Ike Hamill - The Hunting Tree Trilogy

“Police say the Montville couple were discovered by a home healthcare worker this morning, but won’t comment on whether the case is linked to East Motton incident reported earlier,” read the DJ.

Mike checked his mirrors and then pulled off the highway to the shoulder. The map on passenger seat confirmed what he guessed: he could draw a straight line from the cave’s location, through East Motton, directly to Montville. Furthermore, he could narrow the location of the East Motton farmhouse down to two roads which traveled west to east and might match the northern view he had spied in the newscast. Mike circled the map with his pencil, turned on his signal, and merged back onto the highway.

BY THREE THAT AFTERNOON, Mike found the house of the first victim. It was easy to spot, the emergency vehicles had left muddy tracks in and out of the driveway and several vehicles were still parked at the house. From the road he could just pick out the yellow police tape that cordoned the yard.

He sucked in a deep breath and tried to control his fast heart. Grabbing a clipboard from the back seat, Mike jumped out of his car. Using the house as his landmark, he consulted his memory and rounded the building until he found the side where the police officer had given his short statement. Mike glanced nervously at the house, but nobody came out to greet him, so he studied the ground until he found the print. He knelt to study its outline. The print was surrounded with plaster debris. Mike was pleased that the police had discovered the print and thought to make a cast of it. It matched the size of the one he had seen at the cliffs and had the same odd spread to the toes. Mike pulled out his phone and used its camera to snap a picture of the giant print.

The porch door opened and a young, broad-shouldered policeman strode out to greet Mike—“Can I help you?”

“Yes sir, thank you,” said Mike, raising the pitch of his voice slightly. “Did you happen to find any more prints like these?”

“May I ask who you are?” asked the officer.

“Certainly,” said Mike. “My name is Dr. Mike Markey. I’m from U.N.H.? They called me in to see the cast of this footprint, but I wanted to see the original. Do you know if there are any other examples?”

The officer knit his brow and considered Mike carefully. He reached up to the radio clipped to his pocket and placed his thumb on the button. “I’m going to have to call this in,” he informed Mike.

“That’s fine,” said Mike, holding his clipboard in front of him. “Could I see the other prints while I wait.”

The officer shrugged and waved him towards the house as he squeezed the receiver and placed his call. “Dispatch, this is Sutliffe,” the policeman told his radio as Mike entered the house. In the hallway he found two spots in the hall had been taped off, marking other footprints. He stepped around those as he headed for the front door. When confronted with the cop, Mike had panicked and arrived at this simple plan; he decided to pretend he belonged at the scene and then get away as quickly as possible. He was thrilled that the officer had stayed out on the back porch to make his call. As he put his hand on the doorknob leading to the front porch, Mike felt the slightest glimmer of hope that he might get away clean.

Pulling open the door, he expected a protest to come from the officer at any second. He held his breath as he opened the door and slipped past the screen door, finding freedom on the other side. Carefully controlling his stride he walked down to his car, Mike slipped behind the wheel, set the clipboard down on the passenger seat, and started his car. He twisted around in the seat as he pulled the gearshift back into reverse. He had to jam on the break to avoid colliding with the new police car pulling into the driveway behind him.

“Shit,” Mike said under his breath. He pulled forward a couple of feet to give the officer room to pull up alongside, and then give himself enough room to resume his escape. A bang from the front of his car drew his attention, and Mike whipped around to see if he had hit anything.

He discovered that something had hit him. Officer Sutliffe stood in front of his car, having just slapped Mike’s hood. The policeman rounded Mike’s car and motioned for him to roll down his car window.

“Where you going?” he asked.

“I have to get back to the university,” Mike lied.

“That’s great,” said Sutliffe. “We don’t have any record that you’re working this case.”

“I was just brought in this morning,” said Mike. “Maybe word hasn’t gotten around.”

“This case is being run by Bob Farrell,” said Mike. “If you think any decision about this case is not going through Bob, then you’ve clearly never worked with Bob before.”

“Okay,” said Mike. “My mistake. Thank you for your time.”

Now that Sutliffe wasn’t blocking Mike’s path, Mike was free to pull ahead and then make his getaway.

“I think we’re going to have to take a little trip back to headquarters,” said Sutliffe.

“I don’t have time for that,” Mike protested, still trying to make his way out of the situation with just pure denial.

“You’ll just need to make time,” said Sutliffe. He pulled open Mike’s door.

Mike felt helpless facing the big man. He reached over and unbuckled the seatbelt.

“Am I under arrest or something?” he asked.

“Nope,” said Sutliffe. “Not yet.”

Sutliffe gripped Mike’s elbow as he got out of his car.

AT HEADQUARTERS, THEY SAT MIKE ALONE in an interview room and left him for close to an hour. When they finally entered, he had become both scared and angry.

A man wearing a button-down shirt and suspenders entered first, followed by a uniformed officer. They both sat opposite Mike and laid out notebooks and folders before addressing him.

“So, Mr. Markey,” began the man in plain-clothes.

“Doctor,” Mike corrected.

“Yes,” said the man. “My mistake, Doctor Markey,” he continued. “My name is Pat Farnham, and his gentleman is Red Bisson. “What was your intention at the crime scene today. Officer Sutliffe said he caught you examining a footprint?”

“Yes,” said Mike. He wondered if he should demand to have his lawyer present, but he didn’t want to incur any more hourly charges to his already expensive defense fund.

“And then you pretended to be a member of the investigation team?”

“Yes,” said Mike. “But I was just trying to find an excuse to leave.”

“Why was that important to you?” asked Pat Farnham, hooking a thumb under one of his suspenders.

“I thought I had seen a footprint like that before,” said Mike.

“What brought you to that house?” Pat asked quickly.

“I saw the footprint on TV. I saw it on channel six,” Mike clarified.

“Channel six,” Pat commented. “Where were you when you were watching TV?”

“At home,” said Mike.

“So you were at home,” he said, consulting a paper on the table, “almost a hundred miles away, and you saw something on TV that made you drive all the way up here so you could look at a footprint?”

“It looked like a pretty unusual footprint,” said Mike. “Big, you know? I’m a scientist, and I study mutations and species and stuff. Footprints that big are really interesting to a guy like me.”

“Let’s get right down to it,” said Pat. “Tell us what you were doing at the scene of a brutal murder—how you came to be there, and more importantly, why. Interfering with an investigation is incredibly easy for us to charge, so you better have some really good answers.”

“I found the house because I know where the guy started from,” said Mike, abandoning all pretense.