PREVIEW: THE GOUGE

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The kids in Cypress Creek tell of an urban legend—a ghost story spun out of control.  Teens that ventured into the woods of Cypress Creek were found cut up and what was left of their bodies was hung from the trees.  They say that the killer, whose heart was hardened by a long-lost lover, slayed those that loved the way that he could no longer.  They called him: 

“The Man in the Woods”

CHAPTER 1

Sometimes the smell of the leaves could take Karen all the way back to when she was a child.  She remembered building makeshift forts in the woods with her older brother.  The leaves would crackle under their feet as they ventured out into the woods behind their grandparents’ house.  The air would be cool, but the heavy rays of sun on their backs through the leafless trees kept them warm.  Funny how Karen only seemed to remember the Autumn days in the woods.  It must have been that distinct smell.

Today was no different, except for the boy she was with.  He was not her brother, and building a fort was the last thing on their minds.  It had taken her entire junior year to draw the attention of Tommy, the boy she had been crushing on since she started high school.  He had broken up with his girlfriend a few weeks back—it was now or never.  Karen wanted to make her interests in Tommy clear to him before some other girl decided to step in.  Worse yet, was the possibility that Tommy would get back together with his ex.

Tommy was a senior and super cool.  He was kind of a loner—not really falling into any stereotypical high school group.  He had friends who were jocks and friends who were slackers.  Tommy even hung out with a lot of the stoners and troublemakers.  Maybe it was that glimpse of his rebellious nature that drew Karen to him—it certainly didn’t hurt that he was also handsome, tall and fit.  He didn’t have any enemies.  Even people you would assume could be jealous weren’t.  Everyone liked Tommy.  

The varsity football game was in a dead heat as the clock neared half-time.   The stands were crowded, and why wouldn’t they be?  It was a rival game between neighboring towns: the Simpsonville Tigers and the Cypress Creek Panthers.  Though Karen had lived in Cypress Creek and attended the local schools all her life, she wasn’t there to root for either team.  She was there because Tommy had asked her to hang out at the game.  

The pole lights were starting to take over as the sun fell behind the woods line.  Karen was standing happily next to Tommy against the chain link fence on the sidelines near the end of the field.  

The referee blew his whistle and called half-time.  The crowds moved like a crawling swamp that funneled toward the bathrooms and concession stands.

“You want to split some nachos or something?” Tommy asked Karen.

Karen smiled at him.  Though she was thrilled at the idea of sharing a snack with him, she took a quick glance down the field toward the enormous line forming at the concession stand.

“I don’t know.  Looks like we’d be waiting a while,” she said.

“Yeah, maybe.  We’d probably get some of that great cheese skin though,” Tommy laughed.

Karen giggled.  He had to be joking, right?  

“We could go for a walk?” he suggested.

Karen just smiled, and he held her hand as they walked away from the fence. 

Through the field of parked cars, the couple walked hand in hand and small talked about the dramas going on in school.  Karen did a lot of listening—Tommy knew far more people at school than she did, and he was a great storyteller.  Besides, she was doing her best to make sure she kept herself looking as pretty as possible with every step.  It wasn’t that Karen was vain, but she knew she wasn’t a plain girl either.  Still, she wanted to make sure that she was at her best for this first outing with Tommy.  She was wearing her favorite low-cut blouse and jeans that were tight and showed off her thighs but were still comfortable to walk around in.  Karen usually tied her long brown hair up in a ponytail, but that night she was wearing it down.  The crisp fall air was perfect for it to lay the way she wanted.  One thing she knew about Tommy’s past interest in girls was that they all had long hair.  Karen had thought the night through, and wanted there to be no confusion to Tommy that she was all dolled up just for him.

They reached the edge of the woods at the back of the parking area.  They were far away from the crowds now—it was just the two of them.  Tommy leaned against a tree and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket.

“You smoke?” Tommy asked.

“No,” she smiled.  Karen hadn’t known that Tommy smoked cigarettes.  He didn’t smell like smoke.  Usually that was a real turnoff for her, but in that moment she decided to overlook it.

“These aren’t regular cigarettes, ya know,” Tommy said as he flipped the top of the box package open to reveal several hand-rolled joints.

“Oh,” Karen said.  Besides the fact that she’d never smoked cigarettes before, she’d definitely never smoked weed before either.  In fact, she’d never done drugs of any kind.  Karen wasn’t what you would call a prep, but she did keep herself clean and in order and never strayed too far from the honest path.  

Through her internal contemplating, she realized too long of a pause had occurred.  

“No thanks,” Karen finally said hoping that Tommy wouldn’t think of her as lame.

“Hey, that’s cool,” he said as he closed the lid and tucked the package away in his pocket.  

“Sorry,” Karen looked away from Tommy in a bashful kind of way.  “I’ve just never…”

He put his hand on her chin and turned her head to look at him. 

“It’s cool,” Tommy said.  “Really.”

Tommy leaned in and kissed Karen on the lips.  The kiss lasted for several moments, and she relished in every second of it.  When Tommy pulled away, she couldn’t keep the smile off her face, especially with his smile facing back at her.

“C’mon,” Tommy said as he spun around the tree that he was leaning against and took a step into the woods.

“Where’re you going?”

“Just c’mon,” Tommy urged her on.  “Let’s walk up to the bluff.”

Karen looked into the darkness behind the woods line.  She wanted to be with Tommy, but he was heading straight into the land of the creepy.  The scary stories about the woods were tiptoeing into the back of Karen’s mind—“The Man in the Woods” that chopped up teenagers and hung them from trees.  It was a stupid old folk story that everyone told in school, but it was enough to make it hard to take that first step into the dark line of trees.  

Tommy was about twelve feet into the woods when he turned around to see that Karen still wasn’t following.  

“You okay?” Tommy asked.  The darkness from the trees had almost engulfed him.  Karen could only make out only his silhouette.

“Yeah,” she said, and took a deep breath then took her first step.  The dried leaves and twigs on the ground snapped under her feet.  The sound was eerily loud.  Even the cheers from the crowds back at the game seemed to have dissolved in the night air.

Step after step, she grew closer to Tommy, until she could finally make out the handsome smile on his face.

“You scared?” Tommy asked.

“Little,” Karen admitted.  “These woods in the dark—they kind of have a bad reputation.”

“Ahh—” he huffed.  “You’re worried about ‘The Man in the Woods?” 

Karen shrugged, almost shamefully.  For the first time, she felt a little bothered by Tommy’s teasing her.  

“Hey, don’t worry,” he said in a comforting voice.  “I go through here all the time.  Besides, that was like twenty some years ago.  There’s nothing out here now.” 

Tommy pulled Karen closer and gave her another small kiss on the lips.  

“You good?” 

Karen nodded. 

“C’mon, there’s a trail over this way.”  Tommy turned and started to stomp down a path for Karen to follow.  “Just try to take the same steps that I do.  It will be easier.”    

“The Man in the Woods”—for the most part, was just a ghost story that the teenagers told around bonfires.  None of the kids knew where the story came from for sure.  It was just some old lore in the town of Cypress Creek.  That was before the killings occurred.  In 1999 some people were killed in the woods—teenagers.  Karen didn’t know all the details.  The police were pretty hush-hush about it back then, or so she’d been told, but they did eventually catch the killer.  He was apparently using the ghost story as a way of covering his tracks, or something.  Because the authorities were quiet with the details, people made up their own versions of what really happened, and the tale of “The Man in the Woods” became exaggerated beyond belief.  Still, after those killings in 1999, people began to wonder if “The Man in the Woods” was more than just a folk tale.  It became common practice to most people in Cypress Creek—you don’t go into the woods at night.

Tommy was getting more than a few steps ahead of Karen now.  Those damn, tight pants were starting to be a problem.  She could feel every little twig and branch rubbing against her legs.  

“Are we almost there?” Karen called after Tommy.

“There’s a trail over here that leads over to the bluff.  It’s kind of a cool view.”

“How far?”

“We’re real close.”

Karen looked down at her feet trying to calculate every step for whatever good it was.  The darkness was filling everything.  It was only a matter of time before she would not be able to see at all.  She could barely make out Tommy’s figure up ahead, but she could still hear his feet rustling the leaves on the ground.  

“Ouch!” Karen cried feeling something scratch across her ankle.  She stopped and bent down to pick a small twig out of her sock.  

“Hey, Tommy!” she called out.  “Can you hold up a minute?” 

She could still hear him walking.  Tommy must not have heard her.  

“Hey, can you hold up a sec?” Karen called out again.

The rustling up ahead of her stopped, but when Karen finally looked up from her sock issue, she didn’t see Tommy’s silhouette up ahead of her like she had before.

“Tommy?” 

No answer.

“Hey!  Are you there?”

Still no answer.  Karen’s heartbeat was beginning to elevate.  Darkness was all around her, and even more frightening was the silence.

Karen took a few steps forward, hoping to spot a glimpse of Tommy standing ahead of her.  She wondered if maybe he was hiding behind a tree trying to scare her.  The leaves crunched with every step she took—and then as her foot set down again, she heard something large hitting the ground behind her.

“Tommy!” Karen shouted as she spun around at the noise.  She could only see darkness behind her.  

“Tommy, this isn’t funny!” 

No sooner had the words left her mouth, she felt the rope wrap around her neck from behind.  Karen had just expelled her breath as she shouted.  Now with the rope clenching down on her throat, it was impossible to take a fresh breath in.  She gasped and reached out in front of her, hoping that there was something she could grasp onto—anything to pull on to get herself away from her assailant.  

Nothing.  Nothing but darkness.

A knee pressed into Karen’s back.  She was being forced down onto the ground.  Whoever had ahold of her, was stronger than she was.  Karen was on her knees—her body was being deprived of much-needed oxygen.  She could almost feel her lips turning blue.  They say that your life passes before your eyes right before you die, but that wasn’t the case for Karen.  All she could think was, ‘How can I get just one more gasp of air?’  Her hopes that Tommy would notice she was no longer behind him and come to her rescue was diminishing quickly.  For all she knew, the attacker had already killed Tommy; or God forbid, Tommy was the attacker.  Her thoughts were no longer making sense.  Her brain was being deprived of oxygen, and she was losing consciousness, but not before she felt a sharp pressure in her back.  She knew in an instant that she’d just been impaled.  Karen’s last thought was of “The Man in the Woods—the urban legend dreamt up by teenagers and turned real in a significant murder investigation—he was real!

 

CHAPTER 2

I love an autumn morning when the air is cool and still.  Who doesn’t?  It’s that late November feeling that lets me know winter is not far off.  Underneath it is another feeling though; one I was cursed with having to carry.  The feeling was somehow different that day.  Perhaps, it was a premonition of an inevitability that I knew would one day come.

Those text messages I had received from a strange number about a week before—I read them over and over in my head.

Carrying a secret around with you isn’t healthy.  It weighs on your mind and eats away at your nerves.  I was carrying too many—hiding too much, but don’t we all?  Don’t we all have something we’ve packed away in our own personal vaults, and have only told a handful of people, if anyone at all?  I think it’s a fair statement.  I have to believe that it is—the alternative is madness. 

No.  I won’t fall into that madness.  Instead I find ways to suppress it and the fear of the consequences that my secrets carry.  That’s the thing about secrets—you put them out of your mind and never look back at them.  So long as you don’t dwell on those secrets it’s easy, and life goes on like normal.  That’s until you’re forced to think about it.  There’s always something that brings up old ghosts—a similar event, or something related to it.  Or maybe, just maybe, it’s simpler than that, and someone has figured your secret out.    

The morning jog was a routine I’d come to appreciate—it got my blood flowing and warmed my body even on the coldest of mornings.  It put me alone with my thoughts.  Running was like meditation.  It forced me to breathe deep breaths and concentrate on them, calming me and building the belief in my head that if I could finish that run, I could finish that day.  

I made my rounds in the quiet little suburbia I’d come to call home.    

Pleasantdale, Iowa was a fine enough place for a small town.  I’d grown up in a small town myself before moving to Pleasantdale, and I couldn’t stand it there.  When I was younger, I had this urge to move away to a big city like New York or Chicago.  That was my plan when I finally left home, but things don’t always work out as planned.  Maybe I would have made it if it weren’t for her.  Yeah, that’s right.  I followed a girl right back to the small-town life.  Of course, this small-town life was different than the one I had left behind so many years ago.  

Again, the text messages crept into my mind—I closed the door on them.  Block them out.  Think of something else—the dealership—that blue Cadillac I took in on trade a month ago is still sitting in the lot.  It’s about time to ship it up to the auction, but that probably means taking a loss.  Ugh—hate having to explain that to my partner.  Maybe it won’t be so bad.

One more lap around the block would wrap up my routine for the morning.  The last lap is the one I always enjoy the most.  It reveals the perfect clockwork of the little neighborhood I’d come to call my home.  

At the first turn, right on cue, there was Mr. Humphrey stepping out in his robe to pick up his morning paper.  I can barely hold back my subtle laughter when his robe flops open revealing his tightey-whiteys as he bends down to get the paper.  I purposefully wave to him just to make his morning more awkward.  He gruffly waves back, stands and then goes on about his day.  I could never imagine him being a morning person.    

Mr. Humphrey reminded me a lot of an old history teacher I had in high school.  Would I never be rid of things that reminded me of my chaotic life in Cypress Creek?  Why couldn’t I block these things out?  It was ages ago.

Around the next turn, young Charlie Little was coming toward me, hitting the sidewalk at full speed.  Twelve years old and always running late to get to the bus stop.

“Morning Charlie.”

“Hello Mr. Channing!  Bye Mr. Channing!”  He sped past me. 

Funny kid.  Would he ever realize that he’d have an extra minute if he dropped his pop tart in the toaster before he tied his shoes?  It’s amazing how kids can overlook the simplest of solutions sometimes.  But who am I to talk?  I’ve always wanted kids of my own, but the world can be cruel like that.

The next turn—I’d come to dub the sinful turn.  Laura Spinner had turned eighteen a few months ago, but somehow she was still just a junior in high school.  Yeah, she wasn’t the brightest.  Just like every weekday morning, there she was heading out to the shiny Ford Mustang that her dad had bought for her a few years ago.  She dressed in tight jean shorts and a spaghetti strap shirt that would make a priest reconsider his occupation.  I cursed at myself for looking again.  I bowled and barbequed with her father, and we lived in a community together—a community where you trusted your neighbors.  You count on them to be your eyes and ears when you’re not around or when one of their children might be in trouble.  It was the kind of neighborhood that most people in the world long to live in.  I was lucky.  Damned lucky; especially considering my past.

Which brings me to the final turn of my run and my favorite.  That’s when I focus on my three-bedroom brick ranch nestled in between two identical homes.  Really, the only difference in the homes were the box numbers.  My economical Ford Escape was sitting in the driveway; only fifteen more payments and that baby was all mine.  On the front porch usually stood my beautiful wife, Sloan, waiting to greet me with a cup of coffee.  Sometimes, on colder mornings, she’d be standing by the door, but today she wasn’t there.  It was irregular, and it unnerved me to the point that I slowed to a walk hoping to give her time to appear.  But she didn’t.  

Things out of place don’t normally bother me.  Well, most of the time they don’t, and never to the point that I want to scratch my eyes out or anything.  However, there are things that I want to work like clockwork.  My morning routine is one of those things.  Sometimes I wondered if I had some mild version of OCD.  Sloan not being on the front steps to greet me put a pit of worry into my gut that wouldn’t go away.  I like things to be normal.  No surprises and no big events.  Sloan not on the porch that morning signaled something out of the ordinary.  

Sloan and I had a lot of things in common when it came to timely fashion and order.  We considered ourselves to be true soulmates; destined to be together one way or another—our pasts linked by fate, as it may be.  

Sloan and I met at my work.  We were both twenty years old, and I was instantly awestruck in love with her.  She later told me that the feeling was mutual.  We hit it off right away with the back-and-forth flirting and teasing.  She seemed to like hearing stories about my work in the shop and the things I had learned while working there—the ins and outs of an engine were probably one of the factors of my self-diagnosed OCD.  An engine had to be tightened and timed perfectly to run properly.  It really was the closest thing to an exact science that I had ever dealt with.  Sloan and I had that same tight and perfectly timed relationship.  I knew how to make her smile, and she knew how to make me live.  Our lives worked perfectly together—and when I told her everything about me—everything—she didn’t even blink.  Instead, she shared everything about herself with me.  It was then, in that moment, that we truly knew we were meant for one another.  

Maybe she woke up sick that morning?  Maybe someone had called?  I didn’t know why she wasn’t on the porch, but the questions were killing me.  

I caught my breath and swung open the front door.  I was in the living room; no one in sight.

“Sloan?” I called out.  She didn’t answer.    

I could hear water running in the main bathroom down the hall.  Was she still in the shower?  I tapped on the bathroom door before I entered.  No answer.  I pushed open the door.  The shower was running.  

“Sloan?  Honey?”

I pulled back the curtain, expecting to find my naked wife lathering her body with some flowery aromas.  But she wasn’t there.  I turned the water off.  

With the water off, I could hear someone speaking.  A man’s voice—then a woman’s.  It wasn’t Sloan’s.  The voices were garbled by the walls, and I couldn’t make out what either was saying.  I followed the sound to our bedroom.  The door was closed.  

My heart was pounding.  I was fearing the worst of what I would find behind that door.  Who was in there?  Was Sloan in there too?  If so, what was going on?

I could feel that anger—the one that I’d done so well to keep at bay for the past twenty-two years—it was boiling up inside of me.  My fists were clenched tightly.  So tightly, it almost hurt.  There was hardly a doubt in my mind that my face was turning beet-red with rage.  The ideas going through my mind at that moment were torment.  I tried to remind myself not to jump to conclusions, but there was something gnawing at me.   It was those text messages—they kept beating at my mind’s door, wanting me to analyze them.  

Not now! 

The anger that I tried desperately to control—the same anger that started my troubles so long ago—it was ready to come out of me once again.

Without wasting another second, I flung the door open as if expecting to surprise someone in a vicious act.  The door swung open fast and slammed against the rubber baseboard stopper at the adjacent wall.  I wanted to surprise whoever it was at whatever they were doing; and I did surprise someone.  It was Sloan.  She was just standing there in her underwear with a towel covering her breasts.  

“Carson!  —You scared me!” she said after a short gasp.

My teeth were clenched tightly against each other, and my eyes darted around the bedroom looking for something out of place—or something that wasn’t supposed to be there.  There was nothing.  It was only Sloan, standing there half naked.  

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Sloan looked at me as if she had something to tell me; something important and even life changing.  She didn’t appear to realize that I had my anger built up—my face must not have been as red as I thought.  Sloan took a breath and swallowed trying to find the words, but they just wouldn’t come.  Instead, she just pointed toward the television resting on our dresser.

The man’s and the woman’s voices that I heard were from the television.  But what was it?  What had Sloan seen that would detour her daily routine and keep her unable to speak to me?  There was only one thing that could do that.  One thing that I knew would eventually come back to haunt me.   It was the end of this life that I had created.  My past was coming back to haunt me.  I knew that it would; it was inevitable.  Even when I moved away from that dreadful town, before I was even out of the state, I knew that I could not escape it forever.  It was a part of me.  Like a tumor that you can’t cut out and that won’t kill you, but only make you extremely uncomfortable.   

I looked at the television screen and read the byline: “Cypress Creek:  The Man in the Woods Killer Has Returned.”  I checked the station; it was a cable news channel that focused only on crime and murders that met a certain level of watchability.  For some reason, the station decided that my past would be great entertainment.

My mind immediately went to the text messages.  Could it be a coincidence?  Not a chance.

YOU ARE DEPLORABLE!

????

Who is this?

YOU KNOW WHO I AM!

I HAVEN’T FORGOTTEN WHAT YOU DID!

I didn’t respond to the text messages after that.  I was too frightened.  I didn’t recognize the number, not even the area code.  I blocked the number and hoped it would somehow all go away.  But it wouldn’t.  My eyes had seen that message.  My mind had deduced that message.  I knew exactly what they were talking about.  Someone knew my secret.

I listened to the reporter go on about the story, all of it turning into a jumble of words as it hit my ears.  It would sink in, and I would decipher later.  Now, I only had time to think about how to handle the situation.

Sloan was looking at me.  I knew she was waiting to hear what I wanted to do.  She loved me as much as I loved her.  Her eyes told me that she wanted this to be my choice.  Whatever I decided, she would follow and be by my side the whole way.  That kind of loyalty isn’t easy to find.  I owed her and her family honesty.

“Call your parents,” I said.  “See if they mind if we come over.”

 

CHAPTER 3

Carl Yeager’s cell phone was about to vibrate off his nightstand.  He woke and grabbed it, just before it teetered off the edge.  He wondered what the point of setting a phone to silence was if the vibration could still wake him in the middle of the night.

Carl pressed the answer button.

“Carl, it’s Burns,” came the voice from the phone.  

“It’s three in the morning, Jason.”

“I know.  Listen, something has come up.  It’s about Harry Bates.”

He sat up in his bed at once.  “What about him?”

Jason Burns had been Carl’s Chief Deputy of Police while Carl was Sheriff many years ago.  Jason, still in the force, was loyal to Carl in many ways.  He knew what the Woods Killer meant to him.  Keeping Carl in the loop with these latest killings was the least that Jason could do.

“Well, we found another body,” Jason said.  “In the woods—similar to the scene last week.  Another teenager.”

“The boyfriend?”

“No,” Jason said.  “Another female.”

“Any connection to last week’s victim—Karen?”

“Other than they attend the same high school—none that we can see.  Still kind of early though.”

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” Carl rubbed his hand across his brow.

Penny, Carl’s wife, stirred and she sat up to see her husband on the phone.

“Carl, who are you talking to?”

Carl looked at his wife and patted her on her hand.  He could see the concern in Penny’s eyes.  Carl knew that she noticed how alert he had become from the phone call, but this particular phone call wouldn’t be important to Penny—it wasn’t an emergency with their family or friends.  This was something that Carl, and only Carl, was going to be interested in.  

“It’s police stuff,” Carl said.

Penny sighed.   

“It’s Jason,” Carl said to her.

“Doesn’t he know what time it is?”

“I know hun,” Carl said.  “I’m sorry, everything’s fine.  Just go back to sleep.”

“There’s more,” Carl heard Jason start up again on the phone.

“Go on.”

Penny rolled her sleepy eyes and then laid her head back down on the pillow.  Carl had loved Penny for nearly fifty years.  Even though he was stubborn, old, and set in his ways, she seemed to be understanding of his obsessions.  In truth, he didn’t want her to always settle for understanding—Carl wanted her to speak her mind to him and voice it when she felt he was waning from their life plan.  But when it came to the police work—when it came to this new woods killer—Carl just wanted Penny to go back to sleep.

“The Clarion newspaper received a letter in the mail yesterday,” Jason said.  “The guy in the letter claims to be the Woods Killer.”

“Guy?  Did he specify…”

“Sorry—No.  The author of the letter did not specify their gender.”

“So?  This new ‘guy’—this copycat—he’s just looking for attention.  He wants to be noticed.”

“Maybe,” Jason paused.  

The silence on the line was troublesome to Carl.   He had this hunch that there was something more that Jason wanted to tell him.

“Maybe?” Carl knew that there was something else.  “What else?”

“In the letter, he claims to be the original, or as he put it, the ‘Real’ “Man in the Woods.”

Carl huffed.  

“Trying to claim some of Bates’ glory you think?”

Carl could hear Jason clearing his throat.  Jason needed to say something that he knew his mentor would not be all too happy about.

“Carl, the letter is pretty thorough.”

“How do you mean?”

“He listed things about the original case in the letter; things that no one except for people working on the case would know.”

“What things?”

“The cuts.  The species of trees.  He knew the type of weapon used, and the exact location where he hid the weapon.”

“A weapon?” Carl sounded excited.  The weapon was a detail of the case that the public was never completely privy to—the only public note about the murder weapon was that the victims were stabbed to death.  

“Have you gone to the location to see if there’s any truth to it?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Jason said.  Again, he cleared his throat.  “The letter details where we found Harry’s weapon.  He claims to have framed Harry for the murders.”

“That’s impossible.”

“He knew the exact location, Carl.”

“The only thing that means is that someone has read the police report.  Other than that, it doesn’t shine any truth on his claims.”

“The court of appeals seems to think so.”

“They’ve seen the letter?  How?”

“Sheriff Jansen.  She’s by the book,” Jason said.  “They’re already taking another look at Bates’ appeal cases.”

“That’s just absurd!”

“Hey Carl,” Jason interrupted what he was sure was the beginning of a long rant by an older wiser man.

“What?”

“I want to keep you in the loop on this—I do.  But you know I’m not supposed to, officially.”

Carl sighed and said, “I know.  Thank you.”

“However,” Jason paused.  “I’m at the crime scene now.  If you want, I can call you in as a consult—taking into consideration the implications to the previous murders.”

It was music to Carl’s ears to be called out of retirement to give a helping hand to the next generation of uniforms.  He needed this—he needed to be needed.  

“Send me the address.”

“Do you get texts?”

There was a pause on Carl’s end.

“Carl?”

“Just how old do you think I am, Jason?”

** ** ** ** ** **

Within the hour, Carl arrived at the crime scene.  Slader Lane was an old county road with no painted lines off State Highway 135.  The sun still hadn’t peaked above the horizon, so the red and blue lights could be seen for miles, and the headlights of the police cruisers on the side of road shone off into the field toward the edge of the woods.  

As he neared the cruisers with the lights, he noticed a few men repairing a livestock fence in the dark with headlamps.  Carl noticed fresh tire marks that veered off the road and into the fence line.  Carl passed slowly, and subtly waved. 

Carl parked near one of the cruisers on the side of the road and turned on his flashers.  Jason greeted him at the edge of the police tape and waved to the uniformed officers standing at the tape to allow Carl through.  

Carl followed Jason across a field of soybean stubble to the edge of the woods.  The field must have just been harvested a few days before—the smell of the dust still lingered in the air.

“Who found the body?” Carl asked.

“Farmer up the road did,” Jason replied.  “A car ran off the road late last night and took out his fence.”

“I saw on the way in.”

“Yeah.  Well, fence down, all his cows got out and wandered into this field and the woods some.  They found the body while trying to herd up the ones in the woods.”

“Rough evening for the farmer, huh?”

“He’s a tough guy,” Jason said.  “He was in Afghanistan.  I’m sure he’s seen worse.”

“So,” Carl continued, “Since this is another female, and still no sign of the boyfriend of last week’s victim, that makes the boyfriend your main suspect?”

“Right now, that’s what we’re going with,” Jason said.  “Could be that the boyfriend is out here in the woods somewhere too, and we just haven’t found him yet.”

Carl followed Jason into the woods.  He could see the police work lights about a hundred feet in.  Carl prepared himself for what he was about to see.  He took a deep breath.  Carl had seen his fair share of dead bodies when he worked for the Louisville police department as a detective so many years ago.  However, none of those bodies haunted him more than the bodies he saw in Cypress Creek during his term there.  The difference?  These were the bodies of teenagers—they were just kids.  To see their lifeless bodies strung up and tied to a tree—impaled and left to rot—their whole lives taken away from them—it wasn’t an image that you could easily wipe from your mind.  

Carl stepped around the small light pole, and there she was.  The poor girl—her back was against a tree with her arms pulled back around it and bound together on the other side.  Her skin was as pale as a sheet of paper.  No doubt, she was beautiful in life with her long blonde hair and seemingly unblemished skin—Carl wanted to cry for her right then and there, but he held back.

“This is way too familiar,” Carl said.

“I know,” Jason replied.  

Kiera Cobb, the county medical examiner, knelt at the body.  When Kiera turned and saw Carl arrive with Jason, she immediately shook her head in disapproval.  

“You’re really asking for it, aren’t you, Burns?” Kiera said.  

“He’s here as a consultant,” Jason argued.

“Just saying,” Kiera said.  “Maybe should have run it past the Sheriff first.”

“You don’t need to worry about it, Kiera.”

“Says you,” she smiled.  

“How’ve you been Kiera?” Carl said with a smile.  

Kiera had started working for the force the same year that Carl had retired.  He hadn’t been the one to hire her, Carl passed that job onto his Chief at the time, Jason.  After meeting Kiera though, Carl knew that she would be a great asset for the force for years to come.  It was no surprise to him that she would be the one working this case.

“I’m doing better than this poor girl.”

Kiera was a fun and lively girl.  She was full-figured and extremely proud of it—she wasn’t afraid to flaunt every bit of that figure when she wasn’t on the job.  She could be found partying the night away at clubs when she wasn’t working.  One could easily assume that her nightlife was a way to escape the horrors she was exposed to at work, but really, Kiera just loved to have fun.  She was outgoing and always said what was on her mind—she didn’t hold back.  She had her dark auburn hair cut short, just above her shoulders, and that day, she had it under her police issue baseball cap.

“Wasn’t sure you’d remember my name,” Kiera said.

“Oh, c’mon, I’m not that damn old.”

“Ever think you’d see something like this twice in a lifetime?” Kiera asked.

“Nope.”

“I never thought I’d have to see it once.”

Carl sympathized with her, “I know.”

“Well, I’d love to hear your thoughts, Mr. Consultant,” Kiera said with a smile.

Carl nodded and knelt next to Kiera.

“She was stabbed?”

“All the way through.” 

“From the back?”

“That’s an exit wound,” Kiera said pointing at the blood stain and tear on the victim’s shirt through the front abdomen of the body.

“Can you lift the shirt a little?”

Kiera looked at Carl with a funny grin, “Usually the guys buy me dinner first.  Besides, aren’t you worried we might make Detective Burns here blush a bit?”

“Jesus, Kiera!” Jason shook his head.

“C’mon, you know what I’m asking,” Carl said.  

Carl didn’t mind Kiera’s humor.  Maybe it was inappropriate considering the circumstances, but it did lighten the mood some, at least for her.  It was her way of escaping.  

Kiera just smiled.  She liked sexual innuendos—especially when they were coming from an unlikely source like the old man ex-sheriff.    

“Sure thing.”

Kiera lifted the victim’s shirt revealing her stomach and the very thing that Carl was looking for—the wound—the cut from the killer’s weapon.  It wasn’t a slice, it was just as Kiera said, it was a puncture wound—an arched cut in the skin that could only have been made by a curved blade.

“Damn.”

“Told you,” Jason said.  

“I know.”

“Didn’t believe me?”

“I did,” Carl said.  “I was just hoping it would look different somehow.”

“Different?” Kiera said.

“I don’t know—like someone tried to duplicate the cut with something to make it look like the old murders.”

“I think it’s safe to say,” Jason nodded.

“Yep,” Carl said as he stood up to be side by side with Jason.  “The gouge.”

Kiera looked up at Carl with a curious expression.  “Okay, fill me in,” she said.  “What’s a gouge?  I saw it in the police report for the old murders.”

Carl nodded.  “It’s a carpenter’s tool.  They use it for carving wood on a lathe—”

“That’s one of those machines that spin the wood real fast,” Jason added, making spinning hand motions as he did.

“I know what a lathe is,” Kiera said.  “So, it’s a kind of knife?”

“Pretty much.  It’s half round and sharp on the tip—so if you stab it directly into the ground—or a body, it’s going to leave that “c” shaped incision.”

“I see.”

“Harry Bates was a carpenter,” Carl added.

Carl and Jason both looked down at the body while Kiera continued her examination.

“Listen, why don’t you come into the station tomorrow—we’ll get all the paperwork done to make you an official consultant on this case?”

Carl nodded, “Yeah, I’ll be in in the morning.”

“First thing.”

“No,” Carl said.  “I’ve actually got to make one other stop in the morning.”

“It can’t wait?”

“No,” Carl said.  “I think I’d rather get this particular meeting over sooner than later.”

** ** ** ** ** **

The next morning, Carl Yeager wasted no time in getting to the Prosecuting Attorney’s office.  Carl paced back and forth in front of Prosecutor Erik Blackman’s desk.  

“Don’t you do it Erik.  Don’t you let that son of a bitch go,” Carl demanded.

Erik steadily rocked back and forth in his armed leather desk chair and shook his head at the once Sheriff-for-life.  

“You know there’s nothing I can do for you Carl.  The law is the law, and we must practice it as it is written.  If there is a possibility that an innocent man may have been wrongfully imprisoned, it is our job to investigate it.”

Erik was young, the youngest Prosecuting attorney to ever be elected in Cypress County.  At the ripe age of twenty-five, Erik shocked the county and won his seat by just a hundred votes.  There was a recount and talks of cheating of course, but in the end, it was decisive; Erik had toppled the long reign of his predecessor.  His predecessor was of course an old Republican who had held that seat for twelve years. 

“Innocent man?  You weren’t there!  You were a toddler when all of this happened!” Carl balked.  “I’ve seen the things that that monster has done.  And I promise you that if you had seen it, you would not be so open minded and quick to devise a way to let a man like this go free.”

“I have thoroughly looked at the case, Carl.  I’ve seen the crime scene photos.  I assure you, I am not taking this lightly, nor am I trying to devise a way to let Harry Bates go free—I’m simply preparing for what is to come.”

“What’s to come?”

“Carl, you know as well as I do, if not better, that this was not an airtight case.”

“They never are.”

“Well, this appeals thing would be a lot easier had your case against Harry Bates not had more than a few inconsistencies and leads that were based solely on hunches.”

“They were good hunches that led to an arrest,” Carl argued.  “Besides, cases like this are never airtight.”

“Harry Bates has maintained his innocence since he was convicted.”

“After he confessed,” Carl corrected putting up his finger.  “He only recanted the confession after the charges were dropped against his son.”

“But now—now I have a letter in my hands.”  Erik held up the letter wrapped in a plastic bag, “from someone who claims to be the real killer, who has now recently returned to the town and is now making a mockery of your investigation.  The lawyer in charge of Harry’s appeal case is all over this letter.  He’s going to end up taking this over our heads.  It’s better that I get in front of this now.”

Carl knew that what Erik was saying was the truth—it hadn’t been an airtight case—but if it were that would have been more suspicious.  If the case were handed up to a higher court, which Erik seemed to be confident it would, things were going to come to light that wouldn’t be great for Carl; things about the investigation that were, let’s say, unprofessional.  

“Mark my words, Erik, if you let that man go, you will regret it for the rest of your life.  You’ll regret it just as I do for letting that boy of his off the hook.”

Carl “The Sheriff-For-Life” Yeager had a lot of regrets in his life, but not charging Carson Bates for murder was the one regret that he wished he weren’t burdened with.  Carl was once a detective in Cypress County.  Then, he was elected the Sheriff of Cypress County a year after he had arrested Harry Bates.  There was no doubt that the arrest had helped his campaign that first term, but Carl managed to hold that seat for twelve years.  He was successfully elected three times, each time in landslide elections.  After his third term, Carl decided he had had enough of law enforcement and hung up his badge.  He hadn’t lost his edge, or his eagerness to do the work—he was just old.  He didn’t want to become some old coot that the people couldn’t trust.  His retirement disappointed many of his loyal voters and supporters.  But Carl was getting old, and he wanted to focus on his family.  He was now sixty-eight years old but still sharp as when he was thirty.  Maybe a little slower due to the pains of age working on his joints, but Carl was never the frail type.  In fact, Carl had decided that he never would be.

Cypress county wasn’t big for murders, much fewer on serial killers, but Carl had seen his fair share of innocent blood spilled.  His couple year stint as a detective in Louisville made sure of that.  Carl didn’t miss that job at all.  He transferred to Cypress County for a smaller office, and a workday that was less grim.  It came with a smaller paycheck, but Carl hoped he could keep his sanity, at least for a little while.  

Carl had always been a firm believer in tracking down the truth.  The imperfection of the Woods Killer case was something that he had learned to live with.  He didn’t like it, but he believed in the end that justice was served for the three boys Harry Bates had murdered.  However, the case was tricky.  It was as if he were putting together a two-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle of a bunch of leaves; all the pieces looked the same.  But if he could have just found that one key piece, that one green leaf in the middle of the autumn pile, things would fall into place.  He could build the rest of the puzzle around that one piece!  Carl was sure that Carson was that green leaf piece.  It was either that, or Carson was carrying the piece around with him in his pocket.  

“Relax, Carl.  We’re not releasing him.  Not yet anyway.”

“Yet?”

“C’mon Carl.  Surely you know something like this isn’t going to happen overnight.  Even if Harry Bates does get an appeal hearing, it may take months, or even a year before they will see him—much less rule on their findings.”

“That’s a start.”

“But if the court of appeals comes down with a ruling, I won’t have any choice, Carl.  I’m going to do what I can in the meantime, but when the ruling comes down—if it’s not the ruling that you’re hoping for, you will have to find a way to cope with that.”

“I’ll find my way.  I assure you of that.”

  

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