Hide and Seek (Criminal Profiler #1)(3)

Dave Sherman was a good ol’ boy who was well liked and had a solid reputation as a contractor in the Deep Run area. When he called 911 a half hour ago with his discovery, Nevada knew it wasn’t a prank call or a novice hunter mistaking animal bones for human.

He parked his black Suburban SUV behind the old blue pickup truck, where Sherman’s work crew sat on the tailgate. One was smoking. Another was drinking an energy drink. Sherman was on his cell phone, pacing, no doubt counting the dollars he was losing.

The barn was collapsing on the north side, and it looked as though it would tumble upon itself with one good storm. It was located twenty miles outside of the county seat of Deep Run and years ago had been a meeting spot for high school kids looking to party. Finally, law enforcement caught on to the gatherings and started routinely chasing away trespassers. From what Nevada could tell, no one had been out here in years.

Out of his vehicle, Nevada bent the stiff bill of his ball cap a couple of times before settling it on his head. The hat’s front panel read SHERIFF in white block letters. Other than the Glock and cuffs holstered on his hip, the hat was his only concession to an official uniform. His plan was to limit the starch and brass to board of supervisor meetings and the occasional parade.

Nevada grabbed his forensic kit from his vehicle. Like all his deputies, he collected basic forensic evidence. Complicated crime scenes were turned over to the state police.

Nevada walked up to Sherman, and the man ended his call immediately. They shook hands. “Hear you found something.”

“Thanks for coming so fast, Sheriff Nevada.”

Sheriff. Still didn’t sound right. “What do you have for me, Mr. Sherman?”

Sherman’s sun-etched face testified to decades of working in the open. However, he was clearly pale this morning. “At first I hoped it was an animal carcass. They can sometimes look human if you don’t know what you’re looking at. But then I saw the skull.”

“The barn is owned by the Wyatt family, correct?” Nevada had been gone for twenty-plus years from the valley, but he had grown up here and still knew many of the older families.

“Yeah. They wanted it moved. Apparently, one of the great aunts is thinking about selling the land. I purchased the structure for next to nothing.”

“Reclamation. Some money in that, I would imagine.”

“Yep. Until a half hour ago, I thought I’d hit a jackpot.”

By the look of Sherman’s red eyes, he had celebrated the windfall last night. “Show me what you found.”

Sherman tucked his cell phone in his pocket, and Nevada and he walked into the dimly lit barn. “Watch your step. There are nails and piles of wood everywhere.”

“Appreciate the warning.” Fine dust coated his steel-tipped boots as he moved toward the pile of rubble in the corner.

“We were breaking down this section over here,” Sherman said, pointing to a long three-sided chute that ran from the ground to the loft. The fourth wall had split and fallen on its side.

Nevada had grown up on his grandfather’s farm not far from here and had done his fair share of mucking stalls and pitching hay in a barn that looked very much like this one. Since his return to Deep Run, he’d been immersed in the painful process of strong-arming his pop’s homestead into the twenty-first century. The old place was fighting him every step of the way—and winning.

“The backpack was wedged in the chute,” Sherman said. “I guess that’s what kept the body from falling. The pack was protected from the sun and rain, so it’s still in pretty good shape.”

Nevada clicked on a flashlight and directed the beam onto the red backpack, which lay on its side. The initials TET were embossed on the outside, and there was a yellow yarn pom-pom attached to the zipper. It was old. Clearly long forgotten.

“I’ve got daughters of my own,” Sherman said. “I can’t imagine one coming home without her pack. They carry everything in it. Like my wife’s purse.”

Nevada removed latex gloves from his pocket and tugged them on. “Did you open it?”

“Shit, no. Soon as I spotted that skull, I had my men clear out.” Sherman rubbed the back of his neck. “Still makes my skin crawl when I look at it.”

Nevada took several pictures of the bag and the bones scattered around it with his phone. He looked up at the chute and tried to imagine how the bag and the body had gotten in there. The pack would have gone in first and then the individual after it. This could be a case of murder or just a damn tragic accident.

He pulled out a roll of yellow crime scene tape and tied it to one post, wound it around another, and knotted the ends to the horse stall gate.

With Sherman standing outside the tape now, Nevada spread out a white cloth and set the backpack on it. The red fabric was heavily stained on the top with a dark substance that smelled faintly of must and death. When the body had decayed, it would have bloated with gas until it burst, secreting its contents onto the pack.

“When’s the last time this barn was used, Sherman?” Nevada asked.

“It’s been close to thirty years,” he said. “When I played ball, we came out here on Thursday nights before the games. Hell of a lot of fun.”

“Did you play on the Dream Team?”

“I wish. Those boys came along about five years after me. Took it all the way to the state championship.”