The usually vacant stretch of asphalt along Ross Ridge Road just north of Route 22 was presently flanked with vehicles positioned closely together along both shoulders of the roadway. Police cruisers composed the majority of parked cars, but an Action 7 News truck was also already on-site and two men were unloading camera equipment from the rear of the vehicle. Perfect, Sam thought, pulling over onto the soft shoulder. He killed the ignition, popped the trunk, and stepped out of the car. Down the street near the parked news van, he could see Diane Sellars making her way quickly toward him, camera crew in tow. Sam whistled to Tony Linwood, who stood nearby directing the occasional passing vehicle. ‘Tony,’ he called over, ‘I do not wish to be interviewed by Ms Sellars right now.’
‘Okay, Chief,’ the young deputy said with a nod, then headed off to intercept them.
Sam walked around to the back of his car. He retrieved a rain jacket from the trunk and donned it against the midday drizzle, which would steadily work its way to a respectable downpour before the afternoon was through. He crossed the street to join a small cluster of officers standing in a loose-knit circle in the wet grass. ‘Hey, Chief,’ one of them said in greeting as he approached. The others turned.
Sam nodded. ‘Hello, Mike.’ He regarded the yellow DO NOT CROSS police tape stretched along the edge of the woods for about a hundred yards. At the far ends, it turned a right angle perpendicular to the roadway and headed straight back into the forest. ‘Where’s Detective Schroeder?’ he asked.
‘Right here, Chief,’ Carl announced from thirty yards away, walking toward them. He’d been canvassing the road slightly to the north, covering the area from where the police tape ended to a small cluster of houses just over the rise of the next hill. As he approached, he held up a Ziploc bag containing the tattered remains of a few small white cylinders. ‘Cigarettes,’ he said. ‘Four of them, lying in the grass just on the other side of the hill. Pretty soggy and mashed to hell from the rain last night, but definitely worth a look.’
‘Good,’ Sam commented. He nodded at one of the officers. ‘I want that area cordoned off as well – and have the forensic guys examine the ground for shoe prints and anything else they can come up with.’
‘Sure thing,’ the deputy said, grabbing the police tape and a few stakes from the back of his car and heading off in that direction.
Sam turned to Carl. ‘What’ve you got so far?’
Carl pointed to a spot where the road’s asphalt met the shoulder. ‘She was discovered here.’
The grass in this area was matted down, and in a few places tufts had been pulled from the wet earth. The rain was doing its best to wash the area clean, but Sam could see what he presumed to be bloodstains in several areas. It didn’t take much of an imagination for him to picture the girl lying there weak and exhausted, having pulled herself hand over hand from the dark recesses of the woods. ‘Where was she attacked?’ he asked.
‘It looks like most of the struggle occurred at a spot about two hundred and fifty yards in,’ Carl said. ‘Lots of broken branches and a fair amount of blood.’
‘We need to get a canopy up in that area,’ Sam said. ‘And one here, too. Get these areas protected from the rain as much as possible while there’s still any evidence left worth collecting.’
Carl motioned to one of the deputies standing behind them, who nodded and went to his vehicle.
‘Who found her?’ Sam asked, studying the woods.
‘A motorist on her way to work came across the victim at 6:45 a.m. We got the 911 call at 6:48.’
‘You’ve interviewed her?’
‘Yeah. The lady’s a nurse at Trinity Medical Center, and was heading in for a 7 a.m. shift. She says she assessed the victim’s injuries and rendered what aid she could before placing the call to 911. Said the girl was unconscious, and that her breathing was so slow and shallow that at first the nurse thought she was dead. Fortunately, she checked for a pulse.’
Sam nodded. ‘Where’s the victim now?’
‘They took her to Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh.’
‘Why not take her to Trinity? It can’t be more than a ten-minute drive from here.’
Carl shook his head. ‘Trinity’s not a trauma center. The girl’s injuries were … severe.’
Sam’s eyes met the detective’s. ‘How severe?’
At first, Carl didn’t answer. The precipitation falling from the sky was really beginning to pick up now, and large drops of water congregated on the edge of his hood before cascading the remaining several feet toward the pavement. He looked down at the grass in front them, imagining what it must’ve been like for the girl as she crawled all that distance through these woods after the attack, as she lay here in the darkness staring up at the rain. ‘I don’t know,’ he said finally. ‘She might not survive.’
The chief considered this for a moment. Behind him, the forensics van arrived and pulled to a stop on the opposite side of the street. Sam glanced over his shoulder as the two technicians emerged from the vehicle, then he turned back to Detective Schroeder. ‘Let them know what we’ve found so far,’ he ordered. ‘Then come with me.’
‘Where are we going?’ the detective asked.
‘Pittsburgh,’ Sam called back, making his way toward the car. ‘I want to go see her.’