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.

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