He ducked under the yellow police tape and began walking up the small hill to the side of the road. I grunted as I got out of the car, paused to catch my breath and allow the pain to subside, and started walking toward him. We met halfway.
“Sergeant.” I held out my hand. “Always in the middle of things.”
We shook. “Never thought I’d be calling you for help, but”—Schmitty paused and looked back at the woods—“figured we owed you a heads-up after kicking your ass the other night.”
I looked at him sharply. “Not funny.”
“Nope, not funny at all, but at least they didn’t shoot and plant a gun on you.” It could’ve been a joke, but I didn’t think it was.
Schmitty wiped the sweat from his forehead, and we began to walk back to the small break in the woods where he had emerged. “I also figured you’d be getting the call soon enough about this,” he said. “Thought you might be willing to share any information with us, maybe do me a favor with the vic’s family.”
I shrugged. “Don’t know how much help I’ll be, but I’ll tell you what I know.”
When we got to the police tape, Schmitty ducked under the yellow line and then held it up for me to follow. It hurt to bend, but I tried to hide the pain.
As soon as we were in the woods, the temperature seemed to drop fifteen degrees. The trees were tall, nothing but shade. Even though it was now the end of August, there were no signs that fall would ever come.
Schmitty walked ahead, pointing around us. “Got the area secure. Tech did the initial run through, pictures and all that. The forensic chick from the university just left, but I’m wondering if we need to expand the scope.”
This confused me, but I didn’t say anything. The scene looked plenty big for one dead body.
We walked another fifty yards and then stopped. Schmitty pointed at the ground. “See that?”
I looked down. My eyes had adjusted to the darker space, and I saw a small tire track in the dirt about three feet away. There were two little yellow flags marking the spot.
I looked up, and when I didn’t say anything, Schmitty filled in the blank. “Wheelbarrow.” He turned and started walking again. “We figure he killed them pretty quick, as soon as they got out of the car or truck or whatever he was driving.” Schmitty looked around. “Already dead when he got them back here. Must’ve loaded them into the wheelbarrow and took them into the clearing.”
“Why are you saying them? Thought you just found Devon Walker.”
Schmitty shook his head. “Afraid not.”
We rounded a small outcropping of rock, and then I saw the clearing. At least nine bodies were partially excavated from the dirt, each marked with little yellow flags.
Schmitty pointed. “Your kid is over there, on the far side.” Schmitty wiped his nose and then waved away the gnats circling his head. “He’s one of the fresher pieces of meat.”
We walked around two bodies. “Takes about a month to go from flesh to bone, unless they were buried in the winter.” Schmitty paused for a moment, waiting for a question like a tour guide in a museum. When I said nothing, he continued narrating what we were seeing. “Think these were some of the early ones.” He pointed. “Removed the clothes and buried them naked. Also yanked out the teeth, so dental records won’t help.”
He stopped so I could look, then started walking again. “Later, I figure the perp stopped doing that, maybe too messy or maybe it took too long, or maybe he just got more confident.” He pointed at another two bodies. “With these he started leaving the clothes on and they got to keep their teeth.”
Schmitty stopped in front of a wheelbarrow and shovel. “This is what we think left that track back there.” He smiled. “Know what you’re thinking. Brilliant police work back there, right?” He emitted a little laugh, then picked one of the tech’s flashlights up off the ground. “Guy had a system.” He took a pair of glasses with orange lenses out of his pocket. “I say guy because it’s almost unheard of for a woman to do something like this. Women aren’t this cold. They kill for money or freedom, not this kind of stuff.”
Schmitty handed the glasses to me and then pointed the flashlight at the wheelbarrow.
As I put the glasses on, I realized that it wasn’t a normal flashlight. It was a black light, and it bathed the inside of the wheelbarrow in a blue light.
Big and small splotches appeared all over its surface.
“See that?”
I nodded.
“Dried blood.” Schmitty turned off the black light, and the splotches on the wheelbarrow disappeared. “That’s some of the only good news we found out here.” He set the tech’s light back on the ground, and I took off the orange glasses. “Should be able to get some DNA and maybe make some matches. Might even find some of the perpetrator’s DNA. Who knows? Depends on how hard the victims fought.”
I handed the glasses back to Schmitty. Then he led me to an area about ten feet from the other bodies. “We think this one is yours.”
I looked down at the body.
It didn’t look like much. A dead body deflates over time. What remained of Devon Walker was not so much a body as a pile of clothes and bone, caked with mud.
“How’d you get the ID so quick?”
“Utilized an old police trick.” Schmitty looked toward the heavens and placed his hands together in prayer. “Divine intervention combined with dumb luck.” He picked up a long stick and pointed to a pile on the side. “See that?”
I knelt and looked a little closer. “Jeans?”
“Correct,” Schmitty said. “But more specifically, it was what we found in the back pocket of those jeans that helped us out.” He backed away. “Because of budgets, a lot of schools in the city don’t bus themselves anymore. The era of the yellow school bus is over. They issue all the high school students these plastic cards for the city bus. We pulled the card from the back pocket and could still make out the barcode numbers.” He shrugged. “Made a call to the school, they looked up the number, and that’s how we got the name.”
“Might not be him, though,” I said. “Wasn’t exactly an academic.”
Schmitty nodded. “True. We’ll run the DNA and other stuff, but still, it feels right. A lot of kids just show up for the first day of school to get the bus card and never come back, and he’s been missing for the right amount of time for the condition of the body.”
“Doesn’t explain all this.” I looked around at the other piles of bone surrounded by flags.
“Nope,” Schmitty said. “Sure don’t explain it all, but having one of them ID’d sure helps.” He crouched down again, near the side of Devon Walker’s body, and pointed. “See that?”
“I think so.” I edged closer, looking. It appeared to be a narrow band of white plastic.