Darkness in Appalachia

Chapter 7

David entered the station to see several officers gathered around thedispatcher's desk, nearly blocking the door. It looked like everyoneon the current shift and a few from the previous shift were hangingout to talk about something important. He squeezed past them,catching bits and pieces of excited conversation but not reallypaying attention. The last time he had seen everyone so excited itwas because a local churches Halloween party had gotten a little toowild. Or what they considered wild around here.

At his desk, he sat down and checked his work email to see if therewas anything that he needed to follow up from previous shifts. Mostof the time, there was little in there that pertained to actual worksince they didn't really do much around here. A couple of drunks,some domestic disputes that ended with the victim not wanting topress charges, a car that went into a ditch and busted someone's farmfence letting out some cattle to wander the roads, and some drugrelated charges. Most of it would be handled by the officers on dutyand he wouldn't need to do anything except maybe escort a prisoner tothe courthouse on his court date. There was nothing in his emailexcept for a notice for a local church's bake sale and a birthdaynotification for one of the night duty officers.

He quickly erased the emails and stood, preparing to go out andcheck his cruiser. The night duty officer that drove it wouldsometimes forget to clean it out and he couldn't stand sitting in acar with old coffee and fast food wrappers while he drove. He wasstopped before leaving the desk by one of the night officers comingover to his desk.

He was a young kid, couldn't even grow a full beard yet even thoughhe tried so hard to do so. He had scrawny arms and legs with a slightbeer belly already beginning to develop and straw colored hair.Overall, he looked like a walking talking scarecrow.

"Did you hear about what the state boys said?"

"No. Was it about the little girl we found?" His interest waspiqued and he sat back down.

"Yeah. Turns out that she's not the only body that's been foundlike that. There's two other cases in the last month with threebodies. The good news is that they think they know who the girl is.One of the cases was a couple that was camping in the woods and thelocals believed that they had their daughter with them even thoughshe wasn't found. Said that they found a couple of toys and clothesthat could have belonged to our girl. It didn't show up on a localsearch because it happened in West Virginia nearly a month ago."

"So something killed her parents and took the child? Keeping herfor a full month before killing her here? What the fuck, man?"David felt his stomach turn as he imagined what that child had beenthrough.

"Tell me about it. This goes beyond state, man. Federal boys arecoming in since it involves a kidnapping across state lines andmultiple bodies. They are supposed to be here later today and I betthey are going to want to see where we found the body. The otherthree were found in extremely out of the way places just like thelittle girl."

David felt a little uneasy at the thought of federal boys on Robyn'sproperty. If he had noticed something suspicious about her it wasalmost definite that they would as well. He should probably call andwarn her as soon as he could. "What about the other body? Where didthey find it?"

"Just over the state line about a week after the couple. He was ahunter. He was out with some buddies and split off to chase down adeer. They went after him when he didn't come back in a reasonableamount of time and found him like that. Locals were pissed becausethey carried him out of there instead of calling them. They claimedthat they had marked the scene but they couldn't lead the police toit later."

David shook his head. Civilians messed up more scenes thaneverything but weather, in his opinion. "That sucks. It would havebeen the freshest scene so there might have more trace than any ofthe other. How was the couple found?"