“Me, too.”
He rehooked the mic. “Okay, now let’s go deal with the unhappy ending.”
“We’re not far,” she said. “Once you’re in sight, do you mind if I head back to the field?”
His reply was cut off when his radio squawked again. He unhooked the mic a second time. “Van Alstyne here. Go ahead.”
“Chief? This is Trooper McLaren.” The state police K-9 officer who had joined the search. “We’ve got a body here. Over.”
“Thanks, McLaren, I know. Isn’t one of my officers already there? With the pathologist?” Belatedly, he added, “Over.”
“No, Chief. We were briefed about the body the initial searchers found. This is something my dog’s just dug out of the ground. It’s a second dead guy. Over.”
THE SEASON AFTER
PENTECOST—ORDINARY TIME
May and June
I
Monday. Memorial Day. Everybody in the United States was going to be hanging out and having a good time—except the sworn officers of the Millers Kill Police Department. Maybe this is why my social life sucks, Kevin thought, taking his seat for the morning briefing. At least it wasn’t sucking alone. Everybody was on today, all shifts: the part-time guys and the volunteer fire traffic wardens, too. Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day—they were always big.
But they didn’t always arrive with three unidentified homicide victims.
“The two discovered yesterday were both killed in the same way as John Doe number one.” The chief, sitting in his usual spot atop the table, was grubby and crumpled around the edges. He, MacAuley, Hadley Knox, and Eric McCrea had been up half the night, working the scenes with the state CSI techs. “Single tap at the back of the head with a small-caliber weapon, probably a full jacket. Classic execution style.”
“Scheeler’s report noted there wasn’t any signs the first John Doe’d been restrained,” MacAuley pointed out. “If he’d been taken out to the woods for an execution, you’d think whoever did it woulda trussed him up beforehand.” He was standing at the whiteboard, summarizing the briefing.
The chief paused. “Taken by surprise, then. Wham, bam, thank-you-ma’am.”
“So what are we looking at?” Paul Urquhart said from the back of the room. “Gangland slaying? Organized crime? If we had something like that moving into our area, we’da noticed it before this.”
The chief held up his hands. “Let’s go through what we know step-by-step.” He slid off the table and turned to the bulletin board, almost covered with photos of John Does one, two, and three, environmental placing shots, and the down-state rap sheets Kevin had looked at Friday night. “John Doe one.”
“Juan Doe,” Urquhart muttered.
“Male Hispanic aged between twenty-one and twenty-eight. Killed sometime mid-April. John Doe two. Male, possibly Caribbean or African-American, based on hair fragments—”
“DeWan Doe.” Urquhart sniggered.
The chief stopped. “You got something you want to share, Paul?” Urquhart shook his head. The chief gave him a long look before continuing. “Age between twenty-one and twenty-eight. Killed sometime last year in the late fall or early winter. John Doe three: male, age between twenty-one and twenty-eight. Killed more than a year ago.”
“The ME any more specific than that?” MacAuley asked.
“He had some fillings. Doc Scheeler’s going to get a dentist to try to date the amalgam. We probably won’t have anything until tomorrow at the earliest.”
The chief crossed to the laminated township map that covered half the other wall. “Location of the bodies,” he said. “John Does three and two were found roughly a mile north-northwest of the old Muster Field off Route seventeen in Cossayuharie.” He marked a three and a two with a dry-erase marker. “They were slightly less than three-quarters of a mile away from each other”—he drew a broken line that slanted drunkenly northwest from the pale green rectangle representing the Muster Field—“buried along a natural flint formation that runs along this line and then drops off steeply into the valley below.”
“Somebody walked in.”
Kevin hadn’t realized he said it aloud until the chief nodded. “Somebody walked in.”
“And went as far as he could go along fairly level terrain,” MacAuley added.
“Who owns that land?” Eric McCrea asked.
The chief looked at Noble Entwhistle. Noble was no Sherlock Holmes, but he gave you better results than Google if you needed a name or date for something that happened in Millers Kill. “The town,” he said. “It used to belong to Shep Ogilvie, but they took it for unpaid taxes back in ’eighty-seven, when his dairy went under.”
“Easy access from the highway,” McCrea said. “If there’s no snow, you can drive a car almost all the way back to the tree line on that field.”
“That’s one big difference between John Does two and three and the first guy we found,” the chief said. “It’s a coupla kidney-cleaning miles from the nearest public road to where John Doe one was dumped.” He put a 1 on the McGeochs’ farm.
“But it is in the same general area where you were out chasing those runaway illegals,” MacAuley pointed out.
“I think we can safely say that’s a dead end.” The chief went back to his table and picked up his coffee mug. “The men running around in those woods were in Mexico last year when the last two John Does were killed.”
“The Christies and their kin weren’t.”
The chief let his hand fall open. “Put them on the board.”
“Chief.” Kevin tried to control his face from pinking up as everyone turned toward him. “How do we know they were in Mexico a year ago? I mean, if they were illegals, there wouldn’t be any trail, because that’s kind of the point. I know they weren’t employed by your sister and her husband, but maybe they were in the area working for somebody else.” He paused. The chief made a “go on” gesture. “Maybe we should canvass area farms and see who might’ve had migrant workers last year and over winter.”
“Maybe.” The chief leaned against the table. “My problem with that is I don’t see the connection between dairy hands and professional executions.”
Kevin figured everyone was thinking the same thing. So he said it. “What if it’s not professional?”
“What do you mean, Kevin? A sport killing? Somebody doing it for kicks? No.” The chief pinched the bridge of his nose. “I refuse to believe we’re dealing with some sort of serial killer here.”
“You need to at least put it on the table, Russ.” MacAuley wrote the words “Thrill killer” at one corner of the board.
“Serial killers go after vulnerable populations. Kids. Prostitutes.”
“What about Jeffrey Dahmer?”
“Bob Berdella?”
“Randy Steven Kraft?”
MacAuley gave them a look that said shut up. He turned to the chief. “The vics already fall into a class,” he said. “Young men in their early twenties.” He ticked a point off one finger.
“Watch out, Kevin,” Urquhart said.
“Non-Caucasians.” The deputy ticked off another finger.
“We can’t say that about three.” The chief crossed his arms over his chest.
“Killed during tourist season.” MacAuley ticked off his third finger.
“April? Nobody comes to Millers Kill in April.”
“Bodies left in remote locations in Cossayuharie.” MacAuley ticked off a fourth finger. “And finally, all three of them killed in the same fashion with the same-caliber weapon.” He held his hand up and waggled his fingers. “We can’t rule out a serial killer. Not with three bodies agreeing on five points.”
“Why—” Hadley started to say, then shut her mouth.
“Go, on, Knox,” the chief said.
She swallowed. “Why was the first guy—I mean, John Doe one—why was he dumped? The others were buried. Not deep, but they were buried. He was just laying out there in the open.”
The chief slid up onto the
table and braced his boots on a chair. “What do you think?”
Her face fell into the cool expressionless mask that had completely unnerved Kevin when she’d directed it toward him. She’s panicked, he realized. She’s afraid of coming across like an idiot. The chief looked at her patiently. MacAuley looked at her like a guy who was running late for his proctologist’s appointment. Kevin twitched in his seat. Urquhart was smirking.
The search. He tried to beam the thought into her head. It must have worked, because her eyes slid toward him. He put his hand up to his mouth. “Huggins,” he coughed.
“The search for the men who ran away after the accident interrupted the killer,” she said instantly. “There was no chance to bury the victim because the area was crawling with searchers.”
“Which means,” the chief said, “somebody who was there that night may have seen something. We need a list of everyone on the SAR team who participated, and the various Christie relatives who turned out. That’ll be your job, Eric.”
McCrea slid low in his chair and groaned. Several “baas” erupted from the back of the room.
“The other possibility,” the chief said, “is that the body found in the back of the McGeochs’ property is unrelated to the two found past the Muster Field.” The dep snorted loudly but didn’t say anything. “We’ve sent the pictures and the ME’s preliminary report down to the Bronx, where they’re trying to find the two men Knox and Flynn stopped last week.” He stared at the whiteboard, which had a lot of theories and very few solutions. “Kevin, you go ahead and follow up on the local migrant worker population.”
Kevin clenched his fist in triumph. In like Flynn.
“Knox, you’re with McCrea. Noble, you take the SAR volunteers. Lyle, since you like the serial killer angle so much, you get to work on the VCAP database and see if you can find anything that sounds familiar.”
“Any evidence that John Doe one was sexually assaulted?”
The chief’s eyebrows went up. “I didn’t see anything in Scheeler’s report. Although, since he did his prelim before we found the other two, maybe he wasn’t looking in that—uh—direction.” Urquhart snickered. The chief ignored him. “You thinking someone preying on young gay men?”
The dep shrugged. “Two guys alone in the woods with no signs of coercion? It’s not like we haven’t seen it before.”
The chief pinched the bridge of his nose again. “Yeah.”
Hadley leaned toward Kevin. “What are they talking about?” she hissed.
“Three summers ago,” he whispered, “two gay guys were beaten up and another one killed.”
She flinched. “That’s awful.” Then her expression changed. Became thoughtful. “Why are we assuming it’s a guy?”
“Knox? Kevin?” The chief was frowning.
“If you two brought candy, you better have enough for the other kids,” the dep said.
“Why are we assuming it’s a guy?” Hadley said, loud enough for everyone to hear. She looked up at the chief. “Maybe the killer is a woman.” Hadley looked around the room, measuring the others’ reactions. “She could have lured them into the woods.” She turned to MacAuley. “You don’t need to restrain someone if he’s busy taking his pants off.”
“If it was poison, or there was money involved—those are the sort of situations where women’ve appeared as serial killers.” The dep sounded like he was trying to be diplomatic. “Naked guys tapped in the woods—there just aren’t many recorded instances of women doing that.”
“Maybe that’s because they’re better at covering it up than men,” Hadley said.
II
Clare hoped she would miss Janet when she took Amado back out to the McGeochs’ to get the rest of his stuff. It was Memorial Day Monday, after all, and most reasonable people were taking the day off.
No such luck. Russ’s sister came running out of the barn as soon as Clare’s Subaru pulled in the dusty yard. Clare and Amado hadn’t gotten out of the car before the apologies started.
“Oh, my God, Clare, I’m so, so sorry! I had no idea when that man showed up that he was—well, I thought it was odd that he knew Amado, but I was so distracted—when Russ told me, I nearly died, I was so . . .” Apparently, there wasn’t a word big enough, so Janet threw her arms around Clare and hugged her. “Thank God, thank God you weren’t hurt. I thought Russ was just being—well, cranky, when he said you’re as tough as an army boot, but he was right!” She hugged her again. “Oh, there’s Amado!”
Clare listened while Janet repeated her whole apology to the young man, who looked at her with alarmed incomprehension, protecting his cast with his good hand. Smart kid, Clare thought. If she hugs any tighter she’ll rebreak that bone.
“I thought, all things considered, that Amado should stay at the rectory after all,” Clare said, loudly enough to catch Janet’s attention. “The Christies will probably make bail as soon as court opens tomorrow.” She made a go on gesture to Amado, who needed no encouragement to escape. He took off around the barn at a trot.
“Are you sure that’s safe?” Janet, having disgorged the apologies she must have been holding in for two days, visibly settled. “I mean, what if they come back?”
“It’s a lot less likely in the middle of town than out here in a trailer.”
Janet ran her hand through her Medium Golden Blond No. 5 hair. “Is it true you broke Donald Christie’s nose?”
Clare rubbed her own nose. “I didn’t mean to.”
Janet whistled. “You go, girl.”
Clare held up her hands. “Violence is not the answer, to paraphrase . . . a whole bunch of people. Including your mother.”
“Mmm. So, have you seen Russ since that night?”
Oh, God. What did he tell her? But no. He wouldn’t have spoken about the two of them. Or about the bodies they found at the Muster Field. Janet didn’t know her John Doe had been reclassified as the first of a series of murders.
She was saved from coming up with a truth that told nothing by the thrum of tires along Lick Springs Road. Janet craned her neck and shaded her eyes. “Shit,” she said under her breath.
Clare twisted around to see the squad car speeding down the long sweep of hill toward the McGeochs’ barnyard.
“I gotta call the men,” Janet said. She raced toward the barn, leaving Clare alone at the end of a train of dust puffs rising and falling in the air.
Her heart rose in her chest to sink again when she glimpsed the red head through the driver’s window. Not fair. She wasn’t going to hold it against the rest of the MKPD just because they weren’t Russ.
“Hey! Reverend Fergusson!” Kevin waved jauntily as he unfolded from his cruiser. “What’re you doing out here?”
She gestured toward the barn and, by implication, the bunkhouse that lay somewhere beyond it. “I brought Amado out to get the rest of his things. I’m moving him into the rectory.”
Kevin considered that. “Does the chief know?”
She resisted the first comment that came to mind. “I think he’s got a little more on his mind than my interim sexton’s living arrangements, don’t you?”
He hooked his thumbs over his gun belt in a perfect copy of Russ. “Those Christies will be making bail tomorrow, you know.”
“That’s why I’m out here today. How about you?”
His face lit up. “I suggested we ought to find out what migrant workers might have been in the area last year, when the other two were killed, and the chief agreed with me.” His pleased expression wavered. “Well, honestly? He didn’t exactly agree. But he’s letting me follow up on it.” He looked around, taking in the white-paint barn, the harrow and hay wagon and truck corralled between outbuildings, the cows grazing just far enough away to be scenic rather than smelly. “This is my first stop.”
At Russ’s sister’s. Who allegedly didn’t have any migrant employees.
“Are you hoping to track down who the two men from yesterday are?”
“Nope. We’re trying to track
down their murderer.” There was a certain relish in the way Kevin said “murderer.”
“A migrant worker? You must be kidding. Those men do backbreaking labor six or seven days a week for wages most of us would turn our noses up at. Why on earth would one of them get involved in something like this?”
Despite the absence of anyone else in the barnyard, Kevin leaned in close. “We’re thinking . . . serial killer.”
“Oh, please. In Millers Kill? Pull the other one.”
He shrugged. “There are three men dead, all of ’em killed in the same way, by a similar weapon, in the space of a year or so. All of ’em left within seven miles of each other. If that happened along the Green River instead of in Millers Kill, what would you think?”
Good Lord. Kevin Flynn is growing up into a real cop. A civilian Humvee drove past the barnyard, its woofer rattling their car windows. This has gotten way too deep. Janet has got to come clean with them.
As if he could read her mind, he said, “Are the McGeochs around?”
“In the barn,” she said.
“Thanks.” He strode toward the barn while she told herself it wasn’t her business and she wasn’t going to get involved. This didn’t have anything to do with her, or her people, or her church. Except . . . Sister Lucia had asked her to take care of these men. And so far the only thing she had done to uphold the sister’s charge was to keep her mouth shut about their location.
“Wait for me,” she called. Kevin paused in the wide doorway and watched as she jogged across the dusty yard. Inside, it was cool and lofty. They alarmed a pair of barn swallows, who fluttered through the mote-hung air before arrowing out the door. The sound of wings echoed in the almost-empty haymows.
“Mr. McGeoch?” Kevin shouted. “Mrs. McGeoch?”
“In here!” The faint answer came from the small doorway set opposite the tractor-wide entrance to the barn. Clare dogged Kevin as he ducked through and they emerged into a long, low cow byre. Clare stumbled, and the young officer caught her by her arm. She looked up and down the center aisle. Cement. Drain holes. The steel-basketed lights hung, one each, at the stall entrances. Her skin went clammy. She swallowed.
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