Page 90 of The Whispering Girls

“You can wait in the car with Cisco.” She smiled and walked to the dumpster. It was an extra-large one and it didn’t have a lock. She wrestled with the lid and finally flipped it up. Immediately, the horrendous smell hit her in the face and she retreated.

“What’s up?” said McGaven hurrying to her. “Yikes, that’s horrible.” He covered his nose and stepped away.

Katie didn’t want to say it, but there was no other choice. “Something’s dead in there.”

“Oh man. You think?” said McGaven. “You’re not going in there.”

“Just give me a leg-up so I can see.”

McGaven shot her an “I don’t think so” expression.

“C’mon, let me just check it out. What if it’s something worse?” she said. Katie had all sorts of notions running through her mind.

“Fine.” He walked up to Katie as she was putting on her gloves.

The snow had become icy around the dumpster and made it difficult for the detectives not to slide or fall down. Katie steadied herself with McGaven and placed her hands on the dumpster rim.

She peered inside. “Don’t drop me.”

“I won’t,” he said, with stress, trying not to inhale the stench.

At first Katie thought it was a dead dog, but upon closer inspection she saw that it was a possum someone had tossed in there—likely from being run over on the street. “It’s a dead possum.”

“Okay, mystery solved.”

“But wait, wait a minute.” Katie hoisted her body closer to the other side of the dumpster and grabbed the edge of a rolled piece of carpet with heavy plastic scraps attached. It wasn’t huge, she estimated, maybe three feet wide and four feet tall.

“What are you doing?” McGaven was losing patience.

“I’ve just about got it,” she replied and yanked the carpet piece out. She jumped down.

“Is that…?”

“Without testing we can only speculate,” she said. “But it looks like there are some small blood smears on this green carpet.”

“It wasn’t near the possum, was it?”

“Nope.”

“We need to take this back,” he said.

“We can cut out a small piece for testing. I saw some plastic rolls and a carpet cutter in the storage area.”

Katie took photos first and then ran to get the cutter and plastic. She was now so focused that she didn’t feel as cold anymore. The snowfall had taken a break and it should be out of the freezing temperatures tomorrow.

They retrieved the evidence. The find gave Katie instant energy and her focus cleared. If they could test not only the carpet fibers, but the blood and match it to either Theresa or TJ, it would be a huge piece of the puzzle.

But as Katie drove back to the lodge, she began to lose hope about the evidence.

“Okay,” said McGaven. “What’s wrong?”

“Matching the fiber and blood is great, but it doesn’t mean that anyone from Crane Flooring is the killer.”

“But it could.”

“Maybe the killer wants it to look like someone from Crane Flooring is the killer. Remember, the crime scenes, especially Theresa’s and TJ’s, seemed to be well planned out. We don’t know how long all this has been set in motion.”

McGaven sighed. “True. But we still need to verify the evidence.”