She noticed something. There were bluish fibers woven throughout the ground mixture. It was curious, catching her attention. Katie followed the colored strands as she carefully stepped alongside the uncovered area. She bent down and carefully moved some of the soil with her right hand.
“Gav, can you get John?” she said.
She heard her partner call out to John. She kept her hand steady and pushed the soil on either side of the questionable zone of blue threads. Katie wasn’t sure what she’d find. It appeared to be some type of fabric and then a shirt sleeve.
“Gav,” she called.
Her partner immediately moved next to her side. He didn’t say a word, but watched as Katie carefully dug through the soil, moving chunks of clay and sand.
And then, the detectives saw it. It was an arm… it appeared to be male and wearing a blue flannel type of shirt.
Another body slowly revealed itself. There was still a fair amount of flesh and hair on this one and they could see the side of the man’s face, though part of the skull showed through facial hair. It hadn’t been skeletonized like the other two victims, so it had to have been buried more recently, maybe a month or more. She wondered why the body was buried near the others.
John arrived and kneeled next to the detectives, taking more photos. He gestured to the back of the male’s skull. “There’s a bullet hole.”
FOUR
Monday 1055 hours
Katie and McGaven watched as John and his forensic tech, Eva, laid out the remains of the three bodies on two large yellow tarps and then meticulously sifted through dirt for any other evidence. Two deputies had quickly put up a makeshift curtain to prevent bystanders or anyone who happened to come past from seeing the remains.
Katie noticed the first phase of construction had been removing dozens of trees and grading the land. Soon it would be time to lay the building foundations and parking lots. The large piece of property also stored all types of construction equipment and supplies in temporary structures. Two dozen workers were beginning the process and soon there would be more. Calvin Brand Construction Company had won the bid for the project. It had been slated for completion in eighteen to twenty-four months if they didn’t hit any complications.
Katie moved toward the two skeletal remains. John and Eva had managed to keep the hands intertwined for better examination at the lab. The third victim was a man wearing a flannelshirt, jeans, and a belt with a large silver buckle that featured a man riding a bull. There was a watch on his left wrist.
“What do you think?” said McGaven, assessing his partner.
“There’s definitely a story here.”
“Meaning?”
“I think all the bodies are related. We just need to figure out what that story is and who the victims are.”
“We didn’t learn anything from the excavator operator or the supervisor,” he said. “Their stories match, and they didn’t see anything unusual until the load came up with the bones.” He turned to Katie. “You know those bones could be much older than we first anticipated.”
She nodded. “Theoretically, they could be a decade or two old.”
“Our work is definitely going to be challenging.” McGaven walked off toward John.
Katie took a three-hundred-sixty-degree scan of the location. It would be helpful, she thought, to examine old maps of the site from before they started demolition. The two lines of trees piqued her interest. She stared at them a moment, and that was when she saw him. A male figure wearing dark clothing had popped out from behind a large pine tree and then disappeared again.
Katie blinked, almost wasn’t sure if it had been her imagination or a shadow among the trees. She remained silent and began walking toward the area. Her footsteps were quiet on the overturned earth, so she moved faster, hoping to see the dark figure again. Her mind spun. It could have simply been a curious onlooker or it could… it could have been someone with information they needed.
The morning was cool and the sun bright without any clouds in the sky, but as Katie walked into the forest area the sun seemed to disappear and she could see remnants of frost on the ground from the night before. She reached the area whereshe thought she’d seen a person. There were fresh prints of a boot—not a work boot, but rather a cowboy boot. It made her think of the Western-style belt buckle of the deceased man.
She marked the area with a couple of rocks. Stopped. Listened. The voices from the crime scene were low and there wasn’t any sound of cars nearby. The area had calmed and most of the people were gone except for a few police. She moved her attention to the forest where there were birds chirping and the fluttering of wings through the trees. She moved toward where the birds were making their ruckus.
Again she saw a figure move swiftly from one tree to the next.
“Stop,” she said. “Police!” Katie picked up her speed and ran toward the man.
As if he had his escape route already mapped out and knew the area well, the man kept moving—no sound from his footfalls—his escape quieting the forest. And just as suddenly he was gone.
Katie continued to run the path the unknown man had taken. She ran for several minutes but never saw any indication of who he was or where he went. Her lungs burned, so she decided to head back to the crime scene. Katie backtracked, thinking of how, with every few minutes, everything seemed to change or provoke more questions.
She walked through the forest opening where she had initially seen the figure, and McGaven and John met her.
“Where did you go?” said McGaven. His looked concerned, with furrowed brows and his mouth turned down.
