CHAPTER 38
Things got hectic after that: the crime-scene techs arrived, followed by the coroner, with a couple of his assistants in full biohazard gear. I got Wilco out of their way and back inside the air-conditioned cruiser, with some food and water, suited myself up in plastic crime-scene overalls, and went back into the pole barn.
Pusser issued orders like a drill sergeant. “Parks, put out a BOLO on Georgia and Buck Farrell. And are the roadblocks in place yet?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. The fire’s fresh. They can’t be far.”
Unless they burned with the house, I thought.
“Let’s find out if there are any vehicles on the property.”
Harris spoke up. “Already checked. None. Nothing registered under their names, either. But a lot of mountain folk don’t even have driver’s licenses.”
“Horses,” I said. “If Georgia and Buck used horses to go after Bannock, maybe they used them now to get away.”
Pusser gnawed his lip. “They’d want to get away faster, but . . .” He called over one of the firemen and was told, yes, there was a horse shed on the other side of the property, but it had been empty. “So, they could be on horseback. Or just let their horses loose to avoid the fire.”
A tech had a field blood-test kit and was working over specks of trace blood that had been found at the spot Wilco first hit on. He pressed a test strip against one of the specks and examined the results. “It’s human,” he said.
Another officer came in, notebook in hand. “We found a burial plot a couple hundred yards back in the woods. Zeke Farrell’s gravestone is there. And the father’s gravestone—Buck Farrell.” He flipped a couple pages. “The date indicates that Buck died shortly after his son. In November.”
“So, we’re just looking for Georgia.” I glanced at the horse-head mount, half finished, on the workbench. “It’d take a strong woman to live out here and do this type of work, but overpowering and dismembering a man and then chopping him up and stuffing him in those barrels . . . It’d be a lot easier with help.”
Pusser agreed. “A boyfriend, you think? Kin?”
He squinted at Parks, who was standing by the door, arms crossed, head down. “Parks, you got that BOLO out yet?”
Her head snapped up. “I’ll get right on it.” She turned and slipped out the door.
“Sheriff.” A female tech stood by a stack of storage cabinets lined up against the far wall. “I’ve got something.”
We went over.
She used a gloved hand and shifted a framed photo of a teenager, dark haired, fat, and pimply faced, with dull brown eyes and a bucktoothed smile. “Zeke,” she said. I nodded, recognized the lopsided grin from the newspaper clipping. “And there’s more stuff in here. Tools and things. I can’t tell.”
Pusser peered inside the storage cabinet. There was a jumble of items, and everything needed to be processed. “Get all this stuff photographed and entered into evidence.” He turned my way. “Callahan, get everything you can on Georgia Farrell. Next of kin, anyone whom she may be in contact with in the area. Where’s the nearest neighbor?”
“We passed a place on the way. Maybe a half mile down the road.”
“Go talk to them.”
His radio bleeped. “County one-fifteen. County one-fifteen.”
He answered, “One-fifteen. Go ahead, dispatch.”
“Abandoned vehicle found one mile north of roadblock A. No plate.”
“Ten-four.”
“It’s Georgia,” I said. “It’s got to be her.”
Pusser shook his head. “Or whoever burned this place down, her with it.” He glanced at the barrels. “Unless she’s in one of those barrels.”
“Whoever it is, they likely spied the roadblock, left the car, headed out on foot in the hollow somewhere. Georgia’s lived out here her whole life. Knows these woods.”
“I’ll call in the reserve deputies. We’ll get a search organized.”
“By the time you get that together, half the day will be burned. She’ll be so deep into these woods, we’ll never find her. Send me in with Wilco. We’ll get a jump start on the search.”
“Not alone. Who do you want? Parks or Harris?”
Did he even have to ask?