Blood Trail

bitten legs.

    This was all Henry's fault. She could have been at home, comfortably settled in front of her eighteen inch, three speed, oscillating fan, watching Saturday morning cartoons, and ...

    "... and the wer would continue to die." She sighed and began building the fallen pine needles into little piles. This was what she'd chosen to do with her life - to try to make a difference in the sewer the world was becoming - no point in complaining just because it wasn't always an easy job. And she had to admit, it was a job that had gotten a hell of a lot more interesting since Henry had come into her life. The jury was still out on whether or not that was a good thing given that the last time they'd worked together she'd come closer to getting killed than she ever had in nine years on the Metro Police.

    "And this time, I'm being eaten alive." She rubbed at a bite on the back of her leg with the rough front of her sneaker. "Maybe I'm going at this the wrong way. Maybe I should have started with the people. What the hell am I going to recognize out here?" Then her hand froze over a patch of needles and slowly moved back until the needles were in full sunlight again.
    The scorch mark was so faint she had to hold her head at just the right angle to see it. About two inches long and half an inch wide, it was a marginally darker line across the pale brown carpet of dead pine - the mark a spent cartridge might make against a tinder dry resting place.

    Oh, all right, honesty forced her to admit, it could've been caused by any number of other things - like acid rain or bunny piss. But it sure looked like a cartridge scorch to her. Of course, it could've come from a legitimate hunter out here to blow away whatever it is legitimate hunters blow away.

    There were plenty of bits of bare rock nearby where the gunman could have stood to retrieve his brass and plenty of places Vicki had cleared herself but she searched for tracks anyway.
    Not expecting to find any didn't lessen the frustration when she didn't.

    Better to find where the shot came from. The ridge stood barely two and a half feet higher than the forest floor and the lines of sight hadn't improved. Vicki looked up. The pine was higher than most of the trees around it but its branches drooped, heavy with needles, right to the ground. Then on the north side, she found a way in to a dimly lit cavern, roofed in living needles, carpeted in dead ones. It was quiet in there, and almost cool, and the branches rose up the trunk as regular as a ladder; which was a good thing because Vicki could barely see.
    This was it. This had to be it.

    Had she seen the pine from the field? She couldn't remember, trees all looked alike to her.
    She peered at a few tiny spurs snapped off close to the trunk, her nose almost resting on the bark. They could have been broken by someone scrabbling for a foothold. Or they could have been broken by overweight squirrels. There's only one way to be sure. Settling her glasses more firmly on her face, she swung up onto the first branch.

    Climbing wasn't as easy as it looked from the ground; a myriad of tiny branches poked and prodded and generally impeded progress and the whole damn thing moved. Vicki hadn't actually been up a tree since about 1972 and she was beginning to remember why.

    If her nose hadn't scraped by an inch from the sneaker print, she probably wouldn't have seen it. Tucked tight up against the trunk on a flattened glob of pine resin, was almost a full square inch of tread signature. Not enough for a conviction, not with every man, woman, and child in the country owning at least one pair of running shoes, but it was a start. The stuff was so soft that removing it from the tree would destroy the print so she made a couple of quick sketches
    - balanced precariously on one trembling leg - then placed her foot as close to it as possible and heaved herself up.

    Her head broke free into direct sunlight. She blinked and swore and when her vision cleared, swore again. "Jesus H. Christ on crutches. ..."

    She'd come farther into the woods than she'd thought. About five hundred yards away, due north, was the spot where Ebon had been shot. A half turn and she could see the small pasture where Silver had been killed, a little closer but still an amazing distance away. If Barry Wu had pulled the trigger, he should have no trouble making the Olympic team or bringing home a gold. Vicki knew that some telescopic sights incorporated range finders