The parking lot  next to the water treatment plant was almost empty. There was room for at least a hundred vehicles, but there were only about a dozen, all of them parked close to the door of the low brick structure.

Denton swung his car around and into a spot right next to the gate that he had just come through.

The moment he pushed open the door, he wished for a heavier jacket. It felt colder out here with less trees and buildings around. Making do with what he had, he fastened both buttons of his sport coat and pulled up the collar.

The tall grass crunched beneath the leather soles of his shoes as he followed the outside of the chain-link fence to the field at the far side. The ground was slightly muddy but growing hard in the cold. The bright sun of the morning had been replaced by a sky of moist gray. It looked as if there soon would be more rain and perhaps even snow. Out in the open field, the narrow snake-like river could barely be heard over the harsh wind that grabbed at his tie and waved it in the air like a streamer. On his second grab, he caught it and tucked it into his shirt. The grass hid small pits and hollows, and he worried a wrong step would turn his ankle. From the car, the train bridge hadn't looked far, but after ten minutes, he was only halfway there. The railway track split up a large empty patch of scrubland.

The ground rose artificially, creating a gentle hill leading to the iron bridge. Somewhere down the track, before the rise, was the town proper with the college, the stores, and the old homes. Alfred Reynolds had picked a remote spot to set up camp, but it hadn't stopped someone from trekking out there and killing him. To walk out to his camp would have taken determination. But what would it take to drive there?

Denton stopped and looked around. There didn't appear to be any dirt roads. The ground was too uneven to drive across in a regular car, but there were plenty of off-road vehicles around Bexhill that could do it. Jacked-up pickup trucks and 4X4s were fairly common, and the locals enjoyed hitting trails in their ATVs on weekends. Or at least, the news reported on accidents involving them so often, it would seem to be a common thing.

Tire tracks were something the police would have been looking for, if he had been a resident, if he had been someone deserving of their time. But if there had been any tracks around the area, they were long gone. The rain and the elements had taken care of that.

If only they had suspected that the man they had called The Troll was part of a bigger pattern, they might have done a proper investigation, and maybe, the girl wouldn't be missing.

As Denton got closer to the bridge, where Alfred Reynolds had been dismembered and burned, he breathed slowly in through his nose and out from his mouth. It was a relaxation exercise he had read about long ago and often used. The technique helped steady his nerves, while he tried to keep his eyes focused forward.

But he need not have worried. There was no trace of the crime.

The black circle from the photos was gone, washed away despite the shelter of the overpass. There wasn't much left of the camp either. Although, Denton suspected the culprits were people, rather than the weather. Most likely kids, he thought, after a quick look at the ground. It was littered with broken beer bottles, cigarette butts, the remnants of joints, and even a condom. Someone had turned the dead man's camp into a party spot. He wondered whether they knew someone had been killed there...that a horribly violent act had taken place there. Were they simply ignorant of it and were looking for an out of the way spot for a good time? Or did they know and were attracted there precisely because of it? Their enjoyment heightened by danger and morbid curiosity.

Possibly it was some Milton students, but more likely it was some local teenagers. They would be more familiar with the area and have fewer places to go and drink. There certainly was no shortage of places around campus for the underage to go and binge.

Under the bridge the air was different. The wind was slightly hushed, but noises echoed softly off of the concrete structure. A dank smell of wet earth and urine filled his nose.

The blue tarp was still there, tied to a wooden post by one corner. It was torn to the point of being shredded. The wind stretched it out and it fluttered with a staccato buzzing. Most of the other items from the photos were simply gone.

There had been a fire—recent too, from the looks of it. Ashes were in a fire pit built with stones and old bricks. And the eights were still there, mostly.

They covered both of the bridge struts that formed the only two walls of the man's home. Countless figure eights were spray-painted from about three feet off the ground to as high as the tramp had been able to reach—higher, in fact. He must have stood on something to gain extra height.

Denton stared at the giant red eight from the picture. Already someone had covered part of it with a fresh tag. A stylized "LCA" now covered the middle section of the numeral. The letters were yellow with a white and black border. How much longer before there was nothing left to show that the man had ever been there?

He turned his attention to the tarp. There had been more posts securing the plastic sheet at one time, but there was no sign of them now. Even under all that cement, there was only minimal shelter. He had still needed a makeshift tent to stay warm and dry.

Someone may have made off with the posts, but the remnants of a nest were still there. Sheets of cardboard, old blankets, and god-knows-what-else formed the man's bed. The weekend's heavy rain had left it a soggy mess, which Denton refused to touch. He crouched down in front of it and examined it as close as he dared. There was nothing of note, but when he glanced over his shoulder, he grasped the significance of the red eight.

It was directly behind him. The man would have been able to sit on the bed and stare at it. It would have been the last thing he saw when he went to sleep at night and the first thing he saw when he woke up.

Denton stood up and went over to it. The paint looked slick against the older, faded graffiti. The picture in the file must have been taken with a flash to reveal its true bright shade. In the sunless gloom, the red was darker and deeper.

On an impulse, he pressed his palm up against the surface. It was smooth and cold. Just as he was about to draw his hand away, there was a strange sensation: a slight vibration rippled through his fingers. He took a couple of steps backwards, staring at the enormous numeral.

Slowly, he started to detect a noise over the wind—a roar like the sound of distant thunder, but it didn't stop. It just grew louder. He took another step away from the wall and his foot stumbled on some trash. He glanced down at a brown glass bottle. It jittered on the ground, rocking back and forth on its own. The earth was shaking beneath him.

With hurried steps, he rushed out from under the bridge. His mind raced for a rational explanation. In the open air, his head whipped around searching for signs of an earthquake, even though tremors were uncommon for the area. This side of the field was just as barren as the other and there wasn't even a tree to use as a reference.

But then he saw it: a freight train was heading out of town toward him. It was just coming out of the big, wide turn before the bridge. It towed so many cars, Denton couldn't even guess at the number. He watched it start to climb the slope up to the bridge, as the shuddering in the ground grew. There was nothing unusual about it. At least six of them must pass by here every day.

Why would someone choose to live here, he asked himself?

With his eyes still trained on the locomotive, he pulled his handkerchief from his back pocket. Linda had given him a box of monogrammed hankies one Christmas and he always kept one on him. They were almost never used. Mostly they went from the pocket to the wash and back again. But he was glad to have one with him.

He wiped off the hand that had touched the wall, as his gaze traced the track back to Bexhill. The rail line sat on the Western edge of town. He had only been by that way once, back when it seemed important to learn every part of his new home. It was the farmers' end of town. Beyond it were the fields and dairy farms. There wasn't much there, as he recalled: some cheap houses; a warehouse or two; and on Federal Street, a few stores. He remembered the controversy a few years back when a big supermarket chain opened up a new branch around there.

The town was farther away than the water treatment plant, but perhaps it was a more likely direction to approach the bridge from. Walking along the tracks would be an easier way to get out there, except they were fenced off. Still, there might be holes here and there, and people can climb. He scanned the field, and his eyes stopped on a depression in the grass beyond the bare earth and gravel surrounding the bridge.

Once he was closer, he was able to tell it was a trampled path. His eyes couldn't follow the trail very far, but he'd bet anything it led straight to town. Where else could it go?

Denton went back to Reynolds's camp. Underneath the bridge, the noise was unbearable, as freight cars continued to rumble overhead. The plastic tarp was still flying in the breeze, but could no longer be heard. He decided he was done. There were too few possessions left, and it was far too contaminated by other people to make any type of assessment. He took one last look at the wall and headed back to the car.

Crossing the field, he spotted a can of spray-paint lying in the weeds. There was a yellow smudge on its side. On a childish whim, he kicked it. The can bounced along the grass, then rolled down the bank and into the river.

Only once it was in the water did he wonder why a homeless man would have spray-paint. Probably it was just so he could paint the eights. Like the other victims, he must have been compelled to do it and found the means somewhere. There were probably cans scattered about the bridge, dropped by kids after they left their mark just like the one he had kicked. It would explain the smaller eights, all done in random colors—the dregs of discarded cans. But the large one would have required more. At least a full can, maybe even two or three. He must have had to buy it somewhere. It was the explanation that made the most sense. But where?

Back in the comfort of his Mercedes, Denton turned up the heat and rubbed his hands to get the aching chill out of his fingers. When warmth began to return to them, he searched his GPS for the stores closest to his location. He set the first one on the results list as his destination and drove straight to Federal Street.

The inside of the new Food Fair looked identical to the one on the other side of town and the one at the Elmwood Mall. He had no idea how popular it was, but on a Monday afternoon, it was close to deserted. Passing through the seasonal section, he saw an older man restocking wrapping paper among the artificial trees.

He got three full steps past him before turning back and asking, "Excuse me, do you sell spray-paint?"

The clerk scratched the back of his head and looked out the large front window, but eventually said, "No sir, we don't. You should try the farm supply store down the street."

Denton raised an eyebrow, but before he could say anything, the man said, "Baye's Feed and Supply...been here almost forever. They carry all sorts of things. They'll fix you up."

"Baye's," Denton repeated.

As he left, he chewed on his lip trying to figure out why that name sounded so familiar.