the shadow of a tall cottonwood, she spotted a dark green sedan that apparently had gone across the shoulder and run into the shrubs, rocks and trees at the side of the road. She parked behind it. “Maybe our three hikers came from that car.”
“Makes sense,” Ty said. “Maybe they had an accident and are trying to walk back to civilization. But why didn’t we see them on the road? Why would they go toward the fire?”
She left the SUV and went to investigate. The green sedan blended into the trees and shrubs, which was why the helicopter pilot hadn’t noticed it. She saw the outline of a man’s head and shoulders behind the steering wheel.
He wasn’t moving.
A rising sense of dread crept up her spine and raised the fine hairs on the nape of her neck. Unlike the distant threat of the raging wildfire, this trouble was only a few steps away. Sam adjusted the holster on her belt for easier access to the Glock 23 she’d used to win marksmanship contests at the academy. Never once had she fired her pistol on the job: her stun gun was usually enough. But her cop instincts told her that this situation might require more firepower.
“Sir,” she called out as she moved closer to the vehicle, “I’m with the sheriff’s department. Show me your hands. Sir?”
Ty came up beside her. He held his Beretta at the ready. “I suggest we proceed with caution.”
“Ya think?”
He immediately backed off. “I’m following your lead, Sam.”
Even if Swain County wasn’t a hotbed of criminal activity, she knew the standard procedures and would adhere to them as much as possible. She pulled her pistol from the holster and went to the driver’s side. The window was down. Fully expecting to find the driver sleeping or drunk, she angled around until she could see inside.
“Sir, are you...?” The words froze in her mouth.
He’d been shot in the chest. The front of his plaid flannel shirt was drenched in blood from his neck to his gut. Oh God, what do I do next? What’s the procedure? She should check for a pulse, assess his condition. But she didn’t need to touch his pale jowls to know the flesh would be cold. His sightless eyes stared directly at her.
“He’s dead,” Ty said.
“Yes.” She could barely speak. Her throat was dry.
“We need to be careful. The killer might still be nearby.”
Gathering her courage, she backed away from the sedan and scanned the area, peering through the smoke at the rocks, shrubs and trees. No one else was in sight, but these hills were full of hiding places. A murderer wouldn’t put up a billboard to announce his presence.
But would he run away? Was he waiting for them? Harsh little flashes of tension and fear made it impossible for her to concentrate. Oh, Wade, I miss you. He would have known what to do. He was a born leader; giving orders came easily to him. Somehow, she had to pull herself together.
She cleared her throat. “We have to find the hikers.”
“Do you think they did this?”
“I don’t know.”
But she didn’t think those three men with backpacks were in this area by coincidence. Either they were friends of the deceased who were on the run or they were killers.
Ty gently touched her shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“This is my first murder case.”
“I’m here to help.”
She’d seen dead bodies before, usually people who passed away from old age or due to an accident. And she’d arrested plenty of bad guys who had hurt someone else. The local violence had always stopped far short of murder.
“I can do this,” she said.
“Hell yes.”
She slapped her Glock back into the holster. “I want this investigation to be done right.” She took out a pair of baby blue latex gloves and slipped them on.
“Do you always have gloves in your pocket?”
“Not my pocket. My utility belt.” She passed a pair to him. “I keep them in here.”
“Isn’t that the place where you should be packing a second magazine for your Glock?”
“Here’s the thing, Ty. I’ve never fired all thirteen rounds from this gun. I’ll carry one mag of extra bullets, but the second one is overkill. But I’ve found the gloves come in handy. I am a mom, after all.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Last time I used my latex gloves was at Jenny’s kindergarten class when we were making a collage of forest animals.”
He nodded slowly. “What’s our next move?”
That was a good question. Swain County didn’t have the facilities to deal with a murder. They had a small clinic and a dentist who doubled as county coroner but no hospital for an autopsy. For forensics, she used a fingerprint kit that she usually carried in her SUV. She had no access to DNA data analysis or a mass spectrometer or any other fancy tools.
In usual circumstances, she’d step aside and happily turn this investigation over to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation or maybe the Grand Junction police. But today was different. Today, there was a wildfire that just might reach this car and obliterate the scene of the crime.
She took her cell phone from her pocket. “First, I’m going to take photos of the crime scene and dust for prints. Then you and me are going to load this body into the back of my SUV and cart him to the nearest hospital.”
“Why move him?”
Pointing toward the flames, she said, “So the body won’t be incinerated along with the rest of the evidence.”
With her phone camera, she took a picture of the windshield and the front end of the car, which was crumpled against the trunk of the cottonwood. The damage wasn’t severe, causing her to think the car hadn’t been going very fast at the time of impact. Pleased with herself for drawing that conclusion, she made a complete circle around the sedan, taking pictures of the whole car. No skid marks in the gravel behind the car. The driver hadn’t applied the brakes.
A theory began to form in her mind. The man behind the steering wheel was already dead when the car hit the tree. Her conclusion fit the evidence. Wade would have been proud of her. He’d always said that she was a natural-born cop, not surprising since her father was a captain in the Portland PD.
She returned to the front window and made observations, sticking her head inside. The dead man was covered in blood, but the rest of the front seat was fairly clean. She looked over her shoulder at Ty. “I don’t think this sedan is our primary crime scene.”
“What do you mean?”
“I
