The Hunt

CHAPTER 9

Long before the sun rose over the mountains, Qui

The pundits repeat the mantra: Time heals all wounds .

It was a lie. Some wounds could never be fixed, especially when the wounded continued to peel the scabs.

Miranda lived and breathed for the Butcher. For justice. She’d spent the last ten years in limbo, between heaven and hell, waiting. Waiting for the Butcher to make a mistake. Searching the woods for remains of his victims. As penance or punishment for surviving.

Qui

She was a time bomb ready to implode. How she’d survived this long without a nervous breakdown, he didn’t know.

That wasn’t completely true, he thought as he dragged himself from bed. Miranda was indisputably the strongest woman he’d ever met. She’d withstood torture that would break most anyone, man or woman. She’d watched her best friend fall dead, shot in the back, and had the wherewithal to continue ru

Qui

But what about Miranda’s needs? Who was watching out for her, making sure she didn’t push herself too far? Taking the time to pull her away from the depressing environment so she could regroup and regain her focus? He feared that unchecked, Miranda had become all-consumed by the investigation, sacrificing her personal happiness and i

Looking at his own career, he couldn’t completely fault her. He’d been an FBI agent for nearly seventeen years. The only time he took a vacation was when his boss insisted. Except for the two years he and Miranda were involved. Only then had he voluntarily taken time off.

He stripped and stepped into the shower, turning on the faucet. The icy spray hit him hard before it warmed, but he needed the cold. When he had first learned what Miranda had gone through, he’d stood under ice-cold water as long as he could tolerate it. He’d wanted to experience a small part of her pain.

Nineteen minutes was his record. But the river was colder than the shower, and she’d survived.

He left Gallatin Lodge before anyone was up. He didn’t want to run into Miranda here, not yet. She hadn’t known yesterday he was staying here, and he wondered if her father had since told her.

He thought not.

Nick met him at McKay’s, a diner around the corner from the police station. The restaurant hadn’t changed much since he’d been away. Vinyl blue-and-white checked tablecloths, condiments centered in the middle, gray walls, and red plastic flowers sagging in sconces between marginally clean windows. Country music interspersed with a pair of wa

He asked Fran, the waitress, to refill his travel mug but didn’t feel much like eating before the autopsy. He ordered toast, more to soak up the caffeine than because he was hungry.

Nick didn’t look like he’d slept any more than Qui

Murder aged you.

“What’s the plan?” Qui

“I have a ranger coming out to take down any trees we need for evidence, and twenty-six law enforcement perso

“If we find the shack?”

“We’ll process the scene and send the evidence to the State Crime Lab in Helena.”

“You mentioned on the phone last week that Rebecca had been abducted outside her place of business. Any witnesses?”

Nick shook his head. “No one saw anything.”

“Rebecca Douglas was in a public parking lot, not stranded by the side of a road. No one saw or heard anything?”

“I interviewed everyone who was at the Pizza Shack that night, even if they’d left long before Rebecca was abducted. If anyone saw anything, it didn’t look suspicious.”

“I wonder if she knew him,” Qui

“It’s always been a possibility that the Butcher is someone familiar to the college girls.”

“Have you run all University staff and students who have been there for at least fifteen years?”

“We’ve run all staff who meet the profile through the criminal database, but no one pops. The worst we have is a sociology professor who was arrested in the 1970s for civil disobedience, and a janitor who was arrested for a felony DUI eight years ago.”

“Do it again,” Qui

“Thirty-five?”

Qui

“We’d thought at first that he knew Miranda or Sharon, either from campus, the Lodge, or where Sharon worked,” he continued. “But when we determined that Pe

“But there were hundreds of potential suspects,” Nick said. “I remember going on dozens of interviews and getting nowhere.”

Qui

Qui

“Sheriff Donaldson was convinced Pe

Nick finished his coffee and slammed the ceramic mug on the table. “We’re floundering, Qui

“We found her quickly. That’s always good news. When’s the autopsy?”

Nick glanced at his watch. “Ten minutes. We should head over there.” He drained his coffee.

Qui

Fran approached the table with a carafe of fresh coffee and a newspaper. “Just delivered,” she said as she slapped the paper in front of Nick. “If you don’t mind me saying, Elijah Banks is an asshole and everybody knows it. His mother must be rolling over in her grave, poor woman.”

BODY FOUND IN WOODS

No confirmation on identity

from Sheriff’s Department

By Elijah Banks

Special to the Chronicle

BOZEMAN, MONTANA-Gallatin County Sheriff Nick Thomas would neither confirm nor deny that the female body found yesterday morning was missing Bozeman student Rebecca Douglas.

“Everything points to the Butcher,” a source in the Sheriff’s Department said on condition of anonymity.

Sheriff Thomas reluctantly confirmed that he is receiving outside assistance from an FBI Special Agent, Quincy Peterson, of the FBI field office in Seattle. The more experienced Peterson was part of the search for missing co-eds Sharon Lewis and Miranda Moore twelve years ago. Lewis was found murdered and Moore escaped, but was unable to identify her attacker.

The unidentified female was discovered early Saturday morning by Ryan Parker, 11, the son of Superior Court Judge Richard Parker, and two friends. By noon, more than forty sheriff deputies and volunteers were searching the woods four miles west of Cherry Creek Road, ten miles south of Route 84. No one was able to confirm what specific evidence they were searching for.

“When we found her, we thought she might be the missing girl,” Parker said. “She didn’t have any clothes on.”

A source in the Mayor’s office said, “It’s about time,” when told that the FBI was again part of the Butcher investigation. “We need a competent team of professionals to finally catch this killer. The young women of Bozeman are rightfully scared.”

Last Friday night, Ms. Douglas left MSU’s Ha