Say Goodbye

THIRTY-TWO

KIMBERLY WOKE UP TO A STRING OF BAD NEWS. THE manager at the Smith House had come up with forty-five possible credit card receipts. A lightning storm was forecast by mid-afternoon. Her supervisor wanted to know why she hadn’t attended yesterday afternoon’s meeting for Violent Crimes.

And Mac hadn’t returned her call.

She took them in stride as best she could. All receipts would be photocopied for her and Sal to divide and conquer upon their return. Given the approaching storm, they would leave for Suches immediately. She put in a message with her supervisor that she was following up on a major lead.

And she put Mac out of her mind. At least, the best she could.

They all climbed into Sal’s car and headed for Suches.

Highway 60 took its own sweet time. It looped through an endless series of S-curves, climbing higher and higher. They passed a gold mine, a bunch of boiled-peanut stands, various log cabins for rent. To the right, the Blue Ridge Mountains soared up as a dense wall of green underbrush and gray boulders. To the left, a deceptively thin wall of towering trees gave way to sudden views of a plunging valley that spread beyond the line of sight.

The first heavy drops of rain splattered the windshield just as they burst from a dark tunnel of trees into a gently unfolding valley. The land went from thick underbrush to painstakingly cleared fields, framed with white painted fences and dotted with red farmhouses. If Dahlonega was tucked up in the mountains, then Suches was a remote northern outpost. Handful of farms. Requisite double-wides. Too many boarded-up buildings.

Kimberly tried not to blink so she wouldn’t miss it.

Too late.

“That says T.W.O.,” Rainie just got out, finger pointing, as Sal blew by on Highway 60.

“Wait, there’s Dale’s,” Kimberly echoed as Sal swung his head left and totally missed the convenience store on the right.

He scowled, tapped his brakes, fishtailed on the rain-slicked road, and finally did the sensible thing and slowed down. They came to a stone schoolhouse-Smallest public school in Georgia! Kimberly read on the sign-and Sal turned around.

They hit Dale’s first, pulling up outside the gas pumps, then making a dash for the glass doors through the pelting rain.

Inside, Kimberly registered three things at once: a blast of warmth, the smell of homemade chili, and an entire display of bright orange hunting gear. Dale’s, apparently, did carry a little of everything.

“Is that chili I smell?” Sal was already inquiring at the counter. “Well, as long as we’re here…”

The back part of Dale’s included a couple of tables. They had a seat and an older gentleman wandered over to assist. Not Dale, they learned, but Ron. Dale was out.

He didn’t explain, and judging by the reserved look on his face, Kimberly guessed Ron had already pegged them as outsiders and not in the need to know. He took their order, brought their food, then returned to meticulously wiping down tables.

Sal waited until halfway through his chili to get into it. Ron was cleaning the table beside them when Sal brought out the sketch and said, in the nonchalant voice favored by detectives and TV actors, “Say, do you happen to know this fellow here?”

Ron wasn’t fooled. He looked from the sketch to Sal and back to the sketch. Then he shrugged and returned to spritzing tables.

“He’s a person of interest,” Sal said with more emphasis.

Ron paused, thought about it, went back to wiping.

“You might have seen him with a teenage boy,” Kimberly spoke up. “Maybe they live around here.”

“Boys,” Ron corrected. “I’ve seen him with two boys. One older. One younger. They’re not much for talking.”

Sal set down his spoon. “Do you know their names?”

“No, sir.”

“Are they local?”

“Nah, not locals. But they come up a fair amount, ’specially last fall. Must’ve seen ’em half a dozen times. The man mostly. The boys waited in the truck. Except one time-the younger one had to use the john, so the older one brought him in. Looked like trouble to me, those three, but they just did their business and cleared on out. Who am I to judge?”

They’d all stopped eating and stared at Ron, who was still tending to his duties.

“Can you describe the older boy?” Kimberly pressed.

Ron shrugged. “Dunno. Teenage boy, seventeen, eighteen years old. White. Maybe five ten or so. Scrawny thing. Wore Army cargo pants about two sizes too big, the way boys do nowadays. Kept his hands in his pockets, walking all slouched over. Like I said, didn’t talk much. Just came in, delivered the younger boy, waited, then left.”

“And the younger boy?”

Another shrug. “Eight or nine. Shorter brown hair. He was bundled up with a heavy sweatshirt and orange hunting vest. On the small side would be my guess, but hard to tell with all those clothes on. The man had on a nice pair of hiking boots, but the kids were just wearing tennis shoes. I remember thinking at the time it’d be a miracle if they didn’t twist an ankle. But you know, good boots are expensive and with kids growing so fast…Dunno. Up here, some kids come walking in wearing more than I make in a week’s pay, all geared up for their annual hiking weekend. Takes all kinds, I guess.”

“What did the man say when he came in?” Sal spoke up urgently. “Did he buy anything?”

Ron stopped wiping long enough to search his memory. “Bottle of water. Candy bar. Oh, and some crickets. We have ’em for the fishermen and that got him all excited, so he bought a container. Don’t think he was fishing, though, he was dressed all wrong.”

“He ask about any particular hiking trails, mention where he’d been, anything like that?”

Ron shrugged again. “Not that I remember.”

“Did anyone else see him and the boys?”

“Oh, all sorts. Fall’s busy around here. Not like at the moment.” Now he sounded almost apologetic.

“How did he pay?” Rainie asked.

Ron pursed his lips. “I’d guess cash, only ’cause it wasn’t that big a purchase.”

“Did you happen to notice his vehicle?” Kimberly’s turn.

“No, ma’am. Little too busy in the fall for car shopping.”

“Did the man interact with the boys?” Quincy asked. “Say anything to them when they entered the store?”

“Mmmmm, not much. The boys came in.” Ron paused, seemed to be picking his way through his memory. “The older one looked at the man, said, ‘The kid’s gotta pee, whatta you want me to do about it?’ then led the kid to the john. Man didn’t say anything, just looked annoyed. He’d probably told the boys to stay in the car. You know how kids are.”

“He didn’t use a name?” Quincy pressed. “The older boy called the younger boy ‘kid’?”

“Yes, sir, that’s how I remember it.”

“Seems to imply they aren’t brothers,” Quincy murmured. “The teenager’s distancing himself from the younger one. Objectifying him. Interesting.”

“Do you remember which direction they were coming from when they turned in here?” Rainie asked. “From the north or south?”

“No, ma’am.”

“And was it a particular time of day? You saw them in the morning, afternoon…?”

“Afternoon, ma’am, but only because that’s my shift.”

Rainie nodded, pursed her lips. They all three looked at Sal again.

“Anyone else you can think of who might be able to shed more light on this man and the two boys?” Sal pressed. “It’s important that we learn his name. He’s wanted for questioning regarding a very serious matter.”

Ron, however, shook his head.

“Like I said, they’re not local. We just saw ’em a lot in the fall. Maybe as late as early December. Can’t really remember now, to tell you the truth. You might want to try out T.W.O. Even the tourists gotta eat and since he never bought much here…”

“Okay, we’ll do that.” Sal fished out a card, handed it over. “If you think of anything, or see him or the boys again, give me a call. And I’d appreciate it if you didn’t broadcast this conversation too widely. We want to find the man, not spook him.”

Ron had finally registered the state police shield on Sal’s card. His eyes widened a notch. He stuck the card in his front pocket, using two fingers to pat it into place.

“Is it drugs, sir? Used to be all you could get in these mountains was moonshine. Now everything’s meth, meth, meth. Ruining our county it is.”

“He’s trouble,” Sal said simply. “If you see him again, don’t say a word to him. Just get me on the phone and we’ll take care of the rest.”

They finished their lunch. Kimberly found a six-pack of pudding. Rainie armed herself with a Snickers. Quincy topped off his coffee. They hit the road.

The manager at T.W.O. didn’t recognize the drawing, or remember a man in a baseball cap with two boys. Two Wheels Only specialized in the biker set, which was not to say they didn’t have some other business, but it was smaller. He’d keep his eyes open.

The rain was coming down in sheets now. They splashed their way through the muddy parking lot before piling into Sal’s car. With the bustling metropolis of Suches exhausted, they had no choice but to turn back toward Dahlonega.

They drove in silence, windshield wipers on high, car buffeted by the wind.

Kimberly kept her eyes on the woods. At the towering trees, the nearly impenetrable underbrush. She wondered where Ginny Jones was right now, if the girl had holed up someplace safe and warm, where she could feel the new life growing inside her. Or if even now she was racing panicked down a back alley, danger looming behind her.

“Wait!” Kimberly cried.

Sal hit the brakes too hard. The car careened dangerously close to the center line.

“What the hell-” Sal started.

“Back up, back up. That was a logging road. Let’s take it.”

Sal had the car at a complete stop now. He looked at her as if she were nuts. “In case you haven’t noticed, it’s pouring out.”

“I know, I know. Just a quick detour. What else do we have going on?”

“Something better than getting stuck in the mud.”

“He drove these roads, Sal. If he drove these roads, we can damn well give them a try. Come on, we won’t go too far.”

“We’re in Suches,” Sal muttered. “Apparently, that’s far enough.”

He gave her another look, but when Rainie or Quincy didn’t raise any protest, he put the car in gear, backed up along the empty ribbon of road, and hung a sharp right.

The Forestry Service road started out paved, which surprised Kimberly. She had been expecting something more rustic. She was also caught off guard by the number of residential homes, perched on various hillsides, peering out from thick groves of mountain laurel. But a mile down, the pavement turned to gravel and the forest seemed to win the war against civilization. They looped around, slowly descending into a gully, the rain creating a thick, muddy stream that raced alongside them.

They came to a turnabout. Kimberly had Sal stop. And then, before he could react, she’d popped open her door and stepped into the deluge. She was vaguely aware of him protesting. Of other car doors opening. Of Rainie and Quincy joining her in the madness.

She didn’t look at them. Didn’t say a word. She didn’t need to. They lived in the same world she did, where monsters were real, and good people got hurt, and you could spend your days feeling overwhelmed, or you could do your best to do something about it. It seemed for as long as she could remember, she and her father had hunted the specter of death. It was probably some of the only moments either one of them truly felt alive.

And then she thought, vague again, in the back of her mind where it couldn’t hurt her as much, that Mac should be here. It had always been her, Mac, Rainie, and Quincy. She missed Mac.

“He’s wrong,” she whispered softly, looking around at the soaring bare-branched trees above, the dense grove of green underbrush below.

“Who?” Sal demanded. He stood in front of her, rain pouring down his nose, plastering his dark hair to his face. He looked intent, angry in a way that should have scared her, except she understood that kind of rage, how it felt when you were trying so hard, only to realize that your best wouldn’t get the job done.

“Ron. Dinchara and the boys are local. They have to be. Ron said it himself: They don’t buy much, so they must already be well supplied.”

“Kimberly, it’s wet, it’s cold, I’m soaked to the goddamn bone. Whatever voodoo you’re pretending to do, stop yanking my chain.”

“It’s a matter of logistics,” she stated firmly, studying the thin vein of gravel road, the tall, skeletal trees, the thick clumps of underbrush that surrounded them. The rain had molded her hair to her skull, was rapidly soaking her shirt. She didn’t care. The rain didn’t matter. The mud didn’t matter. It was all about the woods.

“Killing someone is easy,” she supplied. “Disposing of the body, however, is hard. Ninety-five percent of the time, that’s where killers mess up. Now, we’re chasing a guy who has done this not once, but possibly a dozen times. What does that mean? He’s very good at logistics.”

She had made it to the edge of the woods, where ferns grew high enough to brush her leg mid thigh. She ticked off on her finger: “One, where to dispose of the bodies?”

“The woods,” Sal filled in, less angry now, more curious.

“Okay, so two, how to transport the bodies?”

“His truck, SUV. Plenty of room in the back.”

“Until you get here,” Kimberly countered, gesturing to the green and brown mudbath around them. “Then what?”

Sal nodded, seeming to get into the spirit of things, even as his gray suit turned black and the rain ran in rivulets down his neck. “It’s late at night, or an early hour of the morning-a time where he can reduce the risk of being seen. He needs a remote area, so he picks a Forestry Service road, drives for a ways. Then he pulls over, gets the body out of the back of his vehicle…dumps it down a ravine?”

“Forestry Service ranger would spot it,” Quincy spoke up immediately. He stood off to the side, where he could hear everything while still having the space to formulate his own thoughts. He was good at this game; one of the best. “From the road, you would see trampled bushes, even broken branches. A ranger would get curious about deer, bear, bobcat, whatever, and investigate. One or two times, maybe the UNSUB could get away with it. But a dozen times later…Someone would spot the disturbance and find the body. Especially given the amount of traffic on the roads and in the woods during peak seasons.”

“So he carries it away from the road,” Sal stated.

“Body’s heavy,” Kimberly supplied. “A grown woman is a good hundred-plus pounds of deadweight. Even in a fireman’s hold, that’s tough.”

“He walks downhill?” Sal guessed.

Again Quincy shook his head. “Anything disposed of below can be seen from above, especially in the winter when the leaves are off the trees. This is a popular destination for hunting, hiking, camping, fishing. That’s lots of people trampling through these woods, even in supposedly remote locations. Safest choice is high ground. Above the trails, where others don’t tread.”

Sal looked at the three of them. “I don’t get it.”

“He has help,” Kimberly said softly. “The older boy would be my guess. Whether he’s involved in the killing or not, I’m not sure. We didn’t hear anyone else on the tape. But at the very least, the teenager helps dispose of the bodies. One man walking alone on the trails late at night is suspicious. A father and son on the other hand…”

“They’re out camping,” Sal filled in.

“Explains the large pack they’re carrying, or perhaps pulling on a trundle behind them.”

“Shit,” Sal said tiredly and put his hand over his eyes.

“It would take them hours,” Rainie spoke up, peering into the woods with a keen look on her face. “They’d need tools-rope, burlap, shovel, pick. Then food, water, first-aid kit, compass, the basics. Kimberly’s right; to do what they need to do, Dinchara’s well stocked. Meaning if he’s not buying locally, he has a place all set up.”

“The younger boy,” Kimberly murmured.

“Exactly,” Rainie said, following her train of thought. “The waitress at the Smith House hadn’t seen him, which implies he’s left behind. Maybe he’s too young yet, would slow them down. So they leave the younger boy someplace, then Dinchara and the older boy head off to complete their nightly chores.”

“He’s gotta have a home nearby. It’s the only thing that makes sense. Maybe the girls are even alive when they’re brought up here. Imagine one of those little cabins we drove by, all alone in the woods. Even if a girl screamed all night, or happened to get away, who would hear her, where would she go? A cabin solves so many problems.”

“We can check tax records,” Sal spoke up. “Anyone who purchased homes around Dahlonega or Suches in the past five years. Cross-reference those names with the receipts from the Smith House for Columbus Day weekend.”

“And chase employment,” Quincy prodded. “If they’re up here enough, Dinchara’s going to need money. At least in my day, fifty percent of a single prostitute’s earnings wasn’t that much. So he either has a string of girls you haven’t learned about yet, or another source of income. Given what we know about him, he would make an excellent wilderness guide or-”

They all got it at the same time, “Forestry Service employee!”

“Would give him all the knowledge and access he needs of the back roads of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Even a built-in excuse if he ever did get caught. Not to mention he’d know when others were due to conduct surveys in areas where he’d disposed of bodies, allowing him to either move the corpse or perhaps redirect the survey.”

“Ah crap, I am never going hiking again,” Sal said tiredly.

“We should visit the fish hatchery tomorrow,” Kimberly said.

“Yeah, got that.”

“Get some property records from the town, find out who we can meet from the Chattahoochee National Forest.”

“Yep, yep, yep.”

Rainie was still walking around the muddy turnoff point. “You know what I find surprising?” she asked now.

They all turned toward her.

“It’s February. The leaves are off the trees and you still can’t see more than three feet ahead. I mean, look at these mountain laurels-they’re the size of small homes. Then there’s the grasses, the downed logs, the copses of white pine. In any other woods, you’d be able to peer through the trees for twenty, thirty yards. But not here. Hell, I grew up in the woods and even I’m creeped out.”

“On that note,” Sal muttered, yanking at his rain-soaked collar, “can we please get back in the car?”

“Okay,” Kimberly agreed, “but next stop is Wal-Mart. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re all soaked to the bone. What are we supposed to wear tomorrow to the fish hatchery?”

“We’re spending another night?” Sal grumbled.

“You got anyplace better to be?”

They went to Wal-Mart.