Butcher Road (A Mountain Mystery)

Out for an evening walk, Jack Fowler, two years back from a tour in Afghanistan with U.S. Army Special Forces, follows his nose to a body in an abandoned building. The badly decomposed male corpse is unable to be identified. Crime scene investigators can only determine that a single gunshot to the chest was the cause of death.

Given the density of meth labs and drug dealers in the nearby housing project of South Mill, it’s assumed drugs played a role in the killing–that is, until a second body is discovered in a similar condition. Both bodies lacked fingerprints, teeth, or other identifiable features, and both are found in abandoned buildings along Butcher Road.

A typed note found in the pocket of the second victim entangles the Army veteran in the investigation and puts him on a collision course with the killer.