I would like to say this is different--and it is--but she can already see the body, and she's not going to listen to me.
"You weren't in your sleeping blankets," I say.
"I wanted to see your dog again." She kneels beside her grandmother's body. "I was heading to where Albie told you to camp. I was almost there when Nonna screamed. I ran back. I . . . I saw him. The man who . . ."
She looks at her grandmother again. Rage flashes in her eyes.
"You saw their killer?" I say.
"I didn't know that. It was just a man on the trail. He had blood on his face, and I . . . I should have done something--I know I should have stopped him but all I could think about was that scream. I raced back here. Then I saw someone in the camp, and I thought the man had circled back. So I hid." She bites her lip and then straightens. "But not like that. Not hiding from him. I was preparing for my attack. Waiting until I could see who it was. Only it was just you."
Dalton murmurs to me that he's going to get Storm, whimpering back at the campsite. When he's gone, I say to the girl, "You saw the man who did this?"
"Yes."
"Where was he? How far from camp?"
"A quarter mile southwest," she says, with the assurance of a girl who may not know her times tables but must be able to relate distances and directions accurately, a matter of basic survival in the forest.
"How far away were you?"
"From here to the campsite. I was in the forest, and he was on the path. He was walking away with some of our stuff."
"What stuff?"
"I saw a rabbit and a food pack."
"Can you describe the man you saw?"
"I wasn't that close, like I said. But he was on the path, and there was moonlight. I could see light-colored hair. Straight, I think. Longer than . . ." She gestures toward Dalton, in the clearing. "But not long like yours. No beard. He had pale skin. That's how I saw the blood on his cheek. I couldn't tell his height, but he looked normal-sized. And he was wearing clothing like you people."
She's describing Brady. Oliver Brady killed these settlers. Slit a guard's throat. Slaughtered an old man in his bed. Chased down and brutally murdered a fleeing old woman. There is no way I can say these were acts of desperation.
Also, there was no sign of Jacob with him. Brady was seen a half kilometer from the scene alone.
Brady is not an innocent man.
Brady does not have Jacob.
That is everything I need to hear. Everything I want to hear, too.
40
We hide the bodies under evergreen boughs, which should help mask the smell from scavengers. Then we escort Harper to the First Settlement. She walks while we ride slowly. I offered her a spot behind Dalton, but pride won't let her attempt to ride as a passenger. And, I suspect, it wouldn't have let her ride Blaze alone and risk looking foolish.
Harper walks holding Storm's lead. Now that I'm certain we are dealing with a monster, I cannot risk Storm taking off after her target. I explain that to Harper, who has never heard of using a dog to follow a smell, and she peppers me with questions, distracting herself from the memory of what happened tonight.
We don't talk about what happened. That is how, as a homicide detective, I handled dealing with a victim's loved ones so soon after the deaths. Let them set the tone. If they want to talk about it, I will, while giving away nothing about the investigation. More often, when it's this soon afterward, they either haven't fully processed the death or they are desperate to discuss anything else. For Harper, that distraction is talking about how dogs track scents. Every now and then she'll trail off and look back the way we came, only to shake herself and keep talking about Storm.
It's 4 A.M. when we near the settlement. We don't take Harper inside. We don't even take her to the edge. Three settlers are dead. Edwin--the leader of the First Settlement--will figure out that the killer came from Rockton. That puts us in danger.
The First Settlement is like many splinter groups that break away over issues with its parent organization. They don't hate us. They don't wish us ill. But there is no warmth there either.
I once asked why Dalton doesn't trade with the settlement. We don't need their game, but we can always use it, and what they'd want in trade is paltry to us--some coffee, a new shir
t, a gun or ammunition. More important, though, is the bond it would forge. The goodwill it buys. Trade links provide us with valuable partners in this wild life. While Ty Cypher might not tell us that ducks are particularly plentiful on a certain lake, he will mention if he's spotted strangers or a worrisome predator.
To the First Settlement, though, such a partnership would smack of weakness. If we initiate trade, that suggests they have things we need, and that we may be weaker than they think. Weak means ripe for raiding. I will admit I didn't fully believe that until I saw the way the settlers looked at me when I suggested they watch out for Brady. I may have been right--tragically right--but to them, Brady was just a lone outsider. No match for them.