“Can we make arrangements to go see him?”
“Yeah. We can do that. I want to visit with Star first, when they let me in.”
“Would you like me to come to the hospital? Could you use some company?”
“No, but thanks. I’ll be all right, especially now we have this lead. Maybe I can hold out some hope for her. Look, thanks, Diane. This. . just, thanks.”
“So,” said Sheriff Bruce Canfield, “you’re asking me if I can help solve one of the biggest murders here in decades and at the same time make a fool of that new chief of detectives in Rosewood?”
Sheriff Canfield was a large man in his late fifties. He had a full head of hair the color of brown that comes from a bottle, and a uniform that looked like it might have shrunk a bit in the wash. He laughed out loud.
“That’s not exactly the way we’d put it,” said Frank, grinning at the sheriff. “But yes, that’s what we’re asking.”
“Well, who can pass up a deal like that? Let’s go.” He stood up and guided them out of his office. “How is George’s little girl?”
“Right now she’s sleeping and sedated.” Frank told him about her trying to kill herself.
“Poor thing. Maybe we can do something here.”
Diane and Frank followed the sheriff’s car out to the Abercrombie farm, which consisted of three hundred acres of woodland and pastures, a white farmhouse and a garage with a sign that read ABERCROMBIE’S TAXIDERMY. They parked their cars on a gravel drive and walked up to the gate. The sign on the gate read: I’LL GIVE UP MY GUN WHEN THEY PRY IT FROM MY COLD, DEAD FINGERS.
The sheriff opened the gate and hollered, “Luther, you got company.”
A man much younger than Diane had imagined came out of the taxidermy shop wearing a leather apron and wiping his hands on a towel. He pushed his straight black hair from his eyes and smiled. His teeth were white against his neatly trimmed, short black beard.
“Frank Duncan, what you need with a sheriff’s escort?”
“Hey, Whit. How you doing? This is Diane Fallon. She’s the new director of the RiverTrail Museum.”
“Come for more business, I hope.” He grinned.
“We want to take a look at where your father dumps his carcasses,” said the sheriff.
“Now, sheriff, you know he disposes of his waste legally-since he had to pay that fine a couple of years ago.”
“This would be an old dump,” said Frank. “We think there may be a body in it. It could be why your father had a trespasser the other night.”
Whit gave a long whistle. “This is serious. I guess you need me there too.”
Diane raised her eyebrows and looked at Frank.
“Whit’s the county coroner,” said Frank.
“Well, that makes everything convenient,” said Diane.
“Can I ask why you are interested?” he asked Diane.
“I’m a forensic anthropologist.”
“I see.” He looked at the sheriff. “Do you know where you want to look?”
“A site that was being used from about five to ten years ago,” answered Diane.
“Let’s see. I covered most of them up for Dad.”
“Do you have one that could have been visited by George Boone or his son, Jay?” asked Diane.
“Dad mentioned George was out here with his son a couple weeks ago for target practice. That’s just awful what happened to that family. Is this about them?”
“Maybe,” said Frank. He explained about the bone.
“There’s one place I had a hard time getting to. I just lightly covered it, so it might have eroded out. Let’s go take a look.” He hung his apron and hand towel on a post, and led them back out the fence. He looked at the sign as he was closing the gate and shook his head. “Some folks think that’s clever, but I told Dad it looks like an invitation to me. Let’s go in my Jeep.”
It was a bumpy ride down an infrequently used dirt road. The sheriff rode in front beside Whit. Diane and Frank rode in back, which made the ride for her even more like a buckboard. The rough ride through the woods was too much like the ride through the jungle. Diane gripped the seat until her fingers cramped. When they stopped with a lurch, Diane thought she would throw up her scant breakfast.
“You OK?” whispered Frank.
Diane nodded, but accepted his help in getting out of the vehicle.
“We have to walk from here,” said Whit. He sprayed himself with bug spray and tossed the can to Diane. “Lot of deer ticks in the woods, not to mention mosquitoes.”
After the four of them sprayed themselves, they set out through the woods. The North Georgia woods are quite different from the jungles of the Amazon and Diane found herself missing it. The rain forest is far more dense and so green, lush and full of oxygen it made Diane happy just to be breathing. The trees are tall, with leaves big enough to curl up in. The thick rain forest canopy doesn’t let much wind down to the understory, so the stillness there is palpable.
Here a breeze fluttered the leaves and ruffled Diane’s short hair. The smell of insect repellent traveled with them and masked the natural scents of the forest. As the trail became more overgrown, the woods threatened to become as thick as the jungle, and Diane was glad she had dressed for it. Shortly, they came to another dirt road intersecting the path they were on.
“We keep going on this overgrown path,” said Whit, to Diane’s dismay.
She stopped in the middle of the road. “Where does this road go?”
“From the main road to the upper pasture. We use it to bring in hay.”
“How long has it been here?” asked Diane.
“Couple of years for the part leading to the pasture. That’s when Dad bought the new land. It used to turn here and go back to the house.”
“So at one time it went to your house but not the pasture?”
“That’s right.”
“They got lost,” said Diane, looking up and down the road.
“Who?” asked the sheriff and Whit together.
“The intruders. They were looking for the way to the dump site, but the terrain has changed since they were last here, and in the dark they couldn’t see this overgrown path. They didn’t know the new road leads to the pasture. That’s why they disturbed the cows.”
“You pretty sure there’s going to be a body up ahead?” asked Whit.
“No. Maybe just a wild goose,” said Diane.
Whit grinned and led the way through the thick brush. The trail was interrupted by a large gully about fifteen feet deep with a stream flowing in the bottom.
“There used to be a earth bridge and culvert here,” said Whit, “but it got washed away last spring.”
“How do we get across?” asked the sheriff.
“There’s an easier way down the bank down yonder.”
As they were discussing the easiest way to descend to the bottom, Diane scrutinized the walls of the ravine. It was solid rock face with jagged cracks caused by roots and weather. She positioned her pack on her back, stooped down and eased herself over the side and climbed down using the cracks in the rock face for hand-and footholds. She was crossing the narrow creek when they noticed her. Frank and Whit looked at Diane then at each other with that “now we have to do what she did or look like a wimp” look.
“Which way did you say is easier?” asked the sheriff.
“Down the bank about a hundred yards. There’s a kind of path down to the bottom,” said Whit before he and Frank began climbing down the side.
As they were descending, Diane started up the other side. This side wasn’t a rock face like the other, but there were large boulders and rocks weathering out of the surface. She climbed, testing each rock before she put her full weight on it, pulling herself up. On top she waited for Whit and Frank. When they reached the top she held out a hand to help each of them up on the bank.
“You do that real well,” said Whit.
