Chapter Twenty Four

Tara and Warren stood at the trail entrance. The hiker stood in front of them, one hand on his backpack strap and the other holding his phone pressed against his ear. He had a short salt-and-pepper beard with light brown eyes that darted each time he heard a simple movement in the woods. He told the person on the other end where to pick him up and then placed the phone back into the pocket of his cargo pants.

“Where are you from?” Tara asked after the man finally gave them his full attention.

“A couple towns over,” he replied. “About a five-mile walk on the trail.”

“Do you hike here often?”

He nodded. “Just on my days off.”

In some way it seemed a bit too perfect that this man just happened to stumble upon this crime scene. Tara was skeptical, but she also knew it would’ve been difficult to stash the bodies, change his clothes, and stage a scene, all before he stumbled upon it. And this man was visibly shaken up. At each sound of someone’s footsteps he would flinch, his head whipping to see who it was. And each time he saw that it was just another officer, he would take a deep breath to make up for the one he failed to take in that split moment.

“Can you walk us through exactly what you saw?” Tara finally asked.

The hiker’s face fell into a frown but he reluctantly recounted his story.

“I saw the droplets of blood on the trail first,” he started. “I thought someone was injured so I followed the footpath and then saw the crime scene…the marking on the tree and the pool of blood, and I called the cops.” He shook his head at the thought. “I was hoping the blood was maybe from an animal that got injured, but I saw the fire pit and I could still smell the smoke in the air, and I knew something wasn’t right.”

“And then you waited for the cops to arrive?” Tara asked.

His face grew paler at her question because it wasn’t the scene that shook him the most.

He nodded. “And then that woman came out.” the man added. “She was hysterical. I’ve never heard someone cry like that. It was like she just knew.” His eyes were growing watery. “It was mother’s intuition or something. She started screaming how she couldn’t get in touch with them and they were already supposed to be home.”

His eyes darted to the road where a tan Subaru pulled up to the gate. A woman waved to him from the driver’s seat, which Tara assumed was his wife. Tara was almost ready to let him go, but had one more question for him.

“Did you see anyone else on the trail when you were hiking?”

But he only shook his head. “I hike pretty early, so I usually don’t see anyone.”

Tara thanked him. She knew that he didn’t have any more valuable information, and that their time was better spent interviewing the frantic mother, even though Tara felt a pit in her stomach at the thought.