A Murder In Passing (2 page)

After about ten minutes, I intersected a small creek. I pulled some pebbles from the bed and stacked them as a marker where I should turn downhill on my return. Then I hiked along the stream's edge, thinking the moisture evaporating off the running water might be conducive to mushroom growth. I kept my eyes downward, looking for fallen logs or the base of a dead tree.

My methods weren't without results, but none of the fungi resembled the mushrooms in my basket. A few looked like the cute ones dancing around in Walt Disney's
Fantasia
, but I didn't know if they were edible. I wasn't taking any chances. Maybe I was Chicken of the Woods after all.

Then, across the stream and on a slight rise, a shaft of sunlight illuminated a patch of orange, its brilliance sharp against the muted greens and browns of the forest. An end of a large log nearly three feet in diameter was covered in mushrooms identical to the ones Nakayla had picked. If I were in a movie, the soundtrack would have swelled with an angelic chorus.

Without bothering to seek a shallower crossing, I splashed through the creek, never taking my eyes from the treasure trove. Part of me thought how ridiculous I was to be racing to a rotten log. The mushrooms weren't going anywhere. But the competitive side of me already envisioned the envious stares of the club members when I showed up in the pasture with my overflowing basket. And then there was Nakayla. As student, I wanted to best my teacher, and the sooner I harvested these, the sooner I could press on in search of more.

But, I forgot my world was different since Iraq. I'd grown so comfortable with my prosthesis that I bounded up the hill as if on my own two legs. Now only one had feeling all the way to the soles of my feet. So, I didn't sense the toe of my left boot catch under a surface root. I stumbled like a running back tripped by a defender's shoestring tackle. My momentum pitched me forward, and, instinctively, I dropped the basket and thrust out my arms to break my fall. My hands mauled the bounteous layers of orange and then broke through the log until my arms plunged into its hollow interior up to my shoulders.

For a second, I lay stunned amid the mushroom carnage. My first thought was, “Did anybody see me?” Chicken of the Woods would be a label of honor compared to the new nicknames my tumble could inspire.

I pushed down, trying to get some leverage to lift myself up. Both hands pushed against something hard, like a stick buried within the log. I rose enough to be able to turn on my left side and wrench my right arm free. Then I used that arm as a brace against a more solid section of the log and pulled the left free.

I rolled over, my back to the log, and looked at the front of my chest. The remains of Sulfur Shelf were smeared across my shirt, its spongy mass now the consistency of day-old road kill. In a mushroom handbook, I'd be the chapter entitled “What to Eat and How to Wear It.”

I caught my breath a moment and then turned around to see if anything was worth saving. My attack on the log left a gaping hole. The fallen tree had withstood heat, cold, rain, snow, insects, and even mushrooms, but it was no match for Sam Blackman.

I started to get up when I noticed my whistle had torn free from my buttonhole. I checked the ground at the base of the log. Nothing. The whistle had probably been stripped off when I crashed through the outer shell of wood.

I approached the hole from an angle so as not to block the narrow shaft of sunlight. Sure enough, the silver whistle gleamed in the dark hollow of the log where it had come to rest. Come to rest in the chest cavity of a human skeleton.

In the Kingdom of the Happy Land, someone had not lived happily ever after.

Chapter Two

Nakayla and I watched Henderson County Deputy Sidney Overcash poke his flashlight into the recesses of the hollow log. He made a clucking sound with his tongue.

“The lab boys are going to love this.” He reached inside with his empty hand.

“Shouldn't we wait?” I asked. “You're disturbing the scene.”

Overcash looked over his shoulder. “I ain't touching the remains. I want to look at the wood.” He pulled up a section of the log I'd knocked free. “Hmmmm.” He held the chunk close to his eyes, making a show of his detecting skills.

Nakayla and I had crossed paths with Deputy Overcash before when we'd been drawn into an investigation of a woman's death on Carl Sandburg's farm. In that case, jurisdiction fell to the National Park Rangers since Sandburg's home was a national park site. Overcash resented being shut out. I was sure he thought he would have unmasked the killer. The fact that Nakayla and I had broken the case rubbed salt in his wounded ego.

“Interesting,” Overcash said.

I refused to bite. Nakayla looked at me and smiled. She understood the deputy's little game.

“What is it?” The question came from the slim man standing behind us. Ed Bell, the owner of the property.

After I'd extricated myself from the log, I'd hurried back to Nakayla's rendezvous spot, blowing my whistle with every exhalation. We returned to the pasture and found club president Donnie Nettles. He notified the Sheriff's Department and property owner Bell.

Then he whistled in the mushroom hunters and told them I'd discovered a skeleton many years old and the authorities had been summoned. There was no cause for alarm, but in light of the developments, the outing was cancelled.

Ed Bell arrived a few minutes ahead of Deputy Overcash. I pegged him for a youthful sixty-five. His pale face signaled he was clearly shaken by the prospect that someone died on his property.

With Overcash's permission, Bell had joined us as I led the deputy to the scene. Donnie Nettles had wanted to accompany us, but the deputy insisted everyone except Bell, Nakayla, and me should leave the location.

“May I see?” Ed Bell asked his second question, tentatively stepping closer to the log.

“Stay back.” Overcash raised his hand like he was halting traffic. “Mr. Blackman's correct about not contaminating the crime scene.” He gave me a pointed stare. “Although I have jurisdiction here.”

“I don't know about that.” Bell made the statement with such authority that even Overcash was surprised.

“What do you mean? I think this man was murdered.” He held up the piece of wood. “It's charred on the inside. Someone could have burned him alive.” Overcash seemed giddy at the prospect.

Bell waved his hand dismissively. “That's probably from the lightning that killed the tree over seventy years ago. Before I was born. Red cedar with the top blown out of it. It was dead and blackened when I was a boy. Didn't topple over till 1954 when Hurricane Hazel hit the state. Even up here we felt her wrath.”

Deputy Overcash looked at his now worthless evidence and dropped it on the ground. “Well, I don't care if this guy got stuck in the log trying to get out of the rain, until we know for sure, I'm treating it as a homicide.” Overcash turned to me as if expecting a rebuttal.

I nodded in agreement. “The deputy's right, Mr. Bell. It is a crime scene.”

“I understand.” He pointed to a tree alongside us. “See those markings?”

For the first time, I noticed broad swipes of red paint tagging the trunk of a nearby oak.

“That's the state line,” Bell said. “Deputy Overcash is standing in South Carolina with his jurisdiction on the other side of that tree.”

The deputy's mouth dropped open. He stared down at the broken surface of the hollow log and then at the paint-smeared trunk. “But the base of the log's in North Carolina.”

“I don't think our mystery victim crawled into the tree while it was still standing,” I said. “Otherwise he'd be closer to the roots.”

“Maybe he used the hollow part at the top for a deer stand,” Overcash said.

“Interesting hunting style,” Nakayla said. “He'd have been hanging upside down.”

I couldn't stifle a laugh. Overcash's face went as red as the tree paint.

Ed Bell paced off the distance from the skeleton to the state line. “We're only twelve feet over. And the easiest access is from North Carolina.” He turned to Overcash. “Frankly, if people are going to be traipsing across my property, I'd rather deal with the Henderson County Sheriff's Department.”

Overcash looked at me. I understood his problem and felt a small degree of sympathy. Jurisdiction had to be established so that if a prosecution case was ever mounted, there would be no confusion as to which state's laws had been violated.

“You're an officer of the court,” I said.

Overcash nodded. He knew once Bell had pointed out the border he couldn't pretend otherwise. “I'll radio it in and they'll contact the Greenville County Sheriff's Department.”

“Hold up a second,” I said. “Have you got gloves?”

“Yeah.”

“Maybe you should at least look for an ID. Might be a North Carolina resident.” I looked to Bell. “You said this was the easier way in.”

“That's right.”

“So, the deceased might be a relative of someone Deputy Overcash is sworn to serve and would have to notify.”

“That's right,” the deputy said. “I would. And how accurate is that tree-marking anyway?”

Bell shrugged. “Can't say. It's not like they staked off the boundary. The tree was probably the sturdiest structure near it.”

“Okay.” The arrogance disappeared from Overcash's voice.

I stepped forward. “I'll hold the flashlight so you'll have both hands free. Less likely you'll knock something amiss.”

Overcash smiled. “I couldn't do any worse than you did.”

“Touché,” Nakayla chimed in.

While Overcash gloved, I knelt on the opposite side of the log and played the light over the interior. Water had long since rotted or mildewed any clothing away. I didn't see any leather remains near the pelvic bones, although a small billfold might be beneath a hip. If the log hadn't rolled over during some time in the past, then the deceased had crawled in on his back. Or he'd been pushed inside by a person or persons unknown. I angled the beam toward the skull. I couldn't see any hair. Perhaps it had been too short for remains to be visible or some woodland creature had carried the hair away for a nest.

“See anything?” Overcash asked.

I moved back to give him room. “No. I was looking for jewelry or rings that might have identifiable engravings.”

“Could you have pushed anything into the rotten wood underneath?”

“I don't think so. My hands landed on a thigh bone. Felt like a stick. The only other thing I touched was my whistle. It landed at the base of the rib cage.”

“Okay.” Overcash knelt across from me. “I'm just going to do a pass along each side without moving anything. Maybe we'll get lucky.”

I slid toward the lower extremities and shot the beam up the length of the skeleton. Overcash's arms blocked most of the light, and I knew he was navigating by sense of touch more than sight.

A few minutes passed accompanied only by the sound of our breathing.

Then Overcash froze. “Hello. What's this?” He pulled his arms out carefully.

In the broad, grimy palm of his gloved left hand lay a small mushroom-shaped mound. It wasn't edible and it wasn't in any of our guidebooks. Even through the coating of dirt I recognized the deformed slug of a high-powered rifle.

He and I both turned our heads to look at the paint-sprayed tree.

“I guess you'd better notify the Greenville Sheriff,” I said.

I wasn't sure whether we were in North Carolina or South Carolina, but I was certain the deputy and I knelt at the scene of a murder.

***

Nakayla and I drove along I-26 back to Asheville. The sun hung high overhead after the morning had been sacrificed to the consequences of my discovery. Deputy Overcash had insisted I remain at the scene to give my statement to his South Carolina counterparts. Maybe losing his jurisdictional squabble during our last encounter made him more conciliatory to other law enforcement agencies. Maybe the respect I showed him softened his tough-ass attitude.

I'd dealt with plenty of his kind in the army. Mid-career officers in their thirties who thought they knew more than they did. At some point, their arrogance tripped them up. To Overcash's credit, he'd stepped back and put the case first.

Two Greenville County deputies had examined the log. They agreed the victim probably came from the North Carolina side and, given the uncertainty of the state line, the three deputies decided the initial phase would be a joint investigation until their respective sheriffs worked out a more official approach. Meanwhile, the forensic team was coming from South Carolina.

I'd given my statement, left contact information with both law enforcement agencies, and wished them good luck. The case was colder than a glacier in the last Ice Age.

Nakayla patted my thigh. “I knew we were in trouble as soon as you asked Overcash if he had gloves.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we've gone four miles and you haven't said a word. You're driving on autopilot and your mind's back at the log.” She laughed. “Remember, curiosity killed the cat.”

“I know. I couldn't help myself. I wasn't concerned about the cat. I wanted to know what killed our new friend Mr. Bones.”

“So, what do you think about the bullet?”

I shrugged. “Looked like it hit a rib or clavicle. Probably soft-point. A hollow-point would have been more mangled. I'd say it was from a thirty-thirty or thirty-aught-six.”

“Deer rifle?”

“Most likely. The lab might get some rifling marks if the slug's not too damaged. But, unless the gun was used in another crime, there won't be any ballistics record.”

“It comes down to identifying the victim.”

I thought about Ed Bell's history of the lightning-damaged tree. “Yeah. Both departments should search through missing person reports from 1954 to the last year the Medical Examiner estimates the body had to begin decomposition in order to reach its present skeletal state.”

“You ever work a case like this in the army?”

“Not really. I was present when we uncovered some of the mass graves of Saddam Hussein's victims. There was nothing for me to solve.”

Neither Nakayla nor I spoke for a few minutes. She must have been thinking how the shock of finding one skeleton compared to viewing hundreds of bones from men, women, and children slaughtered by a ruthless tyrant.

I tried to lighten the mood. “So, other than falling face first into human remains, I'd say I did quite well as a mushroom hunter.”

“You certainly made an impression on the rest of the club.”

I took my right hand off the wheel and returned the pat on her thigh. “Did you expect anything less, partner?”

“I wish I could say yes, but I'd be lying.” She squeezed my hand. “You wish you were working the case, don't you?”

“I wish I could say no, but I'd be lying.”

“Maybe Deputy Overcash will hire us as consultants.”

“And maybe Duke and Carolina fans will join hands and sing Kumbaya at their next basketball game.”

“Stranger things have happened.”

I took my eyes of the road and stared at her. “Oh, yeah? Name one.”

She scowled. “Okay. Maybe the Carolina-Duke Kumbaya comes right after we're asked to investigate Mr. Bones.”

I turned my attention back to the highway. “Take my word for it, neither one will ever happen.”