That’s where his mind goes first. What animal could have done this? I’m thinking of the humans who’d been nearby. Especially when I notice that a large branch has been dragged over the disturbed earth, in a pitiable attempt to hide the digging.
So what could Conrad or his informant have buried? A notebook with additional resident backgrounds? That’s my guess. Whoever contacted Conrad has more stories, and they realized—with the police already searching Conrad’s residence—nowhere in town is safe for that information. Stick it in a box and bury it.
Jacob pulls off the branch, and I immediately see my mistake.
I see how big this patch of disturbed earth is.
I drop to my knees and start digging. “Get back to Rockton, Jacob. I’m going to need a shovel. And Eric. Bring Eric quickly, please.”
“There’s a shovel here,” he says, walking back with one in his hands. “I saw the glint of it. Do you want me to dig while you get Eric?”
There’s a calm in his voice. The calm of innocence. He hasn’t figured out what I have, only that I want something dug up rather urgently.
I’m about to tell him to give me the shovel, when my digging fingers touch flesh. Warm flesh.
I claw at the dirt, pushing it away as fast as I can, pale skin appearing between the dark clods. An arm. A still-warm arm. I brush madly now, up higher, aiming for the face. Instead I get a throat. And my fingers feel something else. Movement. A pulse.
“Shit!” I say. “He’s still alive.”
“W-what?”
Jacob steps closer, and I glance up just in time to see his eyes widen as he realizes I’ve uncovered a person. He drops on the other side and starts digging.
“His face,” I say. “Help me find his face. Clear his airways.”
It’s a man. That’ll all I know, from the arm. I’ve already found his head, and it takes a moment to be sure he’s faceup. Jacob grabs the man’s shoulders and yanks, pulling him upright out of the dirt. There’s a danger in that—if the man’s spine was injured—but Jacob doesn’t know better, and under the circumstances, it’s the right choice. We don’t know how long this man has been buried. How long he hasn’t been able to breathe.
The man is sitting up now, as limp as a rag doll, with Jacob supporting him. Damp earth clings to the man’s face. As I brush it off, my brain insists I know who this is. Yes, I do. I just need to be sure. One last swipe, and I am.
It’s Conrad.
TWELVE
I keep clearing the dirt from Conrad’s face, faster now, my heart thudding. There are no residents I wouldn’t frantically try to save, no matter what they’d done. I do not need more deaths on my conscience, and I would never want to look back and question whether I really did all I could.
I’m also suddenly very aware of how it will look if he dies. Residents won’t care who buried this man alive. They’ll only know that I found him and failed to save him and maybe, just maybe, that was revenge for what he did to Anders.
One advantage to Conrad’s upright position is that I’m not fighting gravity to clear his airways. I lean him forward, face tilted down. Then I open his mouth and hook a finger inside. Nothing falls out, and my hand comes back clean. That means he hadn’t woken up under the earth, clawing and gasping. A small mercy there. He’s unconscious now and has been since someone dumped him into a very shallow grave.
“There’s blood on the back of his head,” Jacob says.
I nod and hope it’s not too curt. At this point, injuries are irrelevant. The man isn’t breathing. That’s all that counts.
“I need him on his back,” I say.
Jacob helps me get Conrad into position. I bend over the unconscious man and begin rescue breathing. I get maybe a half dozen breaths in when Conrad convulses and sputters. His head jerks, as if he’s trying to get upright, but it’s only a cough. His eyes stay closed.
“He’s breathing,” Jacob says. “That’s a start, right?”
I nod. “Can you run to town and get help? Please?”
He rises. “Your sister and Eric, right?”
“And a couple of strong residents with a stretcher. Tell Eric we have an unconscious victim in need of emergency attention. He’ll know what to do.”
* * *
With Jacob gone, I put Storm on watch. I’ll be too focused on Conrad and the scene to notice if there’s trouble, and out here, trouble could be anything from a curious bear to whoever failed to kill Conrad.
My sister will remind me that “failed” is a premature judgment. I don’t know what his injuries are. I do a quick assessment on that right away.
As Jacob said, there’s a wound on the back of Conrad’s head. A wide and shallow dent, high on his skull. When I check, I find a second strike lower down. Hit from behind. He falls to his knees and then comes the killing blow.
It’s supposed to be a killing blow. It is not. Did it render him unconscious and his killer said “good enough”? Dug a shallow trench and covered him up to let nature take its course? Or did they think he was dead? Either way, it was a spectacularly half-assed job, like covering the footprints and burial site.
A half-assed job that still would have killed him. It’d have been tomorrow before we realized Conrad was gone, and even then, we wouldn’t have rushed a search, presuming he fled after being tipped off that I knew he was behind the sign posting. We’d have eventually found this shallow grave, but by then, he’d be dead, any evidence gone.
Speaking of evidence …
We have a shovel. That suggests premeditated murder. There wasn’t enough time for the killer to fetch it from Rockton after knocking Conrad out. This wasn’t a supporter wanting to help the cause. Someone wanted Conrad stopped.
Stopped before their own secrets were revealed?
Lure Conrad into the woods. Hit him over the head. Have the hole pre-dug with a shovel brought for that purpose. Bury him, cover it up, and accidentally leave the shovel behind.
When I find blood on the shovel, I start cursing myself. I almost used the murder weapon to dig out the murder victim. Of course, at the time, all I was thinking was that someone was buried here, and I needed to get them out.
Technically, it’s a spade. All-metal construction. Definitely Rockton issue. From the wound, the killer hit with the spade part. The second strike had been focused on power rather than aim, and there’s a cut in Conrad’s scalp where the edge bit in.
Hit twice with the spade. No other obvious wounds. Those two are nasty enough, and it’s a miracle he didn’t die of that second blow. Whoever hit him used all their force to do it.
With my flashlight out now, I see drag marks in the dirt. He’d been struck close to the hole. Had he noticed it? Come to investigate and been struck from behind?
That’s all I have for now. Partial footprints. A possible scenario. The murder weapon. And a living murder victim, who can hopefully recover and point his finger at his killer, and all this will be supporting data only.