“Did your techs find anything more in the forest?” Maggie asked Donny as soon as they were back on the road.
“We did find the live wire Dawson Hayes ran into. Someone must have cut it, rigged it from the fence post, and strung it between two trees.”
“Like a trap.”
“The fence line they took the electric wire from actually cordons off pasture land from the forest. The kid must have run into the trap wire and the shock was enough to throw him into the barbed wire. We could see where it snapped from the posts.”
“And the momentum kept him rolling, taking the barbed wire and wrapping it around him.”
“Yup. That’s what we’re thinking. We left the hotwire coiled and out of reach. I’ll need to find and talk to the rancher who leases that pasture. Have him shut off the current.”
“How did you touch it without getting a shock?”
“Whoever rigged it left pieces of plastic—they’re sort of safety guards so you can handle it hot without getting shocked. That’s why we know it was rigged on purpose. Ranchers don’t use anything like that.”
“Is it possible the other two boys ran into the wire, too?”
“We’ll have to wait and see what Lucy says, but I’m guessing no. Not enough juice to electrocute. Just enough to knock you on your ass. Remember, ranchers just want to discourage cattle, not fry them. Sorry,” he said, his ears turning red. “Didn’t mean to be crude.”
“I guess that’s why Dawson’s alive.”
“The crime team also cast some of the footprints.”
“So the tarps held?”
“Yeah, the tarps preserved them from the rain but I’m not sure it’ll matter unless we confiscate all seven kids’ shoes.”
When she didn’t respond he glanced at her and winced. “You want me to confiscate all seven kids’ shoes?”
“We already have three pairs.”
“There’s one set of prints that looks like a size thirteen work boot. I don’t remember any of the boys wearing anything close to a work boot.”
“So it may come in handy collecting the shoes, after all.”
He didn’t argue.
“We did find some animal tracks up on the ridge. Rain made a mess of them. Could be a cougar. Maybe a coyote or large dog. Hard to tell.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Hank said there were a few sightings of a cougar reported in the last several weeks. Nothing confirmed. Still, doesn’t add much to the story. None of these kids had injuries that come close to a cat attack.”
“What about Amanda Vicks’s arm?”
“That didn’t look like an animal bite to me. I think we got a photo of it if you wanna take a look.” He glanced over at her. “What’s this all about?”
“Dawson Hayes said this morning that a wolflike animal came at him.”
“Really?”
“Did you find any tracks down in the campsite area?”
“Not a one.”
“Anything that could have produced a light show?”
He shook his head. Glanced at her again but this time it looked as if he was trying to decide how to say what he wanted to say.
“I have to tell you, I think some of those kids were stoned last night. We didn’t find any bottles or cans. A few cigarette butts. No joints. But I know from their stories and that spaced-out look, it wasn’t just shock and awe.”
Maggie hadn’t told Sheriff Skylar about the salvia because of his holding back evidence of drugs in a previous case. Allegedly he’d rather have the girl’s parents believe she accidentally fell from the bridge instead of knowing she had tripped out on salvia and jumped. But she couldn’t hold out on Donny.
“Lucy did find a baggie. She thinks it may be Salvia divinorum.”
She left it at that, letting him believe Lucy could have found it today while she prepped the two boys for autopsies.
“I thought so,” Donny said, tapping the steering wheel in triumph of being correct. He didn’t even question the how or when of the discovery.
“Do you know much about salvia?”
“It’s a hallucinogen. I’ve heard it compared to LSD. Supposed to be nonaddictive with no long-term side effects. The big trend right now is with kids filming their trips, posting them on YouTube.”
“You think that’s what was happening last night?”
“It would certainly explain their stories, the fireworks and laser light show. I had one kid telling me how loud the purple was.”
“We didn’t find a camera, though,” Maggie said.
“Nope. No camera.”
“And isn’t it a little strange that they would all see fireworks and a light show?”
“Kids are easily influenced. The drug might make them more impressionable. If one kid claimed he saw fireworks, maybe they all thought they did.”
Maggie noticed they had driven for miles on the rolling ribbon of two-lane asphalt and yet they hadn’t crossed a single intersection. The only breaks were a few long driveways to ranches or farms or cutouts to pastures. She couldn’t help thinking that even in the middle of nowhere these kids knew about salvia and were able to purchase it illegally. Donny was right. Teenagers were easily influenced and not much different no matter where they lived.
“If we’re right,” Maggie said, “chances are this wasn’t their first trip, so to speak, in the forest. Can we get ahold of Trevor’s and Kyle’s text messages and their computers?”
“I can probably do that.”
“When we were looking at the cattle mutilation … ” Maggie started but paused. Was it only yesterday? “Nolan Comstock mentioned lights in the night sky. Said people were used to seeing them.”
She watched as Donny’s jaw twitched.
“He didn’t seem to be a crazy, old rancher,” she said, choosing the two adjectives that Skylar had used to describe Lucy. “Do people see lights in the night sky? And if so, what are they?”
He was quiet for a while then said, “We really are smack-dab between two major air force installations. It’s no secret they fly maneuvers over this part of the country. They probably test drive all kinds of strange new technology. And of course, they’re not going to be announcing it or admitting it.”
“Any chance that’s what these kids saw? Some sort of clandestine war game.”
“No. The government wouldn’t purposely hurt kids.” He looked offended by the idea.
She didn’t push it. She wasn’t sure she believed it, but she needed Donny Fergussen on her side. She remembered the look Sheriff Skylar had given her when she told them Johnny Bosh was dead. There was something about it that made Maggie realize a lot of people would be taking sides before all this was over.