CHAPTER TWO
855 Words
CHAPTER TWO
Deputy Rick Humphrey watched the little aluminum boat make its way through the stagnant, swampy waters ahead of him. The gnats were out in full force, swarming around his head in an annoying little cloud. He swatted at them with his hat, the widening bald spot at the back of his head cooled with the hat gone.
There were two men out in the boat: a local officer that knew these swamps just as well as anyone else in the area, and a local outdoor jock that worked just about any kind of boat like an instrument.
The jock's name was Ben something or other. He looked both irritated and excited. They'd called on him before, needing help in the swamps, so he was somewhat used to police business. But the business of dragging the water for bodies apparently didn't sit well with him.
They'd pulled a body out of the water yesterday. It had been a local woman, name of Wendy Pullman. Wendy had been discovered by two boys out for a stroll, which was good because Wendy had been missing for three days.
It was bad, though, because Wendy was the second body they'd found in a swampy area in the last four days. And like the first body, it appeared that Wendy had been attacked by a gator.
It hadn't been a pretty sight. Half of her left leg had been gnawed to the bone, a chunk had been taken out of her shoulder, and she'd been missing three fingers on her left hand. It was the grisliest thing Humphrey had ever seen and he couldn't get the image out of his mind.
"Hey! You all right?"
Deputy Humphrey was brought back to reality by the sound of Ben Something-or-other's voice. He had drifted off again, besieged by the morbid mental sight of Wendy Pullman's body.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Humphrey said. He checked his watch and shook his head. "To hell with it. Bring it in. We've been looking for two hours already."
Ben nodded, and the officer out with him seemed just as relieved as Ben. A chubby fellow named Swanson, he mopped his forehead with a handkerchief he pulled from his back pocket like the world's slowest magic trick.
Humphrey honestly hadn't expected to find another body here. Even if there was another one, he figured it would be somewhere else. The two bodies had been found in different parts of the woods, in different swamps. But they had both appeared to be gator attacks.
Appeared to be.
Ben brought the boat to the edge of the swamp, where the water and the land merged to create a sludge. Swanson got out with a grunt, and Ben followed.
"Thanks, Ben," Humphrey said.
"Sure thing. You look disappointed."
"I got two dead bodies on my hands. Of course I'm disappointed."
"Hey man, it's gators, right? Not much the po-po can do about that."
Humphrey sighed and shook his head. "You need help loading the boat back up?"
"Nah. I'm good. My truck's back over that-a-way," he said, hitching his thumb over his shoulder. "Figure I might fish for some crawdads before I take it out, anyway."
"Have fun."
Humphrey started walking back through the woods, a stretch that would lead him and Swanson back to the little dirt cutover they'd parked the car on.
"You know," Swanson said, "Ben said you look disappointed. But that ain’t quite right. It's something else."
"Perplexed might be a better word."
"Why's that?"
"Two bodies. Two different spots in the woods. Chalking it up to gators seems too convenient. Especially when gators aren’t spotted in this area very often."
“But they are spotted on occasion, right?”
“Yeah, they are.”
"So what are you thinking?" Swanson asked in an accent that was somehow both very southern and very Creole.
"I'm thinking they may have been killed somewhere else and disposed of in the places they were found."
"Killed by gators?"
"I don't know. The Forestry Service says they've been especially ornery this season. But what I do know is that two dead bodies in four days, found in very isolated places...I'm going to follow protocol on this. Get the regional FBI on it, just in case."
They came out of the woods, the gnats having died off a bit. As they got back into the patrol car, Humphrey looked back out to the forest. He'd been on the force for eleven years now and so far had only heard of three people being attacked by gators, and only one of those people had died.
So, two in two days seemed like a bit much.
He let Swanson drive, opting to sit in the passenger seat and think it all through. What made more sense? The crazy odds of finding two bodies mauled by gators in two days, or someone killing the victims and dumping them elsewhere?
But how would a killer make it look like the victims had been gnawed on by gators?
Hell, he didn't know. He guessed it was a good idea the bureau would soon be involved.
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