that they'd approached the school where the abduction took place. 'We're gonna start here,' Wilcox said. He stopped the car under a dark willow tree. 'Here's where she gets in. Now watch carefully.'
He drove forward swiftly, took a fast right turn, then another quick left, heading down a long street with single-storey homes set back amidst shrubbery and pines.
'See, we're still heading toward Joanie's house, so there's nothing yet for her to get scared about. But we're already out of sight of anyone at the school. Now watch this.'
He pulled the car to a stop sign at a Y intersection. Down one street there were more homes, spaced wider apart. Down the other fork in the road there were a few decrepit shacks before a yellow- green, neglected hayfield and sway-backed brown barn at the edge of a dark tunnel-like overgrowth of forest and twisted swamp. 'She'd want to go that way,' the detective said, pointing toward the houses. 'He went the other way. I think this is where he popped her first…' The detective clenched his fist and made a mock punching motion toward Cowart. 'He's strong, strong as a goddamn horse. He may not look big, but he's plenty big enough to handle a little eleven-year-old girl. It must have surprised the hell out of her. Forces her down, floors it…'
In that instant, all the easygoing jocularity that had marked the detective's behavior vanished. In a single, murderous gesture, Wilcox suddenly reached over and grabbed Cowart's arm up by the shoulder. In the same motion, he punched the accelerator and the car shot forward, fishtailing briefly in loose gravel and dirt. His fingers pinching into Cowart's muscles, tugging him sideways off balance in the seat, Wilcox steered the car down the left fork in the road. Cowart shouted out, a grunting mixture of surprise and fear as he fought to hang on to the armrest in the wildly pitching vehicle. The car swerved, skidding around a corner, and Cowart was tossed against the door. The detective's grip tightened. He, too, was shouting, roaring words that made no sense, his face red with exertion. Within seconds they were past the shacks, bouncing on a washboard highway, disappearing into cool shadows thrown by the enveloping forest. The dark trees seemed to leap out at them as the car raced ahead. The speed was dizzying. The engine surged and howled and Cowart froze, expecting to be slammed into death.
'Scream!' the detective demanded sharply.
'What?'
'Go ahead, scream!' he shouted. 'Yell for help, damn you!'
Cowart stared at the detective's red face and mad eyes. Both men's voices were raised over the noise of the hurtling engine and the scraping and scrabbling of the tires against the road.
'Let go!' Cowart yelled. 'What the hell are you doing?' Shadows and branches whipped past him, leaping from the sides of the road at them like so many attacking beasts.
'Stop, goddammit, stop!'
Abruptly, Wilcox released him, grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and simultaneously slammed on the brakes. Cowart thrust out his arm to try to prevent himself from pitching into the windshield as the car screeched and shimmied to a stop.
'There,' the detective said. He exhaled rapidly. His hands were shaking.
'What the hell?' Cowart shouted. 'You trying to get us both killed?'
The detective didn't answer. He just leaned his head back and inhaled rapidly, as if trying to gain back the control that had fled with the wild ride; then he turned to Cowart, fixing him with small, narrowed eyes. 'Relax, Mr. Reporter-man,' he said steadily. 'Take a look around you.'
'Jesus, what was that little show for?'
'Just showing you a little reality.'
Cowart took a deep breath. 'By driving crazy and trying to kill us?'
'No' the detective replied slowly. He grinned, his even white teeth glistening. 'Just showing you how easy it was for Ferguson to take that child from civilization into the fucking jungle. Take a look around you. You think there's anybody can hear you if you scream for help? Who's gonna come along and help you out? Look at where you are, Cowart. What do you see?'
Cowart stared out the window and saw dark swamp and forest stretching around him, covering him like a shroud.
'Who do you see who's gonna help you?'
'Nobody.'
'Who do you see who's gonna help a little eleven-year-old girl?'
'Nobody.'
'You see where you are? You're in hell. It takes five minutes. That's all. And civilization is gone. This is the fucking jungle. Get the point?'
'I get the point.'
'I just wanted you to see it with Joanie Shriver's eyes.'
'I get the point.'
'All right,' the detective said, smiling again. 'That's how fast it happened. Then he took her farther in. Let's go.'
Wilcox got out of the car and went to the trunk. He got out two pairs of bulky brown rubber wading pants and tossed one pair to Cowart. 'That'll have to do.'
Cowart started to struggle into the waders. As he was doing so, he looked down. He bent down suddenly and felt the ground. Then he walked to the rear of the police cruiser and stood next to the detective. He took a deep breath, smiling to himself. All right, he thought, two can play.
'Tire tracks,' he said abruptly, pointing down at the ground with his finger.
'Say what?'
'Fucking tire tracks. Look at this dirt. If he drove her in here, there would be tire tracks. You could have matched them up with his tires. Or don't you cowboys know about such things?'
Wilcox grinned, refusing to rise to the bait. 'It was May. Dirt turns to dust.'
'Not under this cover.'
The detective paused, staring at the reporter. Then he laughed, a wry smile crossing his face. 'You ain't dumb, are you?'
Cowart didn't reply.
'Local reporters wouldn't be that sharp. No, sir.'
'Don't flatter me. Why didn't you make any tire prints?'
'Because this area was drove all over by rescue personnel and search fucking parties. That was one of the big problems we had at the start. As soon as the word hit that she'd been found, everybody tore ass out here. I mean everybody. And they trampled the shit out of the crime scene. It was a fucking mess before Tanny and I got there. Firemen, ambulance drivers, Boy Scouts, Christ, you name it. There was no control whatsoever. Nobody preserved a damn thing. So suppose we made a tire track. A footprint. A piece of ripped cloth on a bramble, something. No way to match it up. By the time we got here, and damn, we were moving as fast as we could, this place was crawling with folks. Hell, they'd even moved her body out of the location, pulled her up on the shore.'
The detective thought for a minute. 'Can't really blame 'em,' he went on. 'People were crazy for that little girl. It wouldn't have been Christian to leave her in the muck getting gnawed on by snapping turtles.'
Christianity had nothing to do with this case, Cowart thought. It is all evil. But he said, 'So, they fucked up?'
'Yeah.' The detective looked at him. I don't want to see that in the paper. I mean, you can point out the scene was a mess. But I don't want to see 'Detective Wilcox said the crime scene was fucked up…' but yeah, that's right, it was.'
Cowart watched the detective slip into the waders. He remembered another Hawkins maxim: If you look close enough, the scene will tell you everything. But Wilcox and Brown had had no scene. They had had no evidence that wasn't contaminated. So they'd had to get the other thing that would get them into a court of law: a confession.
The detective tightened his straps and waved to Cowart. 'Come on, city boy. Let me show you a real good dying place.'
He stepped off into the woods, his waders rustling against the shrub brush as he
