and paw prints.
I’d asked her about the lack of blood. A theory her office had floated was that the bodies might have been killed elsewhere, and perhaps a rival cat had dragged them to this spot where they’d been munched on. Indeed, large sections of the shoulders and thighs were missing from both of them. Lots of damage, but not a lot of blood at the crime scene. Hikers found the bodies early the next morning, hours after the attack, which the experts calculated had occurred around ten or so at night. No one had even reported Dana or Luke missing from the party. Forensics also didn’t find any other signs of additional animal participation. As in, no coyotes or wolves or other critters gave the bodies a nibble.
To me, the scene looked too neat and tidy. No rocks dislodged, no deep grooves in the ground. Then again, the place was conveniently rocky, too. I noted blood smudges here and there in the photos. Not paw prints and not footprints nor handprints. Sheriff Waters suggested I quit acting like an idiot. I told her I was being paid to act like an idiot. Or to question everything. To me... I dunno, the blood smudges on the rocks looked like they had been rubbed. As if someonehadleft a footprint or boot print, and rubbed the blood to disguise them. Justine thought those smudges came from the victims struggling to get away from the cat.
The scene didn’t offer any clear indication of a crime being committed, and the sheriff’s office hadn’t dug too deeply. That much was obvious. They accepted the big cat narrative, sawenough evidence to back said narrative up, and closed the case. Except therehadbeen a witness. Sorta. An audio witness.
Crystal Bradbury had been on the phone with her sister.
And no mountain lion had been heard. Not even a growl. Only her sister pleading for her life.
Who pleads with a big, silent cat?
I patted the reassuring weight under my armpit. It was a damn comforting feeling, knowing I packed some serious heat. I always carried my handgun with me when hiking in rough country. Thinking about two people being killed out here in these woods by god-knows-what made me more aware of it under my light jacket. I kept my zipper halfway down, and even practiced pulling the gun, quick-draw like. Alas, a cowboy I wasn’t. Shoulder holsters didn’t lend themselves to speed.
