night country station on the radio and turned it up as loud as he could stand it, so that the noise would keep him awake. He was hoping for happy songs that would drive away the darkness outside and the darkness to come.
One of the vacationing firemen was waiting for him at the crossroads beside the church. When he recognized the patrol car, he stepped out of the shadows of an oak tree and flagged him down. Spencer parked in the church’s gravel lot and followed the young man down the road and through the field toward the dark woods beyond.
The fireman’s name was Al Hinshaw, and he said that his buddy Neil was waiting at the site with the ranger. He explained about their hiking vacation, and how they’d stumbled over the bodies on their way back to the shelter. Hell of a way to end your vacation, he’d said, shaking his head. The trail was supposed to be a peaceful place, wasn’t it?
“It usually is,” said Spencer. Now he saw the glow of a Coleman lantern, and he knew they were within hailing distance of the crime scene. He had met Willis Blaine a couple of times, when their paths had crossed in other investigations, but he couldn’t remember anything about the man that would be fodder for small talk during the long wait for the pros from Knoxville.
Blaine did not seem interested in conversation, either. He stood up and nodded a greeting when Spencer came into the clearing. Spencer shook hands with him and with the other fireman, Neil Echols, and that ended the civilities of the evening. “I didn’t touch anything,” the ranger told him. “It’s not my jurisdiction anyhow. But I’ll stay if you want me to.”
Spencer nodded. He could tell from Willis Blaine’s tone of voice that he wasn’t trying to take over the investigation. He was extending a courtesy to a fellow officer, and Spencer would have accepted the offer, realizing with some surprise that he really didn’t want to be all alone in the woods in this terrible place waiting for help to arrive, but Alton Banner had joined them by then, so he would have company. He wasn’t afraid; he decided that the proximity of death had made him realize how little time we all had in this world not to be alone. Instead of expressing these sentiments, he said: “You go on home. I’ll call you and let you know what we find out.”
Then he went to hold the light on the bodies while Alton Banner examined them.
“Well, they’re past my help,” the old doctor declared after a moment’s silence. “You don’t need me to tell you that.”
“No, sir. But your presence makes it official.”
Spencer had written the words “Crime Scene Log” at the top of the first page of the notebook. He would record the names of every person who went in and out of the area, so that if a question arose later about a fingerprint or a bit of fiber evidence, they could check the sample against those who had been present at the scene. He took the names and addresses of the two vacationing firemen and sent them on their way. It was just possible that they had been responsible for this crime, but Willis Blaine hadn’t thought so, and neither did Spencer. The two men had seemed genuinely upset by their discovery of the bodies, and they hadn’t shown the signs of uneasiness or cockiness he’d have expected from the perpetrators. They acted, as far as he could tell, normal, under circumstances that were far from normal.
“They were killed separately,” Alton Banner remarked when the hikers had gone.
Spencer blinked. “What?”
“The bodies. There’s a difference in body temperature that suggests one has been dead an hour longer than the other. The male victim went first. He was off in the weeds. The killer probably took him there for-what? Privacy? To get him out of the way without letting the girl know what had happened to him?” The doctor shrugged. “Figuring that out is your job, I guess.” He turned the flashlight toward the second body, letting the beam play on the ropes that still bound her wrists. “The girl was tied to the tree at that point.”
“Cause of death for the male?”
“Exsanguination, suffocation. His throat is cut.” He shined the light on the male victim’s head and neck. “Windpipe is severed. Watch how you move the body when the time comes. There isn’t much holding the head on.”
“And the other one?”
“I’m coming to that. I don’t think the first victim, the male, was the primary target. The killer got him out of the way first, but that killing was fairly perfunctory. Bludgeon-ings. Defense wounds. Then the quick slash that puts an end to it. Like swatting a fly.” He pointed to the body of Emily Stanton and sighed wearily. “He took his time with her.”
Spencer nodded. He wondered how much of it she had been conscious for. At some point in unbearable pain, he’d heard, the mind simply drifts off to somewhere else. He hoped she went there quick and never came back. The blood looked black in the moonlight. “I think I’ll wait for the TBI guy,” he told the doctor. “He’ll have to take samples.”
“That’s what I’d do,” Banner agreed. “My investigation was perfunctory, but he’ll do the evidence collecting. You might as well photograph the scene while you wait. I’ll hold the light.”
Spencer willed himself not to register what he was seeing as he photographed the area-roll after roll of black-and-white 35-millimeter film, backed up by a dozen Polaroid shots. The recording of a crime scene is a methodical process closely akin to archaeology in the precision of the measurements and the use of grid markings to measure off the area. The body was “twelve o’clock” on the site map. He began photographing the body, shooting clockwise around the scene, taking every angle, every degree of rotation, until he returned again to the starting point. When he had finished photographing the scene, Spencer went back to his notebook and began to sketch the scene-pinpointing the position of the bodies, the objects nearby, and so on. Investigators were taught to be thorough. He wasn’t much of an artist, but he was diligent.
It was just past three when the officer from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation showed up. Spencer knew that he was a veteran investigator not so much by his age as by the way he approached the area. He introduced himself to Spencer and the doctor.
“Guess I’ll head on home,” said Alton Banner. “Office hours come mighty early. You know where to find me if you need anything. I’ll get a report typed up for you in the morning.”
Spencer thanked him. When he turned to explain the situation to the TBI man, he found the investigator already bending over the body of the young woman. “Oh my,” he said in a calm, conversational tone as he trained the beam of his flashlight across her upper body. “What
Spencer was startled by the question. Surely a bear couldn’t have done this? “We’re pretty sure they were killed by a human being, sir,” he said.
The investigator laughed. “Oh, it was a person, all right. I might be willing to debate you over how
He had brought a thermos of coffee, and he didn’t even turn away from the bodies while he poured it out and gulped down his first cupful. Then he set down the coffee and surveyed the scene again. “A hard day’s night,” he said with a sigh.
He signed in on the site log and glanced at Spencer’s sketches of the area. “It’ll do,” he remarked to no one in particular. Then he stood up and stretched. “Drink your coffee. Take your time. I’ll have to collect some samples, and then we’ll do the grid work together, okay?”
“Sure. Fine.”
“Have you identified the victims yet?”
“No. I was waiting for you.”
“Maybe we’ll turn up something on the grid work. They’re not local, are they? Look like trail bunnies to me.”
“Hikers. I think so, too,” said Spencer. “I don’t think they were killed because of who they were. I mean, not by anyone they knew.”
