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“Severin’s?” I ask softly.
“Shit, Rick. Yes, of course Severin’s. Unless there are more bodies out there we haven’t run across yet.”
The suggestion alone makes me want to grab Dana and haul her off this damn mountain. Dreams be damned.
Instead, I calmly end my conversation with Tessa by telling her I’ll be right up. Then I swing back around to find Dana’s sharp, green eyes fixed on me.
“You have to go.”
“I do,” I confirm when I reach her. “But I’ll be just up the road.”
Then I do something incredibly stupid and cup her face in my hands, leaning in to brush her lips with mine.
Monumentally stupid.
Chapter 11
Rick
* * *
“This is gonna be a waste of time.”
I nod my agreement at Tessa’s grumble.
As far as crime scenes go, this one is a shit show.
It’s clear this place has been used as some kind of hangout, probably for local kids. Evidence of bonfires, broken beer bottles, garbage, even a discarded mattress and sleeping bag can be seen littered around the buildings. Maybe some of the town’s gossip around this place has incited some curiosity.
Inside the small warehouse, tucked in behind the old office building, one of the deputies discovered a large blood stain soaked into the concrete someone had tried to cover up with dirt.
We’ve taken samples of the blood, which we’ll send to the lab to confirm it’s Severin’s, but other than that, it’s going to be almost impossible to try and pull any more useable evidence from this scene. Aside from the relentless rain in past days, there has clearly been a bit of traffic through here, and it’s impossible to know what should be considered evidence related to the murder.
Still, we have to try.
“Let’s photograph everything, both inside the warehouse and the immediate surroundings,” I suggest. “Every piece of trash, every visible tire track, anything that stands out or looks out of place. And we need to keep our eyes open for anything that might’ve been used as the murder weapon.”
The autopsy report we received yesterday afternoon suggests the damage to Severin’s skull was likely done by a heavy pipe or possibly a bat. Finding a murder weapon would be something. Bonus points if it’s found inside and not exposed to the elements. With the kind of rain we’ve had these past days, I don’t think there’d be much forensic evidence left to collect.
Ziggy Brenner, one of our deputies, finds a length of steel pipe half an hour later. It was shoved into a piece of old machinery on a rusting junk pile at the edge of the tree line, and appears to have been somewhat protected from the rain. The pipe itself is maybe three feet long and about two inches in diameter, with blood, a few hairs, and what looks to be brain matter coating one end.
“I want you to run that straight to the lab,” Tessa instructs Ziggy, while I carefully pack up the evidence.
“The coroner’s lab?”
“No. The State Patrol Crime Lab,” she clarifies.
The coroner’s lab is basically a room inside the morgue where some basic lab work can be done, but most crime evidence collected gets shipped to Cheney—about half an hour outside of Spokane—where the State Patrol Crime Lab is located.
“You mean me, physically go there?” the young deputy questions my partner.
“Yes,” I firmly answer for her. “This crime scene is already over a week old and so far we’ve been spinning our wheels. We’re lucky to come away with anything useful, let alone the likely murder weapon, so the answer is yes, we are entrusting you with the responsibility of hand delivering what could well be this case’s key evidence to the lab in Cheney.”
I can see the battle play out on his face. On one hand, the drive there and back is going to mess with any plans he might have had for his Friday night, but on the other, he’s just been given a chance to play an important role in this investigation.
“Of course,” he smartly chooses to respond with.
Once Ziggy is off with the evidence, I decide to have a closer look at the junk pile and the woods beyond. There must’ve been a reason for the killer to come all the way out here to discard the pipe.
