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At The Stroke Of Madness
Alex Kava


FBI Special Agent Maggie O'Dell is just starting a vacation when she gets a call from her friend, psychologist Dr. Gwen Patterson. One of Gwen's patients is missing on a trip to Connecticut. Can Maggie look into Joan Begley's disappearance? At first Maggie dismisses Gwen's concern. But when the body of a woman is discovered in an abandoned rock quarry in Connecticut, Maggie heads to the small town on "unofficial" business. Soon the shocking news surfaces that more bodies have been discovered, and Maggie is drawn into a case that confounds both local law enforcement and a seasoned criminal profiler like herself.But where is Joan Begley? Is she in fact the woman discovered buried in the quarry? Or is she the unwilling guest of a killer obsessed with possessing an unimaginable prize from his victims?












About the Author


ALEX KAVA dedicated herself to writing in 1996, having had a successful career in PR and advertising. Praised by critics and fans alike, Alex Kava’s Maggie O’Dell novels, A Perfect Evil, Split Second, The Soul Catcher and A Necessary Evil, have all been New York Times bestsellers as well as appearing on bestseller lists around the world.

Also by Alex Kava

A NECESSARY EVIL

THE SOUL CATCHER

SPLIT SECOND

A PERFECT EVIL




At the Stroke of Madness








Alex Kava






www.mirabooks.co.uk (http://www.mirabooks.co.uk)


This book is dedicated to

Amy Moore-Benson,

who believed and coached and encouraged

and never gave up on me.







And to

Deborah Groh Carlin,

who listened and inspired and cared

and never allowed me to give up on me.




ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


My sincerest appreciation goes to all the professionals whose expertise has, once again, proven invaluable. And to my family and friends who put up with my long absences while I’m in writing marathon mode. Special thanks to:

Patricia Sierra for the occasional swift kick in the pants, the numerous pats on the back and always, always being there.

Leigh Ann Retelsdorf, Deputy County Attorney, who over lunch one afternoon helped me create an intriguing MO for a killer.

Laura Van Wormer, fellow author and friend, for taking time out of your crazy schedule to show me around Connecticut and for sharing your enthusiasm for your adopted hometown of Meriden.

Leonardo Suzio of York Hill Trap Rock Quarry Company for an interesting tour despite it being in the middle of a blizzard.

Lori O’Brien for being my go-to person whenever I had a question about the area.

Dianne Moggy and the rest of the team at MIRA


Books, including Tania Charzewski, Craig Swinwood, Krystyna de Duleba, Stacy Widdrington, Kate Monk, Maureen Stead and Alex Osuszek.

Megan Underwood and the crew at Goldberg McDuffie Communications, Inc.

Mary Means for a friendship that includes loving and caring for my kids while I’m on the road.

Tammy Hall for filling in the gaps and always being available at a moment’s notice.

Sharon Car, fellow writer and friend, for once again helping me weather the good and the bad.

Marlene Haney, Sandy Rockwood and Patti El-Kachouti for unconditional friendship that withstands absences, that knows no guilt and that celebrates strengths while allowing and unmasking vulnerabilities.

Kenny and Connie Kava for listening and encouraging.

And to the rest of my family and friends whose continued support is greatly appreciated: Jeanie Shoemaker Mezger and John Mezger, Patricia Kava, Nicole and Tony Friend, LaDonna Tworek, Mac Payne, Gene and Mary Egnoski, Rich Kava, Annie Belatti, Natalie and Rich Cummings, Jo Ellen Shoemaker, and Lyn and David Belitz.

Also a sincere and humble thank-you to:

The many book buyers, booksellers and librarians for recommending my books.

The readers, who are truly the ones responsible for keeping Maggie O’Dell alive.

The residents of Meriden and Wallingford, Connecticut, for welcoming me into your community. Please forgive me for any liberties I may have taken with the geography and for dumping dead bodies in your backyard.

Last, to Mike Vallier. MIRA Books lost one of its brightest stars on October 26, 2002. I always thought it was appropriate that Mike was the very first person I met from MIRA, because he genuinely exemplified its generosity, enthusiasm and dedication. We’re going to miss you, Mike, but your spirit will always be a part of this team.




CHAPTER 1


Saturday, September 13Meriden, Connecticut

It was almost midnight, and yet Joan Begley continued to wait.

She tapped her fingernails on the steering wheel and watched for headlights in her rearview mirror. She tried to ignore the streaks of lightning in the distance, telling herself the approaching storm was headed in the other direction. Occasionally, her eyes darted across the front windshield. She barely noticed the spectacular view of city lights below, more interested in getting a glimpse in the side mirrors, as if she could catch something the rearview mirror may have missed.

“Objects may be closer than they appear.”

The print on the passenger-side mirror made her smile. Smile and shiver at the same time. Not like she could see anything in this blasted darkness. Probably not until it was right on top of her car.

“Oh, that’s good, Joan,” she admonished herself. “Freak yourself out.” She needed to think positively. She needed to keep a positive attitude. What good were all her sessions with Dr. Patterson if she threw out everything she had learned so easily?

What was taking him so long? Maybe he had gotten here earlier and had given up on her. After all, she was ten minutes late. Not intentionally. He’d forgotten to mention the fork in the road, right before the final climb to the top. It had taken her on an unexpected detour. It was bad enough that it was pitch dark up here, a canopy of tree branches overhead so thick even the moonlight couldn’t penetrate it. What moonlight was left. The thunderheads would soon block out, or rather they would replace, the moonlight with what promised to be a hell of a lightning show.

God, she hated thunderstorms. She could feel the electricity in the air. Could almost taste it, metallic and annoying, like leaving the dentist with a fresh filling. And it only added to her anxiety. It pricked at her nerves like a reminder that she shouldn’t be here. That maybe she shouldn’t be doing this … that she shouldn’t be doing this, again.

Those stupid, distracting thunderclouds had even caused her to lose her sense of direction. Or at least that’s what she was blaming, though she knew full well all it took was getting into a rent-a-car. As soon as she closed the car door her ability to tell direction flew right out the window. It didn’t help matters that all these Connecticut cities were made up of streets that ran every which way except at right angles or in straight lines. She had gotten lost plenty of times in the last several days. Then tonight, on the entire trip up here, she kept taking wrong turns, despite telling herself over and over that she would not, could not, get lost again. Yet, if it hadn’t been for the old man and his dog, she would have been driving around in circles, looking for the West Peak.

“Walnut hunting,” he had told her, and she hadn’t thought anything of it at the time, because she was too anxious, too preoccupied. Now, as she waited, she remembered that he wasn’t carrying a bag or bucket or sack. Just a flashlight. Who went walnut hunting in the middle of the night? Odd. Yes, there had been something quite odd about the man. A lost, faraway look in his eyes, and yet he didn’t hesitate in giving her animated directions to the top of this wind-howling, branch-creaking, shadowy ridge.

Why in the world had she come?

She grabbed her cell phone and punched in the number from memory, crossing her fingers, only to be disappointed when the voice-messaging service picked up after the second ring. “You’ve reached Dr. Gwen Patterson. Please leave your name and phone number and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

“As soon as possible might be too late,” Joan said in place of a greeting, then laughed, regretting the words because Dr. P. would try to read between the lines. But then wasn’t that what she was paying her the big bucks for? “Hey, Dr. P., yes, it’s me again. Sorry to be such a pain in the ass. But you were right. I’m doing it again. So no, I guess I haven’t learned my lesson, because here I am in the middle of the night, sitting in my dark car and waiting for … yeah, you guessed it, a man. Actually Sonny is different. Remember I told you about him in my e-mail? We’ve been getting together to talk, just talk. At least so far. He really does seem like a nice guy. Definitely not my type, right? Not like I’m a good judge of character when it comes to men. For all I know he could be an ax murderer, huh?” Another forced laugh. “Look, I was just hoping. I don’t know. Maybe I was hoping you would talk me out of this. Save me from … oh, you know … Save me from myself, like you always do. Who knows, maybe he won’t even show up. Anyway, I’ll see you Monday morning for our usual rendezvous. You can yell at me then. Okay?”

She hung up before the string of prerecorded options, one of which would have allowed her to review her message, revise it or even delete it. She didn’t want to be faced with any more choices, not tonight. She was sick and tired of making decisions. That’s all she had done the last few days: The Serenity Package or the Deluxe-in-case-you’refeeling-guilty Premium Package? White roses or white lilies? The walnut casket with brass trim or the mahogany with silk lining?

Good heavens! Who would have thought there were so many stupid decisions involved in burying someone?

Joan tossed the phone into her bag. She drew her fingers through her thick blond hair, batted impatiently at damp strands to push them off her forehead. She glanced in the rearview mirror, turning on the overhead light to get a look at her dark roots. She needed to take care of those soon. Being a blonde sure took a lot of work.

“You’ve become high maintenance, girlfriend,” she told the eyes in the mirror. Eyes she hardly recognized some days with new ravens cutting into what were once cute little laugh lines. Would that be her next project? A part of the new image she was creating for herself? God! She had even visited a plastic surgeon. What was she thinking? That she could re-create herself like one of her sculptures? Mold a new Joan Begley out of clay, dip it in brass, then solder on a couple of new attitudes while she was at it?

Maybe it was hopeless. Yet she did seem to be gaining control over the yo-yo dieting. Okay, control might not be the right word, because she wasn’t totally convinced she did have control, but she had to admit that her new body felt good. Really good. It allowed her to do things she could never do before. She had more energy. Without the extra weight she could get back to maneuvering around her metal sculptures and didn’t get winded every five minutes, waiting like her blow torch for more fuel to pump through before she could get going again.

Yes, this new slender self had an impact on her work, too. It made her feel like she had a whole new lease on work, on life. So why in the back of her mind was she unable to stifle that damn annoying little voice, that constant nag that kept asking, “How long will it last this time?”

The truth was, no matter how wonderful things were, she didn’t trust this new person she was becoming. She didn’t trust it like she didn’t trust sugarless chocolate or fat-free potato chips. There had to be a catch, like a bad aftertaste or chronic diarrhea. No, what it came down to was that she didn’t trust herself. That was it. That was the real problem. She didn’t trust herself and that was what got her into trouble. That was what had brought her to the top of this ridge in the middle of the fricking night, waiting for some guy to make her feel good, to make her feel—Jesus, she hated to admit it—waiting for some guy to make her feel complete.

Dr. P. said it was because she didn’t think she deserved to be happy. That she didn’t feel worthy, or some psychobabble crap. She had told Joan over and over again that it didn’t matter that there was a new improved exterior as long as the old interior didn’t change.

God! She hated when her shrink was right.

She wondered if she should try calling her again. No, that was ridiculous. She glanced at the rearview mirror. He probably wouldn’t show up, anyway.

Suddenly Joan realized she was disappointed. How silly was that? Maybe she really did think this guy was different. He was different from her regular fare—quiet and shy and interested. Yes, actually interested in listening to her. She hadn’t imagined that part. Sonny did seem interested, maybe even concerned about her. Especially when she gave him that load of bull about her weight problem being caused by a hormone deficiency, like it was something out of her control that made her overeat. But instead of treating it like the gutless excuse it was, Sonny believed her. He believed her.

Why kid herself. That’s why she was up here in the middle of nowhere, waiting in the dark. When was the last time a man had taken an interest in her? A real interest in her and not just in her new slender exterior with the artificial blond hair?

She shut off the overhead light and stared out at the city lights below. It was quite beautiful. And if she would relax, she might be able to see that it was quite romantic, despite that annoying rumble of thunder. Was that a raindrop on the windshield? Great! Wonderful! Just what she needed.

She tapped her fingernails on the steering wheel again and went back to her vigil, checking the side mirrors, then the rearview mirror.

Why was he so late? Had he changed his mind? Why would he change his mind?

She grabbed her handbag and searched inside, digging to the bottom until she heard the crinkle. She pulled out and ripped open the bag of M&M’s, poured a handful and began popping them, one after another, into her mouth, as if they were Zoloft tablets, expecting the chocolate to calm her. It usually worked.

“Yes, of course, he’ll come,” she finally announced out loud with a mouthful, as if the sound of her voice was necessary for confirmation. “Something came up. Something he had to take care of. He’s a very busy guy.”

After all he had done for her in the last week…. Well, surely she could wait for him. She had been kidding herself to think that losing Granny hadn’t had a tremendous impact on her. Granny had been the only person who truly understood and supported her. She was the only one who had stood up for her and defended her, insisting Joan’s predicament of still being single and alone at forty was due to her independent nature instead of just being pathetic.

And now Granny, her protector, her confidant, her advocate, was gone. She had lived a long and wonderful life, but none of that could fill the void Joan was feeling. Sonny had been able to see that loss in her, that void. He had gotten her through the last week, allowing and encouraging her to grieve, even encouraging her to “rant and rave” a little.

She smiled at the memory of him, that serious look creasing his forehead. He always looked so serious, so in control. It was strength and a sense of authority that she needed in her life right now.

Just then a pair of headlights magically appeared as if they were her reward. She watched the car weave through the trees. It rounded the twists and curves with a smooth, steady ease, finding its way to this hideaway far above the city as if the driver knew the dark road. As if the driver came here often.

She felt an unexpected flutter in her stomach. Excitement. Anxiety. Nervous energy. Whatever it was, she chastised herself. Such emotions befitted an immature schoolgirl and not a woman her age.

She watched his car drive up behind her, feeling on the back of her neck the startling, powerful glare of his headlights as though they were his strong hands, hands that sometimes had just the slightest scent of vanilla. He said the vanilla removed the other pungent odors he worked with on a regular basis. He had said it as if embarrassed by it. She didn’t mind. She had come to like that scent. There was something comforting about it.

The thunder rumbled overhead now and the droplets grew in number and size, splatting on the car’s windows and blurring her vision. She watched his shadow, a hat-brimmed, black silhouette, get out of the vehicle. He had cut the engine but left on the headlights, making it difficult for her to see him against the glare and through the wet splotches.

He was getting something out of the trunk. A bag. A change of clothes? Perhaps he had brought her a going-away gift? The thought made her smile again. But as he approached, she noticed the object was long and narrow. Something he could carry by a handle … a duffel bag, perhaps?

He was almost at her car door. In a flash of lightning she caught a glimpse of metal. She recognized the chainlike mechanism around a blade. She saw the dangling pull cord. She had to be wrong. Maybe it was a joke. Yes, a joke. Why else would he bring a chain saw?

Then she saw his face.

Through the flickering lightning and now a steady rain, his features looked dark and brooding. He stared at her from under the hat’s brim. He wore an angry scowl, piercing eyes she didn’t recognize, eyes that held hers despite the rain-streaked glass between them. There was something wrong, horribly wrong. He looked as though he were possessed.

Joan’s mind scattered into fragments as panic took hold of her. He stood at her car door, staring in at her. A clap of thunder startled her, making her jump and sending her body—like electric shock treatment—into action. Instinctively, her hand flew to the locks. Her fingers fumbled in the dark, searching, feeling, racing. Her heart throbbed in her ears. Or was that more thunder? Her fingers pushed, punched, clawed at buttons. A wheeze as the glass lowered. The wrong button—damn rent-a-car—and she punched again.

Oh, Jesus! Too late.

He was pulling the car door open. The car’s dinging sound joined the tap-tap-tapping of the rain. That annoying dinging sound, warning her that the keys were still in the ignition, warning her that it was too late.

“Good evening, Joan,” he said in his gentle tone, but now combined with the scowl on his face, it only seemed to telegraph his complete madness. That was when Joan Begley realized no one would hear her rant and rave this time. No one would hear her final scream.




CHAPTER 2


Monday, September 15Wallingford, Connecticut

Luc Racine pretended it was a game. That was how it had started a couple of months ago. A silly guessing game that he played with himself. Except now, standing in his stocking feet at the end of his driveway, he stared at the plastic-encased newspaper on the ground as if it were a pipe bomb left just to trick him. What if today was the day? What if he got it wrong today? What the hell would it mean?

He turned around, full circle, to see if his neighbors were watching. Not an easy task for any of them. From atop his lane, Luc could barely see their houses, let alone their windows, well hidden by thick foliage. The sun, which had just broken free over the mountain ridge, couldn’t penetrate the thick canopies created by huge oak and walnut trees along Whippoorwill Drive. And it was impossible to see anything up or down the lane, even cars, which were there one second and gone the next.

The road twisted and curved—surrounded by trees and vines on both sides and sometimes twisting together overhead—showing only the next fifty feet, if that. It took anyone who drove it on a winding roller-coaster ride, climbing and climbing, only to send drivers plunging down and around ninety-degree corners. Like some ancient NASCAR track, it could be three to four seconds of exhilaration, shoving your stomach up into your throat while your foot hovered over the brake pedal. The beautiful surroundings, as well as the dramatic plunge, literally took your breath away. It was one of the things Luc Racine loved about this area, and he told anyone who would listen. Yes, they had it all, right here in the middle of Connecticut: mountains, water, forest and the ocean minutes away.

His daughter often ribbed him, saying that he could be “a fucking ad for the tourism department.” To which he gave his usual answer, “I didn’t raise you to swear like a sailor. You’re not too big I can’t still wash your mouth out with soap.”

He smiled, thinking about his little girl. She did have a mouth on her, more so now that she was a big-shot detective in … blast it! Why couldn’t he remember the city? It was easy. It was where all the politicians were, the White House, the president. It was on the tip of his tongue.

Just then he realized he was almost all the way to his front door and both his hands were empty.

“Shoot!” He looked back down the lane. The newspaper lay exactly where the carrier had tossed it. How in the world could he guess what day it was if he couldn’t remember to pick up the stupid newspaper? That couldn’t be a good sign. He dug a small notepad and pen out of his shirt pocket, jotted down the date—or at least, the date he believed it to be—and wrote, “Walked to end of lane and forgot newspaper.”

As he put the notepad back he noticed he had buttoned his shirt wrong—two buttons off this time. He loved his cotton oxford-cloth shirts—short sleeves for the summer, long for the winter—but unfortunately, they would need to go. And as he padded out to the end of the lane he tried to envision himself in a T-shirt or polo shirt, untucked over his trousers. Would it look silly with his black beret? And if it did, did he care?

He scooped up the Hartford Courant, pulled it out of its plastic bag and unfolded it, swinging it open like a magician. “And the date today is … yes, Monday, September 15.” Pleased, he folded it without glancing at a single headline and tucked it under his arm.

“Hey, Scrapple,” he yelled to the Jack Russell terrier coming out of the woods. “I got it right again.” But the dog paid no attention, focusing instead on the huge bone he had in his mouth, losing what looked to be a balancing act as he half carried, half dragged his prize.

“One of these days, Scrap ole boy, those coyotes are going to catch up with you for stealing their kill.” Just as Luc said it, a loud noise came from the other side of the woods, sounding like metal slamming against rock. Startled, the dog dropped the bone and raced to Luc’s feet, tail between his legs as though the coyotes were coming.

“It’s okay, Scrapple,” Luc reassured the dog as another slam shook the earth. “What the hell?”

Luc headed down the footpath that led into the woods. There was about a quarter of a mile of trees and brush that separated his property from what had once been a working rock quarry. The owner had gone out of business years ago, deserting the place, leaving behind equipment and piles of rock waiting to be crushed and hauled away. Who’d have guessed that the precious brownstone would someday not be able to withstand all the gas emissions of New York City?

Someone had started using the secluded quarry as a free dumping ground. Luc had heard that Calvin Vargus and Wally Hobbs had been hired to remove the garbage and clean up the area. So far, Luc had only seen additional huge yellow equipment parked alongside the old rusted stuff. He remembered thinking that perhaps Vargus and Hobbs—or Calvin and Hobbs as many of the townspeople called them—had taken advantage of using the quarry for safe, private and cheap equipment storage.

Now on the other side of the trees, Luc could see the earthmover with its heavy bucket shoving rocks the size of Rhode Island from side to side. He had forgotten how secluded the area was and could barely see the one dirt road through the woods that acted as the only opening. Otherwise, this overgrown pasture was completely boxed in by a stripped mountain, bled of its precious brownstone on one side and thick with woods on the other three sides.

He recognized Calvin Vargus at the monster machine’s controls inside the open-air cab. He could see Calvin’s bloated forearms shove and grab and pull at the levers, making the machine’s bucket scoop up rock like a giant mouth. Another lever shoved forward and the huge yellow body twisted to one side and spit out the rock with a slam and thump.

Calvin’s head bobbed, the orange baseball cap shielding his eyes from the morning sun, but he still caught a glimpse of Luc and waved. Luc waved back and took it as an invitation for a closer inspection. The machine drummed in his ears. He could feel its vibration all the way from his toes to his teeth. It fascinated Luc. It scared the dickens out of Scrapple. What a wuss. Stealing bones from coyotes and yet here he was scared by a little noise, following close behind Luc, bumping his nose into the back of Luc’s leg.

The machine’s giant yellow mouth took another bite of rock and debris—debris that looked to be part crushed rock, part brush and garbage. This time a discarded rusted barrel broke free and came rolling down the pile of boulders. It crashed against the sharp rock edges, splitting open and sending the lid flying like a Frisbee.

Luc watched the lid, amazed by its speed and distance, so that he only saw the spilled contents out of the corner of his eye. At first he thought it was old clothes, a bunch of rags. Then he saw an arm and thought maybe a mannequin. It was a garbage dump, after all.

Then he noticed the smell.

It wasn’t what ordinary garbage smelled like. No, it smelled different. It smelled like … it smelled like something dead. It didn’t really scare him until Scrapple began to howl, an uncontrollable, high-pitched howl that broke through the noise of the equipment and sent a chill up Luc’s spine.

Calvin stopped the bucket in midair. He cut the engine. And suddenly, Scrapple’s howl came to an abrupt stop, too, leaving an unsettling silence. Luc could see Calvin push back his cap. He glanced up at the big man who now sat paralyzed in the cab. Luc stood still.

The vibrations from earlier seemed to be replaced by throbbing in his ears. Only now did Luc realize the throbbing wasn’t the aftereffects of the equipment. The throbbing was his own heart pounding, hammering so hard he could barely hear the geese overhead. There were dozens of them, a flood of squawking as they made their daily pilgrimage to or from the McKenzie Reservoir. In the distance he could hear the hum of rush-hour traffic on I-91. All the routine sounds of an ordinary day.

An ordinary day, Luc thought as he watched the morning sun peek through the trees and highlight the bluish-white flesh that had spilled from the fifty-five-gallon barrel. Luc caught Calvin’s eyes. He expected to see his own panic mirrored on Calvin’s face. And there may have been a little panic, maybe even a little disgust at the sight. But what struck Luc Racine as odd was what he didn’t see. What Luc didn’t see on Calvin Vargus’s face was surprise.




CHAPTER 3


The FBI AcademyQuantico, Virginia

Mggie O’Dell reached for the last doughnut, a chocolate-frosted number with bright pink and white sprinkles, and already she heard a “tsk-tsk” sound scolding her. She glanced over her shoulder at her partner, Special Agent R. J. Tully.

“That’s what you’re having for lunch?” he asked.

“Dessert.” She added a cellophane-wrapped platter of one of the cafeteria’s daily specials. Something listed on the chalkboard as a “tacorito” supreme. Maggie couldn’t help thinking even the FBI couldn’t screw up something as good as Mexican food.

“Doughnuts are not dessert,” Tully insisted.

“You’re just jealous because it’s the last one.”

“I beg to differ. Doughnuts are breakfast. Not dessert,” he told her as he held up the line, waiting for Arlene’s attention behind the counter, waiting for her to put down the steaming hot-out-of-the-oven pot of creamed corn, before he pointed to the roast beef. “Let’s ask the expert. Doughnuts are breakfast. Wouldn’t you agree, Arlene?”

“Sweetie, if I had Agent O’Dell’s figure you’d see me eating doughnuts at every meal.”

“Thank you, Arlene.” Maggie added a Diet Pepsi, then indicated to the cashier, a little mole-faced woman she didn’t recognize, that she’d pay for the tray coming behind her, too.

“Wow!” Tully said when he noticed her generosity. “What’s the special occasion?”

“Are you saying I never buy unless there’s a special occasion?”

“Well, there’s that … that and the doughnut.”

“Couldn’t it be that I’m having a great day?” she said while leading him to a table next to the window. Outside on one of Quantico’s many running trails, a half-dozen recruits were finishing their daily run, weaving through the pine trees single file. “Classes just ended for this session. I have no nightmare cases keeping me awake nights. I’m taking a few days off for the first time in … oh, about a hundred years. I’m actually looking forward to working in my garden. I even bought three dozen daffodil bulbs to add to the southwest corner. Just Harvey and me, enjoying this amazing fall weather, digging in the dirt and playing fetch. Why wouldn’t that put me in a good mood?”

Tully was watching her. Sometime around the daffodil bulbs she realized he wasn’t convinced. He shook his head and said, “You never get this excited about time off, O’Dell. I’ve seen you before a three-day federally approved weekend, and you’re chomping at the bit for everyone to get the hell back in their offices first thing Tuesday morning so they don’t hold you up on whatever case you’re working. I wouldn’t be surprised if your briefcase is stuffed and ready for the backyard breaks. So really, what gives, O’Dell? What has you grinning like the cat that swallowed the parakeet?”

She rolled her eyes at him. Her partner, ever the profiler, always “on” and solving puzzles. Hard to argue with him for something she did herself. Perhaps it was simply an occupational hazard. “Okay, if you must know, my lawyer finally got the last—the very, very last—of the divorce papers back from Greg’s lawyer. This time everything was signed.”

“Ah. So it’s all over. And you’re okay with that?”

“Of course, I’m okay with that. Why wouldn’t I be okay with it?”

“I don’t know.” Tully shrugged as he tucked his tie—already stained with morning coffee—into his shirt, then scooped up mashed potatoes, gravy and all, and dumped them on top of his roast beef.

Maggie watched as he dipped his shirt cuff into the gravy, completely unaware while he concentrated on building a dam out of his mashed potatoes. Maggie only shook her head and restrained herself from reaching across the table to wipe at his newest stain.

Tully continued, fork and now knife working at his lunch creation, “I just remember having lots of mixed feelings when mine was final.” He looked up, checked her eyes and paused with fork in midair, as if waiting for a confession that might be prompted by his own admission.

“Yours didn’t drag on for almost two years. I’ve had plenty of time to get okay with this.” He was still looking at her. “I’m fine. Really. It’s understandable that you had mixed feelings. You and Caroline still have to raise Emma together. At least Greg and I didn’t have kids. That’s probably the only thing we did right in our marriage.”

Maggie started unwrapping the tacorito, wondering at Arlene’s overuse of cellophane. She stopped. She couldn’t help herself. She took her napkin from her lap, reached across the table and dabbed at the gravy on Tully’s cuff. He no longer got embarrassed when she did these things, and this time he even held up the errant wrist for her.

“How is Emma, by the way?” she asked, going back to her lunch.

“Good. Busy. I hardly ever get to see her anymore. Too many after-school activities. And boys … too many boys.”

Maggie’s cell phone interrupted them.

“Maggie O’Dell.”

“Maggie, it’s Gwen. Is this a good a time to talk?”

“Tully and I are just having an early lunch. What’s wrong?” Maggie knew Gwen Patterson well enough to recognize the urgency in her friend’s voice, despite Gwen’s attempt to disguise it with a clipped professional tone. She and Gwen had known each other for almost ten years, having first met when Maggie was in Quantico’s forensic program and Gwen was a consulting psychologist frequently called in by Maggie’s boss, Assistant Director Kyle Cunningham. The two women, despite their age difference—Gwen was thirteen years Maggie’s senior—had become instant friends.

“I was wondering if you might be able to check on something for me.”

“Sure. What do you need?”

“I’m concerned about a patient. I’m afraid she might be in some kind of trouble.”

“Okay.” Maggie was a bit surprised. Gwen rarely talked about her patients, let alone asked for help with one. “What kind of trouble?”

“I’m not sure. It may be nothing, but I’d feel better if someone checked on her. She left a disturbing voice message late Saturday night. I haven’t been able to reach her. Then this morning she missed our weekly session. She never misses a session.”

“Have you tried contacting her employer or any of her family?”

“She’s an artist, self-employed. No family that I know of other than her grandmother. Actually she was out of town for her grandmother’s funeral. Another concern. You know how funerals can be emotional triggers.”

Yes, Maggie did know. Over a decade later and she still wasn’t able to go to one without visions of her heroic, fire-fighting father lying in that huge mahogany box, his hair combed to the wrong side, his burnt hands wrapped in plastic and tucked at his sides.

“Maggie?”

“Could she simply have decided to stay an extra day or two?”

“I doubt she would do that. She didn’t even want to be there for the funeral.”

“Maybe her car broke down on the trip back?” Maggie couldn’t help wondering if Gwen was overreacting. It made sense that the woman may have wanted to be away from everyone and everything for a day or two without running back here for a session with her shrink to dissect how she was feeling. But then Maggie knew not everyone reacted to stress and tragedy like she did.

“No, she rented a car up there. See, that’s another thing. The car hasn’t been turned in yet. The hotel told me she was scheduled for departure yesterday but she hasn’t checked out, nor has she contacted anyone about staying longer. And she missed her flight yesterday. She’s not like this. She has problems, but organization and reliability are not on the list.”

“You said yourself that funerals can be emotionally draining. Maybe she just wanted a few more days before coming back to the everyday routine. By the way, how were you able to find out that she missed her flight?” Airlines didn’t just hand out their passenger manifest. After years of Gwen lecturing her about playing by the rules, Maggie waited for an admission of guilt. Now that she thought about it, Gwen had managed to get a lot of information that wasn’t usually handed out freely.

“Maggie, there’s more to it.” The urgency returned to Gwen’s voice, dismissing any confession to rule breaking. “She said she was meeting someone … a man. That was the message and she was calling me to talk her out of it. She has this … this tendency …” She paused. “Look, Maggie, I can’t share the intimacies of her case. Let’s just say that in the past she’s made some bad choices when it comes to men.”

Maggie glanced across the table to find Tully watching her, listening. He looked away quickly as if caught. She had noticed recently—although he tried to disguise it—that he seemed interested in anything related to Gwen Patterson. Or was it simply her imagination?

“What are you saying, Gwen? That you think this man may have done something to her?”

Silence again. Maggie waited. Was Gwen finally realizing that perhaps she was overreacting? And why was she being so overprotective with this particular woman? Maggie had never known Gwen to baby-sit her patients. Her friends, yes, but not her patients.

“Maggie, is there some way you could check on her? Someone you might be able to call?”

Maggie looked at Tully again. He had finished his lunch and now pretended to be watching out the window, another group of recruits down below in sweaty T-shirts and jogging shorts snaking through the woods.

Maggie picked at her own lunch. Why had Gwen suddenly decided to become this patient’s caretaker? It seemed like a simple case of a grieving woman shutting herself away from her world for a while, perhaps even finding solace in a friendly stranger. Why didn’t Gwen see that?

“Maggie?”

“I’ll do what I can. Where was she staying?”

“The funeral was in Wallingford, Connecticut, but she was staying at the Ramada Plaza Hotel next door in Meriden. I have the phone numbers and addresses right here. I can fax over some other information later. All I know about the man she was meeting was that she called him Sonny.”

Maggie’s stomach gave a sudden flip while she took down the information. All the while she kept thinking, “Not Connecticut.”




CHAPTER 4


Sheriff Henry Watermeier shoved his hat back and swiped at the sweat on his forehead.

“Fuck!” he muttered, wanting to walk, to pace off his frustration, but reminding himself to stand in one place. And so he did, hands on his belt buckle, waiting and watching and trying to think, trying to ignore the stench of death and the buzzing of flies. Jesus! The flies were a pain in the ass, miniature vultures, impatient and persistent despite the plastic tarp.

It wasn’t the first body Henry had seen stuffed into a strange and unusual place. He had seen more than his share during his thirty years with the NYPD. But not here. Crimes like this weren’t supposed to happen in Connecticut. This was exactly the kind of stuff he had hoped to escape when his wife talked him into moving to the middle of nowhere. Yeah, sure, Fairfield County and the shore got its share of this kind of thing all the time. There were always plenty of high-profile cases—big fucking cases—like that stupid publicist driving her SUV over sixteen people, or even the Martha Moxley murder that took decades to solve, or Alex Cross, Connecticut’s very own preppy rapist. Yeah, there were plenty of crimes on the shore and closer to New York, but in the middle of Connecticut things were quieter. Crap like this wasn’t supposed to happen here.

He had instructed his deputies to set up a wide perimeter, having them string up yellow crime-scene tape. It was going to take a hell of a lot of tape. He watched two of his men stretching it from tree to tree, Arliss with a fucking Marlboro hanging from his lips and that kid, Truman, screeching like a banshee at any of the outsiders who dared come within ten feet.

“Arliss, make sure your butts don’t end up on the ground.” The deputy looked up, startled, as if he had no idea what his boss was talking about. “I mean the damned cigarette. Get it out of your mouth. Now.”

Finally, a look of recognition crossed Arliss’s face as he grabbed at the cigarette, stubbed it out on a tree, started to fling it but stopped with his hand in midair. Henry could see the red start at his deputy’s neck as he tucked the rest of the cigarette under his hat and over his ear. It almost made Henry as mad as if Arliss had flung it. First major crime scene as New Haven County sheriff, maybe his last major crime scene of his career, and these goddamn screwups were going to make him look like a fucking idiot.

Henry glanced over his shoulder, pretending to assess the scene when all he really wanted to know was if Channel 8 still had their camera on him. Should have known, the fucking lens was still pointed at his back. He could feel it like a laser beam slicing him in two. And that’s exactly what it could do if he wasn’t careful.

Why the hell had Calvin Vargus called the goddamn media? Of course, he knew why, and he didn’t know Vargus except by reputation. The son of a bitch was living up to that reputation in spades, flapping his yap to that pretty little reporter from Hartford even after Henry told him to shut the fuck up. But he couldn’t make Vargus shut up. Not without locking him up. Although that wasn’t entirely out of the question.

He needed to concentrate. Vargus was the least of his worries. He lifted the tarp and forced himself to look at the body again, or at least at the part sticking out of the barrel. From what he could see the blouse looked like silk with French cuffs. The fingernails were once professionally manicured. The hair may have been dyed—the roots were a bit darker. It was hard to tell since it was now matted and caked with blood. A shitload of blood. Definite death blow. Didn’t have to be a forensic scientist to know that.

He dropped the tarp and wondered again if this poor woman was a local. Was she some bastard’s mistress? Before he left the station he had run the list of missing persons, highlighting those in New Haven County, but none of them fit the preliminary description. The list included a male college student who had skipped out on classes last spring, a teenage drug addict who had probably run away from home, and an elderly woman who supposedly went out for milk one morning and hadn’t been seen since. Nowhere on the list had Henry found a fortysomething-year-old female with long hair, an expensive silk blouse and manicured fingernails.

Henry took a deep breath to clear his mind, to help him think. He looked up into the cloudless blue and watched another flock of geese. Lucky bastards. Maybe he was getting old and tired. Maybe he was simply ready for that fantasy retirement of endless days fishing off the banks of the Connecticut River with a cooler full of Budweiser and a couple of smoked turkey sandwiches with salami and provolone. Yeah, a sandwich, but not just any sandwich. One with the works from Vinny’s Deli, wrapped all neat and tight in that white paper that Vinny used. He could go for one now.

He glanced at the barrel again. The flies were sneaking under the tarp, their buzzing amplified instead of muffled. Goddamn vultures. They’d be swarming the moist areas and taking up residence before the M.E. arrived. Nothing worse than flies and their fucking offspring maggots. He’d seen the damage they could do in a matter of hours. Disgusting. And here he was thinking about Vinny’s sandwiches. Well, hell, it took a lot for him to lose his appetite.

His wife, Rosie, would say it was because he had become “jaded.” Jesus! She actually talked like that, using words like jaded. Henry claimed instead that he was simply pissed dry, burned out. This short stint as New Haven County’s sheriff was supposed to help him make some sort of transition. It was supposed to help him ease his way from the head-banging stress of New York to the laid-back routine of Connecticut to finally the peace and quiet of retirement.

But this. No, he hadn’t signed up for this. He didn’t want or need a messy unsolved murder to screw up his reputation.

How the hell were he and Rosie going to retire here if he had to listen to the stories, the second-guessing, the snickers behind his back?

He glanced at Arliss again. The goddamn idiot had some crime-scene tape stuck to the bottom of his shoe, a stream of it following him like toilet paper and fucking Arliss completely unaware.

No, this was definitely not the way he wanted to end his career.




CHAPTER 5


R. J. Tully watched O’Dell sort through some file folders stacked on her desk.

“So much for vacation,” she said, her good mood put on hold.

He thought her mood had changed because of the phone call from Dr. Patterson, but O’Dell seemed to be ignoring the fax machine behind her as it spit out page after page of details about Patterson’s missing patient. Instead of retrieving and examining those pages, O’Dell was searching for something already lost in her stacks. Perhaps a case she had planned on taking home with her to peruse during those backyard digging breaks. What was one more if she added Dr. Patterson’s?

Tully sank into the overstuffed chair O’Dell had managed to cram into her small but orderly office. It always amazed him. Their offices down in BSU—Behavorial Science Unit—were Cracker Jack boxes, yet hers included neatly stacked bookcases—not one errant hardcover squashed on top. Now that he had a closer look, he could see they were categorized. And alphabetized.

His office, on the other hand, looked like a storage closet with stacks of files and books and magazines—not necessarily each in separate piles—on his shelves, on his desk and guest chair and even on the floor. Some days he was lucky to find a path to his desk. And underneath his desk was a whole other matter. That’s where he kept a duffel bag of running shoes, shorts and socks, some of which—especially the dirty ones—never managed to stay put in the bag. Now that he thought about it, maybe that was the mysterious smell that had recently begun to take over the room. He missed having a window in his office. In Cleveland he had left behind a corner office on the third floor in exchange for a Cracker Jack box three floors underground. He missed the fresh air, especially this time of year. Fall used to be his favorite season. Used to be. Back before the divorce.

Funny, but that was how he kept track of time these days—before the divorce and after the divorce. Before the divorce he had been much more organized. Or at least he hadn’t been such a mess. Since his transfer to Quantico he hadn’t been able to get back on track. No, that wasn’t true. It had little to do with the move. Ever since his divorce from Caroline his life had been a mess. Yes, it was the divorce that had caused this nosedive, this spiral into disorganization. Maybe that’s what bothered him right now about O’Dell’s attitude. She really seemed to be taking this finalization of her divorce as a form of liberation. Maybe he envied her just a little.

He waited while O’Dell continued her search, still ignoring the wheeze of the fax machine. He wanted to say something to retrieve her good mood, something like, “What? No color-coded filing system?” But before he could say it he noticed the files she had pulled out of the stack all had red tabs. He rubbed at the beginning of a smile. For as predictable as his partner was, why couldn’t he figure out what the hell she was up to most of the time? Like, for instance, how long did she intend to taunt him with that last doughnut? She had brought it down from the cafeteria with her, still wrapped in cellophane, untouched and now sitting on the corner of her desk—yes, sitting on the edge of her desk, tempting him.

Finally she slipped the file folders into her briefcase and turned to collect the faxed pages. “Her name is Joan Begley,” O’Dell said, looking over the information as she put the pages in order. “She’s been a patient of Gwen’s for more than ten years.”

Gwen. Tully still hadn’t allowed himself to call her by her first name. To him she was Dr. Gwen Patterson, D.C. psychologist, best friend to his partner and sometimes consultant to the FBI and their boss, Assistant Director Cunningham. Usually the woman drove Tully a little nuts with her arrogant, know-it-all psychobabble. It didn’t help matters that she had strawberry-blond hair and nice legs.

He and Dr. Patterson had gotten carried away on a case last November. Exchanged a kiss. No, it was more than that. It was … it didn’t matter. They had decided it was a mistake. They had agreed to forget about it. O’Dell was looking at him as if expecting an answer, and only then did Tully realize he must have missed a question. Patterson’s fault.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“She was up in Connecticut for her grandmother’s funeral and no one’s seen or heard from her since late Saturday.”

“Seems odd that Dr. Patterson would be so concerned about a patient. Is there a personal connection?”

“Now, Agent Tully, it would be highly unprofessional of me to ask Dr. Patterson that question.” She looked up at him and smiled, which didn’t prevent him from rolling his eyes at her. O’Dell might be organized, but when it came to protocol and procedure or sometimes even common courtesy, she conveniently forgot to look at whose toes she might be stepping on. “Actually, just between the two of us, I think it’s a bit odd, too.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I told her I’d check it out, so I guess I’ll check it out.” But O’Dell sounded nonchalant about it. “Do you know any law enforcement officers in Connecticut I could call?” she asked him, her attention already on another red-tabbed file folder she had missed on her desk. She picked it up, opened it for a quick glance, then added it to her briefcase.

“Where in Connecticut?”

“Let’s see. I know she told me.” O’Dell had to flip through the faxed pages, and Tully wondered why she didn’t remember the basic details from the phone call. Or was her mind simply already focused on her backyard retreat? Somehow he doubted that. His bet was that she was focused on the contents of those red-tabbed file folders, stuffed safely in her briefcase. “Here it is,” she finally said. “She was staying in Meriden, but the funeral was in Wallingford.”

“Wallingford?”

O’Dell double-checked. “Yes. Do you know anyone?”

“No, but I’ve been through that area. It’s beautiful. You know who might be able to tell you who to call? Our buddy Detective Racine is from there.”

“Our buddy? I think if you know where she’s from, she’s your buddy.”

“Come on, O’Dell, I thought you two made nice … or at least called a truce.” The D.C. detective and O’Dell clashed like night and day, but on a case almost a year ago, Julia Racine ended up saving O’Dell’s mother. Whatever their differences, the two women now seemed to have what he’d call a healthy tolerance of each other.

“You know my mother has lunch with Racine once a month?”

“Really? That’s nice.”

“I don’t even have lunch with my mother once a month.”

“Maybe you should.”

O’Dell frowned at him and went back to the faxed pages. “I suppose I could just call the field office.”

Tully shook his head. For a smart woman his partner could be annoyingly stubborn.

“So what was this Begley woman seeing Dr. Patterson for?”

O’Dell looked at him over the faxed pages. “You know Gwen can’t tell me that. Patient confidentiality.”

“It might help to know how kooky she is.”

“Kooky?” Another frown. He hated when she did that, especially when it made him feel like he was being unprofessional, even when she was right.

“You know what I mean. It could help to know what she’s capable of doing. Like, for instance, is she suicidal?”

“Gwen seemed concerned that she may have gotten involved with a man. Someone she met up there. And that she might actually be in some danger.”

“She was there for how long?”

O’Dell shuffled through the pages. “She left the District last Monday, so it’s been a week.”

“How did she get involved with a man in less than a week? And you said she was there for a funeral? Who meets someone at a funeral? I can’t even pick up a woman at the Laundromat.”

She smiled at him, quite an accomplishment. O’Dell hardly ever smiled at his attempts at humor. Which meant the good mood lurked close to the surface.

“Let me know if you need any help, okay?” he offered, and now she looked at him with suspicion and he wondered, not for the first time, if Dr. Patterson had confided in O’Dell about their Boston tryst. Geez, tryst wasn’t right. That made it sound … tawdry. Tawdry wasn’t right, either. That made it sound … O’Dell was smiling at him again. “What?”

“Nothing.”

He got up to leave. Wanting her to believe his offer had been genuine, he added, “I’m serious, O’Dell. Let me know if you need any help. I mean with any of your cases, not with the backyard digging. Bad knee, remember?” “Thanks,” she said, but there was still a bit of a smile. Oh, yeah, she knew. She knew something.




CHAPTER 6


Wallingford, Connecticut

Lillian Hobbs loved her Mondays. It was the one time she left Rosie alone during the busy rush hours, steaming milk for lattes, collecting sticky quarters for cheese Danishes and the New York Times. Not a problem. According to Rosie, the busier, the better. After all, it had been Rosie’s idea to add a coffee bar to their little bookstore.

“It’ll bring in business,” Rosie had promised. “Foot traffic we might not get otherwise.”

Foot traffic was just the thing Lillian had dreaded. And so at first she had revolted. Well, maybe revolted was too strong a word. Lillian Hobbs had never really revolted against anything in her forty-six years of life. She simply hadn’t seen the wisdom in Rosie’s side enterprise. In fact, she worried that the coffee bar would be a distraction. That it would bring in the gossipmongers who would rather make up their own stories than purchase one off their shelves.

But Rosie had been right. Again. The coffee crowd had been good for business. It wasn’t just that they cleaned them out of the daily New York Times and USA TODAY. There were the magazine sales, and the occasional paperbacks that got picked up on impulse. Soon the regular coffee drinkers—even the mocha lattes with extra whipped cream and the espresso addicts—were browsing the shelves and wandering back into the store after work and on the weekends. Sometimes bringing their families or their friends. Okay, so foot traffic hadn’t been such a bad thing, after all.

Yes, Rosie had been right.

Actually, Lillian didn’t mind admitting that. She knew Rosie was the one with a head for business. Business was Rosie’s forte and books were Lillian’s. That’s why they made such excellent partners. She didn’t even mind Rosie rubbing her nose in it every once in a while. How could she mind when she was allowed to revel in her own passion every single day of the week? But Mondays were the best, like having Christmas once a week. Christmas sitting in a crammed, dark storage room, soothed by her cup of hazelnut coffee and armed with a box cutter.

Opening each box was like ripping into a precious gift. At least that’s what it felt like for Lillian, opening each new shipment of books, pushing back the cardboard flaps and taking in that aroma of ink and paper and binding that could so easily transport her to a whole different world. Whether it was a shipment of eighteenth-century history books or a boxful of Harlequin romances or the latest NewYork Times bestseller, it didn’t matter. She simply loved the feel, the smell, the sight of a box of books. What could be more heavenly?

Except that this Monday the stacks of ready and waiting cartons couldn’t keep Lillian’s mind from wandering. Roy Morgan, who owned the antique store next door, had raced in about an hour ago, breathless, ranting and raving and talking crazy. With his face flushed red—Lillian had noticed even his earlobes had been blazing—and his eyes wild, Roy looked as though he would have a stroke. Either that, or he was having a mental breakdown. Only Roy was probably the sanest person Lillian knew.

He kept stumbling over his words, too. Talking too fast and too choppy. Like a man panicked or in a frenzy. Yes, like a man who was losing his mind. And what he was saying certainly sounded like he had gone mad.

“A woman in a barrel,” he said more than once. “They found her stuffed in a barrel. A fifty-five-gallon drum. Just east of McKenzie Reservoir. Buried under a pile of brownstone in the old McCarty rock quarry.”

It sounded like something out of a suspense thriller. Something only Patricia Cornwell or Jeffery Deaver would create.

“Lillian,” Rosie called from the door of the storage room, making Lillian jump. “They have something on the news. Come see.”

She came out to find them all crowded around a thirteen-inch TV set that she had never seen before. Someone had slid it in between the display of pastries and the napkin dispenser. Even Rosie’s coveted antique jar that she used for the pink packages of Sweet’n Low had been shoved aside. As soon as Lillian saw the TV, she knew. First a coffee bar, now a TV. She knew that whatever was happening would change everything. Not for the better. She could feel it, like a storm brewing. Could feel it coming on like when she was a child, and she had been able to predict her mother’s temper tantrums before they started.

On the small TV screen she saw Calvin Vargus, her brother’s business partner, standing in front of the petite news reporter. Calvin looked like a plaid railroad tie, solid and stiff and bulky but with a silly boyish grin as if he had discovered some hidden treasure.

Lillian listened to Calvin Vargus describe—although they were getting his bleeped version—how his machine had dug up the barrel out of the rocks.

“I dropped it. Bam! Just like that. And its (bleep) lid sort of popped off when it hit the ground. And (bleep) if it wasn’t a (bleep bleep) dead body.”

Lillian checked the huddled crowd—about a dozen of their regulars—and looked for her brother. Had he come in yet for his daily bear claw and glass of milk? And his opportunity to complain about today’s aches and pains. Sometimes it was his back, other times it was the bursitis in his shoulder or his ultrasensitive stomach. She wondered what he would think about his partner’s discovery.

Finally, she saw Walter Hobbs sipping his milk as he sat at the end of the counter, three empty stools away from the frenzy. Lillian took the long way around and sat on the stool next to him. He glanced at her and went back to his copy of Newsweek opened in front of him, more interested in the headlines about dead Al Qaeda members found a world away than the dead body in their own backyard.

Without looking up at her and without waiting for her question, Walter Hobbs shook his head and mumbled, “Why the hell couldn’t he have stayed away and left that fucking quarry alone?”




CHAPTER 7


Luc Racine felt sick to his stomach. And embarrassed—because the dead body hadn’t made him as nauseated as the TV camera did. He had been fine before they turned the camera on him, before the girl reporter had simply asked him questions. He had been more fascinated by the way her eyes bulged behind the thick glasses. Huge and blue, they reminded him of some exotic fish eyes stuck behind a glass tank. But then the glasses came off and the camera went on and it was pointed right at him, right at him like a high-powered rifle sight.

The girl reporter’s questions came faster now. Already he couldn’t remember her name, though she had just introduced herself to the camera lens. Maybe it was Jennifer … or Jessica … no, it was Jennifer. Maybe. He needed to pay closer attention. He couldn’t think and answer as fast as she could ask. And if he didn’t answer quick enough, would she turn her attention to Calvin again?

“I live right over there,” Luc told her, his arm waving high over his shoulder. “And no, I didn’t smell anything unusual,” he added, almost spitting on her. “Not a thing.” She stared at him instead of asking another question. Oh, crap! He had spit on her. He could see it—a little glistening spot on her forehead. “The trees sorta block this area off.” He waved again in the other direction. Maybe she hadn’t noticed the spit. Why did his arm go up so high? “All this area is very secluded.”

“Very remote,” Calvin said, and Luc glanced at him in time to catch the scowl meant especially for Luc, though hidden from the camera by the girl reporter’s back.

But Calvin’s comment caught her attention and now she was turning in his direction again, reaching the microphone up to him. It was a stretch. Calvin Vargus stood well over six feet. Earlier inside the big earthmoving machine, Luc thought Calvin looked like part of the machine—thick, heavy, strong and durable like a giant chunk of steel. Yeah, a chunk of metal with few defining marks, like a neck or waist.

She looked like a dwarf next to Calvin, practically standing on tiptoes to reach the microphone up to his fleshy lips, but content to give Calvin her full attention now, despite his earlier colorful description of the morning’s discovery. Of course she preferred Calvin’s version, especially since he would only say it and not spray it. Who wouldn’t prefer a giant no-neck to an arm-waving spitter?

Luc watched. What else could he do? He’d had his chance and he blew it. And this wasn’t even his first time. He had been on TV before. Once during the anthrax scare. A woman on his route had gotten sick, and Luc had delivered the letter. For a week they closed down the postal station in Wallingford, tested all facilities and grilled the carriers about precautions they should take. Luc had been interviewed on TV, though he hadn’t been allowed to say much. That woman died. What was her name? How long ago was that? Last year? The year before? Certainly it hadn’t been long enough ago that he couldn’t remember her name.

Now he would be on TV again because some other woman was dead. And he didn’t know her name, either. He looked back. They were a safe distance from the crime-scene tape and the deputy who screamed at them anytime they ventured an inch or two closer. Yet Luc could still see the barrel toppled over, its side dented in. One big chunk of brownstone kept it from rolling down the pile of rocks. A blue plastic tarp now covered her, but he could still see the image of that gray-blue arm flung out of the barrel, protruding halfway, as if the body were trying to crawl out. That was all he had been able to see—all he needed to see—that arm and a hunk of matted hair.

Luc felt a nudge at the back of his leg and, without looking, he reached down for the dog to lick his hand. Only there was no lick. He glanced at Scrapple, who immediately went into his defensive stance, gripping harder on the prize he had brought to show his owner. Another bone. Luc ignored him, and his attention went back to the excitement beyond the trees.

Suddenly, it hit Luc. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He looked back at the dog working his paws to hold his large treat as he chewed on the fleshy end and tried to get his teeth around the perimeter. Luc’s knees went weak.

“Holy crap, Scrapple. Where in the world did you get that?” he said to the Jack Russell, but now everyone around him went silent as they twisted and turned to see.

Luc glanced at the girl reporter and asked, “You think that’s what it looks like?”

Instead of answering—or as if confirming it—she began vomiting on Calvin Vargus’s size-thirteen boots. Her hand went up to block the camera and in between gags she yelled, “Shut it off. For God’s sake, shut off the camera.”




CHAPTER 8


Sheriff Henry Watermeier didn’t need a forensic expert to tell him what he was looking at. The larger bone Luc Racine held out to him had enough tissue to keep the smaller bones attached. And although some of the smaller bones were missing and the flesh was now black and deteriorated, there was no question as to what the Jack Russell terrier had dug up. What Luc Racine held out in shaking hands—his palms faceup as if making an offering—was definitely a human foot.

“Where the hell did he find it?”

“Don’t know,” Luc said, stepping closer, his eyes never leaving Henry’s as if willing himself not to look at the dog’s discovery any more than necessary. “He brought it to me. But I don’t know where he found it.”

Henry waved over one of the mobile-crime guys, a tall, skinny Asian man with a name tag reading “Carl” on his blue uniform. He reminded himself that it wasn’t a bad thing he didn’t know all the mobile-crime guys by name, even if they were from up the road at Meriden’s Police Crime Lab. Just meant the really sick bastards were committing their crimes somewhere outside the boundaries of New Haven County. For the second time today, Henry found himself hoping this sick bastard didn’t seriously fuck up his own retirement plans. He had come this far with a perfect record—no unsolved mysteries during his reign—and he’d sure as hell like to keep it that way.

“That didn’t fall out of the barrel, did it?” Carl asked as he shook open a paper evidence bag, then held it under Luc’s outstretched hands, positioning it for Luc to drop the bones into the bag.

But Luc, who had seemed anxious to get rid of the thing, now only stared at Henry. He nodded at Luc to put it into the bag, and like a sleepwalker waking suddenly, Luc jerked—almost as if snapping back to reality—and he dropped the bone.

Henry kept an eye on him, studying him. Luc Racine had been one of the first people Henry had met when he and Rosie moved here. Hell, everyone knew Luc. He was the best, friendliest postal carrier in the area, making it a habit to remember his customers by name. Henry remembered a package that Luc had delivered when Henry wasn’t home, wrapping it in plastic and leaving it on Henry’s front portico with a note explaining that it had looked like rain. That wasn’t so long ago, and now Luc Racine had taken early retirement. Word was he had early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.

How was that possible? The man looked younger than Henry. Though his hair was silver-gray, he had a full head of it, not like Henry’s, which seemed to get thinner and thinner and receded away from his forehead more each day. Racine looked fit and trim, too, arms tanned and twisted with muscles from lifting and carrying years’ worth of junk mail. Although Henry had a bit of a paunch around the middle, he prided himself on the fact that he could still fit into his NYPD police uniform that he had worn … God, had it been thirty-some years ago?

As Henry assessed the man standing in front of him, he couldn’t help thinking that Luc Racine appeared the picture of health for a man in his sixties. Except for that blank stare, the one that came out of nowhere. The one staring back at him right now that looked lost, gone, miles away.

“I think there are others,” Luc said, reaching under his trademark black beret and scratching his head, his fingers digging into the shaggy hair as if penetrating his scalp would help him remember.

“Others?” Henry checked Luc’s eyes. Was this part of the disease? What was he talking about? Did he forget where he was? Did he forget what had just happened? “Other what?”

“Bones,” Luc said. “I think ole Scrap maybe brought me some others. He’s always bringing me stuff, scraps, bones, old shoes. But the bones … I just thought he found leftovers from the coyotes’ kill. You know, from down by the pond.”

“Do you still have any of them?”

“I don’t.”

“Damn.”

“But Scrapple probably does. I’m sure he’s got some of them buried around our place somewhere.”

“We’ll need to look. You don’t mind us doing that, do you, Luc?”

“No, no. Not at all. Do you think the bones belong to that lady in the barrel?”

Before Henry could answer, one of his deputies, Charlie Newhouse, yelled for everyone’s attention. Charlie and two of the crime lab guys had been trying to carefully lift the barrel with the woman still inside down off the rocks. All the photos had been taken, the evidence gathered, and the assistant M.E. had made his initial examination. It was time for the transport, but Charlie seemed all excited about something. Charlie Newhouse, the one guy Henry remembered never getting excited except after a few beers and then only when the Yankees managed to make a triple play.

“Okay, you got our attention.” Henry joined the others and looked up at Charlie, putting his hand to his forehead to block out the sun. “What the hell is it, Charlie?”

“Might not mean a thing, Sheriff,” Charlie said, securing his balance as he paced from rock to rock, looking down into the pile as if trying to locate lost change. He then squatted to get a better look. “Might not mean a thing at all, but there’re more barrels under here. And something sure smells to high heaven.”




CHAPTER 9


Adam Bonzado shoved aside Tom Clancy with one hand while he maneuvered the winding road with the other, twisting and pulling at the stubborn and cracked vinyl steering wheel. At each incline the old El Camino pickup groaned as if there were another gear it needed to be shifted into. Adam stirred up the pile of cassettes strewn across the passenger seat, the pile that somewhere included the other three cassettes for Tom Clancy’s Red Rabbit. He searched with stray glances for something else, something that fit his mood. All he knew was that Clancy wasn’t going to cut it. Not today.

Sheriff Henry Watermeier had sounded strained, maybe even a bit panicked. Not that Adam knew Henry all that well. They had worked a case last winter. A skull found under an old building that was being demolished in downtown Meriden. All Adam could determine was that it was a small Caucasian man older than forty-two but younger than seventy-seven who had died about twenty-five to thirty years ago. It was difficult to tell with only the skull. The body must have been buried somewhere else. With all their digging, they had found nothing more, and so, the time of death had been a major guess, based more on architectural facts than archeological ones. Despite the lack of evidence, Watermeier seemed convinced it had been a mob hit.

Adam smiled at the idea. He couldn’t imagine the mob operating in the middle of Connecticut, although Watermeier had quickly filled him in with a couple of tall tales. Or at least that’s what they sounded like to Adam, who had grown up in Brooklyn and figured he knew a little something about mob hits. But he also knew Henry Watermeier had begun his career as a New York City beat cop, so maybe ole Henry knew a thing about mob hits, too.

Adam Bonzado couldn’t help wondering if that was what they had on their hands this time. Dead bodies stuffed in rusted fifty-five-gallon drums and then buried under several tons of brownstone in a deserted rock quarry sounded like something the mob might come up with. But if there were bones scattered around the area, as Henry reported, somebody didn’t do a very good job of disposing of the victims. The mob wasn’t usually that careless.

Adam reached for the cassette caught between the door and the seat. He read the spine. Perfect. His fingers fumbled with the plastic container. He slowed down to wind around another S in the road as he pried open and freed the Dixie Chicks from their confinement. Then he gave them a gentle shove into the cassette drive and cranked up the volume.

Yes, this was exactly what he was in the mood for. Something upbeat to get the feet tapping and the blood flowing. He couldn’t help it. Digging up bones got him excited. Pumped up his adrenaline. There was no better puzzle. Sure, he enjoyed teaching, but that was only to make a living. This—dead bodies in barrels and scattered bones—this was what he lived for.

Unfortunately, after ten years, his parents still didn’t get it. He had a Ph.D. in forensic anthropology, was a professor and department head at the University of New Haven, and his mother still introduced him as her youngest son who was single and could play the concertina, as if those two things were his most admirable characteristics. He shook his head. When would it no longer matter? He was a grown man. He shouldn’t care what his parents thought. The fact that he cared—no, not cared but worried about what they thought—he could even track back to their influence. For Adam Bonzado knew he had inherited his quiet, rebellious spirit from his Spanish father and his stubborn pride from his mother’s ancestral Polish blood.

After creeping up the S in the road, it was time to come back down, and the old pickup flew. Adam didn’t brake. Instead, he sat back and enjoyed the roller-coaster ride, working the rigid steering wheel, twisting, turning and pulling to the sexy rhythm of the Dixie Chicks. The intersection appeared suddenly. Adam slammed on the brakes. The pickup came skidding to a halt inches in front of the stop sign and seconds before a UPS truck rolled through.

“Crap! That was close.”

His hands were fisted, his fingers red and still gripping the steering wheel. But the UPS driver simply waved, full hand, no choice fingers extended, no lips moving to the tune of “fuck you.” Maybe the guy simply hadn’t realized how close Adam had come to plowing into him. He reached over as an afterthought and turned down the volume on the Dixie Chicks. As he did so, he noticed the metal pry bar that had slid out from under the passenger seat.

Adam checked his rearview mirror to make sure he wasn’t holding up traffic, then he leaned down, grabbed the pry bar, slid open the rear window and tossed the tool into the enclosed pickup bed. It clanked against the lining and he cringed, hoping he hadn’t cracked the makeshift shell he’d just installed. It was a tough, waffle-weave polyurethane that was supposed to be easy to clean and would protect the bed from rust and corrosion, no matter how much mud and bones and blood he stuffed back there. It was just another measure he took to keep his pickup from becoming a smelly mobile morgue.

He checked the floor for more tools. He needed to remind his students to put their tools back whenever they borrowed his pickup. Maybe he shouldn’t complain. At least the pry bar was clean. That was a start.




CHAPTER 10


Maggie juggled her briefcase in one hand, a pile of mail under her arm and a can of Diet Pepsi and a rawhide chew bone in the other hand as she followed Harvey out onto their patio. Harvey had convinced her as soon as she walked in the front door that they should spend their first afternoon of vacation in the backyard.

She had only planned on making a brief visit to her office at Quantico to finish up some paperwork. She’d had no intentions of bringing work home with her. Now, as she unloaded the files from her briefcase onto the wrought-iron patio table, she wished she had left these back on her desk, hidden under the stacks where they had been for the last several months.

She watched Harvey, nose to the ground, doing his routine patrol of the fence line. Her huge two-story, brick Tudor house sat on almost two acres, protected by the best electronic security system money could buy, as well as by a natural barrier of pine trees that made it difficult to see even her neighbors’ roofs. Yet the white Labrador went into guard duty every time they stepped out of the house, not able to relax or play until he checked out every inch.

He had been this way ever since Maggie adopted him. Okay, adopted wasn’t quite right. She had rescued him after his owner had been kidnapped and murdered by serial killer Albert Stucky, targeted only because she happened to be Maggie’s new neighbor. Of course, Maggie had rescued poor Harvey. How could she not? And yet, the ironic part was that Harvey had rescued her, too, giving her a reason to come home every evening, teaching her about unconditional love, forgiveness and loyalty. Lessons she had missed out on growing up with an alcoholic, suicidal mother. Important qualities that had also been missing from her marriage to Greg.

Harvey was at her side now, having performed his routine patrol and nudging her hand for his reward. She scratched behind his ears and his big head lolled to the side, leaning against her. She gave him the rawhide chew bone and he pranced off, flopping himself down into the grass, monster paws holding the bone as he chewed while he kept one ear perched, listening, and his eyes on Maggie. She shook her head and smiled. What more could a girl want? Loyalty, affection, admiration and constant protection. And Tully wondered why she was content to have her divorce settlement over with, behind her. In ten years of marriage she had never felt any of those things with Greg.

Maggie grabbed the file folders, hesitating and glancing at the can of Diet Pepsi. She hadn’t gone through these before without a glass of Scotch in hand. There was a bottle in the cabinet, the seal unbroken. It was supposed to be there only as proof that she didn’t need it. Proof that she wasn’t like her mother. It was supposed to be proof, not temptation. She caught herself licking her lips, thinking one short drink wouldn’t matter. She wouldn’t have it neat. It could be on the rocks, watered down, hardly a drink at all. It would take the edge off, help her to relax.

Just then she realized she had bent the corner of the first file folder. Bent it, hell, she had mutilated it into an accordion fold. This was ridiculous. She grabbed the Diet Pepsi, took a long gulp and opened the folder.

It had been a while since she had sorted through these papers. She had added to them, piece by piece, but avoided sitting down to review all the information. She had treated this profile—she had treated him—like a project. No, she had treated him like one of her cases, even leaving the folders stacked on her desk alongside profiles of serial killers, rapists and terrorists. Maybe it was the only way she could deal with his existence. Maybe it was because she didn’t want to believe he really did exist.

In the collection of documents, articles and downloaded records there wasn’t a single photo. She probably could have found one, had she tried. All she would have had to do was send for a high school yearbook or request a copy of his driver’s license. Certainly someone in the Wisconsin Department of Motor Vehicles would have accommodated her, especially with a simple mention of her FBI badge number. But she hadn’t done any of those things. Maybe because seeing a photo would have made him too real.

Maggie found the envelope her mother had given her last December, the envelope that had started all this … this spiral … this … whatever this was. Last year, when she first learned that she had a brother, she immediately thought her mother had been lying, that it was another drunken ploy, another way to punish Maggie for loving and missing her father so much. And why wouldn’t she believe her mother capable of such cruelty? Maggie had been raised with a double dose of Kathleen O’Dell’s punishments. Even the woman’s failed suicide attempts felt as if she had been lashing out at Maggie, punishing her. So when her mother, in a fit of anger, told Maggie that her father had been having an affair right up until the night he died, Maggie had refused to believe it. That was until she gave her this envelope.

She opened the envelope the way she had so many times before and carefully pulled out the single index card inside, handling it like fragile material, touching it only by the corner. She stared at her mother’s handwriting, the cute curlicues and circles above the “i’s.” He had been named for Maggie’s uncle, her father’s only brother, Patrick, whom Maggie had never met, the legendary Patrick who had never come home from Vietnam. It seemed heroism ran in the O’Dell family. The same kind of heroism that had taken Maggie’s father away from her when she was twelve. Heroism that she continued to curse.

She slipped the card back into the envelope. She didn’t need to see it. She had the address memorized by now. And though her mother had given it to her almost a year ago, Maggie’s current research indicated that it was still accurate. He was still in West Haven, Connecticut, only twenty-five miles away from where Gwen’s patient had gone missing.

Her cellular phone started ringing, startling her and making Harvey leave his bone to come sit in front of her. Habit, she supposed. To Harvey, the phone ringing usually meant Maggie would need to be leaving him.

“Maggie O’Dell,” she said, wishing she had shut the damn thing off. She was on vacation, after all.

“O’Dell, have you been listening or watching the news?” It was Tully.

“I just got home. I’m on vacation.”

“You might want to check this out. AP is reporting a woman was found dead outside of Wallingford, Connecticut.”

“A homicide?”

“Sounds like it. Early reports say she was found in a quarry, stuffed in a fifty-five-gallon drum and buried under rock.”

“Oh, God. You think it’s Gwen’s patient?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Just weird that it’s the same town. Almost too much of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

Maggie didn’t believe in coincidences, either. But no, it couldn’t be. Tully was jumping to conclusions and so was she. Maybe she was simply feeling guilty, and yet, she wanted to kick herself. She hadn’t taken Gwen seriously this morning. In fact, she hadn’t even called anyone to see if she could track down Joan Begley or file a missing persons report. “Why is it making the news down here?”

“Because it might not be the only body. There might be others. Maybe a dozen more.”

She recognized that tone in Tully’s voice. She could tell that his mind was already working, mulling over the possibilities, another occupational hazard. No, more than an occupational hazard. It was hard to describe, but she could already feel it taking hold of her. It was like an itch, a drive, an obsession. Like Tully, her mind sorted through the possibilities, raising questions and wanting answers. But one nagging question pushed to the forefront. What if one of the bodies was Joan Begley’s?

In all the years Maggie had known Gwen, she had never asked anything of her. Not until now. And instead of doing everything she could, instead of doing anything, Maggie had shrugged off her friend’s panicked request because it had reminded her of someone and someplace she didn’t want to be reminded of.

“Hey, Tully.”

“Yeah?”

She knew he wouldn’t be surprised. Instead he would understand. Why else would he have called to tell her the news? “Do you think you and Emma might be able to take Harvey for a couple of days?”




CHAPTER 11


This was bad. Really bad. How could this have happened?

He rode the brakes. Watched the car in front. He needed to keep his distance. Needed to keep his eyes straight ahead, only allowing quick glances to check the rearview mirror. A monster SUV followed, right on his tail, with two idiots straining their necks to get a better look. But there was nothing to be seen. Too much distance. Too many trees. Nothing could be seen from the road. He knew that and yet he had to force himself to not look. Don’t look.

There had to be a dozen patrol cars. And media vans. How could this have happened? And he hated hearing about it on the news. Hearing it from that anorexic bimbo reporter, sounding so cheerful as she broke the news that the sky was falling.

What the hell was Calvin Vargus thinking? Why did he need to clear that property now? It had been sitting vacant for more than five years. The owner didn’t care about it. He wanted it only for a tax write-off. He didn’t even live around here. Some hotshot attorney from Boston who probably hadn’t seen the place. So why the hell did Vargus suddenly start moving stuff around? Or did he know? Had he suspected something? Had he seen something? Was Vargus trying to destroy him? Did he know? Know? How could he know? Know, know, know—no! Impossible. Not possible. Simply inconceivable. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know.

Breathe. He needed to breathe. He couldn’t breathe. He felt a cold sweat breaking out, and it wasn’t even midnight. The tingle began in his fingers. The chill slid down from his neck to the small of his back. He needed to stop it. Stop, stop, stop it. Stop the panic before it grabbed hold of his stomach.

He fumbled through the duffel bag on the passenger seat, fingers searching while his eyes stayed on the road. The car in front moved too slowly. Heads still turned. Stupid gawkers. What could they see? By now they should know they couldn’t see anything beyond the trees. Assholes! Stupid assholes! Move it, move it, move it!

Already he could feel the nausea. The panic was starting, a cramp deep in his bowel. Soon it would slice across his abdomen, a sharp knife piercing him from the inside out and slowly slitting its way along the same course. His muscles tightened, a stiff reflex to prepare for the pain, the dread, the agony. Sweat slid down his back as his fingers grew more desperate, shoving, clawing, searching.

Finally, his fingers found and grabbed on to the plastic bottle. He wrenched it free from the bottom of the stuffed bag. He fumbled, angry with the shaking in his hands, but still he managed to twist off the child-protective cap while steering. Like a man dying of thirst, he guzzled the white chalky liquid, not bothering to stop at the recommended dose. Once the pain had begun, it was a race to squelch it. He took another swallow just for good measure, wincing at the taste. The stuff made him want to gag, and he would if he thought about it.

Don’t think. Stop thinking.

It was a taste he associated with childhood, with a dark stuffy bedroom, his mother’s cold hand on his forehead and her soft voice cooing, “You’ll feel better soon. I promise.”

He put the cap back on the bottle and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt. He waited. Stared at the road ahead. Stared at the flaming-red taillights of the car in front. Demon red eyes blinking as the idiots inside continued to gawk. He wanted to tap his car horn, but he couldn’t. Couldn’t draw attention to himself. He would need to wait. Stay in line and wait. He needed to stay, stay, stay put.

Maybe it wasn’t Vargus. His mind began racing again. What about the other guy—Racine. Luc Racine. Luc with a “c” was how they had spelled it at the bottom of the TV screen. That name sounded familiar. Had he seen him before? Yes, he was sure that he had. But where? Where, where, where? Where had he seen him before? Had the old man been following him? Was he the one who got Vargus interested? What could the two of them be up to? Had they gone to the quarry digging? Digging for something … or no, digging for someone?

But how? How could they have found out? Vargus was stupid, a brute, but that Racine guy. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he knew something. Luc Racine knew something.

But how? He had been careful. Always very careful. Careful, careful, careful. Yes, he had been careful. Even when he used the equipment, he left everything as he found it. Nobody could know. Yes, he had been careful. Always very careful.

It didn’t matter, though. Not now. He’d never be able to use that old quarry again. Never, never, never. The whole area was crawling with cops and reporters. And here he was, stuck in line, like one of the gawkers. This was worse than the idiots who jammed the roads every fall looking at the trees. And they would be starting up soon, within weeks. Long lines winding the byroads, gawking like they’d never seen leaves turn colors before. Stupid, stupid, stupid idiots. But he pretended to be one of them. Just this once. Just so he could see the commotion, scope things out, figure out what was going on.

Finally he could turn off, escaping onto a side road. No one followed. They couldn’t. They wouldn’t miss any of the excitement. He made his way up the winding road, and felt the tension in his back ease. But only a little. He still had things to worry about. Things to take care of. He needed to settle down, calm himself. He couldn’t let the panic return. Couldn’t handle the pain. Not now. Not when he needed to think. That panic, that pain could paralyze him if he let it. Couldn’t let it. Couldn’t let it. That pain, the same pain from when he was a kid, could still come out of nowhere, sharp and intense stabs as if he had swallowed a pack of shingling nails or maybe even a fillet knife.

He needed to stop thinking about it. He needed to get to work. How could he work, thinking about this? How could he function? What would he do? What could he do now that he no longer had a safe dumping ground?




CHAPTER 12


Adam Bonzado looked over the bits and pieces the crime-scene tech named Carl had spread out on a plastic tarp. He had already bagged and labeled some according to where they had been found and what he guessed they might be. From his preliminary once-over Adam could already tell the specimens were from at least two different corpses.

“The dog brought this one,” Carl said, pointing to what looked to be a left foot.

Adam picked it up carefully in double-gloved hands and examined it from all angles. Most of the phalanges were gone. The metatarsals and some of the tarsals were held together by what little tissue remained. Even the calcaneus, the heel bone, appeared to be still attached.

“Have you found the rest of the body?”

“Nope. And I doubt if we will. A couple of the barrels look like they rusted through. Coyotes probably helped themselves. There might be pieces scattered all over this county.”

“How much do you need to identify a person?” Sheriff Henry Watermeier asked, looking over the assortment.

“Depends on a lot of things. This has some tissue left,” Adam said, handing the foot back to Carl, who placed it in a brown paper sack. “We probably have enough for DNA testing. But it won’t matter if we don’t have anything to match it to.”

“So let me see if I can remember how this works,” Watermeier said in a tone that Adam thought already sounded exhausted. “If a person is missing, we couldn’t test for DNA to see if this is that missing person unless we already had something from that person, like hair samples, to match?”

“Exactly. You can do reverse DNA when you’re looking for someone in particular. We did it to identify some of the World Trade Center victims.”

“What do you mean, reverse DNA?”

“Say a person is missing, but we have nothing of his to match our DNA sample to. We could do a DNA test on one or both parents, and in some cases siblings, to see if there are enough hits. It can be a bit complicated, but it does work.”

“So in other words,” Watermeier said, “we may never know whose fucking foot that is.”

“If we find more parts and identify them as belonging to the same person I might be able to piecemeal a profile. You know, narrow it down to male or female. Maybe give you a ballpark age. That way you have something to check against the missing persons lists.”

“You know how many people go missing every year, Bonzado?”

Adam shrugged. “Yeah, okay, so you’re right. We might not ever know whose fucking foot that is.”

Carl brought several more pieces, some Adam could tell had been buried, absorbing the soil and turning the bone reddish black. He pointed to a small white one. “I don’t think that one’s a bone.”

“No?” Carl picked it up for a closer look. “You sure? It looks like bone.” He handed the piece to Adam.

“There’s an easy way to tell,” Adam told them, and took the piece, lifting it to his mouth and touching it with the tip of his tongue.

“Jesus Christ, Bonzado. What the hell are you doing?”

“Bone, unlike rock, is porous,” Adam explained. “If it’s bone it sticks to your tongue.” He tossed the piece to the ground. “This one’s just a rock.”

“If it’s okay with everyone else,” Carl said, still wincing from Adam’s demonstration, “I’ll just pick up stuff and let you figure it out.”

“Which reminds me—” Adam looked to Watermeier “—you mind if I bring a few of my students to help me sort through some of this stuff?”

“I can’t have you teaching class out here, Bonzado.”

“No, of course not. Come on, give me a break. Just two or three graduate students. Looks like you could use the help. I mean help, real physical help to dig up and bag what might be out here. We’ll only touch what you tell us we can touch. Look, Henry, if Carl’s already gathered up this much crap just from looking on the surface, think what might be buried in the rubble.”

“You got that right.” Watermeier reached under his hat and scratched at thin wisps of graying hair. Adam could see a slight slump of shoulders in the tall sheriff’s normal rod-straight posture.

“How many barrels are there?” Adam asked.

“Don’t know for sure. Could be almost a dozen. I’m having the crime-scene guys go over the area first, take their pictures and pick up stuff. ‘Cause once we start digging out barrels, anything lying around here could get buried or trampled.”

“Makes sense.”

“We’re gonna need one of those fucking earthmovers to get at some of the barrels. And we have to wait for Stolz. He’s testifying up in Hartford, probably won’t be able to get here until tomorrow morning. He had an assistant pick up the first barrel. That was before we realized there were more. Now he says he better be here himself for the rest. I don’t blame him. I’ve asked the state patrol to bring in a few guys to stand guard tonight. That’s all I need, one of these media mongrels sneaking in here. I’m not taking any chances. We’re likely to have the governor up our asses on this one.”

“That bad?”

Watermeier moved in closer to Adam and looked around, making sure the others were out of earshot, “There’re a few barrels with the sides rusted open enough to take a peek inside.”

“And?”

“It doesn’t look good, Bonzado,” Watermeier said in a low voice. “I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve seen some pretty freaky shit over the years. This is one fucking mess.”




CHAPTER 13


Luc Racine stared at the TV. He really liked this show. It was on every night at the same time. Syndicated repeats, but each episode seemed new to him. He couldn’t remember the characters’ names, except the old guy, the father, reminded him of himself. Perhaps only because he had a Jack Russell terrier, too. Eddie—that was the dog’s name. Figures he’d remember the dog’s name.

He looked around the living room, thinking he needed to turn on a light, the TV screen the only illumination in the darkening room. When had it started to get dark? It seemed like he had just sat down for lunch. He hated the dark. Sometimes he worried that he might eventually forget how to turn on the lights. What if he honestly couldn’t figure out how they worked? It had already happened with that box in the kitchen. That thing, that box … that food-warmer thing. Shoot! See, he couldn’t even remember what the damned thing was called.

He reached over and switched on two lamps, glancing around, wishing he knew what had happened to the remote control. He was always misplacing it. Oh well, he liked this show. No need to change the channel. He sat back and watched, absently scratching Scrapple behind the ears. The dog was worn out from their day’s adventure. It was still Monday, wasn’t it?

The phone startled Luc. It always did, only because he received few phone calls. Still, for some reason it was close by, within reach.




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