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Bill appears intrigued in spite of himself.
“You ever travel Laurel Lane? Roar along on your ATV, enjoying a sunny day? Ever imagine what was in those woods? How close you might’ve passed to those poor dead bodies, each and every time?”
Bill swallows thickly.
“Hiking with a corpse is tough,” Keith speaks matter-of-factly. “The taskforce has been discussing it, and most likely the killer used some mode of transportation to haul the bodies to the burial sites.”
“How... how many girls?” Bill asks roughly. He drops his voice. “I heard a dozen.”
“Do you know this area?” I ask.
“Yes, ma’am. Like you said, been on that trail many a time.”
“Could you get a truck on that path?” Keith asks.
“Too narrow. And like I said, the underbrush is thick along there. Not to mention, some times of the year, all rutted up. Be a risky trip.”
“How busy is this trail?” Keith points to Laurel Lane.
Bill shrugs. “This time of year, weekends are our bread and butter. But weekdays are quieter. You never know, though. Daytime,” he ventures, “would be tricky for, um... well, what you’re talking about.”
“The ATVs have headlights for nighttime rides,” Keith says.
“Not the best, though. After dark, most riders wear headlamps, or you can clip on additional lighting. If you were going off trail, you’d definitely want some assistance.”
Keith takes the map. His gaze is thoughtful, as if all the squiggly lines speak to him. Clearly, he doesn’t want to give away too much information regarding the location of the graves, and yet there’s plenty the map alone can’t tell us.
“It looks like Laurel Lane is part of a whole network. You can access it from a number of different trails. How do locals do it? Trailer in the ATVs to one of these parking areas, then take off?” Keith asks.
“You can,” Bill agrees. “But plenty of folks just head out their front door. There are dirt roads not on this map, which connect with the ATV circuit. Some locals even have their own personal paths they’ve bushwhacked, leading to the network. Four-wheelers are popular around here. Lots of people own ’em, and they want to just take off, not be messing around with trailers.”
“You could trailer us in, though?” Keith asks.
“That’s generally what we do with groups. You pick the area, I take the ATVs, get you started. I can guide you, too, if you’d like.” Bill’s gravelly voice picks up. Talk of murder might make him uncomfortable, but clearly, the chance to be part of the action...
“Basically, you’re saying this map doesn’t show everything?” Keith presses. “There are dirt roads, personal paths, lots of other things going on which only the locals know about?”
“We don’t like to give away all our secrets,” Bill deadpans.
Keith doesn’t seem to know how to ask what he wants to know next. I don’t either. We’d walked the woods around the first burial site for hours yesterday, looking for animal dens and scattered bones. We’d never seen anything close to a trail.
“If there was a path, say, over a decade ago,” Keith muses finally, “but maybe it hadn’t been used for a while, how would we find it?”
“You don’t.”
“We don’t?”
“The mountain takes back its own. The woods don’t want to be cleared or groomed. Hell, it takes four different ATV clubs to keep these marked trails accessible. Work is constant and ongoing. Ask any landowner. You want to keep your yard, you gotta keep your yard.”
“So an old trail... would just return to the wild?”
“Yes, sir.”
In other words, Keith’s theory about an old, locals-only trail may be right. Or maybe even more personal than that—a trail once made by one person and known only by that person. Except this section of the Appalachian Trail was part of the Chattahoochee National Forest, not private property. So anyone who’d blazed a private path off the known byways would have to be someone with access. Maybe a park ranger, or local guide? It feels to me like the more we learn, the more the truth spins away.
“What do you think?” Keith asks me.
I understand the issue. We can’t keep asking questions without giving away too much. Were the graves accessible from the Laurel Lane trail on an ATV? There’s only one way to find out.
“I get to drive,” I say.
“Deal.” Keith pulls out his wallet. “We’d like to rent one ATV with transport to Niche. We’ll also need a map and helmets. Oh, and any kind of insurance you got. Maybe, make that double.”
