Paradise Valley (Highway Quartet #4)

“How is that even possible?” she asked. She deliberately didn’t say, without a head?

“I’ve got some thoughts on that,” he said. “But I want to see if you come to the same conclusion on your own. The DCI boys didn’t seem to think much of my theory. They were operating under the impression that the victim was killed somewhere else and dumped out there somehow. They thought whoever did it dragged the body out there while the ground was frozen and didn’t leave tracks.”

She nodded for him to go on.

“How the victim could leave tracks but the killer didn’t makes no sense to me even if it had gotten below freezing the night before—which it did. But those Missoula boys think they know it all sometimes.

“This one’s rough,” he said, showing her a close-up photo of the victim’s neck and shoulders. After a split-second glance she deliberately focused on the upper right corner of the photo so she couldn’t see it again. But she couldn’t un-see it.

“The decapitation is unusual,” Verplank said. “The head isn’t cut off with a knife or hacked off with an ax. It was blown off. See the singeing of the skin? See how the edge of the flesh is discolored?

“At first I thought, given the distance from the road, that somebody took a shot at this poor guy with a high-powered weapon. But in all my years I’ve never seen a head get blown clean off by a bullet no matter how big the gun was.

“So what do you think?” he asked.

He paused while she thought.

“It doesn’t seem to make sense that he was dragged there but no footprints were found,” she said.

“Exactly,” he said. Then: “I was in the Army during Operation Desert Shield when we had Saddam’s forces on the run. I saw more bodies along the Road of Death than I ever care to see again. I saw men who’d been burned, decapitated, and mutilated. We found four Iraqi soldiers—deserters, we figured—who’d been buried up to their waists in the sand and killed by close range cannon fire from Saddam’s tanks. I remember one guy in particular who was shot point-blank in the face from a cannon. His head was blown clean off his body. Just like this,” he said, tapping the photo in front of Cassie.

“So you’re thinking he was killed by a cannon?” she asked, trying to keep the skepticism out of her voice.

“No, of course not. But maybe an RPG, a rocket-propelled grenade fired from the road. Maybe the explosive charge detonated on impact. It would be a tough shot—fifty yards—but not impossible for someone who was trained.”

Cassie sat back in the chair. The sheriff was merciful and retrieved the photo and put it back into his folder while she did.

“There would be additional injury to the shoulders and upper body,” she said. “A grenade wouldn’t work that cleanly.”

“I concede that and I don’t have an explanation for it.”

“What other evidence was gathered in the field?”

He shrugged. “Pretty much nothing.”

“They didn’t sift the dirt around the victim to see what else might be present?”

“No.”

“So maybe there is evidence still out there?” she said.

He brightened. “Like maybe fragments from an RPG?” he said, nodding his head to indicate she was on the right track—or at least his right track.

“Something like that.”

Verplank got up and strode toward the interior window and rapped on it to get his deputy’s attention. When the deputy looked up the sheriff motioned for him to come in.

“I’ll have my deputy get a sifting screen from the hardware store and we can go out to that field before it gets dark,” he said to Cassie.

“Good. I’d like to see it. But while we wait for him can I see all the photos? Do you have any of the victim’s torso, the lower legs in particular?”

The sheriff looked at her with a squint. He obviously knew she was looking for something in particular she hadn’t revealed.

“There’s a missing boy back in Grimstad, an African American. He had a distinctive scar.”

“Ah,” he said, handing over the entire file.

As she riffled through it the deputy stuck his head in.

The sheriff said, “Go down to True Value and buy some furnace filters we can use as sifting screens. You know, for dirt.”

The deputy and sheriff got in a short discussion about what that meant until Verplank was able to convey what he wanted.

“Meet us out at the Wilson place where we found the victim,” he said.

Then to Cassie, “Are you finding what you’re looking for?”

She shook her head and closed the folder. “No. The incident report said he had a surgical scar on his lower left ankle. I was hoping for a clear shot of his ankles or lower legs that are close enough to see a scar. We could show it to the father of the missing boy.”

The only close photos she’d seen of the victim’s legs were at the wrong angle. The legs had been turned in and the ankles were in shadow.

“Sorry,” the sheriff said. “If I’d had any idea…”

“Could you check with DCI?” she asked. “Can you ask them to send us a good photo of the scar?”

“First thing tomorrow,” he said ruefully. “They’re state employees. They go home at five.”

“Also, please ask them to send the DNA results to…” Her voice trailed off.

“To where?” the sheriff asked.

To where? She couldn’t have them sent to the Bakken County Sheriff’s Department where she no longer worked, where they’d likely be mishandled or relegated to the bottom of a pile.

Maybe Minneapolis, where Raheem’s father was located? But that would mean asking Clyde Johnson to produce materials that might contain his son’s DNA. It would be traumatic. And she wasn’t yet prepared to make that request of him. Not until she had more to go on.

“I’m not sure yet,” she confessed. “I’m at a real loss here doing this as a private citizen. Let me think on it. But please ask them to be prepared to send the DNA results … somewhere.”





CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

THE SUN BALLOONED OVER the flat western horizon. As deep shadows formed in the furrows from the setting sun and the deputy palmed loose dirt onto the screen and sifted it, Cassie studied the location. From Verplank’s detailed description, she could imagine where a vehicle had been on the road and in her mind she could see the victim running across the field to where they where now.

There were no ranch houses or structures in sight. It was unlikely anyone could have seen what happened that day unless they were driving along the highway at just the right time. The sheriff confirmed that no one had reported seeing anything unusual on the highway that day.

Cassie and the sheriff designated a twenty-foot grid around where the body had been found. On his hands and knees, the deputy sifted through the churned-up dirt with the screen.

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