KnockOut

43

THE SEARCH WAS A BUST.

An hour later, forensic expert and team leader Dirk Platt walked to where Savich and Sherlock stood watching the operation at Martin Backman’s grave site. He was shaking his head even as he said, “Sorry, guys, but there are no bodies here.”

“She moved them,” Sherlock said. “Blessed notified her and she moved them. Or she suspected either Autumn or Joanna saw what they did and that’s why they ran.” Sherlock looked out over the cemetery. The forty graves positioned in odd triangles. The last graves were not two feet from a thick stand of oak trees that reached up the sides of the bowl to spear green and fat into the sky. The trees surrounding the cemetery laced their branches together, creating moving shadows in the breeze.

Dirk asked them, “Do you want us to dig up any of the other graves?”

“No,” Savich said. “Not yet.”

Dirk nodded and waved to the huge hole in the ground. “She moved something out of here. All we’ve got is a big hole recently filled in with dirt.”

“Any blood? Any clothes?”

“No, nothing, but don’t give up yet. If there were bodies thrown in that hole, we might still find something. Damnedest thing. To look around, this seems a peaceful-hidden-valley sort of place, an old-fashioned little American town where you expect to find some rustic charm, not missing bodies.

“Lori is taking soil samples, looking for traces of blood and human remains, which I don’t think she’ll find. She’ll also be checking to see if the soil comes from here or somewhere else. If the soil is clean, you can bet it was brought in.”

“When they moved the bodies,” Sherlock said, “I doubt they took them far. Who’d want to take the chance, too great a risk of discovery. On the other hand, this valley is pretty large.”

“Not much risk if the grave robbers are the sheriff and his deputies,” Savich said. “They could have wrapped the bodies in a tarp and hauled them anywhere in the valley in the flat bed of the sheriff’s truck.”

“There’s no sign of any recent digging anywhere else in the cemetery, so we’re going to start checking the flower beds and anywhere else there’s disturbed ground with GPR, ground penetration radar. I’ve called for a couple of cadaver dogs to complement the GPR, but if we don’t find the bodies pretty close by, the cost builds up real last.”

Savich said, “I know. Do what you can, Dirk.” He turned to Sherlock. “Well, things don’t always go like you want them to.”