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Presumed Dead Page 8


  I slowed and watched as Connor’s orange pickup appeared out of the drive and turned left onto the road, passing by me a couple of moments later. I made a snap decision and quickly turned the car in the road, heading after him. As far as I was aware, the only thing on that road before the intersection with Route 19 was Benson’s place. Was Connor coming to talk to me? Perhaps there was something he had forgotten to tell me earlier. But then he passed the sign for Benson’s Cabins without slowing.

  Without quite knowing why I was doing it, I slowed down until he rounded the next bend, then switched my headlights off and sped up again. I kept within a couple of hundred yards of him; ready to switch my lights back on as soon as I saw a car coming in the other direction. I didn’t want Connor to know I was following him, but I also didn’t relish the idea of a head-on collision with a semi.

  But there was no oncoming traffic. It looked like nobody was driving into Bethany this time of the evening. The road narrowed and I could see there was a drop on my left hand side. I kept the car as far over from the edge as I could. I kept Connor’s taillights in view, trusting them to show me the turns ahead. And then the lights winked out as he rounded a corner, and everything was black. I slowed down and focused on keeping the steering wheel steady. I risked turning the running lights on, which gave me just enough illumination to see the road ahead. The next curve was about fifty yards away. I advanced slowly and got ready to cut the lights as I got around the corner, hoping he would still be in view.

  Connor’s car had disappeared.

  I went to full lights, then high beams. The road extended in a long straight section. He couldn’t have covered the distance that quickly at the forty or so miles an hour he’d consistently been doing. Had he spotted me? Waited until he was out of sight and then floored it, in the knowledge I would have to take the turn slowly?

  And then out of the corner of my eye, I saw his taillights. But they were off to the side, through the trees. I cut my own lights again and backed up. There was a narrow road leading into the woods. Almost obscured by the trees was an old, rusted sign.

  DEAD END – NO THRU TRAFFIC

  There was nothing else to indicate where the road led. I saw the brake lights of the pickup flash as he slowed for an obstruction, and then slowly drive on.

  I waited and then followed. It wasn’t a dirt road, but it evidently hadn’t been resurfaced for years. It was bumpy and rutted, weeds sprouting up from potholes everywhere. I wondered how far into the woods the road went.

  I had lost Connor’s taillights, so I risked turning my running lights on again. I saw something glinting in them a hundred yards away. As I approached, I realized it was a sheet of metal lain across the road. No, across a gap in the road. It was a bridge about twenty feet long, spanning a stream. The bridge looked a lot newer than the road. I stopped and got out.

  It was a temporary bridge, like they use on construction sites, and the military uses in the field. Flat-packed, easily transportable: the IKEA approach. I wondered if the bridge would take the weight of the car; but given Connor had passed this way in his considerably heavier vehicle, I already knew the answer. And then I heard music, and knew I could go the rest of the way on foot.

  After walking for a couple of minutes, I crested a rise and saw that the road ended in a wide clearing on the shores of the lake. There was a house there. It was big and old, almost a mansion. It was three stories high, with a steep roof. I could see broken windows and places where the roof had caved in. There was an old barn or storage building next to it. The house was in darkness, the only light from the headlights of David Connor’s pickup truck, parked out front. There was a raised deck around the house that turned into a long jetty out onto the lake. Connor had turned up the music from his car. Some hard rock song that I didn’t recognize. He was sitting at the end of the jetty, looking out at the water.

  I thought about walking down there and telling him I had followed him from the house, but I decided against it. I didn’t particularly want to confess that I had tailed him, but that wasn’t what held me back. It was something about his posture out there. It would be like interrupting someone meditating, or praying.

  I turned and headed back across the temporary bridge to where I had left the car. I could talk to David Connor after I had been to Atlanta. Maybe by then I would have some of the answers he was looking for.

  20

  Dwight Haycox

  Devil Mountain wasn’t one of the very highest peaks in the area, but all the same, Haycox didn’t exactly relish the idea of climbing it alone in the dark. It would make more sense to wait until daylight, but he was curious to see if his contact was on the level.

  This time, Bloody Bill had left a number to call. It had been answered by a man with a strong Georgia accent. A little too strong. Like it was being exaggerated. He said he had been reading Haycox’s posts and was interested in his theories. He refused to answer when asked for his real name, of course, but said he had grown up in the area years before and moved away in the seventies. He had followed the Devil Mountain Killer case with interest, and had recently been reminded of it. He said there was a shelter on one of the old trails that he had never seen mentioned in any of the books or articles, and wondered if it had been searched as part of the original investigation.

  Haycox had never seen a reference to a shelter. He dug out the trail atlas from 1968 he had picked up a year ago in a second-hand bookstore in Macon and leafed through to the section showing Devil Mountain. The new trail had already been routed by the time of printing, but the older one was still indicated on the map. It wasn’t on newer editions. It looked like a shorter, but steeper route to the summit. Sure enough, there was a little triangle indicating a shelter, halfway between the point where the old trail diverged from the new and the summit.

  He compared it with a more up-to-date trail map, and then with Google Maps. It didn’t appear on either. The old trail had been erased from the record. Switching to Google Earth, he could see no sign of it, but that wasn’t surprising if it had been untended for fifty years or so. It was only by careful comparison with the ’68 map that he was able to focus in on the spot to see something that looked like it could be a small building.

  Haycox had climbed Devil Mountain twice before, when he first came to Bethany, and in the spring just after he had transferred in. Both times in temperate weather during daylight hours. Tonight, he felt the November chill even through an overcoat and gloves. His breath came out in clouds, lit up by the beam from his flashlight as he ascended into the mountains.

  He heard things moving in the darkness of the woods all the way up the initial slope. Every once in a while, something would make a big enough noise that he would sweep the beam around, occasionally catching the glint of a pair of animal eyes, more often nothing at all. There hadn’t been a bear sighted this close to Bethany in forty years, but he took little comfort from that statistic. He was relieved when he emerged from the tree line and onto a barren patch of slope. The clear sky hung above him, the stars so bright after the darkness of the woods that he was able to turn off the flashlight and still see the path.

  He stopped for a rest at a point where he could see Bethany below him. It looked deserted, but for the lights. Like a battery-lit town built into a model railroad. He glanced down at his geolocation device, sure he must have missed the coordinates, and found that he was almost on top of the divergence point. Two minutes later, he found it. Beyond a line of thick bushes, he found the slender trace of an old track, almost completely overgrown. It led into another stand of trees. He pointed the flashlight at the trail, took a deep breath, and headed back into the woods.

  21

  Carter Blake

  I turned back onto the main road and drove toward Lake Bethany, the rumble in my stomach reminding me I had skipped lunch. There didn’t seem to be much in the way of options in town. The little coffee shop was closed, and although J
oe Benson had offered to fix me a sandwich whenever I needed, I decided to try out the bar at the far end of Main Street.

  Jimmy’s Bar & Grill was a big, beat-up shack that somebody had slapped some neon on in the last few years in lieu of a real makeover. It was a one-story building with wood siding and a roof that sloped gently upwards. A flag hung limp in the still air above the sign that said JIMMY’S in red and advertised BEER, MUSIC, BAR-B-Q in smaller, green letters. I parked the car and went inside.

  It was busier than the coffee place out on the highway had been, but not by much, even though it was Saturday night. Two women sat at the bar, conversing animatedly. A guy in jeans and a Stetson with a bushy gray mustache was stretched over a pool table in the corner, lining up for a bank shot. There was no one else with him. On the other side, behind the bar was a skinny kid of college age wearing a black T-shirt that looked at least one size too big for him. He was polishing the glasses that were suspended from the apron above the bar.

  There was a jukebox in the corner; one of those things that’s got up to look like a real 1950s wax-spinner, but is basically just a gigantic plastic iPod under the façade. The choice of music was okay at least. Creedence Clearwater Revival, ‘Have You Ever Seen the Rain’.

  The cowboy looked up, gave me the once-over, and then looked back at the table and nailed his bank shot. The ladies at the bar and the bartender didn’t register my entry. The music didn’t stop. I crossed the wooden floor, which was worn, chipped and in need of a coat of varnish, and took a seat in a booth by the picture window where I could see the road and where my car was parked. I ordered a steak when the guy from the bar came over and introduced himself as Jason. I noticed the two women at the bar had spotted the newbie and were whispering in hushed tones as they took turns to examine me. I might as well have been wearing a sign that said ‘out-of-towner’.

  I turned my head to the window, remembering why I’m more comfortable working in places where I can blend in a little more. Perhaps a change of wardrobe would be sensible, although I might not take it as far as a Stetson. As I looked out at the lot, a pickup pulled in. I could tell it was as alien to this place as I was. A shiny black Toyota Sequoia, last year’s model. Probably the best part of fifty thousand bucks. The modest coat of dirt on the sills looked fresh. The two guys who got out were out-of-towners too.

  One of them was broad and tall, over six feet. The other was maybe six or eight inches shorter, but even wider. They were dressed for a hunting trip. Boots, camouflage pants and down vests over olive shirts. They wore matching camo baseball caps, too. The taller one had a full beard; the shorter one was playing catch-up with a couple of day’s growth. His cap had the word “Jeff” stitched above the brim. I didn’t know if it was some kind of logo, or if he just needed help remembering his name. They had parked a couple of spaces down from where I was, and close enough for me to see the New Jersey plates on the rear.

  The two of them exchanged a few words while looking at the place, and then started walking toward the door. “Jeff” led the way, eyeing the place suspiciously as though he was a soldier approaching an enemy encampment. They took a table near the bar and hollered for Jason’s attention.

  He was on his way back out to me with my beer and waved at them to let them know he had seen them.

  “In your own time, jag-off,” the one with the beard said, loud enough for both me and Jason to hear. With his back to them he rolled his eyes. I gave him a supportive shrug and accepted the beer. The guy with the Stetson potted the last ball and headed for the door, shooting a suspicious look at the two men.

  I decided I had spent long enough people-watching and turned my attention back to the local map I had bought in the general store. One of the pictures bound into the center pages of the Devil Mountain book I had bought was a schematic detailing where the different bodies had been found, and on what dates. I took out a sharpie and plotted the discovery sites as accurately as I could onto the more detailed map of the area. When I had finished, I had eight black dots, all within a ten-mile radius of Devil Mountain.

  I knew there were probably more dots in the same area, invisible on this map. Unmarked graves. The ones who had never been discovered. One more for the killer, if Isabella Green and the sheriff were right.

  I barely noticed when Jason arrived with my steak. He set it down at the side of the table as I moved the map over, and told me to enjoy it. I straightened the map and went over the body dump locations as I started to eat, not really paying attention to the food.

  It wasn’t difficult to see why suspicion had fallen on the population of Lake Bethany. It wasn’t just that three of the victims had been from the town; it was the fact that it was the only settlement of any size that fell within the circle of the killings. I didn’t think that necessarily meant anything. In general, it’s true that serial killers like to prey somewhere they know, and often that’s close to where they live. A killer operating within a city will often live within the circle defined by the primary crime scenes or dump spots. But when it comes to wild, rural areas like the country around Bethany, a frequent visitor like a hiker, hunter or fisherman can easily have as good or better knowledge of the terrain than somebody who’s lived there their whole life.

  From everything I had read and heard so far about the manhunt in 2002 to 2003, the authorities had agreed with me. There had only been one temporary suspect from Bethany, and that had been because Connor was a figure viewed with suspicion, related to one of the victims, and who admitted arguing with her beforehand.

  I thought about the hour I had spent with David Connor that afternoon. I could see why he was something of an outcast around town, and got the feeling that would have been true even if his sister hadn’t been killed. But I had to agree with Green: he didn’t seem like a killer. Then again, I’ve been wrong before.

  I looked up at a yelled “Hey”, and saw that the shorter man I had seen earlier – the one with “Jeff” on his hat – had moved over to the bar and was crowding the two women who were talking. From the body language of the three, it looked like Jeff had started to get a little too friendly and his attentions had been rebuffed.

  Instinctively, I started to rise out of my chair, and then I gripped the side of the table and stayed put, keeping my eyes on the two women and Jeff, and reminding myself of the warning Sheriff McGregor had given me.

  Trouble comes from outside. You play nice, we’ll treat you nice. You cause a ruckus, you’ll be run out of town faster than you can spit.

  Jason, the bartender, was tentatively approaching from his side of the bar, asking if there was a problem. Jeff’s head snapped around, but before he could say anything, the brunette was holding a hand up.

  “It’s fine, Jase. We’re just leaving anyhow.”

  Jeff shrugged as though it was her loss and swaggered back to his table, shooting Jason a wary glance on the way. The two women gathered up their bags, slipped their coats on and made their way out. One of them gave me a mildly reproachful look. I wasn’t even slightly bothered. Nobody got hurt, and I didn’t have to do anything. Win-win. Neither Jeff nor the one with the beard said anything to them as they left. Jason turned away and busied himself with some kind of paperwork on the other side of the bar.

  I relaxed my grip on the table. I finished eating, keeping the two men in the corner of my eye.

  Ten minutes later, as I was leaving cash and gathering up my reading material, I was thinking that Sheriff McGregor’s little motto about trouble coming from outside had been proved right. A scrape as a chair was thrust back and a yelled “What did you say to me, boy?” made me look up from what I was doing. I hadn’t seen what sparked it off. Perhaps Jason had forgotten one of the side dishes, or brought Coors instead of Bud. Either way, Jeff was on his feet, leaning into Jason’s face, as the latter shrank back, one arm held loosely up across his chest. Jason said something in reply, too quietly for me to catch it from across the
room and over the sound of Neil Young on the jukebox. I heard Jeff’s rebuttal, though.

  “Are you shitting me, you goddamned queer?”

  Jeff was getting in Jason’s face, moving forward as he shrank back. Jeff glanced down at his friend, who was sitting back in his chair with his arms folded. There was a serious look on his face, but I could see amusement behind his eyes. The international look of the bully’s best friend.

  Jeff reached out and grabbed the front of Jason’s shirt, gathering it in his fist and drawing him closer. At that point, I wondered if they even remembered there was someone else in the bar.

  “We’re not paying for this shit.”

  Jason was breathing hard, looked as though he was trying to work out what to say. And then he cast a desperate glance in my direction. That made my mind up.

  “Is there a problem?”

  Jeff’s head snapped around. Looked me up and down as I approached. He blinked, seemed to have trouble evaluating how much of a threat I presented. I could see his beady little blue eyes struggling with the calculation. If I had been as slight or as young as Jason, or a female, he wouldn’t have been worried. But I was a little taller than him and in reasonable shape, so it wasn’t quite that simple. Jeff still had one important advantage: backup. He shot his friend a meaningful glance. The one with the beard stood up immediately and turned to face me, the mild amusement gone from his eyes.

  “No problem that’s any of your business, asshole,” Jeff said.

  “It just looked like you were having some sort of problem, that’s all. The sort of problem that can be fixed by you paying your bill and leaving.” I finished with a friendly smile as I held unblinking eye contact.

  Jeff smirked and he and his friend exchanged a glance. He turned his gaze to me again and seemed to size me up, before looking at Jason, who had taken advantage of my interruption to move back a couple of steps.