Darkness on the Edge of Town Read Free

should already know: The fewer people inside a crime scene, the better.  Cops were the worst offenders when it came to trampling evidence, drinking from water fountains or flushing toilets at a crime scene. 
    Now they were standing at the entrance to City Park, which was actually one story above them and accessed by a flight of dingy brown steps climbing up to the street above.  Bisbee was built on hills and concrete stairs like these were everywhere, connecting to the winding roads above and below like a game of Chutes and Ladders. 
    According to Officer Billings, there was an entrance into the park halfway up.  The witness had led Billings up this way.  The place made Laura think of the inner city, Chicago or New York—a park made of concrete, suspended above the street on the backs of three locked-tight shops, their windows blank.
    She looked up and saw the finials of a wrought iron fence and some treetops.  Wondered how trees could grow there.  She glanced at Officer Billings.  “That street, where does it go?” She pointed to a street that curved up the hill around the edge of the park.
    “Opera Drive?  It makes a half-circle around City Park, doubles back up there.” He motioned to the road above, high on the mountain.  Houses were strewn down the hill like items in a jumble sale.
    “Let’s start here and walk the perimeter,” Laura said. Behind her, Buddy Holland snapped on latex gloves and young Billings followed suit. Buddy looked over at Laura, then pointedly back at his hands.  Laura crossed her arms, tucking her hands under her armpits.  She didn’t wear gloves until it was time to collect the evidence; wearing them tended to make her complacent.
    They walked north on Brewery Gulch and followed the curving street up the hill, Billings filling them in on the witnesses’ discovery of the body and his subsequent trip back with them to the bandshell—any and all observations, large and small.  Halfway up the curve they came to an entrance into the park.  From here Laura could see a long concrete oval with a basketball court, a playground, cement bleachers cutting into the hill on the right, and the bandshell.
    Billings’s voice trailed off into silence.
    Inside the bandshell, propped up against the back wall, was a tiny forlorn figure.  At first glance, it looked like a doll. From where she was, Laura couldn’t see features, details, but she could see the figure’s static nature, its lack of life. She felt the shocked presence of the men with her. The whole canyon seemed quiet, insulated from the world like a soundproof room.
    She wiped sweat out of her eyes.  Suddenly she wished the storm would come, bringing with it cool rain.
    After a moment that seemed like a prayer, they continued up the hill. Sunlight glared off silver-painted roofs down below on the Gulch.  Laura realized how thirsty she was.  When they got back down she’d ask for someone to send up some bottled water.  They followed the wrought iron fence, looking at everything, paying particular attention to the ground.  She could hear her own ragged breathing; they were up at five thousand feet. They could see into the bandshell, the horror closer now.  It was unsettling how much the girl looked like a doll.  Still too far away to be sure if she was real.
    At the top of the road, they reached the flight of stairs that descended the hill along the south side of the park.  If they walked down these stairs they would have gone full circle.  In the corner, next to the steps, the tarpaper roof of the bandshell gleamed in the sun, a shallow puddle from a recent thunderstorm in the center.  Beneath, unseen, was the girl.  The stench of death condensed in the humid air, cloying and undeniable.
    The three of them stood at the top of the concrete steps, looking down at Brewery Gulch below. 
    A breeze touched Laura’s face and she smelled wild fennel.  Behind her Buddy said, “I don’t think he came from up here.  He’d