I swung my duffel to the ground, removed my binoculars, and glassed the kilns. A swarm of flies moved in and out of one area in front of one of the domes. Whatever had attracted them was hidden by the tall grass. I handed the glasses to Wilson.
“There’s something outside the second dome from the left,” I said.
Wilson raised the binoculars.
“Could be an animal,” he said after a moment.
“Could be.” I took the binoculars back and gave the area a final scan but saw nothing else. I replaced the glasses in my bag and hoisted it back onto my shoulder.
“Seek!” I said.
As we moved into the meadow, the place felt empty in a way it had not before. Save for the distant flies, the malevolence was gone as suddenly as if a spell had broken. All of nature seemed to sense it. A flock of starlings swooped in suddenly, settling on a nearby stand of cottonwood trees. A few feet in front of us, a bull snake whipped through the grass and disappeared down a hole.
As we reached the far side of the field, I halted Clyde and the three of us stopped twenty paces away from whatever the flies had been feasting on. Clyde pressed hard against my legs. I gently eased around him and took a few more steps until I could see what had drawn the insects.
A man lay sprawled on his back, his arms and legs flung wide, eyes open and empty toward the heavens. He’d been shot in the gut and left to bleed out, his face a rictus of agony.
He looked to be in his midforties, with closely trimmed blond hair and a strong, angular face, blue eyes turning opaque. He wore blue jeans, a button-down denim shirt, and a rain jacket. Even in death and with a face filled with pain, he looked cruel. The kind of man who kicked dogs and shot squirrels.
“Our killer?” Wilson whispered.
“Gut shot by an eight-year-old?” But I was wondering what kind of weapon had been used in the Davenport killings. “Maybe a security guard.”
“Where’s his uniform and radio?” Wilson frowned. “Nothing says the killer was working alone. Maybe they had an argument.”
I took a quick glance around the open space and the other kilns, at the buildings of the cement factory. I ordered Clyde down; no need to expose us both. Then I said to Wilson, “Keep watch. I’m going closer.”
I heard the scrape of Wilson’s weapon leaving the holster.
As I approached the body, the flies lifted, buzzing angrily. When I was close to the dead man, I slipped my phone out of my pocket and took a few quick shots. I did it without thinking. In Iraq, it had been my job to catalog the dead. Maybe that would never leave me.
As soon as I stepped back, the flies dropped onto the body again.
“Large caliber,” I said to Wilson when we were together again. “GSR and stippling suggests it was at close range.”
His eyes met mine. Both of us no doubt asking ourselves what we were walking into.
Leaving the dead man for now, I again gave Clyde the seek command. He skirted the corpse and went straight to the rutted dirt track. There, he hesitated for the first time since picking up Lucy’s scent at the Lexus. He sampled the air then dropped his nose to the ground. After a moment, he turned back in the direction we’d come, ignoring the body and trotting in a snakelike back-and-forth pattern around the kiln and through the surrounding vegetation. Finally, he returned to the dirt track and lifted his head to again taste the air. Then he looked at me as if to say, “I got nothin’.”
Together, Wilson and I turned north, to where the road curved toward the gate.
“She’s gone,” Wilson said. “He must have had a car stashed and took her away. Maybe you’re right—maybe the dead guy was a security guard. Saw them and tried to help Lucy.”
But I was still watching Clyde. He was moving back along the track, toward the kilns. He had his nose up—whatever he’d caught wasn’t a ground scent.
“Wilson,” I said. “Clyde’s got something.”
We hurried after him. At the farthest kiln, Clyde lowered his head and nosed his way toward the entrance. Just outside the doorway, his ears lifted with an expression of high alert and he lay down. Clyde was trained to detect explosives, contraband, and trespassers. This was his signal that he had something.
“Lucy?” Wilson breathed.
I shook my head. “Something else.”
Wilson and I drew our weapons and placed ourselves on either side of the entrance. I pressed my back against the sun-warmed bricks, listening.
Whether Lucy was dead or alive, I knew that she wasn’t in the kiln. If she had been, Clyde would have gone straight in. But someone or something was in there. Clyde’s behavior was both anxious and supremely confident. Whatever he’d found, he knew I’d be interested.
A trace of cool air wafted out of the kiln, carrying with it a mustiness of soil and old things and—it took me a moment to place it—leather. I strained my ears, but the only sounds were the flies at the body and Wilson’s labored breathing from the other side of the opening.
I slid my flashlight free of its loop on my duty belt, squatted to minimize myself as a target, then leaned into the doorway and shone the light inside.
The beam flicked over a large wooden chair, then a shovel. I sent the beam higher. Beyond the chair, the light picked out words painted on the wall in red, a quote I recognized from my classics class. My breath caught as I read the words and realized the killer had been here.
STRONGER THAN LOVER’S LOVE IS LOVER’S HATE. INCURABLE, IN EACH, THE WOUNDS THEY MAKE.
Euripides, I was pretty sure. Below that was written a single line of alphanumeric code—02XX56XX15XP.
I moved the beam back toward the floor. The large, circular space was pitted with holes, and—neatly arranged on one side of the room—two long forms lay wrapped in heavy plastic. Red paint spattered the inside of the plastic.
I thought, for just a moment, that I was looking at someone’s attempt to make a home. Haul in a little furniture, splash on some cheery red paint.
I flicked my beam over one of the plastic forms and saw a face peering through. Someone had taken a knife to it—there were only sockets where the eyes had been and the nose was split down the middle. The lips had been carved away, creating a morbid grin.
“No!” I shouted, coming to my feet.
Before I could step into the doorway, Clyde came up fast and pushed me back. My arms went up as I struggled for balance and my flashlight flew from my hand and sailed into the room. It landed and spun, the light winking in and out as it rotated, with each gyration shining on a thin line of copper wire running across the door. A wire as thin and delicate as a garrote.
Iraq. Heading one fine morning toward the mess tent as the sun rose. Exhausted and still filthy from the night’s work. My commanding officer, the Sir, beside me, nodding at something I’d said. Something about what I’d found in the pocket of one of the dead. From up ahead came the sound of Usher on someone’s boom box.
Then a deep-throated boom.
The flashlight beam hit the copper wire again. That’s when I noticed the bag on the floor. And the other wires.
“Parnell?” Wilson was saying.