Chapter 1

Officer Marns walked carefully through the muddy swampland with his eyes scanning the trees for any life when a speck of bright orange darted across the scene. It went through his field of vision again, getting closer this time, and he called out in the direction that it was coming from.

“Johnson, did you find anything yet?” He waited the for his partner wearing the bright orange hunting vest to get within normal speaking range of him, and then grew impatient as the young man bent over to catch his breath.

“I think I’ve found something sir.”

“What is it?”

“Near the river there are tire tracks headed straight into the river.” Marns squeezed his nose with his thumb and forefinger as he let out a sigh.

“Well, you know what that means.” Johnson looked confused and Marns sighed again.

“Just take me there, and I’ll explain on the way.” The river was quite a ways off and they would have plenty of time to talk. Johnson began sloshing through the mud and water as Marns thoughtfully picked his way through the thick muck.

“Well, Johnson. You found tire tracks going straight into the river, and did you see anything else?”

“No.”

“Well, then I can already tell you what probably happened. The people in the neighborhood said that they saw this Mrs. Clayton driving down the street with a scared young man in the passenger seat. She probably drove him down here, wanting to commit suicide and she ended up taking him with her.” He said it matter of factly causing Johnson’s eyes to widen in surprise.

“Why would she do that? Those people said that she was so nice to everyone, even strangers.”

“Ya never know when someone’s just gonna blow up on ya. Ya know what I mean?”

“I guess so, sir.” They walked a little while longer, silently. Johnson was still amazed that such a nice little woman would do something like that, and Marns was still engrossed in not getting his shoes too dirty, when all of a sudden they stepped onto the bank. They had not even been able to glance at the river through the thick woods, and now they were almost standing right on top of it.

“So, where are the tracks, Johnson?”

“Just a little ways down the bank. We’re almost there.” Marns followed his young partner down the river, until he abruptly stopped and pointed toward the ground where two deep trenches scarred the earth. He let out a low whistle as he eyed the deep tire tracks with fascination, looking them up and down as Johnson sat on a nearby stump. He finally looked up at Johnson and asked a question that was almost drowned out by the constant drone of the river.

“This is all you found?”

“Yep.”

“Well, then we should get some people together to search through the river for the car. I’m gonna put it down as a suicide and a murder, but we better find the car. Could have different evidence, plus we’re gonna wanna get the man identified.” He turned around and was about to walk in the direction they had come from when something in the mud caught his eye. At first glance it looked like nothing, but upon closer inspection it seemed to be a footprint; a man’s footprint.

“Johnson, what does this look like to you?” Johnson wearily made his way to his superior officer’s side and squatted to look at the ground. His eyes widened as he almost shouted out his discovery.

“A footprint!”

“Man or woman?”

“I don’t know.” He looked closer, and then used his fingers to measure its length. Putting his fingers up to his own shoe, he found it much too long to belong to a woman.

“Man, I guess… Oh my God! Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“This could be a murder case.”

“That man, whoever he was, must have killed poor little Mrs. Clayton.”

“Now, don’t jump to conclusions, Johnson. That was what I was thinking, but we need more evidence, before we can do anything about this. As far as the boys at headquarters are concerned this is nothing but a footprint.”

“Well, than what do we do?”

“We follow it, but we have to be armed. We have to be ready to encounter a murderer.”

“Okay.” They both checked their guns, and started off in the direction that the lone footprint had been headed. After about three minutes they could no longer see the river, and had not caught any other clues to as where they should be headed. Marns dropped down to rest on a nearby log, and Johnson sat beside him wiping the sweat from his forehead, when he looked up and saw a shanty behind the trees. He pointed in its direction, and spoke softly to his captain.

“Is there smoke coming out of there? I can’t tell.” Marns rubbed a handkerchief over his eyes and then squinted in the direction of his partner’s outstretched hand.

“I can’t tell either, but it couldn’t hurt to go and see, right?” Johnson nodded, and they checked their guns again before heading for the tiny shack. Marns peered through the split wood of the doorframe and found nobody inside it.

“I’m going in”

“You want me to come with you?”

“No, you stay out here, okay?” Johnson nodded his approval of the plan and stood by the doorway as Marns entered the shack with careful gentleness, not wanting to disturb any potential evidence. What he saw amazed him. It looked like someone was living in the tiny shack. In one corner he saw a makeshift bed near a small fire hole, and in the other sat a three-legged coffee table strewn with magazines and papers. He walked over and picked up the top paper looking over it in fascination. It seemed to be some kind of psychological review for a schizophrenic, and he looked over the paper for a name. He found none, and sat the paper down exactly how it had been. He then shuffled through the papers for a name, and heard a slight thump outside the shack. He quickly forgot about it as he went through the papers, though. He still found no name, but came to a magazine. It was covered with pictures of five young men, and in huge letters across the front it said *NSYNC. He flipped through the pages of the magazine as he wondered why a murderer would have the same magazine as his twelve-year-old daughter when he remembered her crying to him more than a year earlier.

“Daddy, why did he do it?!” She was sobbing, but had managed to choke out the words to her father.

“Why did he kill them? I thought they were friends?! He must hate me! Why did he do this to me?!” He was hugging her tightly as she cried like her world was ending, and he laughed to himself silently as she talked like she personally knew the guy.

“He’s a sick man, honey. He’s very sick, and I’m sure that he didn’t mean to kill them. I’m sure that he still loves you.” He had seen the television reports about how a teen idol had gone insane and killed the rest of his singing group. The reporters had made it quite apparent that the guy was a schizo, and would most likely never make it out of asylums.

Was it the same guy? No, it couldn’t be. He had escaped from a place in Orlando, so why would he come to northern Mississippi? The answer soon hit Marns as he glanced over a profile in the magazine, and saw that he was from the area. In fact, he had never wanted to leave northern Mississippi. With a start Marns turned around to yell for Johnson, but he came face to face with the young man on the cover of the magazine.

“I’m sorry.” Everything went black for Marns as he felt a sharp pain shoot through his brain.

Chapter 2