“You’re not a hunting dog, you’re a chow hound,” McCain said, and gave Jack a bite of the sandwich which he immediately gobbled up without being chewed. “You didn’t even taste that.”
While he ate he thought more about Mr. Chad Burke. He kept forgetting to ask Sinclair the size of the boot print at the place where they found the skull and bones. And he wondered if Sinclair had asked about any other missing women around the West that might fit the same description of those that had been found in the Cascades.
While the Green River Killer’s victims were mostly found along the Green River and near SeaTac Airport south of Seattle, he did dump two bodies close to Portland, Oregon. And Ted Bundy went from murdering women in Washington State to Florida where he killed several more. If the man doing the killings was new to the area, it was possible he could have killed and dumped bodies somewhere else.
The other thing the FBI was good at was putting a profiler on the case, so McCain figured they were trying to get inside the killer’s head. One thing McCain knew, or thought he knew, was that the killer was possibly removing the hearts from his victims before he dumped them. The psychologists would be analyzing that one for sure.
Did the killer’s first girlfriend, a slender gal with long black hair, break his heart? Was the guy saving the hearts as a memento of each woman?
He again thought of Burke and wished he knew the guy’s shoe size. Something about the track at the site of the bones was of real interest to him. He’d bug Sinclair about it for sure.
Jack had been back to the truck a couple times to check on McCain, but he was off somewhere when McCain decided it was time to move on up the road. He whistled for the dog and within a minute Jack was there, ready to jump into the truck.
As daylight turned to twilight and then to dark, McCain drove up the road with Jack sitting by his side. They went about ten miles up, past Bald Mountain and on to Manastash Ridge. They got on the ridge road and found a good spot where they could watch a vast area of the country below. From there they would be able to see any headlights of vehicles coming and going on the Forest Service roads. McCain knew it would be too far and too dark to tell what kind of rig it was, but at least he’d know if there was anyone in there tonight.
He and Jack sat there until two a.m. In four hours they had seen two rigs driving the roads below. The first he saw around 11:20. McCain was almost positive it was a Jeep because its headlights were close together and high off the ground. He spotted another set of generic headlights shortly after midnight. That vehicle had come up quite a ways and then disappeared around the curve of the hill. Most likely someone heading into a camp McCain thought.
McCain and Jack were headed home, passing through Naches when he saw that the Exxon station mini-mart was open. He wasn’t usually out driving around this time of night, so he didn’t realize the store stayed open all night. In the summer, with lots of traffic on the highway, it must have paid off for the store to stay open 24-7.
He decided he wanted a soda, so he turned in to grab a Pepsi. He pulled up to the store, left the truck running, and ran inside. A dude with bleached blonde hair spiked into a five-inch peak running right down the center of his head was standing behind the counter looking at a car magazine.
“Hey, how’s it going?” the clerk asked.
“Okay. Time for a little caffeine,” McCain answered and headed to the soda fountain.
Just then Deputy Stratford walked in, went to the coffee machine, pulled a cup, and started pouring coffee into it.
McCain walked up behind the deputy and said, “Hey, Jeremy.” Stratford about jumped into the next aisle.
“Wow, you’re a little jumpy,” McCain said. “Maybe you better make that coffee unleaded.”
“No, I definitely need the caffeine,” Stratford said. “I hate these graveyard shifts. What the hell are you doing up at this hour?”
“Heading over the pass to meet some friends to fish for steelhead on the Cowlitz,” McCain lied. “If I’m not there, standing on the boat launch at 5 a.m., they’ll leave without me.”
“Sounds like good friends,” the deputy said.
“So, how’s the task force going?” McCain asked. “Making any headway?”
“Well, we’re just getting started,” Stratford explained. “I’m learning a lot from the other members. It is interesting to see how they work, and what they think about the killer.”
“Yeah, I bet it is,” McCain said. “Well, Jack is sitting out in my running truck, so I best be on my way. Good luck on catching that guy.”
“Thanks. Good luck fishing.”
On his way back to the counter McCain grabbed a PayDay candy bar to go with his soda, paid for the items, and walked out to the truck. He opened the PayDay and ate a bite while two big brown eyes watched every move he made. Finally, when the candy bar was down to one bite, he gave it to Jack. The dog swallowed it in one big gulp.
“I coulda just fed you a rock and you wouldn’t have known the difference,” he said to the dog that wasn’t paying any attention. He was snarfling around the seat in hopes that a peanut had fallen for him to lick up.
“You’re a goofy dog, but I love you anyway,” McCain said, rubbing the dog’s ears as he backed out of the
