“Or maybe they just shot him because his name was Ray-Ray and they got tired of saying it over and over again. Who would name their child Ray-Ray?” David threw up his hands.
“Have you been able to separate any of the footprints connected with Marcella’s attack from the later ones that were left when we were attacked?”
“I have several prints on top of one another. I think most of the secondary prints were from the paramedics and Jonas Briggs. Izzy collected the shoe prints of the paramedics, so we have those, and I got Jonas to give me his. I’ve got the computer working on separating the images. I don’t hold out a lot of hope. There’s a lot of smearing. So far, the boot prints I told you about earlier are the only ones we’ve found that are clear enough to match with a specific shoe-if we find the shoe.”
“Where is Neva on her search of the courthouse records?” said Diane.
“I don’t know. She had to go out on a couple of murders over in Jackson County. She’s working on the courthouse project between jobs,” he said.
“What do you have here?” Diane gestured toward the map.
“Aerial maps taken in the area over the years. I’m looking for some common points we can mark with stakes. We’re going to do an overlay when we get the data on the chemical makeup of the soil and see what ground features correlate with what chemical characteristics. Too bad we don’t have any infrared photos.”
“It looks like you have everything under control,” she said.
“It’s coming along. Hope we don’t have any more surprise intruders,” he said. “I got backup just in case. A couple of patrolmen wanted to earn overtime for the holidays coming up. It’s all working out for everyone,” David said.
“I met one of them coming in. They seem to have a plan for securing the property,” said Diane.
“I walked them over the area when they got here,” David told her.
It seemed to Diane that everything was going well here. If she hurried, she could make it home before it got too late to call Kingsley to fill him in on the latest about the three women from Gainesville. It would be interesting to see if he was as suspicious as she was about them.
“I’ll be going,” she said. “Call if you need me for anything.”
“Will do.” He grinned. “By the way, one of the things Paloma wanted was a copy of our research design for her mother. Seems Marcella is very excited about it. I never knew we had so many people around who are data wonks like I am.”
“Yes, it’s a scary thought, isn’t it?” she said. “Who would have imagined-”
Diane was cut short by a loud cry coming out of the darkness.
Chapter 33
David and Diane jerked around and stared into the dark in the direction the cry came from.
“David! Help me! It’s Hector, help! Oh jeez, help!”
Scott was perhaps two hundred feet from them. The lighting hadn’t quite illuminated that far and all that was visible of him was a dim reflection of light from his lab suit and his face. He was kneeling on the ground in heavy undergrowth.
Diane hadn’t heard a gunshot. That’s what she’d feared. She and David ran toward Scott, jumping and skipping over piles of rocks and broken concrete, trying not to get tangled in the string, or trip over the stakes. Out of the corner of her eye Diane saw the bobbing flashlight of one of the policemen running through the woods in their direction.
“He’s hurt,” said Scott as they drew near.
“How?” asked Diane, breathing hard from the obstacle course she had just run.
“Hector was standing here. There was a noise, and he suddenly threw up his hands and just disappeared,” he said.
“Scott, what do you mean?” asked David.
“Hector, can you hear me?” yelled Scott.
Diane heard a groan. She looked down at her feet and saw that she was standing on the edge of a wide, dark cylindrical hole in the ground, maybe six feet in diameter. Hector was somewhere below in deep shadow.
She knelt beside Scott, feeling in her pockets for a flashlight.
“Anyone have a light?” she asked.
“No,” said David. “Damn. I don’t. One of the policemen is coming. He has one.”
“Oh jeez, Hector, say something,” said Scott.
Diane put a hand on Scott’s arm. “Stay calm. We’ll get him out.”
“What is this? Some kind of animal trap?” said Scott. “Who would do this?”
“It’s an abandoned well,” said Diane.
The patrolman had arrived and shined his light down into the opening.
“Well, hell,” he said.
The bad news was Hector was lying at the bottom of the well. One leg was bent under him. Rotten boards and dirt half covered him. The good news was he was not far down-about ten, maybe twelve feet. Not far at all. But Diane worried about the walls of the well.
She took the flashlight from the policeman and handed him her keys.
“Go to my SUV. In the back is a bag with a rope in it and a backpack. Bring them. Hurry. And call the paramedics.”
He nodded and headed off immediately through the dark in the direction of the driveway. Diane shined the light down the hole at Hector.
“Hector, can you hear me?” she said.
He moved. “Yeah. What the shit is this?” he said. His voice had a pissed-off, whiney tone, but it sounded strong.
“You fell down an old well,” said Diane. “We’re going to get you out. I need to know how you are. Are you hurt?”
He moved and yelped. “I think my leg is broken,” he said.
“Just one?” Diane asked.
“Isn’t that enough?” he yelled back.
Diane and David briefly smiled at each other.
“Are you hurt anywhere else?” she asked.
“It’s kind of hard to tell. I’ll try to stand,” he said.
“Not yet. Stay still,” she said, a little too sharply.
“Why? What else is down here-snakes?”
“Hector’s afraid of snakes,” whispered Scott.
“I heard that,” yelled Hector.
“It’s a little too late for snakes. It’s too cold for them,” said David. “I think,” he added, under his breath.
“Okay,” Hector said. Then after a moment he asked, “Where do they hibernate?”
“Rock outcrops,” said David. “In the cracks. Not here.”
Diane suspected David was spinning Hector a yarn. She didn’t think he knew anything about snakes.
As David spoke to Hector, Diane examined the well with the flashlight. The debris piled around and on top of Hector indicated the well had been capped with a wooden platform that was covered in dirt and leaves with grass and briars growing over it. The rotten wood had collapsed under Hector’s weight when he inadvertently stepped on top of it, not knowing it was there.
The sides of the well were lined with varied sizes of chis eled stone blocks held in place with very old mortar. The mortar had cracks and looked weathered. Sections had already crumbled and other blocks looked ready to fall. There was no way to know what kind of stress might make the walls collapse. But they had to do something.
Besides Diane, there were David, Scott, and two policemen. Enough to pull Hector out. More than enough. She guessed it would take only three of them for a vertical pull-maybe four, depending on Hector’s weight.
“How much does Hector weigh?” Diane asked Scott.
