Chapter Twenty-Two CJ Taggart #2
Taggart arrived at the festival entrance a half hour later.
The muddied hillside had been stripped of ground cover, and the small trees were bent and broken.
The field at the base of the hill was a sea of mud.
It was disfigured with deep tire ruts, scattered trash, flattened tents, and overflowing trash cans.
The stages and trucks were gone, and the vendor who’d brought the porta potties was loading the last of the ten units onto his flatbed.
As he shut off the engine, Brenda came in over the radio. “Dispatch to Sheriff?”
He took the microphone and pressed the side button. “Ten-four.”
“Another woman called the station. She says her niece was at the festival, and she’s not checked in. It’s too soon to file a missing person report.”
“What’s her name?”
“Laurie Carr. She’s nineteen, blond, and petite. She was hoping to sing at the festival.”
“I might have met her. I think she worked the burger tent with Patty.”
“Laurie was supposed to call in this morning.”
He checked his watch. Eight o’clock. “She’s overdue.”
“Her aunt is convinced she’s in trouble.”
Many missing person cases resolved themselves. The person in question was either drunk, on vacation, or staying at a friend’s house. There were dozens of reasonable explanations. “If she calls back, take her statement.”
“Will do.”
Taggart walked over to the site where the burger tent had been located. Buddy had cleared out all the equipment and broken down the tables. Waste, embedded in the mud, encircled large green, bulging trash bags.
He moved to where Patty had stood and looked out toward the entrance to the festival. When he’d last seen her, she’d been hustling to work the grill and the register. During the height of the event, Patty wouldn’t have seen beyond the crowds encircling her.
His gaze scanned the field. Patty had been working the event with a blonde. Was it Laurie?
The beep of the flatbed drew his attention to the porta potties that had rested near the edge of the woods.
The truck driver lowered a forklift that slid under the porta potty. “Sheriff, you seen Rafe Colton?”
He didn’t know the driver. “Not since yesterday.”
A frown deepened the man’s grizzled face. “He was supposed to meet me here with a check.”
“You are?”
“Pete Manchester. I rented him the porta potties.”
“Is that like Colton, to be late?”
“I’ve heard rumors about unpaid bills. But he offered me good money to do the job. He’s a hard man to say no to.”
Taggart wasn’t surprised to hear Colton wasn’t here with a check. This festival was proving to be one huge con. “I’ll keep an eye out.”
“Right.”
“All your units were lined up here?”
“Yeah, there were ten of them. They’re filled with trash and shit I don’t want to know about. It’s going to be a hell of a cleanup to get these back into service. I told him he needed more units.”
Colton wasn’t worried about destruction. His kind created chaos and then moved on, leaving the mess to others.
Taggart walked past the muddy square imprints where the units had rested. “Let me know if it doesn’t go well with Colton.”
“I will.”
Taggart moved toward the woods. During the festival, it had been filled with people who’d sneaked in or needed a place to escape the rain or get high.
Into the woods, the first thirty feet of ground was trampled flat. And judging by the smell, anyone who hadn’t been able to get into the latrine had used the woods. He kept walking.
The damage of too much humanity eased. The underbrush reappeared, and soon it looked as if no one had stepped on this part of the earth in a hundred years.
He cut through the thicket and trees toward the fire road.
He still didn’t know what he was looking for.
Why would Patty or Laurie venture this far into the woods?
He looked up toward the sun bleeding through the thick tree canopy.
The trees would have slowed the rain, but it would still have been damp and cold.
From here he couldn’t see the field through the thicket.
In the dark, it would have been easy for a woman to vanish.
In the distance, white fabric flapped from a tree. As he moved toward the strip, plowing through the brush, branches grabbed his shirt and pant legs.
When he reached the cloth, he realized it was a T-shirt.
Plain and white, it was small and fashioned for a woman.
The fabric was ripped, and splashes of brown and red covered the front.
He’d seen enough dried blood to recognize it.
He imagined a large hand grabbing a fistful of fabric until it ripped. He left the shirt where he found it.
His gaze scanned the immediate area. Ahead, he spotted a single athletic shoe coated in mud and lying on its side.
Like the shirt, it was a woman’s style. As he studied the distance between the shirt and shoe, he imagined a shirtless woman running in the dark.
She was panicked, disoriented. Had she tripped and lost a shoe?
Did her pursuer catch her? Did she fight?
He couldn’t tell if she’d gotten away or if she’d been captured.
Taggart’s jaw pulsed. He reached for his walkie and radioed Brenda.
“Sheriff,” she said.
He cleared his throat. “Brenda, has Sara Grayson heard from Patty?”
“No. And Monica Carr hasn’t heard from Laurie.”
Tension crept up his back.
“You think they have a reason to worry?” Brenda asked.
His gaze scanned the carnage. “Do me a favor. Call Paxton and tell him to meet me at the concert site at sunrise.”
“That doesn’t sound good. You find something?”
“I’m not sure what I found. But we need to search this site.”