“She also said this object wasn’t harmful,” I reminded him.
“A spent shell couldn’t hurt a fly. It’s the bullet that’s harmful, and only when it’s being fired.”
“And the photographs she looked at were taken last fall,” I went on. “Whatever this lost item is may have been out there then but isn’t there now.”
“You thinking the killer came back during daylight to look for it?”
“Hilda said the person who lost this metal object was concerned about it.”
Don’t think he went back,” Marino said. “He’s too careful for that. Be a big damn risk. The area was crawling with cops and bloodhounds right after the kids disappeared. You can bet the killer laid low. He’s got to be pretty cool to have gotten away with what he’s doing for so long, whether we’re talking about a psychopath or a paid hit man.”
“Maybe,” I said as the coffee began to drip.
“1 think we should go back out there and poke around a little. You up for it?”
“Frankly, the idea has crossed my mind.”
8
In the light of a clear afternoon, the woods did not seem so ominous until Marino and I drew closer to the small clearing. Then the faint, foul odor of decomposing human flesh was an insidious reminder. Pine tags and leaves had been displaced and piled in small mounds by the scraping of shovels and emptying of sieves. It would take time and hard rains before the tangible remnants of murder were no longer to be found in this place.
Marino had brought a metal detector and I carried a rake. He got out his cigarettes and looked around.
“Don’t see any point in scanning right here,” he said. “It’s been gone over half a dozen times.”
“I assume the path’s been gone over thoroughly as well,” I said, staring back at the trail we had followed from the logging road.
“Not necessarily, because the path didn’t exist when the couple was taken out here last fall.”
I realized what he was saying. The trail of displaced leaves and hard-packed dirt had been made by police officers and other interested parties going back and forth from the logging road to the scene.
Surveying the woods, he added, “The fact is, we don’t even know where they was parked, Doc. It’s easy to assume it’s close to where we parked, and that they got here pretty much the same way we did. But it depends on whether the killer was actually heading here.”
“I have a feeling the killer knew where he was going,” I replied. “It doesn’t make sense to think he randomly turned down the logging road and then ended up out here after haphazardly wandering around in the dark.”
Shrugging, Marino switched on the metal detector. “Can t hurt to give it a try.”
We began at the perimeter of the scene, scanning the path, sweeping yards of undergrowth and leaves on either side as we slowly made our way back toward the logging road. For almost two hours we probed any opening in trees and brush that looked remotely promising for human passage, the detector’s first high-frequency tune rewarding our efforts with an Old Milwaukee beer can, the second with a rusty bottle opener. The third alert did not sound until we were at the edge of the woods, within sight of our car, where we uncovered a shotgun shell, the red plastic faded by the years.
Leaning against the rake, I stared dismally back down the path, thinking. I pondered what Hilda had said about another place being involved, perhaps somewhere that the killer had taken Deborah, and I envisioned the clearing and the bodies. My first thought had been that if Deborah had broken free of the killer at some point, it may have been when she and Fred were being led in the dark from the logging road to the clearing. But as I looked through the woods, this theory didn’t really make sense.
“Let’s accept as a given that we’re dealing with one killer,” I said to Marino.
“Okay, I’m listening.”
He wiped his damp forehead on his coat sleeve.
“If you were the killer and had abducted two people and then forced them, perhaps at gunpoint, to come out here, who would you kill first?”