Chapter 1
Ed Freemen looked down at the mangled body of a young woman on the old Moonville Rail Trail. The way her remains were spread in two evenly spaced lines made it evident she had been run over by a train. The problem was that there were no tracks—and hadn’t been for a very long time. So how in the nine circles of hell had she been run over by a train?
A senior ranger at Lake Hope State Park was a cushy retirement job for a burned-out cop according to Ed’s former supervisor, Sergeant Harry Dean. The sergeant hadn’t added the part about a burned-out cop, but Ed knew that was the gist. Ed didn’t have much to worry about beyond taking a few kids on a nature walk to show them how beavers build their lodges, talk to families about conservation, warn them to cover their fires with dirt, and occasionally break up a domestic fight when too much alcohol flowed.
The body lay in a clearing near Little Sandy Run, a tributary of Racoon Creek. An early morning mist crept down from the lake, pulling a thin blanket over the girl’s body—sadly, too late for comfort. The victim had pulled her car off the road near Park Road 9 and State Route 278. Ranger Peace Officer Nancy Sullivan crouched near the corpse, digital camera in hand. Her long ginger hair had slipped from its bun into an unintentional ponytail. She side-lunged and snapped a photo, stretching the green polyester uniform to its limit. When Ed approached, she looked up.
“Morning, chief.”
“Good morning, Nancy.”
Ed always wanted to laugh when someone called him chief. With only three rangers under him, he was more like a squad sergeant than a chief, but that was what they called his predecessor, Jeff Waddell. So who was Ed to buck tradition? He took a sip of Nature Boost. Although they were stimulants for most people, energy drinks calmed Ed. He needed calm that day. When he left Akron a few months ago, he thought he had seen his last dead girl.
Ed’s other ranger, Andy Tabachnik, moved around the scene carrying small yellow flags. He occasionally stooped to mark where evidence had been found. He walked hunched over, rocking back and forth as though bipedal locomotion were a foreign concept. Nancy followed behind with the camera, snapping photos as Andy went.
Unlike television, there were no CSI units in Tyvek suits combing through the grass for microscopic clues. In sleepy southern Ohio, investigators had to bag, tag, and in many cases, analyze their own evidence.
The girl wore a white blouse and teal skirt. Lying perpendicular to the trail, she looked like the heroine of one of those cheesy 1930s serials. Only there was no last-minute rescue revealed in the next installment.
Her head and legs were gone, mixed up in the bits of bone, flesh, and brain matter. A train—Ed kept coming back to that. It was like the old rail line was still operating, still transporting coal from Marietta to Cincinnati, but it wasn’t. Her clothing was amazingly, disturbingly pristine, with just a few drops of crimson on her blouse.
In Akron, Ed had responded to a suicide. A man had sat in a chair and placed the barrel of a shotgun under his chin. The resulting blast splattered the wall behind him. It looked like someone had poured ketchup into a bowl of oatmeal and thrown it against the wall. If someone had seen the man from the chest down, it would’ve looked like he had just leaned back to take a nap, save for the teardrop of blood soaked into the thigh of his blue jeans. That was the thing that bothered Ed. How could there be just one drop?
Ed looked around. There appeared to be no evidence of a rope or chain, nothing to indicate that the young woman’s assailant had tied her down. So, what kept her on the tracks? Ed closed his eyes. There were no freaking tracks.
Something in the forest caught his attention—a deer nosing its way through the trees. Ed watched its delicate steps for a few moments before doe eyes turned his direction and it melted back into the woods.
Ed rubbed his bald head. He had shaved it a few years ago after his bald spot had grown from dime to quarter size. His girlfriend at the time hadn’t liked the new look, telling him that bald, muscular black men looked dangerous.
“Andy, when was the last time a train came through here?”
“About forty years ago, chief.”
“And what would you say killed this young lady?”
“I’d say a train.”
“Yeah, me too.”
Nancy rose quickly, only shooting up to about five feet. “Wait a minute, how could it be a train?”
“Well, that, as the bard would say, is the rub.” Ed knelt close to the body. From the low vantage point, he could see the laces on Nancy’s boots were not completely secure. He started to mention it, then wrestled his focus back to the matter at hand.
“I don’t like Shakespeare.” Nancy frowned, and Ed couldn’t help but crack a smile.
“Seriously, though, chief,” Andy said. “How did this happen?”
“I don’t know.” Ed stood, his eyes tracing the length of the trail once more.
“Well, could it have been one of those things you see in the old movies? You know, with the two guys pumping the lever up and down?” Nancy gestured, her small hands vigorously pumping an imaginary handle. She snapped her fingers. “Hand cars. Isn’t that what they call them?”
“They haven’t used those things in years. They got motorized maintenance vehicles now,” Andy said.
“What about that, motorized whatever?”
“They’re heavy as hell, and they got the same problem as a train engine—no tracks.”
Nancy looked down the trail. “Maybe they killed her somewhere else and brought the body here?”
“And spread her blood and brain matter all over the ground? That’s a lot to go through. Naw, she was killed here, Nancy. What about a truck, chief? A big one.”
“Possibility,” Ed said. “But I’ve seen people run over by trucks and they had tire tracks across the body. They didn’t look like this.”
“That kinda takes care of what it wasn’t.” Andy wiped sweat from his forehead.
Ed’s rangers turned to him again and it annoyed him a little. What did they expect, rapid-fire deductions à la Sherlock Holmes? Elementary, my good fellow, obviously a thousand strong men from a nearby circus dragged a train engine down here. He forced himself to calm down. Of course they looked to him for answers. He was the big city (well, medium city) detective who worked hundreds of crime scenes. For them, this case was their first experience with crime, unless you counted writing citations for fishermen sans permits.
“Speculation without sufficient evidence is counterproductive,” Ed said. “Tie your shoe, Nancy. For now, let’s stick with what we know. All indications say that this young lady was run over by a train—a fact for which we have no explanation. The probability that this was some kind of accident is at best remote, so we treat this as a homicide. We must accept that there are aspects of this case that we do not understand at this time and instead focus on the circumstances that brought the victim to this place.”
Ed noticed Nancy and Andy staring at him, thin grins on their faces. Perhaps he had channeled a little Holmes after all. Ed smiled back, then turned and started up the hill where the girl’s gray Nissan Sentra sat in the middle of a trail. Tucked among the cedar and pine, it was barely visible from 278, but Nancy had spotted it on her last patrol run of the night. Ed made a mental note to place a commendation into her file.
A woman’s purse lay on the ground near the vehicle. Its spilled contents formed a rough trail in the direction of the body.
“Andy, what do we have on the car?”
Andy withdrew a small plastic bag from a paper evidence sack and followed. From the side, Andy looked like a bent stick. His Sam Browne belt kept slipping off what should have been his behind. He absent-mindedly adjusted it with long, thin fingers. He caught up to Ed and held the bag up to the light to read the driver’s license inside. “Meghan Haynes from Zaleski, sixteen. Pretty girl.”
She’s not pretty now.
“We found her cell phone here.” Andy pointed to one of the yellow flags on the ground. “It’s busted up pretty good, but I’ll see what I can get from it.”
Walking to the car, Ed dropped to a knee in front of the open door. He caught a faint whiff of wild cherry from one of those cheap air fresheners in the plastic envelope. “Her assailant dragged her out of the back seat and along the ground. See how the grass is matted down?” Ed’s hand hovered over the flattened grass. “She must have grabbed her cell phone on the way out, tried to record or dial nine-one-one. Check with county dispatch.”
“Dragged her out and then what?” Andy looked at the ground in front of him.
Ed lifted a finger. “Let’s focus on the why. Who was with her and who wanted her dead.”
Andy pursed his lips. “Who was with her?”
“Young girls don’t drive out into the woods alone.” Ed gestured but noticed a squirrel. He hesitated as the rodent scurried up the hill, an acorn in its mouth.
Ed turned back to see Andy and Nancy exchange smirks.
“Go,” Ed said.
“Yes, sir.”
A Vinton County Coroner’s van arrived as Andy drove off, and two men in jumpsuits got out. They waited for a nod from Ed before moving toward the body.
Ed turned to Nancy. “Get some rest after you log in the evidence. You have to go on again tonight. I’m going to follow these guys to the coroner’s office.”
“I’m good, chief.”
“Go get some rest. That is not a request.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ed stood and stared at the trail. The wind changed direction, whipping sideways across his face and sweeping the familiar smell of the lake over his nostrils. He imagined a train chugging along tracks no longer in existence. Though he would not admit it to his rangers, in his mind, he was 100 percent sure that a train had run over that young woman. The question was how. So much for the stress-free retirement job.
***
The powerful surgical light reflected a glint off of the titanium tray of bloody scalpels, scissors, and retractors. The coroner had already closed and begun to sew the Y-incision shut. Neither man seemed bothered by the smell, a combination of burned tires, methane, and rotted fruit. Despite the cliché, Ed had become accustomed to the stench long ago. Charlie Cook’s hands shook as he worked. He could never have been a surgeon.
The examination table had been lowered to accommodate Cook’s diminutive frame. Leaning over the remains, his garish green-and-red Mickey Mouse tie hung dangerously near the gore. Holding a curved needle in one hand, Charlie looked over his shoulder. “Well?”
Ed frowned. “Well, what?”
“I know what you’re going to ask me.” Charlie shakily pulled a suture through Meghan’s skin. It snapped back unnaturally as if made of some polymer instead of the delicate flesh of a young woman.
Ed scratched his scalp. “I was going to ask you what killed her.”
“You talk to Waddell?” Charlie looked up from the body and back at Ed.
“About what?”
“Your transition meeting. You ever make it happen?”
Ed wondered why Charlie was acting so strange. They had hit it off during Ed’s first joint law enforcement meeting. He had been impressed with Charlie’s credentials. Most coroners were mere administrators, but Charlie was a bona fide forensic pathologist. He and Ed had talked about cases in the news. It was unlike him to be so reticent.
“No. He blew me off,” Ed said. “Wouldn’t take my calls when I tried to follow up. You know this. We talked about it.”
“Yeah, well, you’re going to need to talk to him about this.”
Naked on the table, Meghan looked more like a pile of scraps at a butcher shop than a human being. Lacerations on her torso meant that she had been dragged across the gravel, maybe rolled over a few times. Ed wondered why Charlie even bothered to close the incision. It wasn’t like they were going to have an open casket.
“You going to give me the cause of death, or do I have to talk to Waddell about that too?”
Charlie looked up from the body and quickly turned back. “I can’t give you what you want. I’m sorry.”
“What do I want?”
“You’re not thick, Ed, so stop pretending. You want me to say she was killed by a train. I can’t do that.”
“Wasn’t she?”
Charlie finished the stitches and pulled a paper blanket over Meghan’s remains. He rolled the table over to a row of mortuary cabinets and pulled one open. There were only eight, a fraction of the cabinets Ed had seen in Summit County. It was well known that drawer number seven contained a bottle of whiskey.
“You’re not listening. You need to talk to Waddell.”
Ed came over to the other side of the body and prepared to lift it.
“I got it,” Charlie said. “She’s not very heavy.”
“I’ll help.”
The two men slid the corpse over. Charlie was right. In her current condition, Meghan weighed next to nothing.
Ed looked at his friend. “You have to rule it a homicide, Charlie.”
Charlie peeled off his surgical gloves and tossed them into the red bio-waste container. “Don’t try to bluff me. That’s bullshit TV logic. You know as well as I do that the county coroner has the final say on the manner of death. I can rule any damned way I please. I can call an inquest or not call one. I can say the cause was unknown. I could rule it death by misadventure. Hell, I could say she committed suicide!”
“I don’t know what’s going on with you. But you need to tell me something.”
Charlie waved his arms. In his oversized lab coat, he looked like a child who had appropriated his parent’s clothing. Ed had only seen him this animated after a few too many drinks.
“That would serve you right. I should call an inquest,” Charlie said. “Make you testify in front of the whole county that Meghan Haynes was killed by a ghost train.”
“I didn’t say anything about a ghost. Why are we talking about ghosts? I just—I need something I can work with.”
“Are you listening to yourself?” Charles put his hands on his hips, smudging gore onto his lab coat. “You have any idea what we’re dealing with?”
“No. That’s why I’m asking my friend, the coroner, for help.”
“I’m sorry, Ed.” Charlie took off his glasses. “But you’re going to have to talk to Waddell.”
Ed looked at the ceiling. “Why can’t I just talk to you?”
“There are things about this you don’t understand, okay? And Waddell has the answers.” Charlie went to a drawer, pulled out a report, and handed it to Ed.
Ed took the report and perused it. “Object of immense weight, moving at considerable speed. What’s this crap?”
“Preliminary report, and the only reason you got that is because I am your friend.”
“Charlie, talk to me.” Ed held the report out.
“Waddell,” was Charlie’s only reply.
***
On Second Avenue in Zaleski, the sight of a tractor was as common as an automobile. Most homes boasted large red barns and sprawling fields. The setting harkened back to a time when all the neighbors were friendly, and all knew the names of everyone’s kids and pets. Perhaps it was a time that never existed but only looked as if it did in home movies and faded photographs.
The Haynes family’s roof seemed much newer than their two-story colonial. The bright orange-and-brown shingles clashed with the soft gray exterior. Andy’s cruiser and a Vinton County sheriff’s vehicle sat deep in the driveway. Ed climbed the stairs and knocked before gently pushing the door open and going inside. Mrs. Haynes sat on a couch with her entire upper body slumped over a Saint Bernard. She caressed the animal, her frumpy housedress hiding its face in her sleeve. A ceramic bull crouched on the coffee table as if preparing to charge. At the opposite end, a cigarette lighter in the shape of a revolver aimed at a pewter Conestoga wagon.
“Mrs. Haynes, I’m Ed Freemen. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
She looked up at Ed and motioned toward the stairs.
During his time in the Akron Police Department, Ed had made several death notifications and realized that each was different. A sister who had been notified of the death of her estranged sibling shouted “no” over and over again for a full minute. In another case, a mother who found out her son had died in a single-car collision mused, “Well, that was bound to happen sooner or later. That bastard was born with a whiskey bottle in his mouth and a tag on his big toe.”
Ed quickened his pace when he heard shouting.
“I want to see it! It’s my house, goddamnit! I have a right!”
Henry Haynes stood at the entrance to his daughter’s bedroom. Ed’s swing-shift ranger, Doug Weems, did his best to hold the enraged father back. Weems had been a skinny wide receiver for Athens High School and retained that build, adding a receding hairline over the years and a two pack a day smoking habit. He struggled with the rotund Haynes who looked at Ed with wild-eyed desperation.
“Are you in charge here? Make ’em let me see!” Haynes pushed against Doug, dragging both of them toward Ed.
Ed looked into the room. Andy, along with Vinton County Sheriff’s Deputy Carl Bergan, were crowded around an iPad. Andy looked up and gave a slight shake of his head. Ed pulled the door closed.
“That’s probably not a good idea.”
Haynes moved so quickly that Weems was unable to stop him. He launched forward, grabbing Ed’s uniform with both hands. “You get out of my way! This is my house. My house!”
Ed took the man’s hands off his shirt and pushed him firmly. “Your wife’s downstairs. She needs you.”
Haynes’s hands dropped to his side, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “I’m sorry, but I have a right to know what she was doing.”
“You’re right, sir. This is your house. You have every right to look at that iPad before we take it into evidence. But if what you think is on there is really there, you have to ask yourself whether you want to see that with your own eyes. If the answer is yes, we won’t stop you.” Ed stepped out of the way and gestured for Doug to do the same.
Haynes stared at the unblocked door, then turned slowly and walked down the stairs. Ed tried to imagine what it would be like to be Haynes at that moment and came up short.
Ed went into the bedroom. A five-foot poster of a tattooed Justin Bieber stared down at him from the wall above Meghan’s bed. The caption below the pointing pop star asked, “Are you a Belieber?”
An assortment of carnival-prize stuffed animals struck various poses from a pressboard shelf. A collection of actual paperback books sat on a lower shelf. Ed picked one up. It appeared to be set in a dystopian world where oppressive government agents pursued a group of nonconformist youths. Not at all original, but Ed had to give Meghan points for being an avid reader in the age of shorthand information. Out of the corner of his eye, Ed saw a brown piece of paper poking out between the mattress and box spring—just a bit—but Ed spotted it.
“Andy, did you look under here?”
Andy looked away from the iPad. “No, chief. Didn’t seem to be a reason.”
Ed grabbed the side of the mattress and flipped it off the bed. There was a thin paper bag wedged between the mattress and box spring. Ed pulled on latex gloves and looked inside. Lingerie.
Andy stared at Ed with his mouth open. “Forgive me, chief, but how the hell did you know something was under there?”
Ed waved him off. “A corner of the bag was sticking out.”
Andy glanced at Bergan, and both men shook their heads.
Andy turned back to the iPad and said, “You got to see this. She has some pretty—” He leaned over to make sure Henry Haynes was out of earshot. “—nasty pictures on her iPad, Fifty Shades stuff. You were right. She was involved with someone.”
“Can you tell if she sent the photos to anyone?”
Andy stared back at the screen. He looked out of place sitting at Meghan’s desk, where she kept up with her friends and completed school assignments.
“She had to be sharing them, but I’m gonna need time to get into her social media accounts.”
They went downstairs to find Meghan’s parents hugging on the couch. Ed sat across from them until they looked up.
“I’m sorry to ask you this, but we need to know who Meghan was seeing.”
“Seeing?” Henry Haynes said. His neck turned red. “She was sixteen!”
Ed glanced at Andy. “We’re not here to judge anyone, but evidence shows that she was— parked with someone when she was killed.”
“Parked? Parked?” Haynes said, beginning to rise from the couch. “My daughter is dead, and you come in here accusing her of being a—”
“They’re just trying to help, Hank.” Mrs. Haynes spoke up for the first time. She grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down to the couch. “They didn’t know our Meghan. Mr. Freemen, our daughter wasn’t allowed to date.”
“Perhaps you can give me a list of her friends.” Ed smiled warmly. “People she would confide in. As much information as you can give us. Addresses and phone numbers.”
“And maybe you can give us access to Meghan’s social media accounts,” Andy added.
“Oh, Meghan wasn’t on social media,” Mrs. Haynes said. She left to get a pad and paper. Henry Haynes continued to assault the two law enforcement officers with his gaze.
Mrs. Haynes returned with a list in neat cursive. Ed thanked her and walked out with Andy.
“How can the parents be so strict and clueless at the same time? Kinda hard to blame Meghan for going a little wild.”
“It’s an old story,” Ed said. “I’m sure they mean well, but in my experience, the tighter parents hold on to the child, the further the kid strays.”
Andy shifted the evidence bag from his right hand to his left. “How could they not even know she’s on social media? What’d they think the iPad was for?”
At the edge of the driveway they stopped.
“The father probably grew up in a house where the parents told the kids what to do, and they did it,” Ed said. “Besides, do you think either of them even knows what a URL is?”
“Nope.”
“We have to do this the hard way. Contact all the friends on that list and go to Meghan’s school. Until we find who she was with, we’re spinning our wheels. And do your thing with her accounts.”
“Yes, chief.”
