LITMIR.BIZ

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fact that his motives last night had almost certainly not been of a sexual nature, and it added up to a potentially elusive and calculated killer.

      Mackenzie backed to the edge of the clearing and took in the entirety of the scene. Porter gave her a sideways glance and then ignored her completely, continuing to talk to Nelson. She noticed that the other policemen were watching her. Some of them, at least, were watching her work. She’d come into the role of detective with a reputation for being exceptionally bright and highly regarded by the majority of instructors at the police academy, and from time to time, younger cops – men and women alike – would ask her genuine questions or seek her opinion.

      On the other hand, she knew that a few of the men sharing the clearing with her might also be leering, too. She wasn’t sure which was worse: the men that checked out her ass when she walked by or the ones that laughed behind her back at the little girl trying to play the role of bad-ass detective.

      As she studied the scene, she was once again assaulted by the nagging suspicion that something was terribly wrong here. She felt like she was opening up a book, reading page one of a story that she knew had some very difficult pages ahead.

      This is just the beginning, she thought.

      She looked to the dirt around the pole and saw a few scuffed boot marks, but not anything that would provide prints. There was also a series of shapes in the dirt that looked almost serpentine. She squatted down for a closer look and saw that several of the shapes trailed side by side, winding their way around the wooden pole in a broken fashion, as if whatever made them had circled the pole several times. She then looked to the woman’s back and saw that the gashes in her flesh were roughly the same shape of the markings on the ground.

      “Porter,” she said.

      “What is it?” he asked, clearly annoyed that he’d been interrupted.

      “I think I’ve got weapon prints here.”

      Porter hesitated for a second and then walked over to where Mackenzie was hunkered down in the dirt. When he squatted down next to her, he groaned slightly and she could hear his belt creaking. He was about fifty pounds overweight and it was showing more and more as he closed in on fifty-five.

      “A whip of some kind?” he asked.

      “Looks like it.”

      She examined the ground, following the marks in the sand all the way up to the pole – and while doing so, she noticed something else. It was something minuscule, so small that she almost didn’t catch it.

      She walked over to the pole, careful not to touch the body before forensics could get to it. She again hunkered down and when she did, she felt the full weight of the afternoon’s heat pressing down on her. Undaunted, she craned her head closer to the pole, so close that her forehead nearly touched it.

      “What the hell are you doing?” Nelson asked.

      “Something’s carved here,” she said. “Looks like numbers.”

      Porter came over to investigate but did everything he could not to bend down again. “White, that chunk of wood is easily twenty years old,” he said. “That carving looks just as old.”

      “Maybe,” Mackenzie said. But she didn’t think so.

      Already uninterested in the discovery, Porter went back to speaking with Nelson, comparing notes about information he’d gotten from the farmer who had discovered the body.

      Mackenzie took out her phone and snapped a picture of the numbers. She enlarged the image and the numbers became a bit clearer. Seeing them in such detail once again made her feel as if this was all the start of something much bigger.

N511/J202

      The numbers meant nothing to her. Maybe Porter was right; maybe they meant absolutely nothing. Maybe they’d been carved there by a logger when the post had been created. Maybe some bored kid had chiseled them there somewhere along the years.

      But that didn’t feel right.

      Nothing about this felt right.

      And she knew, in her heart, that this was only the beginning.

      CHAPTER TWO

      Mackenzie felt a knot in her stomach as she looked out of the car and saw the news vans piled up, reporters jockeying for the best position to assault her and Porter as they pulled up to the precinct. As Porter parked, she watched several news anchors approach, running across the precinct lawn with burdened cameramen keeping pace behind them.

      Mackenzie saw Nelson already at the front doors, doing what he could to pacify them, looking uncomfortable and agitated. Even from here she could see the sweat glistening on his forehead.

      As they got out, Porter ambled up beside her, making sure she was not the first detective the media saw. As he passed her, he said, “Don’t you tell these vampires anything.”

      She felt a rush of indignation at his condescending comment.

      “I know, Porter.”

      The throng of reporters and cameras reached them. There were at least a dozen mics sticking out of the crowd and into their faces as they made their way past. The questions came at them like the buzzing of insects.

      “Have the victim’s children been notified yet?”

      “What was the farmer’s reaction when he found the body?”

      “Is this a case of sexual abuse?”

      “Is it wise for a woman to be assigned to such a case?”

      That last one stung Mackenzie a bit. Sure, she knew they were simply trying to land a response, hoping for a juicy twenty-second spot for the afternoon newscast. It was only four o’clock; if they acted quickly, they might have a nugget for the six o’clock news.

      As she made her way through the doors and inside, that last question echoed like thunder in her head.

      Is it wise for a woman to be assigned to such a case?

      She recalled how emotionlessly Nelson had read off Hailey Lizbrook’s information.

      Of course it is, Mackenzie thought. In fact, it’s crucial.

      Finally they entered the precinct and the doors slammed behind them. Mackenzie breathed with relief to be in the quiet.

      “Fucking leeches,” Porter said.

      He’d dropped the swagger from his step now that he was no longer in front of the cameras. He walked slowly past the receptionist’s desk and toward the hallway that led to the conference rooms and offices that made up their precinct. He looked tired, ready to go home, ready to be done with this case already.

      Mackenzie entered the conference room first. There were several officers sitting at a large table, some in uniform and some in their street clothes. Given their presence and the sudden appearance of the news vans, Mackenzie guessed that the story had leaked in all sorts of directions in the two and a half hours between leaving her office, heading to the cornfield, and getting back. It was more than a random grisly murder; now, it had become a spectacle.

      Mackenzie grabbed a cup of coffee and took a seat at the table. Someone had already set folders around the table with the little bit of information that had already been gathered about the case. As she looked through it, more people started filing into the room. Porter eventually entered, taking a seat at the opposite end.

      Mackenzie took a moment to check her phone and found that she had eight missed calls, five voice messages, and a dozen e-mails. It was a stark reminder that she’d already had a full caseload before being sent out to the cornfield this morning. The sad irony was that while her older peers spent a lot of time demeaning her and throwing subtle insults her way, they also realized her talents. As a result, she kept one of the larger caseloads on the force. To date, though, she had never fallen behind and had a stellar rate of closed cases.

      She thought about answering some of the e-mails while she waited, but Chief Nelson came in before she could get the chance. He quickly closed the conference room door behind him.

      “I

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