Page 9 of The Elementalist
I came up with a simple theory: they hadn’t been killed in this spot, and they hadn’t been killed by a cougar. Sure, it appeared that way, which is why the case had been closed. But, hey, that’s why I made the big bucks. And by big bucks, I mean the occasional retainer fee I receive. Emphasis on occasional.
Where they’d been killed, I hadn’t a clue, but I decided to venture down one of the trails leading away from this spot. If my guess turned out to be true, there would be a location somewhere not terribly far from here, somewhere that had seen a real struggle, somewhere where a lot of blood had been spilled.
And what about the claw marks and cougar prints?
One thing at a time. Did I really think someone staged the death scene? For the moment, that made the most sense. I had to operate from that premise because part of me didn’t buy the official story, and that part wanted to give Crystalrealanswers, not easy answers. Considering the amount of tissue missing from the bodies, there should have been an enormous amount of blood at the site where the bodies had been found. That thought reminded me of the hospital and the missing hemoglobin, and all the rumors about vampires in Shadow Pines.
Yeah, right. I’m sure we had a serial killer operating in the area who’d also heard those rumors and went out of his (or her, I suppose) way to capitalize on those rumors. A small town sheriff’s department eyeball deep in bizarre stories of the supernatural would see something that looked like an honest-to-God vampire attack and just say ‘nope, that didn’t happen,’ and look for easy answers. The feeling I got from Justine had been exactly that.
She’d saidnopeto this crime scene the way she’d have saidnopeto finding a dinner-plate sized spider perched on her toilet. More and more, the story of an animal attack didn’t make sense... at least to me.
I wanted to know what the hell was going on in my woods.
Yes, my woods.
Just as much mine as anyone’s, but this had been my stomping grounds for my entire life. The way most normal people had a fondness for their childhood home, I felt the same way toward the forest here.
Any private eyes worth their salt apprenticed with established investigators, learning the ropes, which I had done. Along with the required state training, my real education came when I had worked side-by-side with an old pro named Edward Jones. He’d taught me all he knew. While I hadn’t gotten much use lately out of the considerable skills he’d passed on to me, that didn’t mean I didn’t know what I was doing.
That left me with a simple question: What would Jones do here?
I thought about that as I moved away from the scene, knowing my old mentor would tell me to look deeper, beyond the obvious. He would tell me to allow the clues to tell the story. So far, the clues told me that the two victims had died elsewhere, had bled out elsewhere. I was betting on that.
So I took in the surrounding trees and brush, the many ferns. The waterfall churned and crashed on my right as I moved down the path. I stopped often and paused to listen to it, my body veritably humming with life. I examined known campsites, now deserted, squatting on my heels and sifting through anything of interest, which didn’t amount to much at all. How thoroughlySheriff Waters and her team had gone over the area, I had no idea. Doubtful they had beenthisthorough. The bodies had been found, what, a hundred yards above me. Considering they’d all decided on a big cat before they even left the office in town, I had little faith they’d wandered more than twenty feet in any direction from where Dana and Luke had been found.
No one knew the route they’d taken away from the party—or even the exact location of the party itself. From what Crystal said, it had been one of those creepy occultist type deals where everyone showed up wearing masks. They had food, drinks, possibly even participated in swinging or open sex, all under the guise of possibly-pretend mysticism. She didn’t seem to know if any of the weirdo rich people honestly believed in any of the magical stuff or treated it like a game, or a secret society. In her opinion, Dana hadn’t wanted to be involved with the swinging, and as soon as things devolved to sex, she’d taken Luke by the hand and left to show him the waterfall.
They’d told their friends and family that they’d gone for an overnight camp, the ‘occult party’ being all sorts of hush-hush. Crystal had gotten the truth, as she said Dana always told her everything. So I had some strange information to process.
There had been a party in the forest, late at night, with potential occult overtones.
People at said party had undoubtedly been drinking.
Most—if not all—of the attendees came from the upper classes.
At the time Dana and Luke walked off, the majority of partygoers would’ve been inebriated to some degree, and likely engaging in sexual acts—potentially with people they didn’t recognize due to said masks.
Wow. Maybe Justine was right and I shouldn’t have taken this case.
I also knew that their bodies had been found near thewaterfall. Everyone came to see that… which made me think that the killer had purposefully put them thereknowingthey would be found, and soon. That didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Most killers bend over backward to hide the bodies as long as possible. Every day that passes after the death makes it more difficult to gather evidence that could lead to a conviction. So, why would the killerwantthe bodies found? To send a message, most likely. But why make it look like an animal attack if they wanted to send a message?
Hmm. I’d need to think about that. First, I had to find the actual murder site. If I could do that, I’d have something to take back to Crystal, maybe even share with Justine.
A number of trails spread away from the falls. I didn’t really know the exact location of the party, but I could guess based on my knowledge of a few clearings in the area large enough to host such a gathering. If Dana or Luke had used an exercise app, we could have traced their exact path. No such luck, according to the police report. But then again, they hadn’t been out here for a healthy hike.
I checked my phone. My app was turned on… but no one gave a shit where I wandered off to.
Where’s the world’s smallest violin when you need it?
I continued down the trail...
Chapter Five
The Case is a Breeze
Crystal seemed confident she had heard the waterfall in the background.
Consequently, I never ventured past where the sound of crashing water fell silent. A half-dozen trails crisscrossed the area, and I spent the better part of the day wandering over them, encountering two hikers in the process. I wanted to tell them to beat it, to not dare trample on a potential crime scene, but I only smiled and munched on my peanut butter and honey sandwich.
