Текст книги "Tin City Tinder"

Автор книги: David Macinnis Gill

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 12 страниц)

“Well, I can’t,” Lamar said flatly. “You’re dismissed from the Allegheny Volunteer Fire Department. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

He walked out, leaving me alone with me thoughts and test samples. Six months ago, men a decade my senior were saluting me. Now, I was dismissed. Dismissed from a podunk fire department in the middle of nowhere North Carolina. I picked up an empty jar and would’ve fired it against the wall if a knock hadn’t interrupted me.

“Spare me, Mom. I’ve had enough lectures for one day.”

“Then I’ll skip the discussion on Newtonian physics.” Cedar swept inside, holding a shopping bag. “How about a snack instead?”

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself.” She looked up at my sample jars. “That’s your Olympiad project? Awesome. Disgusting and disturbing on many levels, but awesome.”

“Sorry, I thought you were—“

“An over-reaching parent who doesn’t know how to land the helicopter? I’ve got two of those myself. Just one of the reasons I’m looking forward to transferring to Carolina.” She took two containers out of the bag. “Hope you like sweet and sour.”

“I like sweet.”

I ran a thumb along her cheek and leaned in for a kiss. As our lips met, I caught a whisper of citrus from her body wash. Wearing no make-up, dressed in only an untucked button-down and jeans, she could make fresh-scrubbed look alluring.

“That was pretty sweet.” Cedar put her head on my shoulder. “Where’s the sour?”

“I save the sour for other people.”

“So I noticed.” She looked up. “What’s been going on? Your folks looked really tense.”

“It all started when Abner decided to take a detour on the way home.” I told her the whole story, including Lamar’s decision to dismiss me.

“That sucks.” Cedar gave me a big hug, which made me grunt with pain, though I wouldn’t admit it. “If it weren’t for you, the body would still be there. Can’t they see that?”

“They have a blind spot when it comes to me. They think I’m still a kid.”

“Well, you’re not. You’re grown man who’s about to enjoy a movie with a nerdy young woman. Where should we sit?”

I motioned to a bench near the horse stalls. “That will work. But there’s no TV out here.”

“Check out my backpack.” She carried our food to the bench. “There’s a laptop, and I have a Netflix account.”

“Are you one of those people who thinks of everything?”

“Not everything,” she said smiling. “But pretty close.”

We spent the rest of the day eating Chinese and chain watching one movie after another, sitting on the bench at first, then snuggled under a blanket in a pile of clean straw.

It was well after dark when we finished the last film. The stars were out when I walked Cedar back to her car, and the moon was a huge ball of light on the horizon, bright enough to cast shadows on the fields.

“Thanks,” Cedar said after I put her on the car hood and softly kissed her goodnight. She still smelled like oranges, while I stank like old boots and hay.

“Thanks for what?”

“For not pushing me.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Just the two of us under a blanket? Nobody watching? Making out during the slow scenes like something from a romantic comedy? It would’ve been really easy for you to ask for more.”

“If we’re being honest.” I held her hands in mine to warm them. “It’s not like I didn’t want to.”

“I know.” She kissed my cheek and slid off the hood. “That’s why it was special.”

I opened her door.

She slid in and started the engine. “Better get some rest. We’ve got a big day tomorrow, and you don’t want to oversleep.”

“I have a feeling,” I said, “that I’m going to rest pretty well tonight.”

“On second thought, I’ll be here at 7AM to pick you up. Don’t make me drag you out of bed.”

“You could never drag me out of bed.” I flashed a grin. “Or push me.”

She put the car in gear. “Step back, before I run over your foot.”

As she pulled out, I did as ordered. When the lights were out of sight, I turned toward the house, where Mom was standing on the porch.

I snapped off a salute.

She watched me for a moment, then went inside.

FRIDAY

1

The next morning in bio lab, Luigi was squinting at the workstation computer screen.

“What happened to your specs?” I asked him while stretching to work out the intense soreness in his ribs.

“Specs?”

“Eyeglasses.”

“They are broken.”

“How did that happen?”

“Ronald Reagan broke them with a plastic bat.”

Ronald Reagan, aka, Dewayne Loach, was sitting in his usual spot on the opposite side of the classroom.

“You have a backup pair, right?” I asked. “Your mother would never let you travel six thousand miles with only one pair of glasses.”

“Hai, hai.” He leaned into the screen and sucked in air. I wasn’t the only one with sore ribs. “I have an up back.”

“Back up. Where are they?”

“I prefer not to wear them.”

“Why?”

“I believe the term for them is Coke bottles. How will I win Gretchen Nunzi’s heart if I look like a gobber?”

“You mean goober.”

“That, too.”

“Move over then,” I pushed Luigi out of the chair and took the seat himself. “I’m taking the comm, captain. I’m not such a great writer, but I’m faster than a half-blind Japanese guy typing in his second language.”

“Third language.”

“What’s your second language?”

“Australian.”

“Very funny.”

Luigi laughed. “Got you. Spanish is my second language. It is very unusual in Japan. English. Mandarin, and Russian, these are common languages in our schools.”

“Why take Spanish, then?”

“Because it is so uncommon. A Japanese man who can speak English and Spanish can do well in the Western Hemisphere, no?”

“Hang on to that thought while I clean up these data tables. Did Cedar do this? She calculated to wrong decimal point.”

“I will tell her.”

“Stow that,” I said. “Never tell Cedar her math is wrong.”

Luigi didn’t answer. He had drifted away to talk to Dr. K. He said something about needing some advice for his research project, and she whisked him over to confer with Gretchen.

“Hi,” came two voices in tandem behind him.

I saw the girls’ faces reflected in the computer monitor.“I’ll be finished with the machine in about ten minutes,” I said.

“No, silly, we wanted to talk to you. You’re the guy that like found the dead woman, right? That was totally cool.”

I spun around. They both had blue eyes and wore thick mascara.

“I’m Britney.”

“I’m Heather.”

“I’m Boone.”

“We know.” Heather giggled. “The whole town’s talking about how you found that dead woman. Are you like a fireman or something?”

“I’m a firefighter.”

“Cool.” Britney twirled a sprig of blonde hair around her finger. “Everybody says the body was like a really big roasted marshmallow.”

I was starting to see Mom’s point about treating the dead with dignity. “No, it wasn’t like that all. Human remains don’t just melt like a marshmallow.”

“Cool,” Heather said. “Anybody tell you that you’re totally hot?

“Only when I’m putting out fires.”

“Huh?” Britney said.

“But you make fireman stuff totally like interesting and stuff.” Heather pulled up a chair and wiggled close to me. “What else can you teach us?”

“Were you really in the hospital?” Britney said. “Some kids said you almost died from breathing smoke.”

“Smoke kill a trained firefighter?” I said. “Not likely.”

“Maybe smoke can’t.” Cedar’s arms were crossed. She was giving the girls a look hot enough to fry bacon. “But I can think of a few other things that could.”

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey yourself,” Cedar said. “Heather, Britney, don’t y’all have somebody else to do?”

“You mean something else to do,” Heather said.

“I said it right the first time.”

“Huh?” Britney said.

“Come on, Brit.” Heather grabbed her friend. “Looks like this cat’s got her claws out.”

I watched them go for a second, then turned back to Cedar. “Hey. Didn’t know you were here. Lucky for me you came along.”

“Lucky?” She folded her arms. Her mouth was a straight, flat line of fury. “Is that the word for it?”

“You don’t think I’d go for that?” I pointed at the two other girls. “I’m not interested in their kind of lucky.”

Cedar was about to say something else when Dr. K called her over.

“Can you give me a hand, please?” the professor said.

“Don’t think this gets you off the hook, mister. Coming, Dr. K!”

"Off the hook for what?" I turned back to Luigi’s document. Another face appeared in the monitor.

“Yeah, you’re lucky,” Dewayne Loach said. “Lucky my brother pulled your ass out of a burning building. But did you thank him? No, all you do is act like you’re the big hero and treat him like a piece of crap.”

“He didn’t rescue me,” I said. “He was too big of a coward to help with the rescue.”

“What rescue? She’s dead, ain’t she? You call that a rescue?”

“Know what I call it?” I rose from the computer chair. “I call it murder.”

Murder.

The word murmured through the lab.

The sound caught Dr. K’s attention. She lifted her head from the catalog she was showing Cedar. “Back to work, people. Those lab reports aren’t going to write themselves.”

Dewayne wasn’t listening. He bumped his chest into my ribs and grinned when I winced. “Careful what you say. Might come back to bite you in the ass.”

“The thought of your teeth near my ass is very scary.”

“I’m promising you, Childress. You want to risk your life for some old Mexican, go ahead on. But don’t be stupid enough to get on my brother’s bad side.”

The bell rang to end class. Dewayne was one of the first out the door. He gave me the finger as a parting gift.

“What was that all about?” Cedar said.

“Unfinished business.” The pager clipped to my belt went off. “Hang on a sec.”

A message from dispatch: A fire on the other side of the county near Black Oak Shelter, a United States government-owned stretch of swampland and scrub pines that had been used for munitions testing during the second World War, Korea, and Vietnam. If I weren’t on suspension, I would be running out the door. Now, I had to face the music, and the DJ was pissed.

“Don’t blow me off, Boone,” Cedar said. “What the hell was that all about?”

“Dewayne’s full of shit,” I said. “You know he’s just running his mouth.”

“That’s not the that I meant.” She pointed at Brit and Heather walking down the hallway. “That’s the that I meant!”

“Oh,” I said. “That.”

“Yes, them!”

“Is it them or that?”

She stepped toward me, seething. “Them! The hootchies!”

“That them means nothing to me.”

She punched my chest. “Then why were you flirting with them, jerk face?”

“They were flirting with me.”

“Same thing!”

“Not really.”

“Listen, Boone Childress.” She shook a finger under my nose. “When you’re dating me, you’re dating just me, not flirting with a couple of hootchies. Got that?”

“Who says we’re dating?”

“You did,” Cedar said, “when you kissed me on the lake.”

“Technically, I kissed you on the lips.”

“Don’t try to charm me with semantics, mister. And no flashing those cute dimples. I’m immune to it.”

“That’s good. I’d hate to think that I’d coerced you into not being mad at me, since I believe that males and females should be equal in any relationship, and in the future, I’ll make sure to ask your permission before—“

“Just shut up.” She threw her arms around my neck. “And kiss me again.”

I lifted her until she stood on tiptoes, then leaned in, my lips lightly brushing hers.

The kiss was as short as it was sweet. When I opened my eyes, Cedar was staring up at me.

“I’m still mad at you,” she said.

“Let me make it up to you.”

“What have you got in mind?”

“Cedar-san!” Luigi said. “Are you ready to go?”

“Damn,” she whispered. “I forgot.”

“Forgot what?” I asked.

“Cedar has a lunch date with me,” Luigi said. “We are ordering food.”

I cocked an eyebrow at Cedar, as if to say WTF?

“It’s not a date,” she said. “Just helping him with conversational English.”

“You come along, too.” Luigi shook my shoulder. “We will make it a threesome.”

“A what?” Cedar cried.

“That one definitely gained something in translation.” I steered Luigi out of harm’s way. “How about lunch at Red Fox Java? My treat. I—“

I felt myself space out. Cedar was saying something, but my mind was replaying what Dewayne said in lab.

Risk your life for some old Mexican. The identity of the Nagswood fire victim hadn’t been released. “How did he know her race?” I wondered.

“What?” Cedar said. “Who is he?”

“Dewayne Loach. In class he asked me why I would risk my life for some old Mexican. How did he know the victim was Mexican?”

Cedar gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh my god. That means—“

“His brother knew she was in the house.” I took out my cell. “Meet you guys at the coffee house. I’ve got a few calls to make.”

2

“They didn’t believe you?” Cedar spooned Italian dressing onto her hoagie. “None of them?”

The afternoon sun shone down on Red Fox Java’s outdoor patio. The small coffee house was in a red brick building across from the Allegheny County Courthouse. Weekdays, the patio was a favorite gathering place for courthouse employees. Weekends, it was the mecca for band geeks and goth kids drinking the only double espressos to be had in town.

I sat with Luigi and Cedar. We were joined by Cedar’s beagle, Chigger, who lay under the table with his head resting on Cedar’s sneakers.

“Not a single, solitary word.” I summarizing my phone conversations. “Hoyt said his office was too busy to talk, much less go chasing shadows. Lamar said I have Eugene Loach on the brain.”

“What about your grandfather?” Luigi pushed his backup glasses up on his nose. They were thick plastic and rectangular. No wonder he didn’t wear them. “Did he doubt your story?”

“Couldn’t get in touch with him, either. His cell goes straight to voicemail. He’s out of touch. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not. He may be working behind the scenes, or he may be in a hammock on his sleeping porch.”

“Let’s assume he’s working behind the scenes.” Cedar rewarded Chigger with a bite of ham. “What would he be working on?”

“The case.”

“Well, yes, the case,” she said. “What do you know, exactly?”

“I know this,” I said. “We have three suspicious fires. The first was in Duck. Then the Tin City fire, where Stumpy found a finger. The third was Nagswood, where the woman was killed. All three were abandoned farm houses.”

“Do you think the events are related in some way?” Luigi said.

“I think there’s a serial arsonist on the loose,” I said. “And I want to catch him.”

“So what’s next?” Cedar said through a bite of her sub.

Good question. What was next? With the cops stonewalling me, all I could do was cool my jets until something broke. “I don’t know. Wait? The gears are turning without me, and if I interfere, I’ll never make it back on the Allegheny VFD. Which leaves me to do what? Help with your research project?”

“Music to my ears.” Cedar launched into a long, involved explanation of her project. Something to do with her beagle, circuit boards, terrorists, luggage, and a device that worked like a microphone for the nose.

The details were lost on me. It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand the concept of Cedar’s project, but my attention was drawn to the courthouse green. A crew of county workers was raising a cherry picker up to a streetlight. They were hanging flags for YamFest, the festival that Allegheny County held every year to celebrate itself.

“YamFest,” I said. “Isn’t that the same weekend as the Olympiad?”

“You mean the Olympiad you’re supposed to be helping me with?” Cedar said.

“Boone-san has problems with his ear holes.” Luigi dropped fries into his mouth. Two of them missed and fell to the ground.

Chigger wolfed them down before Cedar could stop him.

“Bad boy!" she said. "French-fries give you gas.”

“Me?” I said. “I tolerate potatoes just fine.”

“I meant the dog.” Cedar patted her leg, and Chigger returned to his spot. “But yes, as a matter of a fact, you are a bad boy.”

I looked at Luigi with my arms raised, as if to say, Who? Me?

“Don’t try to play it off, Boone. You’re a really smart guy, but you’ve got the attention span of a gnat. Focus!”

She smacked my forehead. Her palm made a huge pop.

I lolled my head and pretended to be hurt.

Cedar blushed. She covered her mouth. “I am so sorry! I didn’t mean to hit you that hard.”

I grinned. “Psyche!”

Pop!

Cedar smacked me again.

“Ow!” I grabbed my sprained neck. “That stung!”

“Serves you right, jerk face.”

I pressed my iced tea on my neck. “Is it swelling? I think it’s swelling.”

“No, it's not.” Cedar pulled the glass away. “It’s fine. Stop being such a wuss.”

Under the table Chigger let out a short growl. I watched him stand, his tail stuck straight out. He jumped over our feet, then bounded out to the sidewalk. He sniffed the air, turned, and sniffed again. His back arched, and he pointed toward at the courthouse green.

“What’s he doing?” I asked.

“Just remembering his old life.” Cedar scooted her chair back. “Customs trained him to signal when he smelled certain chemicals. It used to happen all of the time. I’ll get him.”

“Wait.” I reached out to stop her, but she’d already scooped the dog.

“Fish sticks,” she said.

The dog relaxed.

Chigger looked surprised to see her. He applied a sloppy tongue to the corner of her mouth, where she had missed some Italian dressing with her napkin.

“Silly doggy,” she said and set him in her lap.

“You stopped him. I wanted to see what he did next.”

“That’s all he does. He’s not an attack dog, you know. That’s why US Customs uses beagles in airports, so they don’t scare the people….” Her voice trailed away. Her gaze focused behind me. “Uh oh.”

I turned and was greeted by Deputy Mercer.

His ticket book was open. “Whose dog is that?”

She rubbed Chigger behind the ears. “Mine, officer.”

“ID, miss.”

“What’s this about?” Cedar wasn’t cowed by a cocky little man in a khaki uniform. “Have I broken a law?”

“I’ll ask the questions,” Mercer said. “Show me some ID.”

Cedar fished her license out. “Here you go.”

“There’s a law against bringing pets inside a restaurant, missy.”

“We’re outside,” I said.

Mercer jabbed his pen behind his ear. “Food’s being consumed.”

“Food is consumed outside all of the time.” I leaned toward Mercer. “Take the YamFest. There will be vendors all around town square, and they have a Frisbee contest for dogs right there on the green. Are you going to ticket all of those owners, too?”

Mercer bent down so that he was eye level with me. “Watch your mouth, sailor boy. You’re already walking on thin ice.”

I stared right back at him.

When Mercer didn’t get a rise, he pushed himself back up. He mimed, I got my eye on you.  He slapped a ticket on the table, then stalked off toward the courthouse.

“What an asshole.” Cedar picked Chigger up and rubbed his belly. “He gave my puppy a ticket!”

I read the name on the paper. “Technically, he gave it to you.”

Cedar stabbed the ticket with her fork. She ripped it from the tines, folded it into a square, and stuck it into the small pocket with her license. “I’m not paying this. It’s so unfair. Deputy Doofus thinks I won’t show up for court, but I’m definitely going to show.”

My cell buzzed. It was Abner. “Hey, Doc. Where’ve you been? I’ve left you—say that again. You’re kidding. You’re not kidding. He’s not going to be very happy with us after last time. Okay. Okay. I’ll take care of it.” I drained my iced tea. “Anybody care to give an over-medicated guy a ride?”

“Where to?” Cedar said.

“Tin City. Abner wants to see Stumpy’s frozen finger.”

“Again?”

“Again.”

“Okay,” Cedar said, “but this time, you’re coming along. It's too weird.”

“It’s just a finger.”

“A finger? I was talking about Stumpy.”

3

“I’m too much man for your car,” I told Cedar as she backed out of the parking space.

I scooted the passenger seat back, but I still had too much leg for Cedar’s VW Bug. My knee knocked against the dash vase holding an oversized tie-dye daisy made of silk.

“And they say size doesn’t matter.” She hit the gas, and my head snapped against the seat.

“Ow! What are you, a jackrabbit?”

“You could use a little acceleration in your life.”

Dust clouds billowed out behind the car as she whipped the car onto Highway Twelve.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means what it means.”

“Did I do something to make you mad?”

“Nothing.” Her eyes were fixed on the road as she rammed the gearshift into fourth. “You haven’t done a thing.”

I decided to take her at her word, even though her body language said she was upset.

“Damn it,” Cedar said, eyes fixed on the rearview.

I knew that look.

An Allegheny County sheriff’s car was on our tail, lights flashing.

“Better pull over,” I said.

“I am pulling over.”

Cedar drifted to the shoulder of the highway, a soft berm that overlooked part of Black Oak Creek. I checked the side mirror.

“What bug crawled up that deputy’s ass?” she said.

“That’s not Mercer. It’s Hoyt.”

Hoyt climbed out of his cruiser, adjusted his trooper hat, then set his palm on the grip of his Smith & Wesson. The flashing blue lights lent a purple shadow to his face, blanching the ruddy color away and highlighting the pockmarks on his cheeks.

Cedar offered her license. “Hello, sheriff.”

“Put that away,” Hoyt barked. His voice was so full of gravels and dust, I didn’t recognize it. “I know who y’all are.”

She stuffed the license in her pocket. “Then why did you pull me over?”

“Boone,” the sheriff said, “I’d like a minute of your time.”

“What’s going on?” she asked me.

“I’ve got no earthly idea. Be right back.”

I followed Hoyt to the prowler. The car’s lights were still going, and the radio squawked like an angry chicken. The smell of the cedar trees that lined both sides of the highway reminded me of the trunk where Mom kept my service awards and medals. It was a strange thought to have just then, but the whole situation was strange.

Hoyt put his foot up on the bumper. “You need to keep out of police business.”

“What business would that be?”

“Don’t act stupid, son, ‘cause you’re not. I know your granddaddy’s been sticking his nose where it don’t belong, and you’ve been helping him.”

I held out my hands, palms up. “What is it you think we’re doing?”

“There’s a lot of things I can tolerate,” Hoyt said. “Vigilantes ain’t one of them.”

“How do Dewayne and Eugene Loach and his boys fit into that equation? You say you don’t tolerate vigilantes, but they’re attacking anybody with brown skin they find. Or does the law only extend to white people?”

“Boone, if me and Lamar wasn’t friends, I knock you upside the head.” He stood ramrod straight, put a palm on the Glock, and stuck out his chin. “You’re just a college student now, so you better act like one. Go to class, study hard, and all that bullshit. But that’s it. I expect you to keep your nose clean and your ass wiped. Got that?”

I saluted. “Yes sir.”

“Don’t get smart with me, boy.”

“No sir," I said. "I’ll remain ignorant."

As I walked back to the Volkswagen, I could hear Hoyt saying, don’t get smart with me, boy.

Deputy Mercer had used the very same phrase. How much difference, I wondered, was there between the two men?

4

The yard around the Tin City property looked like Stumpy had been searching for buried treasure. The path between his Airstream and the tobacco barns was pocked with dozens of deep holes and mounds of reddish dirt.

Cedar parked near the Airstream. “Somebody’s been busy.”

“You have a gift for understatement.” I spotted Stumpy’s Airstream through the trees. “I didn’t think Stumpy had enough motivation for digging.”

Cedar clipped the leash to Chigger’s collar. He ran beside her up the path, panting with excitement, savoring the luscious new smells on the wind.

I knocked on the trailer. “Stumpy!”

The only answer was the echo of my voice.

“Nobody’s home.” Cedar popped down the steps of the small, rickety deck. “Let’s go.”

“You’re not getting off that easy.”

“Watch me.”

“Then you can call Abner and explain to him that we didn’t get the finger.”

“Chigger, bite Boone. He’s a bad boyfriend.”

Chigger yawned, then took a great interest in the sole of her sneakers.

“Not me, you stupid dog. Him.”

“Good dog.” I rubbed his ears. “Come on, Vicious, let’s take a look around.”

“Hey, don’t call my dog vicious. You’ll hurt his feelings.”

“Who said I was talking to the dog?”

Cedar swatted at me, but I danced away.

“Coward!” Cedar said. “Stand still so I can hit you!”

“Can’t hit what you can’t catch,” I said, right before I fell backward into a deep, narrow hole. “Oof!” The impact knocked the wind clean out of my chest and made my ribs scream bloody murder. “Shit on a stick! That freaking hurt!”

Cedar’s head appeared above me. “Are you okay down there?”

Her hair clung to her face, and she would have looked angelic if she had not been so worried. Chigger whimpered loudly. His paws knocked loose dirt on my face.

“My ribs are killing me," I said. “But I’ll live.”

“You sure?”

I waved the hand. “Truly, I’m fine.”

Cedar started laughing. “I’m so sorry. You lo-looked so funny falling into th-that h-hole. Bloop!”

“Thanks for your sympathy.” While she was laughing and Chigger was barking, I tried to find a way out of the pit. The walls all had the same markings, as if a mouth with ragged teeth had scraped them clean.

Stumpy hadn’t dug these holes.

Not by hand, anyway.

“When you’re done with your fit of giggles,” I called up, “could you get something to pull me out?”

“Okay,” she said. “Be right back.”

While she was gone, I took several photos with my cellphone. The depth of the cuts came up to the second knuckle of my index finger. Whatever Stumpy was looking for, he was using some heavy machinery. There were probably over a hundred holes on the property. That was a lot of work for one man.

Maybe Stumpy wasn’t involved in the digging at all.

Cedar dropped a coil of hose down the hole. “It’s Stumpy’s water hose. I left it screwed into the spigot so it would hold your weight.”

“You sure?”

“If you want out, you’ll have to trust my judgment.”

I braced my back against the dirt wall, and using the cuts in the clay, pulled myself out of the hole. My ribs weren’t happy with me when I rolled onto the grass.

“See?” Cedar said. “My calculations were correct.”

“What calculations?”

She held up her thumb. “The ones I made with this.”

“Glad you were right.” I dusted my pants off and kicked clay from my boots. “Let’s go.”

“You’re speaking my language.”

“After we get the finger.”

“But you said—“

“Look around. Stumpy may have left before he expected to, and a dismembered finger’s not something he’d pack.”

“I'm not going into his house. It smells like pig crap."

"You'll be fine out here." I opened the door. “Be right back.”

“Wait for me.” She tied Chigger’s leash to a post on the rickety porch and followed me inside.

The trailer smelled like Stumpy had been making soup with old shoes, and the air was thick with the scent of body odor and mold. Cedar pulled her shirt over her nose as I hit the lights.

“Ugh,” she said. “I’m not strong enough for this. My stomach can’t hack the stench.”

“Fish sticks,” I said as I opened the freezer door.

“So the freezer’s empty?”

“No.” I pulled out a package of cod fillets. “It’s a box of fish sticks.”

I shook the contents onto the counter, which also held several opened packets of ketchup, breadcrumbs, and an empty package of wieners. Three sticks fell out, followed by the finger.

Cedar gagged. “He put someone’s body part in with food? That’s just so wrong.”

“Yeah, it’s a terrible way to preserve evidence.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

I slipped the frozen digit into an evidence bag. “At least he wrapped it in plastic.”

“Boone!”

 “What?”

“You don’t think this is really, I don’t know, ghoulish? I mean, I’m okay with scientific inquiry and all of that, but the finger you just stuck in your pocket was once attached to somebody’s hand. How can you not be totally disgusted?”

“Abner raised me in his lab,” I said. “I’m used to it.”

It wasn’t that death didn’t bother me. It did. But it was the ending of a life that ate through my gut, not the corpse that was left behind. It was something you couldn’t explain in the middle of a deserted, completely trashed trailer.

Clothes were strewn everywhere. The closest had been tossed, the side table drawers emptied onto the floor. Broke glass lay at the edge of Stumpy’s favorite sleeping post, the couch. It was hard to tell because of Stumpy’s underwhelming housekeeping skills, but the more I looked around, the more I was convinced that someone else had helped Stumpy redecorate.

“They were looking for something,” I said.

“Who?”

I started down the paneled hallway. “The people who tossed this trailer. Look at this toilet.”

“How did we go from talking about human dignity to examining toilets?” She followed me to the bathroom. “Oh, that’s how.”

The toilet had been shattered. From the wood splinters on the floor, I suspected the instrument of destruction was a baseball bat. The cabinets above the toilet had been tossed, too. A bottle of bowl cleaner lay on its side, leaking blue liquid onto a stack of paper towels.

“Let’s check out the bedroom.”

“Let’s leave instead,” Cedar said.

She didn’t wait for my answer. I heard the door slam, followed by the sounds of Chigger’s bark.

Space in the bedroom was tight. The double bed took up most of the room, leaving space for only a narrow bedside table, which had also been dumped. The mattress was askew on the frame. From the marks on the ceiling, it had been lifted then dropped. A single, yellowed sheet lay rumpled on the floor in front of the closet. Inside the closet, there were no coats, no shirts, not even a coat hanger.

Empty.

This was no robbery.

I had decided to take a closer look for clues in the kitchen area when Chigger yapped a warning bark. Peeking through the blinds, I looked out a grimy window and saw Cedar a few yards away holding onto Chigger’s lease. It was stretched taut, and the dog was growling.

When I stepped outside onto the porch, I saw why.

A two-ton diesel truck drove across the overgrown yard toward the big barn. It was hauling a trench digger behind it, equipped with a scoop shovel. That answered his questions about what had made the holes.

When two men got out of the front of the truck, it also answered the question of who.

Early and Stuart, my favorite independent contractors specializing in fire site clean up and debris removal. What kind of debris where they removing this time?

“What business have you got being here, anyhow?” Stuart shouted as he approached, carrying a digging spade. “Hey, you're that boy who was with the bone doctor, ain’t you?”