Paperwork
The Devil’s Road Chapter 05: Follow the Lead: Sheriff Samantha Hart is closing in on her sister’s killer, driven by a relentless need for justice. But as the storm builds, so does the danger.
Welcome back to The Devil’s Road, where vengeance runs as thick as blood through the veins of Sequoyah County. In Issue #17, we follow Sheriff Samantha Hart—a woman fueled by fury, hunting her sister’s killer across the blood-soaked highways of the heartland. If you missed last week’s Chapter 05: Follow the Lead, catch up with Issue 01: The Shadow Highway and Issue 02: Midnight Mirage.
Now, settle in my Faithful Ramblers for Chapter 5, Issue 3 of The Devil’s Road.
In 2004 an Oklahoma Bureau of Investigations analyst discovered a crime pattern along the Interstate 40 corridor between Oklahoma and Mississippi. Subsequently, The Federal Bureau of Investigations (F.B.I.) started the Highway Serial Killings Initiative. They discovered over 500 bodies of women along the interstate highway system with more than 200 potential suspects, a trail of bloodshed that coats the heartland. The Devil’s Road is a serialized novel based on this horrific discovery.
A bright, white light slips across the face of Sheriff Samantha Hart as she leans over the copy machine. Beside her is a cardboard box full of files she’s been carrying for the past month. The files are of forgotten victims, murdered by a man who uses her backyard as his hunting ground.
She finishes copying the most recent addition, a poor Jane Doe whose body she found nearly twenty-four hours earlier tied to a chair. Her face had been removed with a surgical razor and stitched back on with dental floss. All the deaths in the files are gruesome, but this most recent one makes it clear that the level of violence is escalating.
There is Donna Sue Wesley; her skeletal remains were found with a hole in her skull and number four shotgun pellets still inside. The next file sliding over the scanner is Michelle Farmer. A couple traveling cross-country from Florida reported seeing something suspicious while driving. At first, they were sure it was a mannequin, but as they drove further from the spot where they saw the legs protruding from the snow, they grew less certain.
Now halfway through the stack, Sam pulls out the thickest file of the bunch. As the stack of paper slides across the photocopier’s scanner, she watches the black-and-white copies drop into the paper tray. Debbie Traylor was missing for nearly three years before her body was found. She had been tortured with what Dr. Laurent assumed was a welding torch before she was strangled with her pantyhose. They were still tied around her neck when she was found. The family flew in from Jackson, Mississippi to identify the body. Sam was in the room when Debbie’s mother collapsed to the floor beside the metal table that held her little girl’s body. Debbie was seventeen and ten weeks pregnant.
The loud thunk echoes through the empty office as Sam closes the copier lid with more force than necessary. The next file, the last file, is the hardest one to open. Her hand hovers over the file, a picture of her sister’s lifeless corpse clipped on the inside cover. She stares at the photo like she hasn’t already spent hours examining every detail.
At the time, her death seemed so brutal: a syringe protruding from her neck, delivering a deadly dose of methamphetamines into her jugular. Then the killer began to bite her. She had teeth marks all over her body, but he never penetrated the skin. The now familiar and repeated elongated bruise over the eye socket, crossing from the cheekbone to the forehead. The angle is different, but it’s the same shape as the one she found on her Jane Doe this morning. She’s getting closer.
The folder’s contents begin to blur and disappear as Sam fights back the coming tears forming. It’s a useless fight. Why Mary? She wasn’t like the rest. She wasn’t selling her body for sex. She was happily married, two twin girls at home, and nothing but bright sky in her future. Could that mean these files contain others like her? Perhaps, but wallowing pity and wondering about what could have been wasn’t going to bring justice to the women in these files. There’s no time for weakness.
Sam slides the box onto the bottom of the dusty shelf in the evidence closet. There couldn’t be a more fitting metaphor for the lack of justice than this locked room full of dusty shelves of forgotten cases. It’s a closet of monsters too slippery to catch, but Sam’s still got a key to the door.
Captain James wants them returned, but he didn’t say anything about making copies. She’s too close to solving her sister’s murder to stop now. She drops the copies in her desk drawer and plugs her camera into her desktop to upload all of the crime scene photos from the morning.
Photos of Jane Doe’s body tied to a chair flash across the screen: the red wig clinging to her skull, dried blood running down her fingers from the bindings on her wrist, the attempt to create a smile by looping the dental floss between the incision under the ear and the corners of her mouth. Sam watches them all as they flash one after the other. Her eyes finally get heavy with sleep as the sun’s rays begin to creep through the blinds behind her desk. She dozes off to the macabre slideshow.
There’s a weight, a shadow hovering over her. Her breath quickens. Her heart rate increases. Sam’s eyes fling open and she sees Captain James with his arms crossed, leaning on her desk. The screen on her computer is off and the camera that was finishing its upload is gone. “Make any copies?” Captain James asks.
“No, sir,” Sam says, a little befuddled. She looks at the clock on the wall. She has only been asleep for a couple of hours and is still swimming in a drowsy fog. Captain James opens the file drawer in her desk and Sam stiffens. A few loose office supplies roll around at the bottom of the drawer, and he slams it shut.
“Morning, Lieutenant,” Bandy says as he places a cup of coffee on Sam’s desk. He takes a sip from his own and sits down at his desk next to hers.
“Heard you two were out at the Gibbons place pretty late last night, left to play all by yourselves,” Captain James says as he picks up the coffee on Bandy’s desk.
“Not a soul lazier in law enforcement than a fucking federal agent. Get me the full report on that munitions find from yesterday, and get back out in the field. Weather service has got a real doozy dialed up starting later today. Gonna be a real gully washer,” Captain James finishes as he walks away with Bandy’s coffee.
“Hope he likes a whole lotta Hazelnut creamer in his coffee,” Bandy says with a chuckle. He turns his attention to Sam with a large grin on his face. Something’s up. Where are the files?
She reopens the drawer where she put the files. Yep, it’s still empty.
“Missing something?” Bandy says with a grin. He opens his desk drawer, slides some empty folders off the top of a stack to reveal her copies. “Thought I’d come in early to give you a hand. I knew you wouldn’t go home after the day we had yesterday. Good thing too, I guess.”
Sam gives him a nod of thanks, takes a big gulp from her coffee and fires up her computer to get started on the report. Bandy lingers, as he’s wont to do.
“If I say thank you, will you quit staring at me?” Sam asks Bandy.
“The way I figure, I’ve earned a spot on your little personal mission you’ve got goin’. Mind if I join you on the morning stake out over at the Old ‘64?” Bandy asks.
Sam takes a moment to consider before she says, “How fast can you type up that report on Gibbons?”
From the other side of the office there’s a loud crash followed by Captain James hollering, “Godddamit! What the fuck is in this coffee?”
Bandy and Sam share a smile and then he’s off to the races on the keyboard, banging out the report on yesterday’s munition raid. Sam looks through the slits in the blinds over the windows as Bandy’s keystrokes tap out yesterday’s details. Storm clouds are gathering on the horizon darkening the prairie landscape below. She can see the shimmering heat already emanating from the dark asphalt roadways. It’s a powder keg building up steam. Today’s going to be full of thunder and danger.
She probably shouldn’t show her face in that truck-stop again, at least not when that big fella’s in there. If he calls in a report on what she did, she’ll get suspended, at the very least. Captain James might just take her badge and gun. Not that it’ll make a difference in her pursuit. She’ll find the madman running up and down the highway, hunting for their next victim.
The receipt proves she’s getting close. She’s going to have to find a way to get access to the security footage. If she gets a still of him, it’ll be over really quick. Can she trust Bandy to keep it all between them? He’s got a puppy dog demeanor that might cause him to freeze up when she needs him in the heat of the moment. She has no intent of actually arresting this monster. No, that’d be too easy. He’s going to suffer. If Bandy gets in the way … well, she’ll cross that road when she gets there.
If this week’s issue got your blood pumping, refer a fellow traveler to join the ride and unlock some devilishly good rewards!
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REFER 2 FRIENDS: Unlock 1 month of The Devil’s Road for free—no strings attached.
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REFER 10 FRIENDS: Score 6 months free, along with a signed, mailed copy of The Devil’s Road pilot screenplay—your own piece of the story, right in your hands.With Halloween just around the corner, I couldn’t think of a better time to bring you, my Faithful Rambler, to the end of Part 1 of The Devil’s Road. Now six chapters in, I want to offer a refresher for any New Witnesses to the trail of bloodshed left behind by our enigmatic Driver. His identity remains a mystery—for now—but Part 2 may finally bring the truth to light.
