Forbidden (Southern Comfort) by O'Neill, Clark (free ebook reader txt) 📗

Kind of like right now.

He had to put Tate in some kind of off-limits category, because wanting her like this was going to kill him.

Tate was watching him, albeit surreptitiously, from under the heavy fringe of her lashes.  This is the part where he should make some appropriate noises that conveyed non-committal acknowledgement of what she’d told him.

Of course, what he really wanted to say was “his loss, my gain.”

But before he could say anything, Deputy Harding came skidding around the corner.  He stopped short, flicked a glance at Tate, clearing his throat as he turned to Clay.

“Sorry to interrupt your lunch.  But one of the search teams has just uncovered something.  We think we might have a crime scene for you to look at.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

THE body lay in a shallow grave, buried amidst a stand of loblolly pines just a couple of miles from the fairgrounds.  A tattered, blood-spattered sneaker found nearby had caught the eye of a member of the search party, and after a brief survey of the area he’d discovered a young girl’s partially exposed hand.

Thankfully, the man had the sense to leave the scene intact and call in the sheriff.  Clay asked both the crime scene techs and the coroner to wait for his arrival to begin collecting evidence, as the way an offender left a scene revealed substantial information about his behavior.  Outdoor crime scenes, particularly body dumps, were more difficult to process because both the elements and nature’s clean-up crew – insects and small predators – conspired to erase the clues left behind.

But Clay gathered what information he could, like the fact that this must have been an unplanned attack, because the grave was inadequate.  Clearly an afterthought, the girl’s final resting spot was less than twenty-four inches deep.  The perp hadn’t brought along any tools to dig with, but instead had used a rock that Clay found tossed aside, and probably his hands.  If he’d planned to kill the girl, he hadn’t planned to do it here.

But Clay suspected that he hadn’t planned to kill her at all.   His action had most likely been brought on by a sudden, blind rage – maybe the girl resisted him, or said something to set him off – or he’d accidentally used more force than necessary when trying to subdue her.

Clay studied the scene, the proximity to the road, and the tread marks that suggested a heavy application of brakes.

Escape attempt, he mused, probably while the vehicle was moving. The perp slams on the brakes, exits the car, not going to let her get away.  Already caused him enough trouble, he thinks, little bitch better step in line.  Maybe he hits her in the face – the blood on the sneaker – and then proceeds to pound her into submission.

But he’d underestimated the force of his blows, and accidentally killed her.

The crime had occurred right here.

Clay believed that the offender panicked – killing her was not in his plan – and then sought to conceal the evidence of his misdoing.  Not thinking entirely clearly, he left that sneaker above ground instead of tossing it into the grave. Then he dropped the rock, which probably wouldn’t hold any fingerprints but may have managed to snag an epithelial, right next to the gravesite.

He’d have to wait for the autopsy to be able to say for sure, but he’d bet money the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.

The body had reached a point of decomp, aided by the rich, loamy soil beneath the pines, that made it impossible to reach a definitive hypothesis simply by doing a visual. But there were no other obvious injuries, such as a gunshot wound, that would suggest his theory was off base.

Intuition caused the little hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. This kind of rage could be attributed to a number of things, of course.  One of them being ‘roid rage.

Like, he suspected, the man who’d killed the girl in Kim’s snuff film.

And possibly the same man who’d taken Casey.

Clay sighed as he looked over the remains of the young girl in the shallow grave.  She was approximately early teens, light brown hair pulled into a matted ponytail.  Eye color was difficult to tell – they’d turned milky due to decomposition.  She’d been thin, possibly malnourished.

Her clothes looked to have been poor quality, stained and worn before they’d been covered with dirt.  There was a small knapsack in the grave alongside her, and after the crime scene techs had photographed everything in situ, Clay used a gloved hand to examine the contents of the pink bag.

A tube of bubble-mint flavored toothpaste. A yellow Tweety-bird toothbrush. Some hair bands, a brush with rhinestones around the handle, a pair of white cotton underwear, three dollars, and a box of condoms.

A box of condoms.

Clay pushed his all too human reaction aside, continuing his search on autopilot.  If he let emotion come into play, he’d never be able to do his job.

Even in the shelter of the trees, the afternoon sun was unbearably hot.  The air was thicker here, the timber a natural windbreak.  And death hung over this patch of earth like a sickly pall.

A cloud of insects droned in a low buzz, drawn from their lassitude by the smell of rotting flesh.  They hovered impatiently and Clay swatted at them with his hand.  Sweat dripped down the back of his neck, adding to the unmistakable aroma of violent death.

He himself was somewhat inured to the stench, as were the coroner and most of the crime scene techs.  But he couldn’t help but notice that one or two of the deputies on the scene looked a little green.  Bentonville – in fact the whole county – was a relatively safe jurisdiction. Murdered, rotting corpses probably didn’t turn up all that often.

He did a quick visual to see how Deputy Loverboy was holding up, and noticed him over by the