The Ballad of Frankie Silver - By Sharyn McCrumb Page 0,63
alive, still fighting the enemy. Spencer remembered him well. He had been the one to inform the colonel that his only daughter had been murdered.
On the night of Emily Stanton’s murder (and Mike Wilson’s as well, but people tended to forget about him), Spencer and the TBI officer spent the rest of that night making a grid of the crime scene, stretching twine from one wooden stake to another so that the entire area was marked off into small squares like a checkerboard. They would search each parcel of the site for cigarette butts, gum wrappers, clothing fibers—anything that might have a bearing on the case.
At last the sky lightened to a pall of gray, and the objects beyond the reach of their flashlights began to become more distinct in the haze. The TBI man glanced at his watch. “We’ll check the site again in about twenty minutes,” he said. “For now, let’s check all the approaches to this clearing to see if the assailant discarded anything.”
Spencer glanced at the two bodies, which were becoming clearer with every passing minute, and he thought of a photograph taking form in the developing fluid. “When are we going to move them?” he asked.
“Within the hour. They go to University Hospital in Knoxville for a complete workup. I’ll give you that information to pass along to the families.” He looked down at the two sprawled bodies in the clearing and sighed. “We’ll move them before the flies come out, I promise.”
“Good,” said Spencer. One side of the girl’s face looked as if she were only sleeping, and he didn’t want to see her covered in insects.
“When it gets light enough, we’ll tilt the bodies, see what’s under them. I found a tooth under the victim once. Belonged to the killer.”
Spencer nodded. He couldn’t think of anything to say. He set off on a path that led back into the forest, training his flashlight on the ground in front of it and letting the light play left and right to illuminate the weeds at the side of the trail. He saw no broken twigs or evidence of a struggle, or even of footprints, and his hunch that the killer had not come this way was confirmed a few moments later by a triumphant cry from the other officer. Spencer had forgotten his name almost the instant he heard it, and he would
forever think of the investigator as “the TBI man,” the embodiment of a faceless state bureaucracy.
He hurried back to the clearing. The officer had laid out the wallets on the log where Willis Blaine, the ranger, had sat for much of the night. The dark brown leather one was worn and scratched, obviously the property of the man. Beside it lay a small red clutch purse containing a compartment for coins, as well as a notepad and a compartment for paper money. “I found them about twenty yards down the hill,” said the TBI man with a satisfied smile. “Killer must have taken the money and thrown down the billfolds as he ran. Who knows? We might even get prints.” He pried open the two sections of leather with a gloved finger. “Can you read that? I’m no good at fine print in this light.”
It seemed perfectly clear to Spencer, who was still a long way from thirty, from bifocals, from having to read the newspaper at arm’s length, as he did these days. “Michael Wilson,” he said. “Virginia driver’s license. He’s twenty-one. There’s a student ID in there, too. University of North Carolina.”
“Yeah, I figured they were college kids. A lot of these hikers are. So they’re not from around here. That figures.”
“How so?” asked Spencer.
“Stranger killing. They were ambushed out in public land. This wasn’t some guy offing his girlfriend, or a fight between two old enemies. Somebody was hunting, and hunters don’t care about the identity of the victim. Who was the girl?”
Spencer fingered the soft leather clutch purse. He imagined it still warm from being tucked away in the hip pocket of the girl’s jeans, pressing against her buttocks. “Emily Stanton. Driver’s license says Wilmington, North Carolina.” A solemn young woman with long auburn hair and dainty small-boned features looked out at him from the license photo. He could see tiny gold hoops in her ears, and a pearl necklace against the dark blue background of her dress. Sorority type,he thought. I wonder what she made of the trail.He said, “There’s also a student ID for UNC.”