Before He Preys (A Mackenzie White Mystery—Book 9)

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FOUR

Mackenzie discovered that McGrath had not been exaggerating when he had described Kingsville, Virginia, as backwoods. It was a little town that, in terms of identity, was tucked somewhere between Deliverance and Amityville. It had a creepy rural vibe to it but with the small-town rustic charm of what most people likely expected of smaller southern towns.

Night had completely fallen by the time she arrived at the crime scene. The bridge came into view slowly as she carefully drove her car down a thin gravel road. The road itself was not a state-maintained road yet was also not completely closed off to the public. However, when she closed in to less than fifty yards of the bridge, she saw that the Kingsville PD had put up a row of sawhorses to keep anyone from going any farther.

She parked alongside a few local police cars and then stepped out into the night. A few spotlights had been set up, all shining down the steep bank to the right side of the bridge. As she approached the drop-off, a young-looking policeman stepped out of one of the cars.

“You Agent White?” the man asked, his southern accent cutting into her like a razor.

“I am,” she answered.

“Okay. You might find it easier to walk across the bridge and go down the other side of the embankment. This side is steep as hell.”

Thankful for the tip, Mackenzie walked across the bridge. She took out her little Maglite and inspected the area as she crossed. The bridge was quite old, surely having long ago been shut down for any sort of practical use. She knew that there were many bridges scattered across Virginia and West Virginia that were very similar to this one. This bridge, called Miller Moon Bridge according to the basic research she’d managed to do on Google during traffic-light stops along the way, had been standing since 1910 and shut down for public use in 1969. And while that was the only information she’d been able to get on the location, her current investigation was pulling out more details.

There wasn’t much graffiti along the bridge, but the amount of litter was noticeable. Beer bottles, soda cans, and empty bags of chips were tossed to the edges of the bridge, pushed against the metal edging that supported the iron rails. The bridge wasn’t very long at all; it was around seventy-five yards, just long enough to span over the steep embankments and the river below. It felt sturdy under her feet but the very structure of it was almost feeble in a way. She was very aware that she was walking on wooden boards and support beams nearly two hundred feet in the air.

She made her way to the end of the bridge, finding that the police officer had been right. The land was much more manageable on this other side. With the help of the Maglite, she saw a beaten path that wound through the high grass. The embankment went down at close to a ninety-degree angle but there were patches of ground and rocks jutting out here and there that made the descent quite easy.

“Hold on a minute,” a man’s voice said from below. Mackenzie glanced forward, toward the glare of the spotlights, and saw a shadow emerging and coming her way. “Who’s there?” the man asked.

“Mackenzie White, FBI,” she said, reaching for her ID.

The shadow’s owner came into view moments later. He was an older man with a huge bushy beard. He was wearing a police uniform, the badge over his breast indicating that he was Kingsville’s sheriff. Behind him, she could see the figures of four other officers. One of them was taking pictures and moving slowly in the shadows.

“Oh, wow,” he said. “That was quick.” He waited for Mackenzie to draw closer and then extended his hand. He gave her a hearty handshake and said, “I’m Sheriff Tate. Good to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Mackenzie said as she reached the end of the embankment and found herself on flat land.

She took a moment to take in the scene, expertly illuminated by the spotlights that had been set up along the sides of the embankment. The first thing Mackenzie noticed was that the river wasn’t much of a river at all—not in the location beneath Miller Moon Bridge, anyway. There were what looked like a few meandering puddles of stagnant water hugging the sides and sharp edges of rocks and large boulders that took up the area the river should have passed through.

One of the boulders among the rubble was massive, easily the size of two cars. Splayed out on top of this boulder was a body. The right arm was clearly broken, bent impossibly beneath the remainder of the body. A stream of blood was trailing down the boulder, mostly dried but still wet enough to seem as if it was still flowing.

“Hell of a sight, ain’t it?” Tate asked, standing beside her.

“Yes, it is. What can you tell me for sure at the moment?”

“Well, the victim is a twenty-two-year-old male. Kenny Skinner. As I understand it, he’s related to someone higher up on your ladder.”

“Yes. The nephew of the FBI’s deputy director. How many men out here currently know that?”

“Just me and my deputy,” Tate said. “We already spoke with your pals in Washington. We know this needs to be kept quiet.”

“Thanks,” Mackenzie said. “I understand there was another body discovered here a few days ago?”

“Three mornings ago, yeah,” Tate said. “A woman named Malory Thomas.”

“Any signs of foul play?”

“Well, she was naked. And her clothes were found up there on the bridge. Other than that, there was nothing. It was assumed to be just another suicide.”

“You get many of those around here?”

“Yeah,” Tate said with a nervous smile. “You could say that. Three years ago, six people killed themselves by jumping off of this f*****g bridge. It was some kind of record per location for the state of Virginia. The year after that, there were three. Last year, it was five.”

“Were they all locals?” Mackenzie asked.

“No. Out of those fourteen people, only four living within a fifty-mile radius.”

“And to your knowledge, is there maybe some sort of urban legend or reasoning behind these people taking their lives off of this bridge?”

“There’s ghost stories, sure,” Tate said. “But there’s a ghost story tied to just about every decommissioned bridge in the country. I don’t know. I blame these screwed up generation gaps. Kids these days get their feelings hurt and think offing themselves is the answer. It’s pretty sad.”

“How about homicides?” Mackenzie asked. “What’s the rate like in Kingsville?”

“There were two last year. And so far, only one this year. It’s a quiet town. Everyone knows everyone else and if you don’t like someone, you just stay away from them. Why do you ask? You leaning towards murder for this one?”

“I don’t know yet,” Mackenzie said. “Two bodies in the span of four days, at the same location. I think it’s worth looking into. Do you happen to know if Kenny Skinner and Malory Thomas knew one another?”

“Probably. But I don’t know how well. Like I said…everyone knows everyone in Kingsville. But if you’re asking if maybe Kenny killed himself because Malory did, I doubt it. There’s a five-year difference in age and they didn’t really hang with the same crowds from what I know.”

“Mind if I have a look?” Mackenzie asked.

“Be my guest,” Tate said, instantly walking away from her to join the other officers who were scouring the scene.

Mackenzie approached the boulder and the body of Kenny Skinner apprehensively. The closer she got to the body, the more aware she became of just how much damage had been done. She’d seen some pretty grisly things in her line of work, but this was among the worst.

The stream of blood was coming from an area where it appeared Kenny’s head had smashed against the rock. She didn’t bother examining it closely because the black and red illuminated in the spotlights wasn’t something she wanted popping back into her head later in the night. The massive facture in the back of his head affected the rest of the skull, distorting the facial features. She also saw where his chest and stomach looked as if they had been puffed out from within.

She did her best to look past all of this, checking over Kenny’s clothes and exposed skin for any signs of foul play. In the harsh yet inefficient beam of the spotlights, it was hard to be sure but after several minutes, Mackenzie could find nothing. When she stepped away, she felt herself start to relax. Apparently, she’d been tensed up while observing the body.

She went back to Sheriff Tate, who was speaking with another officer. They sounded as if they were making plans about notifying the family.

“Sheriff, do you think you could have someone pull the records for me on those fourteen suicides over the last three years?”

“Yeah, I can do that. I’ll make a call here in a second and make sure they’re waiting for you at the station. And you know…there’s someone you might want to call. There’s a lady in town, works out of her home as a psychiatrist and special needs teacher. She’s been on my ass for the last year or so about how all of the suicides in Kingsville can’t just be suicides. She might be able to offer something you might not find in the reports.”

“That would be great.”

“I’ll have someone include her information with the reports. You good here?”

“For now, yes. Could I please have your number for easier contact?”

“Sure. But the damned thing is glitchy. Need to upgrade. Should have done it about five months back. So if you call me and it goes to voicemail right away, I’m not ignoring you. I’ll call you right back. Some stupid thing with the phone. I hate cell phones anyway.”

After his rant on modern technology, Tate gave her his cell number and she saved it into her phone.

“I’ll see you around,” Tate said. “For now, the coroner is on the way. I’ll be damn glad when we can move this body.”

It seemed like an insensitive thing to say but when Mackenzie looked back at it and saw the gore and broken state of the body, she couldn’t help but agree.