Page 5 of The Graveyard Girls (Detective Ellie Reeves #11)

FOUR

Ellie studied the sheriff, noting the defensive expression on his face. Judging from his looks, he might have been about Ruth Higgins’ age when she went missing, which would put Ruth around thirty if she’d survived. Did the remains they’d found belong to her? “Did you know Ruth?”

He shifted. “Of course. We went to the same high school and her daddy owned half the town. Besides, her story was plastered all over the news.”

“What do you think happened to her?” Ellie asked.

He shrugged. “Who knows? She probably ran away to escape this hellhole.”

Yet he’d stayed. Interesting.

“I’d like to see the body and talk to the man who found it.” She gestured toward Cord. “Ranger McClain works with me on a task force created by the governor to solve crimes along the trail. He’s going to look around in the woods.”

“Don’t contaminate the scene,” the sheriff snapped. “We may be country here, but I don’t want the area compromised.”

A muscle ticked in Cord’s jaw. “I know the drill.” Body rigid, Cord set off with the ERT into the woods to search.

Sheriff Wallace directed Ellie to the gangly man who’d found the body. He stood beneath a crooked pine tree watching as the ERT photographed the scene.

“I’m Detective Ellie Reeves,” she said.

He shook her hand limply and she noticed a scar marring his arm and hand, a burn scar. Red pocked skin on the upper right side of his face near his hairline indicated another burn. Dirt stained his fingernails. Had he touched the crime scene? Or the body?

“Your name?”

“Emanuel Black,” he said, his voice flat and toneless.

“The officer mentioned you’re a wildlife photographer?”

“Yeah. Focus on nature, the woods and mountains. Remote areas always intrigue me.”

“What were you doing here?” Ellie asked.

“Came to see the memorial,” he said. “Got some pictures then decided to take a walk.”

“You know the history of the land?”

“Sure do.” He gave a nod. “I grew up around here but moved away after that fire.” He indicated his scars.

Sympathy for him warred with her professional need to treat him as a suspect. “That must have been traumatic.”

“Yeah, lost my family in the blaze.” Rage seeped into his tone as he glanced at the memorial. “This memorial is a little too late and the people’s families weren’t even compensated.”

He definitely sounded bitter. “I’m surprised you’d come back.”

He stared across the land. “Curious to see if it was as bad as I remembered.”

“So you were taking pictures?”

“Yeah. I wandered past the gravestones by the church and went to take pics of the destruction. I wanted to see for myself if what they say is true, that no wildlife or plants survived out here.”

Judging as far as Ellie could see, it looked more harsh than she’d imagined. “Go on.”

“Started getting dark so I headed back. It was really hard to see what was in front of me and I didn’t have a torch.

I lost my footing when I stumbled over a rock.

” His bony shoulders slumped slightly. “When I looked down, I thought I saw what looked like a bone protruding from the dirt.” His voice remained monotonous but there was an odd flicker in his wideset eyes as if finding the body excited him.

“I assumed it was an animal that died out here, but then I saw what looked like a human hand. That’s when I called the sheriff’s office. ”

“Did you touch the bones?”

He shook his head vehemently. “I raked away a little dirt and brush to see what was there. When I realized I was right, I stepped away.”

Ellie regarded his thin pale face, his loose-hanging clothes and tattered shoes. “We’re going to need your prints and to take casts of your boots.”

He glanced at her and she noticed his eyes were two different colors, one a hazel and the other a disturbing dull gray. It was called heterochromia. Some superstitions claimed the condition was a sign of evil.

His thin lips twitched. “You think I had something to do with this body?”

“Just following protocol, Mr. Black. Your prints are required in order to rule you out as a person of interest.”

His gaze settled on her, cold and serious, and sent a quiver up her spine.

Sometimes the person who found the body was actually the killer.

In order to throw off the police or out of morbid curiosity needing to relive the crime, a perpetrator often returned to the scene and inserted himself into the investigation.

She angled her head toward the sheriff. “Take the memory card from his camera. Maybe he caught something on it that will give us a lead.”