Chapter 6

Every once in a while Detective Sparks would look back to where the yellow crime scene tape was still visible, trying to get an idea of where the victim had fallen from, though it didn't look like the fall had been a long one. No broken bones that she'd noticed.

But from the way the body had landed it looked almost like she'd been dropped, or thrown through the air. It could almost be mistaken for an accident, just an accidental fall, except for the acid in the water.

Though that too could've been an accident, it didn't ring true, and what are the chances? That would be one hell of a coincidence and she didn't believe in those.

Because she was paying such close attention, looking in the brush and foliage, she didn't miss the trip wire that someone had stretched across the path.

Thinking that this had been deliberate and seeing the evidence of it were two different kettle of fish and so it took a few seconds for her mind to process what it was that she was looking at. This didn't belong here; it wasn't a trap like the one you'd expect to find in the woods. The traps that are illegal for anyone to leave out here since this is public land.

She looked back once again at where the body laid, the body that was still there while the coroner did his job meticulously. She was sure as morbid as it was that he was excited to be handling his first murder.

She also had no doubt the murder will be the talk on everyone's lips for the next little while because he tended to have loose lips. It comes with holding the position he does in the small town.

She looked back and forth between the place where she now stood and the body, guessing correctly that it was the trip wire that had sent poor Mrs. Davis hurtling through the air to land in the little puddle that someone had conveniently left there.

But why had she been coming back this way? Her car had been parked on the other side, so wouldn't she have gone back the way she came? And what was she doing out here alone? Or had she been alone?

She kept moving forward slowly after leaving a little flag to mark the spot where she'd found the wire, eyes peeled to the ground as she heard her partner on the other side of the thick brush across from her, moving through the bushes like a bull in a China shop. She hadn't gone far when she saw the incomprehensible sight of a clown that someone had left nailed to a tree.

At first glance the dummy appeared real, eyes staring straight ahead with what could only be termed as a spooky grin on its face. It was only her training that kept her from crying out or taking a quick step back.

As it is she swallowed deeply and forced herself to keep going before calling out to the others to follow her and warning them to watch their step where she'd left the marker.

"We'll have to take this in as well along with the wire." She ordered the members of the crime scene unit who answered her call.

They both studied the clown dummy looking for any more traps or tricks before it was removed and bagged as evidence, then she checked the surrounding area once again but came up empty.

There was nothing more than the disturbed bushes, no footprints, no snagged pieces of clothing, nothing at all other than the clown and the body to show that anyone other than the victim had been here. Oh and of course the wire.

Could it have been kids fooling around? Had they left the clown here? But why the wire and why the acid in the water? That was taking a joke too far and she didn't know any kid in the area who would do such a thing.

Though she had to look at all the angles she was already quite certain that this was exactly what it looked like, a murder. A very well thought out one too from the looks of it.

Even though she hadn't found anything on her face search she knew it would be careless not to keep looking. In brush this thick there were plenty places to hide stuff. Like the container the acid had come in for instance; that would be helpful. A nice container with lost of fingerprints. If only the murderer would be that accommodating.

They were there for hours cleaning up the scene and making sure they hadn't overlooked anything. The sun was high in the sky by the time she walked back to the car with Officer Bailey at her side.

"What do you make of this? Was it a joke that went too far? Was someone trying to play one of those pranks you see on television or something do you think?"

"I don't think so Pete, this looks to me like a calculated attack. The only thing I can't figure is what she was doing out here alone."

She could hear the bleating of sheep and the bellowing of cattle off in the distance as they drove back down the hill and along the boundary of the O'Rourke farm, which was the closest home this side of the woods.

She did a quick run through in her head of all the hands who worked there, wondering if it could've been one of them. The problem was at this point it could be anyone.

They were all local boys, men she'd known in one capacity or another since moving here. And though she couldn't picture any one of them being responsible, she knew better than to make that call lightly.

She stopped off at the O'Rourke farm where poor Mr. Doss had been waiting all this time. She knocked as she wiped her feet on the old rustic heavy-duty mat outside the backdoor.

Dogs barked in the distance and the sweet scent of freshly baked pie made its way through the open kitchen window even as the sound of farm machinery reached her ears.

She looked around as far as the eye could see, back up to the woods that bordered one side of the farmland. She'd always liked this place, always found it to be charmingly welcoming. In her mind it was everything that a farm in a small town should be.

The large Grecian columns that lined the front with the extra long porch, black shuttered windows against the starling white of the house, the black roof with three chimneys that she could imagine smoke puffing out of on cold winter nights and the stately trees that graced the huge front lawn. All sat perfectly in the middle of green-green grass.

The place reminded her of the ranch in one of the old nighttime soap opera reruns her grandmother used to watch, Dallas she thinks it was called, but she was too young to remember.

The miles of white ranch fencing, horses grazing off in the distance and the cattle even farther away gave one a feeling of calm and home sweet home. The O'Rourkes owned about five thousand acres of prime land all be told, the richest landowners in town and for miles around.

As large as it was, everything about the place felt cozy, like home. Even the beautifully designed gardens, that ran from beneath the front windows and down the sides of the old Georgian styled house.

And the swing that sat on the marble porch, gave her ideas of idyllic mornings spent wiling away the time in the early sunlight as she drank a cup of coffee and read the paper. Fanciful!

But those were the kind of thoughts that ran through her head whenever she saw the place or came anywhere near it. And no matter how often she saw it, it was always the same.

Though she'd only ever seen it from a distance, or in the magazine she still had at home in her bedside table from the time two years ago when one of the leading house design magazines had done a spread about the place.

Her face heated with a blush when the thought of the owner; Mr. Riley O'Rourke. His family had owned the farm for generations, and he was the first to add onto it, the first to turn it into the moneymaker that it was today.

Just like that soap opera that she could barely remember, he'd found oil, which had immediately taken him from firmly upper middle class to very, very wealthy. So not only was he the best looking man for miles around, he was now the wealthiest, and at one time the most sought after.

This had all been before her time, before she'd moved here. By then he was already married to the beautiful Valerie Troy, the very fashionable, very well learned and well travelled Valerie Troy with her degree in fine arts and elegant airs.

They'd been high school sweethearts, who as the story goes, everyone was sure, would marry and settle down here together. He'd gone to one of the major Ivy League schools as well for his degree in business as was to be expected for someone with his background.

They've been married ten years now, but still no children as yet. Detective Sparks remembered the first time she'd ever laid eyes on Riley O'Rourke in the flesh, the way her heart had skipped a beat; and then the embarrassment when he'd barely spared her a glance.

It was no wonder, even as beautiful as everyone was always telling her she was, she was nowhere near as beautiful as his wife, not even close. And she was lacking all the sophistication of the well-educated cultured girl who'd obviously caught his heart when they were young and still held it in the palm of her hand.

Not that she would've done anything untoward with a married man. She's not that kind of woman; but funny enough, his reaction had made her like him even more. In a town were the whispers about what goes on behind closed doors abound, it was nice to know that there was at least one man who didn't play the field.