when annette walker davis started investigating the death of rain, she discovered that cissy sawyer’s body had also been found in the area and listed by the police as a “possible” homicide.
when she got on the case, she found that two more bodies had been found during the previous year, one of a young man and one of a young woman, along the same stretch of road. neither had any i d, and neither had been identified.
the young man’s death was classified as by accident - he had apparently slipped into a ravine during a snowstorm and suffered “multiple injuries”. the young woman had perished in another storm, and her death was listed as by “exposure’.
so, neither was considered by the local or state police to be the victim of a murder.
annette walker davis was having none of it. she knew instinctively that all four deaths were murders, carried out by a single murderer.
she checked into the red eye motel, and set up headquarters where she intended to investigate the murders.
county sheriff bill brown listened politely to her when she called on him, but informed her that the investigations, if any , would be handled by the state police based on the evidence they had.
the nearest state police headquarters were quite a way down the road from the sites of the deaths. annette spoke to a young woman, younger than herself, who identified herself as sergeant murphy.
sergeant murphy explained politely to annette that as she, annette, had no interest in the case and was not even an accredited member of the press, there was no reason to share information with her, and that no information would be shared.
annette was surprised. she pointed out to sergeant murphy that she had read many books in which the authors had thanked police departments, and individual detectives and police officers, for their generous assistance and cooperation.
i don’t know what to tell you, sergeant murphy told her. they must have had their reasons.
annette next thought to interview local people. she thought there must be some sort of gathering place or watering hole where she could find them and sit down and chat with them. she had expected to find some sort of cafes or dark bars where grizzled farmers and ranchers sat around endlessly gossiping and philosophising. but there seemed to be no such place and no such people.
there were a couple of truck stops, but they seemed to be patronized exclusively by truckers and others just passing through, not by locals.
annette attempted to strike up conversations with some of the truckers, thinking she might find some for whom the highway was a regular route. none of them showed any knowledge of, interest in, annette’s questions about the “murders”. some of them talked about themselves, and/or expressed a friendly interest in annette and her person.
could one of them be the killer? annette had a vision of spending months trying to draw out one of the brutes, who would surely become proprietal and territorial - and to no purpose.
she tried the waitresses at the truck stops. when they were not too busy, they were friendly enough in a weary way, but not helpful.
annette asked one of them where the local people were - what did they do when were not working?
what do they do? i suppose they watch television. some of them go to church.
church! that did not sound promising or exciting.
what about the young people? annette persisted. do they just watch tv or go to church?
there aren’t any young people, was the reply.
annette retreated to the red eye motel. she had already sounded out the proprietor and the one maid, with no happy results.
she decided to work up provisional biographies of the two unidentified victims.
she would call the young man “frodo” - he was almost surely a hippie - and the young woman “x”.
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