Steven Dunne - The Disciple

She set off along a nondescript road, on one side of which sat a row of brick terraced houses, identical even down to the colour of the paintwork on doors and windows. On the other ran a metal fence separating the pavement from the station car park.

Enjoying the cooler air, she walked on past a dilapidated railway building, which sported a ‘For Sale’ sign, no doubt trying to tempt developers to see the potential for apartments. She reached a set of traffic lights and stopped to look around. There wasn’t much to see. Across the road was a smart redbrick building developed pre-credit crunch. It had a shiny new entry phone system and several buttons next to the main door. Beyond that there was a flyover which ferried traffic in and out of Derby. As Grant stood in the gathering gloom, she was oblivious to the telescopic lens pointed at her, too distant to hear the frantic whirring of the camera recording her image.

Drexler pulled the Chevy across the highway onto the dusty forecourt of the gas station. There wasn’t a lot of room to park with all the flashing Highway Patrol cars, an ambulance and the other support vehicles squeezed into the available space. There were always more people than you’d expect to see at a crime scene. It didn’t help that the space between the gas pumps had been taped off by the CSIs to prevent the corruption of potential tyre, finger and footprints.

Drexler brought the car to a halt tight up against a patrol car and he and McQuarry both stepped into the unseasonal heat. A short and heavyset middle-aged man in brown uniform and a wide-brimmed hat walked out of the melee to greet them. He had a brown moustache flecked with grey and chewed mightily on a piece of gum. He stood resting both hands on his gunbelt as he watched the agents approach.

‘This is Special Agent Mike Drexler; I’m Special Agent Edie McQuarry.’

‘Sheriff Andy Dupree, Markleeville PD. Thanks for coming so quick.’

‘No problem, Sheriff,’ nodded McQuarry.

They shook hands briefly. ‘Welcome to the Ghost Road.’

‘The Ghost Road?’ said Drexler.

‘This is the Ghost Road?’ McQuarry looked around at the highway with new eyes. ‘?89, of course.’

‘S’right, ma’am. Some people think it’s haunted, some people think there’s creatures in the forest. Latest I heard, aliens are to blame.’

‘To blame for what?’ asked Drexler.

‘Unexplained crashes. Vehicles disappearing. This is like the Bermuda Triangle for cars, Mike,’ explained McQuarry.

‘Started twenty years ago this year. I was just a greenhorn trooper back in?75. We lost a family between Yosemite and Tahoe. The Campbells. Five of ’em. Mom and Pop, two teenage boys and a ten-year-old girl. Left Yosemite on a bright breezy morning one Easter and were never seen again. They got reported missing two weeks later…’

‘Two weeks?’

‘They was on holiday, Agent Drexler. No one to report them overdue. Except the manager at the condo, but why would he phone it in? Happens all the time. He gets to keep the deposit and re-let the apartment.’

‘Right.’

‘Far as we know, other families disappeared on this road too. Last one was just a couple of months ago. Family name of Bailey set out from San Diego in a VW camper. They…’

‘What do you mean, far as we know?’ Drexler was unable to keep a trace of censure out of his voice.

Dupree took a pause and shot Drexler a lingering look, then allowed himself a thin mocking smile. ‘Well, when we can be bothered to take a break from hunkering down on the Krispy Kremes, and there’s not a Klan meetin’ or a rodeo on the tube, we sometimes squeeze in some police work.’

‘Excuse my partner, Sheriff,’ said McQuarry. ‘He flunked the diplomacy training.’

‘He’s excused, Ma’am.’

‘What the Sheriff means, Mike, is there could be other families who’ve disappeared.’

Dupree nodded. ‘S’right. My kinda vacation. Load the wife and kids into a Winnebago and set off for the horizon. Who knows how many others do the same? We don’t get notified in Markleeville if a car full of people from Alabama goes missing unless there’s a paper trail that puts ’em here. Don’t mean they didn’t drive up 89 with a pocketful of cash. Know if it was me, I’d be paying cash for my gas. Out in the backwoods that can still be the only currency.’

Drexler nodded. ‘I see.’

‘And is that why you’ve called us in, Sheriff?’

‘Not exactly, Ma’am. But I think we can rustle up a connection.’ Dupree turned and led them towards the gas station.

Drexler noted he had a slight limp. ‘So what have you got for us, Sheriff?’

‘Two bodies so far. Caleb Ashwell, owner of the gas station. The other one’s in here. Customer found him round six a.m. We figure this one was killed second, as he’s got blood spray from the first on him.’

They walked into the low building where two CSIs were going through their various procedures. A harsh striplight illuminated the dark office, but nothing else. McQuarry decided not to ask where the specialist crime scene lighting was. They probably didn’t have any and there was no sense drawing attention to it and causing further offence. She pulled her latex gloves from her pocket and put them on. Drexler did the same.

A well-built young man, seventeen, eighteen at most, hung from a steel rafter in the low ceiling.

‘Ashwell’s son Billy,’ said Dupree. McQuarry gazed up at him. His face was pale and his lips slightly parted and discoloured. Nearby a chair had been knocked over on its side and discarded plastic packaging lay on the floor. Otherwise there was order.

McQuarry clicked on a small Dictaphone. ‘White male, Caucasian, mid-to-late teens. Lips and tongue cyanosed. Probable cause — asphyxia.’

Drexler stood near the plastic packaging. ‘This is for a tow rope, Ed.’ He looked behind the counter. Several more ropes in their untouched packaging sat on the shelf. ‘Taken from the store here. The hanging was improvised. Suicide?’ he asked Dupree.

‘Homicide,’ said Dupree. Both agents were slightly taken aback by his confidence. Hangings were rarely clear cut, the majority being suicides as it was not the easiest way to kill and would usually require multiple assailants, particularly to subdue a strong young man.

‘Who found him?’

‘Old Ben Gardner called in for gas round six this morning. Says he saw the boy hanging when he got to the door. He’d had to pump his own gas, which was unusual — the boy usually ran out to serve you before your engine was off. Ben said he was clearly dead. Well, he was in ’Nam so I guess he’d know. He rang it in straightaway — didn’t touch anything, didn’t even walk through the door.’

McQuarry nodded and clicked off the Dictaphone. Until the body was cut down they wouldn’t be able to say more. She looked over at Dupree who nodded in response and led them out of the back door of the station onto a dirt track which took them to a small, functional wooden cabin.

Both agents were beginning to sweat now as the midday sun began to parch the bare track and they were relieved to dip under the cooler canopy of the trees.

It took them a few minutes to adjust their eyes to the murk of the cabin. They could see the shadowy form of Caleb Ashwell, tensed and twisted from his death throes. They could see the sinewy debris of his throat and the dark pool of drying blood on his grubby vest. They could see the handcuffs behind his back and an opened wine bottle on the table. It took a while to make out the words daubed in blood on the wall, though, as the darkening stain was nearly lost in the gloom.

‘“CLEARING UP THE GROUND”,’ read McQuarry. ‘Interesting.’

‘That’s what we figured until…’ began Dupree.