Harry
Harry noted the numerous paw prints around and squatted next to the female, age 20–30, with blonde hair. The Jane Doe’s eyes were too milky to identify their color. He took a deep breath and coughed into his sleeve. The coffee he drank this morning made a bid for escape. The sight of the dead woman didn’t bother him as much as how her family would feel when they were given the news. It took all his strength not to call Grace just to hear her voice on the other end. He’d asked what color the victim’s hair was before driving out, praying it wasn’t dark brown.
“Did anyone find a murder weapon?” Harry asked one of the officers at the scene.
“Only an axe, and it tested negative for blood,” Ellison replied.
The nearby creek babbled. He walked over to the small bank and studied the bed. A bunch of rocks lined the sandy bottom. One larger one seemed out of place. Ellison came over.
“Hey, see that rock?” Harry pointed at the biggest one. “Get it and bag it as evidence.” The uniformed cop gave him a why-would-you-want-that look. “Just get it,” Harry sighed. He had a hunch. The color of the rock didn’t match the others in the water.
Harry got a plastic bag from a CSI and held it open for Ellison. He handed the heavy bag to the tech, who sealed it shut.
Harry shrugged. “You never know, could be the murder weapon.” He glanced at his surroundings. A hunter had reported the body. His beagle spotted her first. From where the body lay, you couldn’t see the highway. The next thing Harry concerned himself with was the tracks made by a size eleven boot (according to the evidence marker), leading away from the body toward the creek. The footprints continued onto the other side of the brook. “Did anyone follow these tracks?” Harry asked Ellison.
“Yes, sir. They stopped at Thomson Road. What’s that, a half mile east?”
“Yeah, dammit. Must’ve parked a car there.”
Thomson dead-ended and butted right up against the woods, which meant no one would have seen if there had been a car parked for any length of time. The killer had returned to the scene of the crime. Why? Remorse? Curiosity?
Harry hated how similar the murder was to the two unsolved he’d liked Lance Wooley for. Blunt force trauma to the back of the head, found near or in water, 20–30…shit!
He walked over to CSI Daniels who’d come up from the site. “Did she have any tattoos?” Harry thought he saw one, but he’d been too busy thinking about his own daughter.
“Lower back. Some kind of bird.”
“Can you take a picture when you get back to County?” Mikey might know the work.
“Always do.”
“Thanks.”
Harry trudged through the snow, back to the dozen police and emergency vehicles.
“Hey, Detective!” Rudy shouted, waving him over to the one person Harry needed to speak with, the hunter. He looked like Elmer Fudd in his red plaid hat, complete with ear flaps. A beagle sat in the passenger seat of an old truck, steaming the window with its anxious panting. The beast whimpered and pranced up and down when Harry reached the pick-up.
“Tell me how you found the deceased.”
“Betsy seen her first, she’d ran ahead and—”
“Who’s Betsy?”
“My dog. She’s a good dog. I thought she’d seen a rabbit, then I heard something take off, so I whistled for her, thought it might be a deer or coyote, something.”
“You didn’t get a look at what it was?”
“Naw. I don’t move as fast as I used to. I’d seen she was into something, sniffing it real good. Took a second to register it was a woman.”
“Did you call 9-1-1 from your truck or home?”
“Oh, I called right away from my cell.” Elmer took an iPhone 6 or 7+ from his pocket. Even Harry didn’t have something that fancy.
“Nice phone,” Harry muttered. He handed the hunter a business card. “If you remember hearing or seeing anything else give me a call.”
“Will do, Detective.”
Harry walked to Natalie’s car and sat behind the wheel, jotting some quick notes in his field notebook. Rudy spoke to the Elmer Fudd wanna-be before he also got into his truck and drove away.