The Online Geocacher
Your Free User-Created Ezine for All Things Geocaching

Wed, Aug 6, 2008

Mark sat in the tracker a block away from JoeMerchant's house. He still hadn't decided what would be the earliest reasonable time to call. It was past eight o'clock now, but some people were late sleepers. JoeMerchant was also a notorious night cacher. Who knew how late he had been out last night? Both of his vehicles - the Jeep Grand Cherokee and the Dodge Caravan - were in the driveway, so he was most likely home. Tired of waiting, Mark picked up his cell phone and made the call. It was apparent that it was too early when a groggy voice answered, "Hey."

"Joe? This is Serial Finder. Hope it's not too early?"

"Man, you know not everyone gets up in the middle of the night like you," JoeMerchant responded.

"I know, I know. I've got a problem, though and I need your help."

"Sure. What can I do for you?"

"Could I swing by and talk to you about it?"

"The house? Sure, you know where it is?"

With obvious relief, Mark said, "I just happen to have the coords right here."

"All right then. Give me a half hour or so."

"See you then."

After waiting thirty minutes, Mark removed his laptop, cache bag, walking stick and cooler from the Tracker. As he reached the house, he found a shady spot at the edge of the driveway and set down the cooler and walking stick. Slinging the laptop over one shoulder and his cache bag over the other, he knocked on the front door. A few moments later, JoeMerchant opened the door, waived Mark in and said, "Man, that was quick. I was just finishing my Grape Nuts."

"Sorry, but I wasn't too far away when I called."

"No worries. Now what's the problem you've got?"

Mark hesitated and said, "It's a long, long story."

"We better sit down then." He pushed a chair toward a desk in the corner of the room and motioned Mark to sit. He took a seat in a chair already at the desk. "Let's hear it," Joe said, as Mark took his seat.

He started with finding the list of waypoints and recounted checking several locations until he found the body in Jennings Forest. At that, Joe interrupted, "So, you think they're ALL bodies?"

"Wait. It gets better. Or worse, depending on your perspective." Mark went on to explain his interrogation and the questions regarding the other locations he'd been to. When he came to the part about getting the cop stuck in the sand, both men broke out in laughter.

"That is too cool," Joe said. "So where is this list now?"

"The lawyer has it. She's gonna have some tests done to see if we can prove it's not mine."

"And the cops don't know about it?"

"Not yet."

"You have all the waypoints though?"

"Yes. In my GPS. And I've got them in Mapsend on the laptop."

"Let's have a look at 'em," Joe said, as he motioned toward the laptop case.

Mark opened the case, unraveled the cord and plugged the device into a nearby outlet. While waiting for it to boot up, he explained the Google search he had done and the other bodies that had been found near the waypoints. Once the mapping software opened, Mark pointed to each waypoint that had already been connected to a body - Jennings Forest, the Gate station, Hecksher Drive, and Pumpkin Hill. His companion listened and studied the map.

Finally, Joe said, "Let's go check out a few more."

"Which ones?"

"Let's start here," he said, while pointing to Big Talbot Island on the map.

"Why there?"

"It's right near 'Jungle cache,'" he explained, "and I haven't done that yet."

"Fair enough. I haven't either," Mark said. "Can we take the Jeep? The Tracker is kind of hot right now."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Amy sat in the hallway at the Sheriff’s office waiting for her name to be called. She had already been out to the truck stop and found no trace of Maddy. There were still several of the nightshift people there and none recognized Maddy from the picture she showed them. Wouldn't she at least have gone inside for a cup of coffee? Maddy was certainly cute enough that some of the men should have remembered her, had they seen her.

"Miss," someone called.

Amy turned to see an officer sticking his head out of an office door.

"Miss, could you step in here, please?"

She got up from her seat and stepped into the office. The deputy pointed toward a chair in front of a desk and said, "Please sit down".

While she sat, the deputy took his seat behind the desk. He then held out his hand and said, "I'm Deputy Polansky."

"Hello," she said as she shook his hand.

"You're Amy Wade? Here about your sister, Madelyn Wade?"

"Maddy, yes."

"Well, I've got the report here, but I've got a few more questions."

"Okay," she nodded.

"The truck stop - what was she doing out there?"

Her eyes narrowed to a glare and she answered, "Why?"

"Miss, please. I'm not asking without reason. People target women under certain circumstances. We need to know what we're dealing with. No matter what she was doing, if she's a victim, we want to help. Whatever she was doing. But we need to know."

"She was selling her body, okay?" she snapped.

"I see."

"So now what? We give up?"

"Not at all." He tried to reassure her. "In fact, there's a detective that will want to speak to you. Detective Byrd. He'll be in later this morning. Is there somewhere he can reach you this afternoon?"

"I took off work today. I'll be home."

"Great, Can we keep this picture?"

"Of course."

Polansky rose, stepped around the desk to open the door and said, "You'll be hearing from Detective Byrd."

"Is she dead?" Amy asked as she rose to her feet.

"I certainly hope not, Miss Wade."

She fought back tears as she stepped out into the hall.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Leaves of three, let it be," said JoeMerchant as he point to the forest floor.

Mark looked down to see that the ground was carpeted with a layer of poison ivy. He dreaded walking through it in sandals. "I hope the Claritin is working," he said.

'Jungle Cache' was one of the most difficult caches in the area. It was a third of a mile into the woods and there was no trail. None. The brush was thick, making it a difficult bushwhack. The canopy was also thick, making satellite reception spotty. The nearby marsh bred a steady swarm of voracious yellow flies and then there was the poison ivy. The men slogged through it silently. Periodically, they would come to what appeared to be a trail. However, when they followed it, within ten or twenty yards it would disappear back into the brush. It was as if the forest was teasing them.

This wilderness was also a place of stunning beauty. In spots where the canopy thinned out there were patches of lovely wildflowers. The real treat was the flocks of butterflies. They were as big as Mark's hand, with bright yellow stripes. For all the scratches, bumps, bruises, bites and itching, this captivating beauty made it worth the trip.

As they paused to watch a couple dozen butterflies float by, Joe said, "And to think some people are home watching TV right now."

Mark shook his head and continued on.

Further into the forest, Joe stopped again and announced, "The cache is three hundred feet ahead and the waypoint is about a thousand feet to the right. Which first?"

Mark confirmed the distance on his unit and said, "Smiley first, body second."

"Words to live by. Oh, we also need to discuss something."

"What's that?"

"Well, are we actually going to find any bodies?"

"Huh?"

"Are we going to 'officially' find any? Are we going to call 911 and say 'Hey, we found a body'? Or are we going to go on like we didn't find anything and check out the rest of the waypoints?"

"I see what you mean. I'd say, no. We won’t find any. Not until we've had a chance to look at these waypoints, anyway."

"Agreed."

The last 300 feet was a struggle. They had to work their way through curtains of thorny vines, thick patches of brambles and an obstacle course of fallen branches and trees. They made it slowly through. They stopped a few feet from each other when Mark said, "I've got twenty-five feet that way."

"I've got thirty-five feet that way," said Joe while pointing in the opposite direction.

"Garmin," said Mark with an exaggerated roll of the eyes.

Joe gave a dismissive wave and said, "Magellan."

Both men began to meander and search in the direction indicated by their units. A few minutes later their paths crossed at the spot they had started from. "Reception really sucks," Mark offered.

"You got that right. What's your accuracy?"

"Thirty feet at best."

"Same here, when I even have a fix at all."

"Let me check my PDA for a hint," Mark said.

"Don't bother," responded Joe, "There isn't one. The entire description is, 'This cache is meant to be difficult.'"

"I'd say that's right on the money."

"I think one of the logs mentioned that it's a large ammo can."

"Well, at least that narrows it down," said Mark, as he resumed the search in earnest, this time looking for hiding places rather than looking for the cache. The strategy worked. Within minutes Mark poked the can with his walking stick, eliciting the desired thump. "I've got positive thud over here," he called to his companion.

Joe moved toward him, saying, "All right! Let's sign that log."

With the log signed, the men were once again slogging through the brush. This time they were after one of the mysterious waypoints and not sure what they might find.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

It had taken several hours to get Clay County's crime scene unit out to the new gravesite they had found. It was now being carefully excavated. Byrd and Littlepage had already thoroughly searched the area. Other than the cache that Serial Finder had placed, they had found nothing. While tempted to sign the log, they thought that might be difficult to explain. They bagged the cache as evidence and passed it on to Clay County after snapping pictures of it and the log it contained. It appeared there might be some usable prints.

They arrived back at the office in the early afternoon, several hours later than they had anticipated. However, it had been an eventful day. This latest victim not only provided additional connections to their primary suspect, it helped tie all of the cases together, if for no other reason than that they were tied to their suspect. While Byrd sat in his office, ruminating over these latest developments, Deputy Polansky cracked open his door and said, "I've got something you might want to see."

Byrd waived him in silently.

"Take a look at this picture," Polansky said as he laid the photograph of Madelyn Wade on the desk.

The detective studied it for a few moments. She was a wholesomely attractive blond in her mid to late twenties. She looked like one of the victims in this case but he couldn't place her. "Which victim is it?" he asked, puzzled.

"It's not one of yours," Polansky explained. "Not yet, anyway. Her sister reported her missing. Seems she was turning tricks out at a truck stop on I-10, near the county line. She never called for a ride home."

"How long ago?"

"Just last night."

"Last night!" Byrd exclaimed. "Holy buckets! This could be hot. We haven't had one reported yet that hasn't been gone days, if not weeks. Do we have people on it?"

"I ran it by Captain Wilde and he sent someone out to the truck stop. I figured you'd want to talk to the sister. She's at home this afternoon. The address is in the missing persons report," Polansky said, as he handed a form to Byrd.

"Fantastic!"

Just then, Littlepage charged through the door and blurted breathlessly, "We found the Tracker..."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

After making it through another quarter-mile of thick brush, Mark and Joe reached the location of the waypoint. There, the brush thinned out into what was almost a little clearing. They began to search, but weren't sure what they were looking for.

That is always the most difficult search. The human brain and senses are very effective search engines when looking for something specific. However, when searching for anything in general, they are easily stymied. It's something in the way humans are wired. There is a small part of the brain called the "reticular activator." It's the network of cells in a tiny portion of the brain that controls what we pay attention to. The reticular activator is what makes it possible to understand one conversation in a noisy bar or find your own child in a crowd of people. It allows us to find what we look for, but isn't much help when we don't know what we're looking for.

Both men stood and slowly turned in complete circles. After a few minutes they began to move around, using their walking sticks to poke through surrounding bushes. Joe was the first to break the silence, "Is that a grapefruit?"

Mark turned as he saw Joe bent at the hips looking under the low slung bough of a Cedar. "Huh? Out here?"

Joe dropped to his belly and reached back underneath to grab what did indeed look like a large grapefruit. Upon retrieving it, he rolled to a sitting position and held it out to examine it. It took a moment to register and then he yelled, "Oh my god!"

Mark walked up to him and saw it. He instinctively slapped at Joe's wrist and said, "Holy crap, put that thing down!"

The slap knocked it out of Joe's hand and it rolled across the sandy loam, coming to rest at the base of a palmetto. There, the human skull looked up at them, grinning.