Peter Decker 2-Book Thriller Collection: Blindman’s Bluff, Hangman. Faye Kellerman

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       11

      They stood twenty abreast, police officers interspersed with volunteers trained in this tedious aspect of protocol. All of them had a whistle around their neck and held a map in their hands. They were waiting for Wynona Pratt to give the signal—one long toot to begin and two short toots to stop. The detective had come down to the ranch several hours earlier to scope out Coyote Ranch. The vast acreage beyond the buildings and the riding corral was hard-packed terrain pocked with clumps of grasses, thorny briar, silver-leaf shrubs, purple sage, wild daisies, yellow dill weed, and chaparral, the land stretching out until it collided with the foothills. There the fauna climbed and joined forces with fragrant pines, eucalyptus, and stunted California oak, greening the mountainsides and shading the trails that cut through them.

      Adjusting her sun hat, Wynona peered through UV-protected spectacles at the map in front of her. She had divided it into five sectors, and with a little luck they’d finish it today. She had dressed comfortably—cargo pants to hold extra items, a cotton T-shirt, and sneakers. Her fair skin necessitated that she slather on sunscreen, and she hoped sun damage would be limited to freckles. She held her hand aloft, then brought it down with a snap along with a long, shrill whistle. The line walked forward in a unit, eyes on the ground in front of them. The list of what they were looking for was long and varied—footprints, tire tracks, drag marks, bits of clothing, popped buttons, bloodstains, food and food wrappers—any kind of evidence that pointed to human contact with nature.

      The morning was cool but warming quickly. The sun was unmasked in a clear sky, reflective against the red stone. The air was filled with spring insects that had hatched with the heat—gnats, flies, bees, wasps. Crows cawed lazily as a hawk circled high above, looking for its breakfast.

      The search of the first sector lasted just a little over two hours with meager results—a scattering of various fibers and metals including pop-tops and bottle caps. More numerous were horse prints and desiccated horse shit. A volunteer found a shoe impression that was clear enough to merit an alginate cast. The rest of the search was slim pickings. They moved on to sector two and by the time that space had been combed, the crew was hot and tired and needed sustenance. During the twenty-minute allotment they had for lunch break, Wynona called Marge.

      “How’s it going inside?”

      Marge said, “TMI.” Too much information. “Everywhere we turn, we have blood or tissue or a footprint or hair or a bullet casing.”

      “If you have TMI, we’re suffering from TLI.”

      “How far along are you?”

      “We’re about to start with sector three. I’ll call you in a couple of hours.”

      The group resumed their hunt at two in the afternoon. At 4:14, someone sounded two quick toots and the row of searchers lurched to a stop. The whistle blower was a young police officer in his twenties named Kyle Groger. He called Wynona over.

      “Take a look at that area, Detective, about twenty feet from here.” He pointed to the spot. “It looks odd.”

      Wynona took off her sunglasses and stared at the ground, her eyes traveling forward until she saw what had caught Groger’s attention. From a distance, the patch was indistinguishable from the surrounding area. Same color ground, same types of foliage, same pebble-strewn earth. Yet it looked distinctly different.

      First of all, the eight-by-eight plot of ground had sunk into the earth, lower than the surrounding terrain by about an inch or so. There were also two big boulders on top. The environs supported many big rocks, but two in such close proximity was a little odd. Also the foliage on the plot wasn’t faring СКАЧАТЬ