Vengeance Road Read Free

pulled up to a knot of police vehicles.
    Uniformed officers were clustered at the tape. Gannon saw nothing beyond them but dense forest, as a stone-faced officer eyed his ID tag then assessed him.
    â€œIt’s way in there. There’s no chance you media maggots are getting any pictures of anything today.”
    The others snickered.
    Gannon shrugged it off. He’d been to more homicides than this asshole. Besides, guys like that never deterred him. If anything, he thought, tapping his notebook to his thigh, they made him better.
    All right, pal, if there’s a story here, I’m going to find it .
    After some thirty minutes of watching detectives in suits, and forensics people in overalls, walk in and out of the forest, Gannon was able to buttonhole a state police investigator with a clipboard heading to his unmarked sedan.
    â€œHey, Jack Gannon from the Buffalo Sentinel . Are you the lead?”
    â€œNo, just helping out.”
    â€œWhat do you have?”
    Gannon stole a glimpse of the data on his clipboard. Looked like statements.
    â€œWe’re going to put out a release later,” the investigator said.
    â€œCan you give me a little information now?”
    â€œWe don’t have much, just basics.”
    â€œI’ll take anything.”
    â€œA couple of walkers discovered a female body this morning.”
    â€œIs it a homicide?”
    â€œLooks that way.”
    â€œWhat age and race is the victim?” Gannon asked.
    â€œI’d put her in her twenties. White or Native American. Not sure.”
    â€œGot an ID?”
    â€œNot confirmed. We need an autopsy for that.”
    â€œCan I talk to the walkers?”
    â€œNo, they went home. It was a disturbing scene.”
    â€œDisturbing? How?”
    â€œI can’t say any more. Look, I’m not the lead.”
    â€œCan I get your name, or card?”
    â€œNo, no, I don’t want to be quoted.”
    That was all Gannon could get and he phoned it in for the Web edition, putting “disturbing scene” in his lead. In the time that followed, more news teams arrived and Lee Watson, a Sentinel news photographer, called Gannon’s cell phone sounding distant against a drone.
    â€œWhat’s up, are you in a blender, Lee?” Gannon asked.
    â€œI’m in a rented Cessna. The paper wants an aerial shot of the scene.”
    Gannon looked up at the small plane.
    â€œWatch for Brandy Somebody looking for you,” Watsonsaid. “She’s the freelancer they’re sending to shoot the ground. Point out anything for her.”
    When Brandy McCoy, a gum-snapping freelancer, arrived, the first thing Gannon did was lead her from the press pack and cops at the tape to the unmarked car belonging to the investigator he’d talked to earlier.
    The detective had gone back into the woods. His car was empty, except for his clipboard on the passenger seat. Gannon checked to ensure no one could see what he and the photographer were doing.
    â€œZoom in and shoot the pages on the clipboard. I need the information.”
    â€œSure.”
    Brandy’s jaw worked hard on bubble gum as she shot a few frames then showed Gannon.
    â€œGood,” he said, jotting information down and leaving. “My car’s over here, come on.”
    Â 
    Twenty minutes later, Gannon and Brandy were walking to the front door of the upscale colonial house of Helen Dodd. She was a real estate broker, and her friend, Kim Landon, owned an art gallery in Williamsville, according to the information Gannon had gleaned from the police statements.
    Gannon thought having Brandy accompany him would help. Barely out of her teens, she was nonthreatening, especially with that sunny gum-chewing smile.
    As they reached the door, it opened to two women hugging goodbye.
    â€œExcuse us,” he said. “I’m Jack Gannon, and this is Brandy McCoy. We’re with the Buffalo Sentinel. We’re looking for Helen Dodd and Kim