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BY THE TIME THE DEPUTY returned with a truck to move Nilsson's body to the local funeral home that doubled as the county morgue, news had reached Sheriff Brown that two more bodies had been found down by the river. Unlike Karl Nilsson, nobody recognized the victims.
“Things are getting better and better,” Brown kept mumbling to himself. I found it difficult to keep up with the man as his long strides were quick and purposeful, covering ground quickly as we made our way towards what he described to me as “the Mexican watering hole.”
“They keep to themselves, do the Mexicans, leastwise the ones that live and work here in McPhee. There’s not much love between them and the Anglos who live here.”
For the remainder of our hurried walk to the new murder site, Brown didn't say a single word. Whatever he was thinking, the Sheriff kept it to himself.
A pair of young boys, one Anglo and one Mexican, sat with a dog on a stump some thirty feet away from where a pretty brown woman with jet black hair and the foreman Jones stood in silence. As we approached the two adults, I picked up the metallic, coppery smell of blood, accompanied by the buzzing of flies as nature began the process of eliminating a dead body. The smell wasn't too bad yet, but I had no desire to be standing around when the sun reached its zenith in the early afternoon.
Jones stepped towards us and, in a soft voice, spoke in a solemn tone. "Sheriff, Mr. Paine."
“What have we got here, Jones?”
“It’s a mess, Sheriff. I’ll be honest, sir. I had to go and be sick,” Jones informed us, pointing in the direction of the river.
“Who found the bodies?”
“Those two boys, Billy and Pablo. They played hooky from school to go fishin', and their dog got to rootin' there by that sapling and wouldn't come when called. They went and fetched Pablo's mother, and she came and got me. Then I sent word for you to come, Sheriff."
Satisfied with the explanation, Brown steeled himself. Having seen more than my share of mutilated bodies as a seventeen-year-old doughboy in the trenches in France, I made my way through the weeds towards the sapling. The source of the blood that attracted the dog and the flies was immediately evident. A man lay on his back with eyes wide open and staring at the sun. His throat had been slashed from ear to ear. I took a good look at the wound and found its edges were sharp and clean.
"Whoever did this used a straight razor," I told the Sheriff. "That's the only thing I've ever seen that could cut a throat that cleanly."
“I’ll take your word for it, Paine.”
I moved the sapling to get a better look at the other victim, a woman. With no visible signs of serious injury, I took my time and carefully turned the woman on her left side. Gently, I lifted her blonde hair up and looked at the back of her neck.
“Ed,” I called out. “You need to see this.”
Avoiding the bloody carcass, Brown stepped close to my side and bent over. “Well, I’ll be. Looks like at least two of our dead bodies got that way by the same fella’s handiwork.”
Brown stood and watched while I first examined the dead woman's dress and then her hands. After a few minutes, I had a good idea of what happened.
“I think we have two killers, Sheriff. The woman here used a razor to kill our male victim. Then the second killer broke her neck, the same way he did Karl Nilsson’s.”
“What makes you think that?”
I looked up at the Sheriff. His expression didn’t display disbelief. He just wanted to know why I had drawn the conclusion I had.
"No defensive wounds on the woman. She didn't put up a fight. I took a quick peek, and her undergarments haven't been torn. If you look at her right hand and on a couple of spots on her dress, you'll see what looks like a very fine misting of some kind of dark paint."
Brown nodded, indicating he understood my reasoning. "She did that one with the razor, and some of his blood got on her. Makes sense. A wound like that is going to spray blood. Then whoever killed her moved the bodies.”
I looked around the area and spotted a blood trail. Five big steps later, the Sheriff and I looked down at what had to be the initial murder scene. "She cut his throat here," I said, looking around. "We need to be careful, Sheriff. The ground is soft from the rain, and you can see different sets of footprints."
Brown nodded and pointed towards a small copse of pine saplings. “Boot prints,” he said, pointing along the ground. “He watched her kill the man from here, then he killed her. Must have taken the straight razor with him when he hid the bodies.”
Needing more information, I carefully removed the dead man's wallet and a piece of paper from his coat pocket. I then did something no man ever wants to do. I went through the dead woman's purse without disturbing it from its resting place.
I found I wasn’t surprised when my search produced three passports and a healthy amount of U.S. dollars in a tight roll with a rubber band. All three passports were issued by the Swedish government and contained a photo of the dead woman. The name in the third passport did surprise me.
“Look at this,” I said, handing Brown the passport. His eyes grew wide in recognition. “Well, I’ll be, Agent Paine.”
He looked back in the direction of McPhee. "I do believe I'm sure now that fire was arson. Probably set to keep the attention away from finding these two till the sun came up. Gave him cover to kill poor old Karl, too.
“Sheriff, you and I need to have a talk somewhere private.”
Brown squinted at me, his eyes focusing on me. “Why’s that, Agent Paine?”
“I think you and I are after the same killer.”
