Page 9 of Girl, Undone
‘There’d be tire tracks somewhere in those woods, then, because you can’t drag a woman to a cabin with your bare hands.Not an alive one, anyway.’
Ella clapped.‘See?We don’t need details to profile.The basics are enough to get a good picture.’
‘Yeah, but I’m just basing that on probability.If you told me two old women had been shot, I’d never guess that the culprit was a grave robbing cannibal who dressed in human skin suits.If you’d have told me black guys were going missing in the city, I’d have never guessed that a gay white man was harvesting their organs.The devil is in the details.’
Ella stared out of the window at an endless carpet of clouds.Once again, Ripley had a point, despite its sledge hammer delivery.Profiling was the science of the probable, but Wisconsin had a long, bloody history of producing the statistically impossible.She looked over at her partner, who was signaling the attendant for another drink.Maybe Ripley had the right idea after all.
CHAPTER FIVE
Their destination was not an address or zip code, but coordinates.Ella hadn’t used coordinates since her Intelligence days, and there was no cab waiting for them at the Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport either, so Ella and Ripley made do with a rental.Ella was the designated driver because, despite her claims, Ripley was in no condition to operate machinery.
‘Vernon gives us the jet but not a cab.I told you.He wants us to hit the ground running.Literally.The GPS calls this a road?’Ripley said.They hit a patch of black ice on a path barely wide enough for a small car.Trees leaned in from either side with their branches scratching the windshield.
‘It gets us there.’
‘It gets the car there.I don’t know about us.’
‘We can’t be too far out now.This must be 20 miles outside of the city.’
‘You’d think so.This is why we need details.Addresses.’
‘It’s not Vernon’s fault that the body’s in the middle of nowhere.’
Ripley said, ‘The woods should have zip codes.Everywhere else does.’
'Here.Up ahead.What's that?'Ella had briefly turned the heater off, so the windshield had fogged up.She cranked it to the maximum again.Around a hundred yards ahead were strobing reds and blues.
‘Cop cars.Aim for them.’
Ella coaxed the car down the rickety dirt path at a pathetic five miles an hour.They bumped until two cruisers came into full view, and behind them, through skeletal trees, stood a cabin.The structure looked like it had been waiting here for decades, slowly rotting, hoping someone would eventually care enough to burn it down.‘There’s our scene.’
‘You’re not kidding.It looks on the verge of collapse.’
‘Strange place for a murder.’
‘Dark, it’s the perfect place for a murder.’
‘Fair point.’
As they hit the icy mud and dead leaves that passed for the ground, a gentleman emerged from one of the cruisers.He was dressed for a siege against the cold, and only a sliver of his weathered face was visible between the scarf and the fur-lined hood of his parka.‘FBI?’he asked.
‘That’s us.Agents Dark and Ripley.’
'Thanks for coming.I'm Sheriff Bartram.I'd offer a hand, but they're both frozen solid.'
‘Understandable.We came as quickly as we could.Can you give us the details?Our director didn’t provide much.’
‘You’re in good time, because the forensics team haven’t even been yet.We’ve kept the scene secure, although it’s not like anyone is going to find this place by accident.’
‘Who called it in, sheriff?’Ripley asked.
‘A dog walker stumbled on it around 7 AM this morning.He was actually walking up on the main road two, three hundred yards over there.But his dog ran like hell to this cabin and wouldn’t stop trying to get in.The walker found the dog here, took a look inside the cabin and, well… found it.’
‘You’ve checked the walker?’
‘The guy is pushing eighty.I’m surprised he made it down here in the first place.’
‘Got it.Anything else?’
