Dakota (Ch 8)

Janie kept her composure for all of five minutes. She disintegrated into a mess of tears, sobs, and sniffles. She had built a stern facade, but it crumbled quickly. And I mean crumbled. I stopped after every other sentence for her reassurance that she wanted me to continue. I expected this to be tough on her, but after seeing the demeanor with which she now carried herself, I did not expect a reaction of this magnitude. She still had a heart. She still had hope.

I held nothing back. I didn't sugar-coat the story. It was only fair. Yeah, the truth hurts. Janie knew that, though. I recounted Jason's return to the Dakota Woods, Dad's rapid decline and eventual death. I stressed the notion that he didn't even remember how many kids he had by the end. He didn't know Janie was gone. He didn't know that I didn't bother coming home at his demise. He didn't know. Still, I felt my own guilt building given the circumstance. I knew Janie felt it ten fold.

Here, the story shifted. Janie continued to listen, in shambles. She had not regained any composure. She needed to know what brought me back too. She was sobering up. The tears were starting to dry. I bared my soul to her--but I remained apprehensive about what I was about to share.

"Janie."

Her hands were folded neatly in her lap. I reached out and wrapped my hands over hers. I looked into her eyes. She immediately knew that what was to follow was much worse than what she had already been told. She inhaled deeply and swallowed hard. Blink.

"Jake. Whatever it is. You need to tell me. I'm ready. I can handle it. What happened to Jason?"

I broke her gaze and stared into the fire. The flicker of red and yellow took me back to that night. My first night in Dakota. The night Jason met his end. I squeezed her hands tighter. I felt the tears welling up in me. I shifter in my chair, pulling closer to her. And then in one simple sentence. I said it.

"Jason was murdered."

The words stung as they scraped between my lips and pushed their way out into the space between us. I sat, unmoving as they floated through the air and fell on Janie like a ton of bricks. If I thought she had crumbled before, I couldn't describe her existence now. I waited in silence. The gravity of the situation needed a few moments. I wanted her to have a chance to realize what those words meant.

I watched as what was left of her being began to fall apart. I pulled her close to me and held her tight, like a child. I don't know how long we sat like that. Seconds. Minutes. Hours. Time seemed stagnant. In that moment, it was just her and I. Brother and sister--as she realized that I was now all she had left in this world, and as I began to accept the same notion.

She was first to break the embrace--and the silence.

"Tell me the story. I need to hear it. I need to know it all. Everything you know."

"Janie, are you sure that now is the time--"

"Yes, Jake, I need to know. He was my brother. I need to know."

"Alright. I can only tell you what I know, which unfortunately, isn't all that much. But I can tell you that I was here. Well, I was on my way here. But he wasn't alone. Jay wasn't alone--he died in my arms."

She braced herself. I saw the semblance of a wall being rebuilt.

"As I said, I had left Rebekah and was driving home to Dakota..."

/ / /

Sheriff Holt approached the area with hesitance. He knew there was a dead body on the ground just east of the dam head. He knew as much as Marcus Bingham had shared with him. The corpse looked like it had been dropped. It wasn't natural. The body had been staged there. Holt observed the wounds on the torso and immediately drew a conclusion. Shotgun. Close range. Perhaps the most startling discovery he made at the dam rested in the deceased's left hand. A knife. If the body had been dumped in the Dakota Woods, the knife had been specifically placed there. But why? Was the same person responsible for this murder and that of Jason Samuels?

Holt leaned against a tree and analyzed his two cases while the crimes scene was cordoned off. The deaths were clearly related. Questions spewed from his mind like vomit from a drunk. He wrote quickly, intently. Who was John Doe? Why was his body dumped, staged? Why here? Was Jason Samuels' body staged as well? Why were they killed? Could this be random? Could there be more targets? Could this be a copy-cat? What had been shared about the original crime scene? What should he tell Jake Samuels? He had no answers.

This was quiet country. This wasn't typical. He had two dead bodies in three months. That's more than he'd seen in the past three years.

"Lyle. Lyle."

"Yeah, what is it Kahle?"

"Sheriff we need you over here."

"What've you got for me. I need some answers boys. I need answers real bad."

"As I'm sure you've already guessed, 2 rounds from a shotgun, close range. No shells. The body was placed here, pretty neatly too. There's little disturbance to the underbrush and leaves. Couldn't have been brought here by one person. Not like this."

"I need something to go on. I already know all this. I can see that for myself. Tell me you've got something more."

"Calm down Lyle. There's more. 'Course we got more. From my recollection, the knife is the same brand as the one found in Jason Samuels left hand. I don't remember sharing that there was a knife, and I sure as hell know that we never disclosed a brand name."

"Alright good. I'll track down where they're sold locally."

"One distinct difference here though, doesn't appear to be any broken bones here. Samuels had a broken right leg. But that was probably caused during a struggle. He definitely fought back. Somehow the killer still got off two round of the shotgun at close range though. This one here. No struggle. None apparent anyway. My feeling is they both knew their killer."

"Any idea on an ID? I haven't seen any missing persons reports. At least not in this county."

"No. No ID, no wallet, no tattoos, no distinguishable features. We'll have to run the prints--and dental if we need too."

"That all?"

"Yeah, for now. I'll know more once I get him to a lab. I don't know how soon that will be. We don't have the capacity for this type of thing here."

"Well make it happen. I can't have this dragging on. I need answers. I need to know what kind of threat we've got on our hands. This creep is still out there. I don't like that, Kahle, not one bit."

"Sheriff, I'll do my best. But I just don't know. I don't think there's gonna be hell of a lot more on this one."

"Find it. Whatever it takes. I need something. I'm leaning on you for this, Kahle. Just get it done."

"Yessir."