“I’m really not sure this is the sort of thing people will want to see . . . ,” I began.
“Abbie, darling, do you have any idea how many newspapers Jack the Ripper has sold in the past five years? The masses love a gruesome mutilation. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll have nightmares for a week—ick—but this is gold! You don’t mind a few quick photographs, do you?”
I glanced back to Jackaby. “It’s fine,” he answered, “as long as she keeps her distance and doesn’t interfere. Make sure she doesn’t go touching all the evidence.”
“Make sure she doesn’t go touching the scraps of blood and gore that used to be a sweet little baby goat?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Jackaby frankly. “That.”
“I think I can resist the temptation, Detective,” Nellie called. “Is your boss always so sentimental when he’s working?”
“Oh, he cares very much,” I said. “He just doesn’t show it with—you know—emotions.”
“They’re overrated, anyway.” Nellie clicked open the legs of the tripod and nestled it into the mossy soil.
“What’s that, Mr. Barker?” Jackaby was saying. I turned to look.
Charlie held out a little handful of what looked like honey-colored hairs. “I’m not entirely sure. What do you make of them?” Jackaby took them and held them up to the light.
“Fur. Not goat. Not bear or wolf. Maybe wildcat?” Jackaby pinched them between his fingers and squinted at them. “Wait a moment,” he said. “There are two different materials here. I would wager the first is from whatever beast took apart Brisbee’s goat—but the other’s not fur at all. Fibers of some sort.”
I looked around where Charlie had found the samples. A shallow line had been rubbed near the base of the tree. “From a length of twine or rope?” I suggested.
Charlie followed my gaze and leaned closer to inspect it. “There are more fibers dug into the bark. She’s right. Do you think the goat was tied here?”
“An offering?” Jackaby speculated.
Charlie shrugged.
“Very traditional choice, a goat,” my employer mused. “Downright biblical. Wrong time of year for it, though. Historically the sacrifice of the scapegoat is a fall tradition.”
“Is it possible,” I suggested, “that the kid was less of a ritual sacrifice and more of a baited trap?” Charlie and Jackaby both looked up at me. “Because I happen to know a man who’s pretty good at traps and who was definitely out and about in these woods last night.” I could tell my theory was not a bit too wild for either of them.
“Smile for the camera!” Nellie sang out.
Charlie looked away as the grisly grove filled with a burst of white light. “Okay, give me a moment and we’ll take another just to be sure.” Nellie smiled blithely as she pulled the plate out of the camera, tucking it into a slim tin case and clicking it shut. She hummed to herself as she carefully popped the cork from a little silver tube of flash powder and began to reload the lamp.
Hank Hudson did not look the least bit put out by my suggestion that the baby goat had been part of a trap, when we intercepted his cart on the road a few minutes later. “I like the way you think, little lady!” he said. “Was it a real healthy tree, good bend to it?”
“I don’t know—I suppose so.” I hadn’t been quite sure what to expect from the trapper, but he seemed oddly enthusiastic about the notion as he climbed down from the cart and trekked with us back to the site of the slaughter.
“How high up was the rope you found?”
“Not high at all,” I replied. “Just off the ground.”
“Hmm, well, that ain’t no snare trap, then.”
We reached the scene, and Hudson grimaced at the remains. “Somebody’s a messy eater. Told y’all to watch yerselves out here.”