Before He Covets

CHAPTER FIVE

When Mackenzie stepped out of the car in the Little Hill State Park visitor’s lot, she braced herself, feeling immediately the tension of murder in the air. She did not understand how she could sense it, but she could. It was a sort of sixth sense she had that sometimes she wished she hadn’t. No one else she had ever worked with seemed to have it, too.

In a way, she realized, they were lucky. It was a blessing, but also a curse.

They walked across the lot and to the visitor’s center. While fall had not yet fully gripped Virginia yet, it was making its presence known early. The leaves all around them were beginning to turn, teasing an array of reds, yellows, and golds. A security shack sat behind the center, and a bored-looking woman regarded them from the shack with a wave.

The visitor’s center was a lackluster tourist trap at best. A few clothing racks displayed T-shirts and water bottles. A small shelf along the right side contained maps of the area and a few brochures on fishing tips. In the center of it all was a single older woman a few years beyond retirement, smiling at them from behind a counter.

“You folks are with the FBI, right?” the woman asked.

“That’s right,” Mackenzie said.

The woman gave a quick nod and picked up the landline phone sitting behind the counter. She punched a number in from a scrap of paper sitting by the phone. As she waited, Mackenzie turned away and Bryers followed.

“You said you haven’t spoken directly with the Strasburg PD, right?” she asked.

Bryers shook his head.

“Are we walking in as friends or an obstacle?”

“I guess we’ll have to see.”

Mackenzie nodded as they turned back to the counter. The woman had just hung up the phone and was looking to them again.

“Sheriff Clements will be here in about ten minutes. He’d like for you to meet him at the guard shack outside.”

They walked back outside and headed for the guard shack. Again, Mackenzie found herself nearly hypnotized by the colors blooming on the trees. She walked slowly, taking it all in.

“Hey, White?” Bryers said. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Why do you ask?”

“You’re trembling. A little pale. As a seasoned FBI agent, my hunch is that you’re nervous —very nervous.”

She clenched her hands together tightly, aware that there was indeed a slight tremor in her hands. Yes, she was nervous but she had hoped she was hiding it. Apparently, she was doing a very poor job.

“Look. You’re into the real deal now. You can be nervous. But work with it. Don’t fight it or hide it. I know that sounds counterintuitive but you have to trust me on this.”

She nodded, a little embarrassed.

They continued on without saying another word, the wild colors of the trees around them seeming to press in. Mackenzie looked ahead to the guard shack, eyeing the bar that hung from the shack and across the road. As cheesy as it seemed, she could not help but feel her future was waiting for her on the other side of that bar and she found herself equally intimidated and anxious to cross it.

Within seconds, they both heard the small engine noise. Almost immediately after that, a golf cart came into view, coming around the bend. It looked to be going at top speed and the man behind the wheel was practically hunched over it, as if willing the cart to go faster.

The cart sped forward and Mackenzie got her first glimpse of the man she assumed to be Sheriff Clements. He was a forty-something hard-ass. He had the glassy stare of a man who had been dealt a rough hand in life. His black hair was just beginning to go gray at the temples and he had the sort of five o’clock shadow bordering his face that looked like it was probably always there.

Clements parked the cart, barely regarded the guard in the shack, and walked around the bar to meet Mackenzie and Bryers.

“Agents White and Bryers,” Mackenzie said, offering her hand.

Clements took it and shook it passively. He did the same to Bryers before turning his attention back to the paved trail he had just come down.

“If I’m being honest,” Clements said, “while I certainly appreciate the bureau’s interest, I’m not so sure we need the assistance.”

“Well, we’re here now, so we may as well see if we can lend a hand,” Bryers said, being as friendly as he could.

“Well then, hop on the cart and let’s see,” Clements said. Mackenzie was trying her best to size him up as they loaded up on the cart. Her main concern from the start was trying to determine if Clements was simply under immense stress or if he was just as ass by nature.

She rode alongside Clements in the front of the cart while Bryers clung to the back. Clements did not say a single word. It fact, it seemed like he was making an effort to let them both know that he felt inconvenienced by having to usher them around.

After a minute or so, Clements swerved the cart to the right where the paved road forked off. Here, the pavement ended and became an even thinner trail that barely allowed for the width of the cart.

“So what instructions has the guard at the guard shack been given?” Mackenzie asked.

“No one comes through,” Clements said. “Not even park rangers or cops unless I’ve given prior permission. We already have enough people farting around out here, making things harder than it has to be.”

Mackenzie took the not-too-subtle jab and tucked it away. She wasn’t about to get into an argument with Clements before she and Bryers had gotten a chance to check out the crime scene.

Roughly five minutes later, Clements hit the brakes. He stepped out even before the cart had come to a complete stop. “Come on,” he said, like he was talking to a child. “This way.”

Mackenzie and Bryers stepped down from the cart. All around them, the forest loomed high over them. It was beautiful but filled with a sort of thick silence that Mackenzie had come to recognize as an omen of sorts – a signal that there was bad blood and bad news in the air.

Clements led them into the woods, walking quickly ahead of them. There was no real trail to speak of. Here and there Mackenzie could see signs of old footpaths winding through the foliage and around the trees but that was it. Without realizing she was doing so, she took the lead in front of Bryers as she tried to keep up with Clements. On occasion, she had to swat away a low-hanging branch or wipe away stray strands of cobwebs from her face.

After walking for two or three minutes, she started to hear several mingled voices. The sounds of movement grew louder and she started to understand what Clements had been talking about; even without seeing the scene, Mackenzie could tell that it was going to be overcrowded.

She saw proof of this less than a minute later as the scene came into view. Crime scene tape and small border flags had been set up in a large triangular shape within the forest. Among the yellow tape and red flags, Mackenzie counted eight people, Clements included. She and Bryers would make ten.

“See what I mean?” Clements asked.

Bryers came up beside Mackenzie and sighed. “Well, this is a mess.”

Before stepping forward, Mackenzie did her best to survey the scene. Of the eight men, four were local PD, easily identified by their uniforms. There were two others that were in uniforms but of a different kind – state PD, Mackenzie assumed. Beyond that, though, she took in the scene itself rather than let the bickering distract her.

The location seemed to be random. There were no points of interest, no items that might be seen as symbolic. It was just like any other section of these forests in every way Mackenzie could see. She guessed that they were about a mile or so off of the central trail. The trees were not particularly thick here, but there was a sense of isolation all around her.

With the scene thoroughly taken in, she looked to the bickering men. A few looked agitated and one or two looked angry. Two of them weren’t wearing any sort of uniform or outfit to denote their profession.

“Who are the guys not in uniform?” Mackenzie asked.

“Not sure,” Bryers said.

Clements turned to them with a scowl on his face. “Park rangers,” he said. “Joe Andrews and Charlie Holt. Shit like this happens and they think they’re the police.”

One of the rangers looked up with venom in his eyes. Mackenzie was pretty sure Clements had nodded this man’s way when he’d said Joe Andrews. “Watch yourself, Clements. This is a state park,” Andrews said. “You’ve got about as much authority out here as a gnat.”

“That might be,” Clements said. “But you know as well as I do that all I have to do is make a single call to the precinct and get some wheels moving. I can have you out of here within an hour, so just do whatever it is you need to do and get your ass out of here.”