Hollow Bond (A Magnolia Parish Mystery Book 2) Read online

  She nodded.

  I called over my shoulder and asked Jim if I could borrow a flashlight.

  He walked to the edge of the crime scene tape and tossed his Maglite to me. I caught it with one hand, thumbed the switch on, and walked to the edge of the blacktop that marked the end of the highway’s shoulder. I aimed the light at the grass that grew along the road. Moving it methodically back and forth, I scanned the ground inch by inch; searching for any evidence that would indicate the man dragged himself over that area.

  Dawn joined me. After a few minutes of searching, she pointed to a spot in the grass ahead of us.

  “There,” she said. “It looks like blood.”

  She was right. There was a spot of blood and what looked like a claw mark in the grass. I held the light while Dawn focused in on the blood with her camera. The flash lit up the area for a brief and brilliant moment, washing away my night vision. When she had snapped the picture, she placed an evidence placard on the ground near the blood and, careful not to disturb any potential evidence, inched closer to the tree line. I stayed close behind her and we found several dozen specks of blood and drag marks that revealed a wobbly trail leading backward from the body to the edge of the wooded area.

  Once we reached the tree line, I lifted the light and aimed it at a narrow opening in the underbrush. Grass was pressed down and twigs were snapped. There was a large smudge of blood at the base of a small sapling, and it was obvious that was where he’d crawled out from the trees. I’d hunted the area as a kid and I knew there was about a hundred yards of woodlands directly in front of me. After that, it turned into soupy marshlands that spilled into Lake Bentley. There weren’t any nudist colonies along the lake that I knew of, and it was unlikely any had sprung up in recent years, especially since the spill had devastated the—

  “Shit!” Dropping her camera, Dawn jerked her Glock from its holster and aimed it at a spot through the trees. “Something moved over there!”

  I pulled out my own pistol and shut off the light. With the instinct born from years of training and practical application, I moved laterally to my left a few steps to create some distance between Dawn and me and dropped to one knee. Dawn did the same and we knelt there frozen...each of us breathing softly, listening. My pulse quickened ever slightly when I heard a low groan from somewhere just beyond the tree line. Could it be the killer? I squeezed the grip of my pistol tighter, trying to stop the trembling in my hands. It was no use. The barrel of my handgun shook noticeably even in the darkness. I was tense, my body bracing for the gunshots I knew would come. For a moment, I found myself frozen in place. My thoughts went to Samantha. If I died, who would care for her? Who would teach her how to fight? How to take care of herself?

  Dawn dropped to one hand and crawled toward me, keeping her pistol at the ready. When she reached me, she leaned in and placed her lips against my ear. Her words were barely whispers and I shuddered when I felt the warm air against my neck. “Give me the flashlight,” she offered. “When you move into a better position, I’ll light up the area. If it’s the killer, take that bastard out quick.”

  Her voice snapped me out of it. I took a deep breath and exhaled, went into autopilot.

  “I’ll toss something at you when I’m in position,” I whispered back. I touched her leg with the Maglite, offered it to her. When she took it, I placed my free hand in the damp grass and moved my bodyweight over it. I inched one knee forward and eased it onto the soft grass, careful not to snap a twig in the process. Shifting my weight from my free hand to my knees, I kept my pistol trained on the spot where we’d first heard the noise, moving forward with the silent dexterity that had been engrained within me from years of playing hide-and-seek in the woods as a kid. I was calm again, ready for whatever I might find. My senses were sharp. I could hear the soft grass giving way under my weight...smell the marshy water nearby...feel the cool metal of the trigger against my right index finger.

  After what seemed like a little more than forever, I made it to the edge of the wooded area and slinked through an opening in the trees. I continued moving stealthily forward until I was several feet from where I’d last heard the noise. Poised for action, mouth agape so I could hear better, I fished a quarter from my pocket. I leaned back, took careful aim, and tossed it toward the dark shadow that marked Dawn’s position. A second later, light flooded the area and I started to lunge forward, but jerked to a stop and gasped at what lay before me.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Call a medic!” I hollered. “I think she’s alive!” I holstered my pistol and rushed forward. It looked like she’d gone fifteen rounds with a jackhammer. Had it not been for her large and exposed breasts, I would not have been able to determine her gender.

  Dawn joined me a minute later and stopped in her tracks when the flashlight illuminated the bloodied mess in front of me.

  “Oh, shit! Are you sure she’s alive?”

  I nodded. “Her chest is rising just a little and I saw one of her eyes blink.”

  Dawn moved to the opposite side of the victim, her tanned face a few shades lighter. “Marshall’s radioing for an ambulance. What can I do to help?”

  I swallowed, unsure of what to do next. I was better at breaking bodies than fixing them, and this body was seriously damaged. As I tried desperately to remember what I’d learned during first aid class, I began visually assessing the woman’s condition. Like the man, she was completely nude—didn’t even have socks on—and it appeared she’d suffered one hell of a beating. Her face was a mass of broken and swollen flesh. The left eye had been reduced to a large purple knot and the right eyelid fluttered, but was slightly open. Her jaw was swollen, possibly broken. One arm was draped over her exposed breasts, but did little to conceal them, if that’s what she was going for. The other arm clutched at her stomach, and I figured she must’ve taken some shots to the gut. There could be some internal damage, and I knew nothing about patching up the insides. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that some of her fingernails were chipped.

  “Grab some paper bags from the trunk,” I told Dawn. “We need to cover her hands to preserve any evidence that might be under her fingernails.”

  Dawn hurried off and I leaned close to the woman, stared into her open eye. I splashed some light in her face and she squinted. That was a good sign. “Can you hear me?” I asked.

  She groaned and her head moved slightly in the direction of a nod.

  “Do you know who did this to you?”

  She groaned again, but there was no head movement. Was that a yes groan or a no groan?

  “Look,” I said. “I’m only going to ask questions that require a yes or no response. If you can, blink once for yes, twice for no. You think you can do that?”

  The woman closed her right eye. A few tense seconds passed where I thought it might never open again, but it did. I sighed, said, “Good.” I couldn’t help but wonder if I was talking to a dead woman. “Okay, first off, I want you to know that you’re safe now. Nobody’s going to hurt you anymore. We also have an ambulance on the way and we’re going to get you all better. Okay?”

  The woman groaned.

  “I’m a detective with the Magnolia Parish Sheriff’s Office. My name’s Brandon Berger. The other detective with me is Dawn Luke. She’s going get some bags that we’re going to put over your hands to preserve any evidence that might be under your nails. Now, I’m going to ask you some questions to try and help us figure out what happened to you.” I paused to let the information sink in, continued. “First, do you know who did this to you?”

  The woman blinked once, and then again.

  “The other person—the man—do you know him?”

  The woman began whimpering, almost hysterically, and tears streamed from her eye. She tried to move, but only succeeded in dragging her arm away from her breasts. It flopped to the ground like a dead tree branch.

  My mind raced. What if the man was her husband? If she thought he was dead, just the grief from it might fini
sh her off, and she would certainly not want to blink through my questions. I didn’t want to lie to her, but I needed her to be strong. For her own well-being, she had to remain calm. She could hate me later.

  “It’s okay...it’s okay, ma’am. The man’s fine. He’s banged up a little, but he made his way out to the road and got help. He’s the reason we’re here. He saved you, so you should be proud. In fact, they’re fixing him up right now. He’s strong, so he’ll be up and around in no time.”

  This didn’t seem to settle the woman, but she blinked the tears from her eye and there seemed to be a more determined look in her mangled face. Her mouth moved a little, as though she were trying to tell me something.

  “Just relax and blink for me, okay? You can tell me everything you need to tell me later...when you’re stronger.” I paused for a moment and then continued my question-and-blink session. “You said you don’t know who did this to you. Is that correct?”

  One blink.

  “Were they men?”

  One blink.

  “Were they white?”

  One blink.

  “Was it one or more than one?”

  The woman’s eyebrow furrowed slightly.

  I winced. “I’m sorry, ma’am. Um, was it one man who did this?”

  The woman blinked twice.

  “Was it two?”

  One blink.

  Okay, we’re making progress. I now knew we were looking for two white men. I rubbed the stubble on my chin. How could I get her to reveal their identities through blinking? First off, I needed to establish their connection. “The man, the other victim, is he your husband?”

  The woman’s eye closed slowly. I waited for several seconds, but it didn’t open. I touched her shoulder. “Ma’am, is he your husband?”

  The woman’s swollen face seemed to relax.

  I shook her shoulder a little harder. “Ma’am, I need you to wake up.”

  Nothing.

  I pushed two fingers up where I thought her carotid artery should be. I couldn’t feel anything. I felt her wrist, but that, too, was void of a pulse. My own heart began to beat like a piston in overdrive. I shook her roughly and her head flopped from side to side. “Lady, wake up! Come on, wake up!”

  Still no response.

  I pressed my ear to her wet chest, but couldn’t hear a heartbeat. I did the same over her lips and couldn’t feel her breathing.

  I tilted her head back and grabbed her chin to pull open her mouth. Before I bent to give her a breath, I screamed over my shoulder, “Get that ambulance here now! We’re losing her!”

  I pressed my mouth to hers and was immediately greeted with the metallic flavor of blood. It was a familiar taste. Back when I was a young amateur boxer, I’d tasted my own blood on a regular basis, but this was the first time I’d ever tasted someone else’s blood and I didn’t like it. Please don’t have any contagious diseases!

  I gave two quick breaths, turned, and spat her blood from my mouth. The woman’s chest rose and fell with the breaths, and I remembered from CPR class it was an indication I was performing the technique correctly. I then cupped my hands over the center of her chest. Just above her sternum. I began to perform chest compressions. One, two, three...how many am I supposed to do again? Unsure, I kept pushing until I reached ten. I dropped to the woman’s mouth again and gave another breath. I was about to move to her chest when something crashed through the bushes behind me. I whirled around and reached for my pistol, but stopped when I saw Dawn skidding to a stop beside me.

  “I’ll do the chest compressions!” she said, and immediately began performing them.

  Since my mouth had already been contaminated, I didn’t argue. We worked together for what felt like a long eternity.

  After what had to be minutes, but felt like hours, I paused for a brief second and pushed my fingers against the woman’s neck. Dawn knelt beside me and waited, her breath coming in labored gasps.

  I grabbed Dawn’s arm, pulled it toward the lady. “I think I feel something, but I’m not sure. Check it.”

  She pressed her index and ring fingers against the victim’s neck and squinted in concentration. Her sweat-drenched hair was plastered to the sides of her head and several mosquitoes were drilling for blood on her neck and face. She didn’t even flinch. Finally, her face relaxed and she declared victory. “She has a pulse. We did it...we saved her.”

  Relief flooded over me. I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my breath until that very moment. I exhaled forcefully, sank to my back on the forest floor. It was the first time I’d ever performed CPR on anything other than a plastic dummy. I felt like I’d gone toe-to-toe with two gorillas at once. “I don’t even know if I was doing that right,” I said.

  Dawn shook her head. “I don’t think we’re supposed to do breaths anymore, but who the hell knows? It worked.”

  Sirens wailed in the distance, drew nearer.

  I took some deep, relaxing breaths. When my heart rate and breathing had returned to normal, I put a hand on Dawn’s shoulder, squeezed. “Good job, partner.”

  She nodded, wiped her face with a shirt sleeve.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Just happy we were able to bring her back.”

  “You sure that’s all it is?”

  She turned and looked directly into my eyes. Even in the dim light I could see the moisture building. “Every time I hear sirens I think about that night...about you lying there, bleeding. I thought you were dead.”

  I smiled to reassure her, but my insides were trembling. “That was a long time ago.”

  She brushed at a tear that slid down her face. “I know, but when I hear sirens, everything comes rushing back.”

  I knew what she meant, because I felt the same. I leaned close, put an arm around her, and gave her a quick hug. “You did great that night, Dawn. You saved my life. I’d be dead if it weren’t for you, and that’s reason to celebrate. When you hear those sirens, be proud of yourself—of how you acted that night.”

  She lowered her head, nodded.

  “As for her”—I pointed to our victim—“she’s not out of the woods yet.”

  Within minutes, two ambulance personnel had arrived and Lieutenant Marshall led them to where we waited. The terrain along the highway was rough and uneven with chunks of asphalt sticking up from the ground, so the medics were forced to leave the stretcher on the paved shoulder of the road. One of them carried a spine board and carefully placed it beside the victim. When they had assessed her situation and stabilized her neck, Dawn and I helped them lift her onto the board. They secured her in place and we walked ahead of them, picking our way along the uneven path. Dawn guided them with her voice and I kept my light trained on the ground in front of them, but my eyes were on the rising and falling of the white sheet that covered the victim’s naked body. Each time it fell, I held my breath and said a silent prayer for it to rise again. It did.

  We finally reached the shoulder of the road and they eased the spine board onto the stretcher, secured it in place with two straps. Once that was done, they quickly wheeled her toward the ambulance parked in the middle of the highway and shoved the stretcher into the back, the metal legs folding up as they did so. They continued pushing the stretcher forward until it locked firmly in place with a loud clicking sound. One of the medics jumped into the back of the ambulance and pulled the doors shut. The other medic turned to me. “Is that her blood on your face?”

  Remembering, I touched my lips and nodded.

  He pulled a sanitizing wipe from a pouch on his belt and handed it to me.

  “Thanks,” I said, and cleaned my lips and cheeks.

  “You know, we don’t recommend rescue breathing anymore”—the medic pointed to the blood on my face—“for that exact reason. You need to be careful...you never know what kind of disease a person might have.”

  “If not rescue breaths, then what?” I asked.

  “We’re teaching only chest compressions now,” he
said. “They’re adequate and safer for first responders.”

  “I told you,” Dawn said.

  “Since when?” I wanted to know.

  “A few years ago.”

  I frowned as I balled up the sanitizing wipe. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Maybe if you’d attend the mandatory yearly first aid classes you might be up-to-date on that kind of important stuff,” Dawn chided playfully.

  The medic turned and sprinted for the driver’s door of the ambulance. With sirens blaring and lights flashing, they sped off toward Magnolia General Hospital, which was located in the city of Chateau. Chateau was the parish seat and nearly forty miles to the north. I said another silent prayer—this time so the victim would survive the ride. Without her, we might never know what happened out on that highway.

  “Lieu,” Dawn called to Jim Marshall. “Can your deputy follow the ambulance to the hospital and stand guard over the victim? Until we know what we’re dealing with, we need to take every precaution.”

  Marshall nodded and barked orders at Andy, who promptly jumped into his cruiser, flicked on his top lights, and raced down the highway. He quickly gained on the ambulance and I watched until the lights atop his vehicle were tiny flashes of red and blue in the distance. As I stared, I wondered why the couple had been brutally beaten, stripped naked, and left to die beside the highway. Who would do such a thing? And why strip them naked? Did someone want to humiliate them? The beatings were so severe they certainly appeared to be crimes of passion, and could easily be the work of an ex-lover. That could explain the humiliation aspect of the crime. But what if it wasn’t a crime of passion at all? What if it was a robbery set up to look like a crime of passion? Or road-rage turned deadly and the victims were stripped of their clothes for some unknown reason? I shook my head to clear it. We needed to identify the victims as soon as possible, because they were our first clue. The first clue should lead to another clue, and then to another, and another, until we reached the final clue that told us who was responsible for the crime. If we couldn’t identify the couple, we’d be stuck at the first clue—two bodies found beaten to death on the side of the road.