Free Scene of the Crime: Deadman's Bluff by Carla Cassidy

young woman’s death. Most of the teenagers and young adults in town had been at the party at the dunes.
    There were reams of pages of interviews contained in the file and Seth flipped through each one, unsurprised to find that the three young men who had been on the dunes the day Tamara had been uncovered had also been party attendees.
    As he moved on to the file with notes and interviews and the official reports on Vicki Smith, two things caught his attention. The first was that Sam Clemmons, the young man who had been like a frozen statue at the scene with Tamara, had also been present when the other two women had been found at the dunes. What were the odds of him being there when three bodies were uncovered? He knew the sheriff had interrogated the boys after Tamara had been found, but he hadn’t seen the interview transcripts yet.
    Vicki Smith had been a pretty, thirty-year-old brunette who had worked as a waitress at the Golden Daffodil and at the time of her death had been dating the owner of the restaurant, Henry Todd. Todd had been questioned but despite his intimate relationship with the victim the authorities had been unable to tie him to Vicki’s murder or find any kind of a connection between Todd and Rebecca.
    The only thing all three victims had in common was dark hair. The first two victims had been natives of Amber Lake and so far it appeared that Tamara had simply been passing through.
    What had happened to her between the hours when she’d had dinner in the café and the next day when she’d been found in the sand dunes? What horrors was her amnesia attempting to protect her from remembering?
    Linda had spoken to him for a little while the night before about post-traumatic stress and all that it could entail for Tamara.
    She’d even suggested it might be healthy for Tamara to meet with the professional the doctor had recommended to discuss her amnesia and whatever else she might be experiencing due to her trauma. Seth intended to ask Tamara this morning if she needed to see a counselor or somebody else, even though so far she’d declined.
    In the meantime, he intended to pick apart each and every report and interview from the two murders and make a list of people he intended to reinterview personally.
    There were only two official entrances to Deadman’s Dunes that provided a small parking area for the off-riders to park. On the day that Seth had arrived and gone to the dunes, he’d parked at the main entrance on the north side. The other way in was on the west side of the sand.
    Rebecca’s body had been found almost directly in the center of the dunes, where the area was a flat run for riders to test their speed before hitting the hilly mounds again.
    Vicki’s body had been found close to the west entrance and Tamara’s on the east side of the dunes. It didn’t matter what any of it meant to Seth. What he needed to find out was what the dunes meant to the killer.
    At six-thirty, he got up from the table, grabbed some of his clothes from the hallway closet where he’d moved them from the guest room and then headed for the bathroom to get ready for the day.
    Minutes later as he stood beneath the shower spray his thoughts returned to Tamara. It was strange, he knew nothing about her past, nothing about the life experiences that had made her who she was, and yet he felt as if he knew a wealth of information about her just from the hours they’d spent together.
    Her political beliefs jived with his, she had a wicked sense of humor that he enjoyed and there was softness to her spirit that made him want to be strong for her.
    He liked the way she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was nervous, how her eyes lit up just before a smile curved her lips.
    They’d spent part of yesterday at the discount store where she bought a basketful of clothing and miscellaneous items to call her own. If you could tell a woman’s personality by the things she bought, then Tamara was definitely low