The Darkness Hunter (A John Santana Novel)

St. Paul Homicide Detective John Santana sat on his haunches, forearms resting on his thighs. He noted the black electrician’s tape that bound the teen’s wrists behind her and the blue bandanna stuffed in her mouth. Her face had been painted red, and her bare legs were the color of bone. There was a small incision in her upper right abdomen where the ME had pushed a temperature probe into the tissue of the liver. According to an ID found inside her purse, the young woman was seventeen-year-old Danielle Lonetree.

“Lonetree,” Wendell Hudson said, looking at Santana. “Sounds Native American.”

Hudson squatted next to Santana. He had large eyes and a thick mouth. He wore a short-brimmed tan fedora with a dark brown band that matched the color of his skin. His detective shield hung from a lanyard around his neck. He smelled of talcum powder and antiperspirant.

Since Hudson was the senior detective in the department, this was his crime scene. He shifted his gaze to Reiko Tanabe, the Ramsey County medical examiner. “What’s your take, Reiko?”

Tanabe was kneeling on the opposite side of the shallow grave, staring at the body through her wire-rimmed glasses. Specks of living light flickered in the darkness as fireflies circled above her head.

“No sign of rigor or putrefaction. Given the ambient temperature, I’d say she’s been here for twenty-four to thirty- six hours.” Tanabe touched the young woman’s head with a latex-gloved hand. “Someone cut a lock of her hair.”

“Might be a trophy,” Hudson said. “I hope to God we’re not dealing with a serial killer.”

Santana looked at Hudson. “Why the red paint?”

Hudson shrugged. “Something we need to find out.”

Santana picked up a handful of cool, damp dirt and let it run through his fingers as the detectives stood.

At a lean six feet three inches, Hudson was slightly taller than Santana. Despite his age and height, he moved with the ease of a much smaller man.

Santana watched as Tony Novak, the SPPD’s forensic specialist, snapped photos, and Hudson made a quick but amazingly accurate sketch of the crime scene, depicting the layout and relationship of evidentiary items to the surroundings. Santana drew a sketch in his notebook as well, giving him a perspective that wasn’t easily shown in crime scene photos. But Hudson’s artistic skills were truly superior. Santana thought his partner could make a good living as an artist.

“Any reason to think the young couple who found the DB were involved, John?”

Santana shook his head. “They were pretty shaken up. Given Tanabe’s TOD estimate, it’s unlikely they had anything to do with Lonetree’s death. They just stumbled on the dead body while out for a walk.”

Hudson nodded and loosened the knot on his striped tie. “Let’s look at the truck.”

They had found an abandoned red pickup parked in a lot near the Mississippi River in Hidden Falls Park, only fifty yards from the body. As they walked to it, Santana took another cursory look around. Yellow crime-scene tape, wrapped around a series of tree trunks, cordoned off a large area. He knew a flashlight search in the dark would be a waste of time. The ground would need to be extensively searched in the morning.

Two crime scene techs were photographing the pickup. A flatbed had arrived to tow the pickup to the impound lot, where it would be dusted for prints.

DMV records had confirmed that twenty-year-old Clay Buck owned the pickup. The driver’s side door was open. An empty bottle of cheap wine lay on the floor mat.

Hudson put on a latex glove and turned the key in the ignition. The engine clicked. “Well, now we know why Buck abandoned his truck.”

“But why leave his keys in the ignition, Wendell?”

“Maybe he was in a hurry. Maybe he was drunk. We haven’t got probable cause to arrest Clay Buck—yet. We can enter a formal ‘pick-up’ into the SPPD’s e-brief system later.”

Santana nodded. Once a detective had entered a “pick-up,” the Ramsey County Communications Center would enter the information into the ALERT system and send a BOLO to departments throughout the state.

A small group of reporters and their news vans had gathered behind the crime scene tape in the parking lot. They began shouting questions at the detectives.

Just as Hudson turned back to address them, Santana felt a low-frequency vibration pulsing the air. The vibration increased in intensity. Then it exploded in a cacophony of sound as a news channel helicopter cleared the treetops and hovered overhead. A cone of light lit the parking lot. The downwash from the blades drowned out the reporters’ questions.

“Let’s talk to the vic’s family,” Hudson said loudly. “Then we’ll see if we can locate Clay Buck.”

As he and Hudson headed for their Crown Vic, Santana was thinking that there could be a number of explanations for Clay Buck’s vehicle to be at the crime scene. Danielle Lonetree could have stolen or borrowed the truck and then driven it to Hidden Falls Park. The killer or killers could have taken Buck hostage, or they could have killed him and hidden his body someplace else. Buck could have fled the scene in fear of his life and was now on the run. In any case, locating him as a person of interest was clearly a high priority.

But Santana was also remembering something another detective had once told him. Avoid the targeting fallacy. Don't decide that you have a suspect and then see all evidence through that prism alone.

***

The tops of buildings disappeared in the mist that fell from low-hanging clouds and the tar pavement glistened in the streetlights as Santana and Hudson drove to a house on the east side of St. Paul.

The woman who answered the doorbell had long dark hair parted in the middle that framed her smooth, light- brown face like black silk. Her faded yellow cotton dress clung like wet tissue to her shapely figure. With her full lips, small nose, and large onyx-colored eyes, she conveyed both the innocence of youth and the allure of a knowing woman. But there was something in those eyes that was much older than her years.

“Ms. Sherilyn Lonetree?”

She nodded.

When Santana told her who he and Hudson were, her eyes glazed.

“Ms. Lonetree?” Santana said again. “We need to speak to you about your daughter.”

Gnats swam in the yellow glow of the porch light. A gentle breeze rang the wind chimes that hung from a porch post. Sherilyn Lonetree’s eyes refocused. Her gaze tracked slowly across Santana’s face, as though reading his secrets. Then she turned without a word and headed into the living room.

The room had natural oak floors and was brightly lit, but Santana knew he was there to bring darkness. He closed the door behind him and sat next to Hudson on a cushioned couch with a spindle frame. An electric box fan pushed hot air from one side of the room to the other.

She turned off a radio that was tuned to an oldies station and sat down in a chair opposite the couch. On the wall behind her was a painting of eight tepees on a desolate prairie under a purple sky at sunset, the horizon streaked with a ribbon of yellow and orange.

Santana and Hudson each took out a spiral notebook and pen. Hudson had removed his hat upon entering the house, and Santana could see his partner’s white hair had receded sharply on each side, leaving a point at his forehead.

“Do you have any children in the house?” Hudson asked.

“No.”

“I’m afraid we have some bad news, Ms. Lonetree.”

She nodded again, as if expecting this.

“Your daughter’s body was discovered early this evening in Hidden Falls Park. We’re very sorry.”

She stared into space, her face creased with pain. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

Hudson and Santana gave her a moment.

Though death notifications were a regular part of Santana’s job, they never got easier. “Could I get you something, Ms. Lonetree? Some water or coffee, or maybe something stronger?”

She shook her head. “Thank you for asking.” She took a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbed her eyes. “Did someone kill her?”

“We believe so.”

“Do you know what happened? Was she in much pain?”

Santana looked at Hudson, who said, “No, there wasn’t any pain.”

She put her hands to her face. Her shoulders hunched as she sobbed quietly.

Santana knew it was a lie, but, like Hudson, he saw no point in describing the senseless brutally of her daughter’s death. He felt compassion for Sherilyn Lonetree, but at the same time, with her face covered, he couldn’t watch for tells or false mannerisms.

As she wiped her nose, he asked, “When was the last time you saw your daughter?”

“Yesterday.”

“Did you report her missing?”

She shook her head. “Danielle called and said she was staying with a friend.”

“What’s the friend’s name?”

She hesitated. “I didn’t ask.”

Santana thought it unusual that a mother wouldn’t know where her daughter was staying.

Sensing his skepticism, she added, “Danielle was mature for her age. She never gave me any reason to distrust her. She always kept in touch.”

“What about her father?”

Lonetree flinched, as if she had been poked with a sharp object. She looked at Santana for a long moment before replying. “She never knew her father.”

Santana sensed there was something more behind her answer. Something she wasn’t telling him. He wondered if Hudson felt the same, but he knew it was best not to make assumptions or jump to conclusions this early in the investigation. Still, he made a note.

“Do you know of anyone who might want to harm your daughter?” Hudson asked, re-taking the lead.

She shook her head.

“Do you know a man named Clay Buck?”

“Yes, I know Clay.”

Hudson glanced at Santana, then eyed Lonetree again. “What do you know about him?”

“He and my daughter were dating.”

“Could your daughter have been staying with Clay Buck?”

Santana had been thinking the same thing. He wondered if it was the reason Lonetree hadn’t asked her daughter where she was staying. Maybe she already knew and didn’t approve.

“It’s possible.” She blinked and her eyes widened as she stared at Hudson. “Is Clay dead, too?”

“We don’t know, Ms. Lonetree. We’re looking for him.”

As Hudson closed his notebook, Santana said, “You and your daughter are Native American, correct?”

“Yes,” she said. “We’re part of the Mdewakanton Band of Eastern Dakota or Minnesota Sioux.”

“Is Clay Buck from the same band?”

She nodded and sat still for a time, her eyes on Santana’s. “You think Clay Buck killed my daughter?”

“We don’t know.”

“But you’re thinking it.”

“We found his truck near where your daughter’s body was found. But Buck is missing and could be dead.”

“Clay loved my daughter. He wasn’t a violent person.”

Santana nodded but offered no response. He didn’t know yet whether Buck or someone else had murdered Danielle Lonetree. But he suspected that the killer had been someone for whom cruelty and sexual pleasure were interchangeable. Someone, he suspected, who not only killed for enjoyment, but who experienced an unnatural feeling of power and control over another human being, as if he believed he was God.