But Not For Lust by BJ Bourg (comprehension books .txt) 📕

my truck skidded to a stop several yards before we would’ve plowed into the pumping station.

“Shit!” I muttered, turning off the engine and leaping from my truck. Susan was right on my heels.

Taking one last look toward the soaring birds to get my bearing, I set off into the woods at a fast clip. I ducked branches and dodged tree trunks and nearly slipped in the soft mud several times, but I finally broke out into a grassy clearing.

I stopped and stared up in awe. Although it was a bright and cool day—cold by Louisiana standards—this clearing was cloaked in the shadows of dozens of black vultures and turkey vultures circling overhead. There must’ve been a hundred of the large birds milling about, and, collectively, they looked like an ominous rain cloud. A few of the buzzards were sitting in the surrounding trees eyeing us closely. They gave off an eerie vibe.

I quickly surveyed the field. The grass was chest high and brown, and it was too thick to penetrate with our eyes.

“I’ll go this way,” I said to Susan, pointing toward the right. She nodded and went in the opposite direction, which was to the east.

I didn’t bother walking a grid. Instead, I broke out into a stumbling run, my eyes darting everywhere at once. I knew this was a poor way to methodically search a field, but I also knew time was of the essence and this would be the fastest way to locate the possible rotting corpse.

I was looking off to the left as I ran and my right foot suddenly made contact with something and stopped dead in its tracks. My head overshot my foot and I lost my balance, spilling headlong into the mud. I groaned as I slowly came to my hands and knees. My palms were covered in mud and the front of my right leg ached.

Letting out a string of cursing, I stood and wiped my hands on my jeans. I looked over to see what I had hit and scowled. There, hidden in the tall grass, was an old, rusted-out bush hog.

“What the hell?” I walked over and inspected it. Behind the bush hog was a trail of brown grass that was shorter than the surrounding field. One didn’t need to be a detective to realize that someone had been cutting the grass back when the field was green, but something had interrupted the job. I figured the tractor must’ve become disabled and the farmer had abandoned the bush hog until he could return and retrieve it.

I shrugged. I didn’t care what had happened or why. I now had a pathway to follow and, since it was easier to see through the tall grass on either side of the shorter path, I began following the winding trail.

I looked back and saw Susan’s head to the east. She was pushing her way through the field. I spent the next few minutes scanning the tall grass to either side of the trail that had been blazed by the bush hog. The next time I looked back, I didn’t see Susan. I frowned and looked around. That’s when I realized she was now in front of me.

“Oh,” I said, studying the path upon which I had just walked. I was back-tracking the farmer, who had begun from the east side of the field and made a large circle around the field. It appeared he had only made part of one pass before breaking down.

I lifted my hand to call out to Susan when something dark shot out of the sky and descended toward the center of the field. It was a turkey vulture and it was less than a hundred yards away. I began hollering and running through the tall grass toward the bird, waving my hands like a wild man. Susan heard the noise and started running to meet me. The bird saw me approaching fast and reversed course in a hurry.

Using the bird’s trajectory as a mental guide, I continued racing in that direction. I hadn’t taken another dozen steps when it hit me like a wave of crashing water—it was the smell of decaying flesh.

  CHAPTER 36

My heart sank when I broke through the brown grass and found the small area of smashed grass that served as Ty Richardson’s final resting spot. I didn’t even care about the smell or the flies buzzing around. Susan crashed through the other side of the clearing and pulled up short.

“Oh, no!” she said, her eyes wide. “What in the hell happened out here?”

I scowled as I took in the scene. While his body was swollen and starting to decay, it was easy to see that he had been beaten violently. His pants and underwear were down around his knees. His ankles were bound together by one end of an orange extension cord, and the opposite end disappeared behind his back, where it appeared his arms were also bound. There was a strap of some sort wrapped around his mouth.

Due to the wide area of trampled grass around his body and the dark blotches of dried blood scattered about the clearing, it was obvious that he had been taken here and beaten—possibly to death.

“Do you see a weapon?” I asked, not moving closer for fear of destroying whatever little evidence there might be.

Susan had also remained where she had first arrived. She shook her head. “I don’t see anything from this vantage point.”

I pointed to a break in the tall grass that led due east from the scene. “They came in from there. Thanks to the grass being dead, they left a clear path through the field.”

Susan nodded and pulled her radio from her back pocket. “I’ll call it in and get someone here to help. Who do you want?”

“Send our coordinates to Melvin and ask him to find a trail through