Page 50 of Deputies Under Fire
Eden spotted two members of the bomb squad using a small robotic device to scan an area about ten yards behind the welcome sign. While they worked, the CSIs were searching the immediate area around the body.
Along with Dewey Galway, the ME, their two fellow deputies were next to Carter. A photographer was snapping pictures.
All the responders looked up, acknowledging Rory and her with nods and muttered greetings as they got out of the cruiser and made their way to the murdered man. The body was still sitting up, propped against the sign, but his shirt had been pulled up to expose his torso. At first, Eden didn’t see a message, only the blood and the stab wounds. But as she got closer, she spotted something.
The three numbers, 653.
“Mean anything to you?” the ME asked, looking up at them from his semistooped position over the body.
Eden repeated the numbers several times, but then shook her head. Rory did the same.
“I did a search of them on my phone,” Judson explained. “I think it could be part of an address. Or rather it used to be the first three numbers of the address for the Devil’s Hideout when it was still called a farm road.”
Eden groaned. The site of the first two murders. But with the barn now reduced to rubble by the IED, maybe the killer wanted to use some of the address numbers to connect the trio of dead bodies.
“But it could also be the number of a case file,” Judson went on. “I’m talking way back before any of our time on the force. Forty-three years ago,” he said, reading notes from his phone. “Mellie and Frank Mott, who were both sixteen at the time, fileda report of someone firing a shot into the barn when they were inside it.”
Eden was sure she gave him a blank look because this was the first she was hearing of such an incident. “A shooting at the Devil’s Hideout barn?”
Judson nodded. “Of course, it wasn’t called that back then, and apparently, Frank was working there as a part-time hand after school.”
“So was Mellie, according to Frank,” Eden remarked. “I’m guessing she was there for work?”
“It doesn’t say, and the deputy who wrote the report, Cliff Marquez, died more than a decade ago,” Judson explained. “But from the impression I get, I think Mellie and Frank must have been dating or just been friends, and she met him there after school. Someone fired a shot into the barn, but they never found out who, and in his notes Cliff didn’t speculate as to who might have done it.”
Eden looked at Rory to see if this was ringing any bells. Obviously, it wasn’t. “I’ll call Aileen later,” he said, referring to his former boss, retired Sheriff Aileen Granger, who was Grace’s mother.
Even though the incident had happened decades ago, Aileen was still as sharp as a tack and would almost certainly recall a shooting. She might even be able to speculate as to whether or not it was playing into the current murders.
They would also need to talk to Frank. And Eden was already dreading it. The man was uncooperative, and this wasn’t going to improve things. However, Eden did find it interesting that they’d talked to Frank about when he’d worked with Mellie, and he hadn’t mentioned a shooting. The odds were he simply hadn’t forgotten something as serious as that.
Rory shifted his attention back to the ME and the body. “Can you give us an idea of time of death?”
“Within the past four hours,” he answered. “No signs of a struggle. No defense wounds, but you saw the stun-gun marks?”
Eden and Rory nodded.
“There were four total,” the ME added. “Those two on his neck and another set on his back.” He eased the body forward a little, lifting the shirt to show them the two lesions.
So maybe the killer had sneaked up on him. But then why stun him twice? Unless the killer had wanted to immobilize Carter a second time after they’d arrived at the current location. That was the likely scenario since the first hit from the stun gun wouldn’t have lasted that long.
“He was stabbed seven times, mainly in the chest and stomach,” the ME continued after he’d maneuvered the body back against the sign post. “Not sure if one or more of the wounds hit anything vital, but I’ll be able to determine that in the postmortem. My guess is the numbers were carved after he was dead.” He looked up at his assistant, who’d been taking the photos. “Let’s go ahead and get the body back to the morgue so I can get started on—”
The ME stopped, interrupted by a strange hissing sound.
“What the hell?” Judson muttered, and like Eden, Rory and Garrison, he was glancing all around them, looking for the source.
And they soon saw it.
About five yards away in the ditch, a fire ignited. It had been barely noticeable at first. But it didn’t stay that way. It soon soared up into a high flame. A flame that didn’t stay contained to that one spot. It burst out in all directions.
Mercy.
It was coming right at them like a giant fireball.
They all started running, but Eden glanced over her shoulder to make sure they weren’t about to be gunned down. She couldn’tsee anything, including the bomb squad, because of the thick black smoke billowing out from the flames.
What the heck was this?
