“What about my body?” she said.
“You’ll be beyond caring.”
She struggled to change her position, the pain in her left hip was becoming unbearable. Ha. If she couldn’t even stand to lie on her side for any length of time, how did she expect to suffer torture?
“I have a sister. I don’t want to simply disappear and have her wonder for the rest of her life. Her name is Sybil Pernich and—” The car hit a bump and she bit her tongue. “Please let her know I’m dead.”
“Shut up! Just shut up!”
She twisted and wriggled and struggled to hoist herself up on the seat. Breathing hard, ignoring the pain in her head, she got her feet under her and forced her knees to lift her. Falling forward against the seatback, she flung her arms over his head, taped wrists around his neck. She dropped to the floorboards, letting all her weight pull against his throat. He made a strangled yell. Clawed at her hands. The car swerved erratically.
He stomped the accelerator. The car screamed in a turn, skidded, and rocketed forward. Brush scraped the sides. The car hit something that sent it flying. It landed with a thud and kept going. He squealed around turns. She saw flashes of fencing, green pastures, dark sky. Crossroads. Oncoming car. She tensed. The car passed. How long, she thought desperately. How long does it take to strangle someone?
Forever. She was tossed from side to side, getting battered and more nauseated at each screaming turn. The car slid onto an unpaved road, skidded with a cloud of dust toward a parked car. Kaleidoscope of pain and colors. Tortured shriek of crushing metal. Huge black pain filled her mind.
The next thing she knew, Joe was crouched over her with a knife.
* * *
At four o’clock, an ominous dark twilight wiped out the afternoon sunshine. Susan, working at her desk, looked up with a start when the overhead light flicked on.
Parkhurst came in and set a laptop on her desk. “Weather.”
Oh-oh. That had a tone she didn’t like.
He raised the lid and turned on the laptop. She watched a forecaster with a pointer touch a map with lines all over it. “… cold air dropping down from Canada and moving across a section of the Great Plains…”
“It’s finally going to cool off?” she said.
“More than that.”
“… fine particles of dust picked up by rising air. Dust storm warnings for western Kansas…”
Hampstead was in the northeastern section of the state.
“Coming this way,” Parkhurst said, as though he’d read her thought.
“… the cold front saturated with dust will mix with the hot, dry air that has been suffocating the area for so long…”
Oh, shit.
“… cause a low-pressure system … whirling counterclockwise … warm air rising from the ground mixing with the cooler mass above.”
She looked at Parkhurst. He nodded. Oh shit.
“… indicating heavy rain, large hail, high winds, and tornadoes. Since midmorning, the National Weather Service has been tracking this system with radar and satellite. Dust storms and thunderstorm bulletins, at this time, are upgraded to include tornado watches. Local authorities are advised of the need for emergency situations.”
Just great. A homicide and now a tornado.
“… winds reaching eighty miles an hour and three- to four-inch hail…”
Her phone buzzed.
“Yes, Hazel.”
“Dr. Fisher just called. He’s ready to do the autopsy on the silo victim.”
* * *
In the hospital basement, she walked a long, empty corridor with harsh overhead lights, cement walls painted white. The morgue had stainless steel cabinets, stainless steel tables, and a drain in the tiled floor. The body lay on a table, in such a state of decay, it wasn’t recognizable as human. A mass of rotting flesh, greenish black, abdominal area distended, skin and hair missing, fingers, hands reduced to bones, facial area so bloated features were missing. Clothes had been removed, shreds of a yellow T-shirt and blue denim jeans. The smell was almost more than Susan could bare.
Dr. Fisher, in hospital scrubs, handed her a mask and she put it on, not that it did anything to dilute the smell. He grinned at her behind his mask. She wondered, as she had before, if he had some deficit in what he could smell. Nothing seemed to bother him. Floaters, bloaters, putrefaction, all seemed a puzzle he was privileged to solve.
“Looks like we’re in for some weather.” He walked around the table and studied the body from all sides.
“How long has she been dead?” Susan asked.
He shot her a glance, the same one he always gave her when she asked that question. “Given the heat we’ve had, and the humidity, and the extent of decay, I’d guess at two weeks, give or take.” He turned on the microphone hanging over the table and stated the date, his name and qualifications, then her name and position, as being present. “The body is that of a female in a state of severe putrefaction…”
He made the Y incision through the rotted flesh and opened the chest. Susan had, long ago, stopped thinking of the individual on the table as human, only the focus of her job. He spoke for the recorder as he poked through shreds of muscle. Susan tried to breathe through her mouth. The last thing he did was remove the top of the skull. Goose bumps broke out on Susan’s arms at the shrill shriek of the saw.
When he was finished, he stripped off his latex gloves and washed his hands in the deep sink. He ripped paper towels from the dispenser, turned to face her, and leaned against the cabinet as he dried his hands, then pulled down the mask until it rested under his chin.
“Only thing I can tell you for certain is the body is female. Cause of death…” He shrugged. “Too much putrefaction. I didn’t find anything obvious, like a bullet. Close examination of the bones might show something like a nick from a stab wound, but I doubt it.”
He balled up the towels and tossed them in the trash container. “My guess is she died of asphyxiation. Not enough left of the lungs to tell. Poor lady. Terrible way to die. The pressure against her chest made it increasingly impossible to breathe. She couldn’t expand her chest to pull in air. Slow death. Her last hours were excruciating.”
“How long did it take?”
“Four or five hours.”
Just thinking about it had Susan pulling air deep into her lungs. That brought in the heavy stench of decay and set off a fit of coughing.
“You don’t sound so good. Maybe you ought to see a doctor.”
“Very funny. Send me a preliminary report.”
36
Knife in one hand, shotgun barrel in the other, Joe bent over her. To see if she was still breathing, Cary supposed. He moved from her sight. A moment later she heard the trunk lid slam. When he returned, he leaned the gun against the fender and sliced through the cord around her ankles. He yanked her to a sitting position and dragged her from the car. It was smashed up against a boulder in an empty field. Black clouds piled up in the sky, turning day into night. Wind tore at her hair and flung grit in her face.
He grabbed the gun—a rifle! He’d exchanged the shotgun for a rifle. What did that mean? Hand like a vise on her elbow, he jerked and shoved her up a slope. Two small cabins sat at the top, one on each end of the ridge, surrounded by trees whose branches whipped and twisted in the wind.
Hands still tied, Cary stumbled along on numb feet, her balance precarious. Grassy fields stretched away on both sides. Across a hill, she could see another cabin. Too far to hear a cry for help, even if someone were there.
He staggered as the wind hit him, then leaned into it. She planted her feet. He shook her until her head wobbled, sparks of pain sizzled behind her eyes. Arm around her shoulders, he propelled her through dead leaves and rotted vegetation. A piercing cry, like a woman screaming, rode on the wind. She froze.
“Bobcat,” he said. “Just like the sounds in my dreams.”
The cabin’s two windows faced a rutted dirt driveway, a tattered screen dangled from one,
a pane was missing from the other. He kicked open the door. The small room was grungy, walls of unfinished pine, an unscreened fireplace, sagging, lumpy, gray couch with two grimy pillows, easychair in the same dilapidated condition. Musty smell.
He hauled her to the chair and tossed her in. “Don’t move or I’ll start hacking off fingers.” Breathing heavily, he backed to the couch, leaned the rifle against the arm.
Wind howled in the chimney and rattled the windows, sweeping in through the missing pane. He took a lantern from the mantle, lit the wick, and replaced the glass globe. The soft glow showed marks in the dust like the floor had been recently swept.
“Kelby is dead,” she mumbled through dry, cracked lips.
He took out a knife. Air got trapped in her lungs. Heartbeat pulsed in her ears. She was going to die. Not at some distant future. Now. She’d be tortured and killed.
Wind slammed the door open. Startled, he turned to look. Screaming like the bobcat, she jumped up and swept the lantern to the floor. Glass shattered, oil ignited, and fire spread. She gave Joe a shove that sent him sprawling and darted for the door. In an instant, he was after her. She stumbled onto the porch, down the rickety stairs, and hit the driveway running. She fell against the car, rebounded, and kept going.
Running, stumbling, falling, she rolled downhill. She struggled to her knees and he snatched her arm and yanked her to her feet. His precarious balance brought him crashing into her. She tumbled sideways and he fell over her. Scrambling, he got to his feet, raised a hammer and slammed it down. She rolled. The hammer caught her hip. Pain streaked along her leg. His hand closed around the back of her neck and he raised the hammer again.
* * *
Wind hit the cruiser broadside. Ida fought the wheel as she fumbled with the mike. “Just got word,” Hazel said. “All of Fredericks County has been placed under a tornado warning until midnight.”
“Okay,” Ida said, not sure what she was supposed to say.
“This should be a bad one. Winds over two hundred miles an hour. You need to take a swing through the northeast section of town and make sure people are aware.”
“Right.” Ida dredged her mind for the procedure. First warn the citizens. Anybody in the elements should be taken to shelters.
She wished she had rain gear. When she came on this afternoon, it was a hundred and two degrees. Who needed a raincoat? Flashers blinking, she rolled.
Mike in hand, she spoke slowly: “This is the Hampstead Police. A tornado warning has been declared for Fredericks County. Repeat, a tornado warning has been declared for all of Fredericks County. All citizens are advised to take shelter immediately. Enter a concrete-reinforced building, or go below ground. Stay away from windows and doors. Repeat. A tornado warning has been…”
She didn’t see a single soul as she cruised the area. Anybody who lived here would know better than she what to do. The closest she’d ever come to a tornado was watching news clips taken by idiots who tracked them. Residents were all probably inside finding candles, checking food supplies, and rounding up kids. Not that she wanted anything to happen, but she must admit, she felt a thrill that raised her pulse.
The sky was black. The wind blew dust and debris, plants, small tree limbs and fast-food wrappers across the street. A tornado could be right next to her and it was so dark she wouldn’t see it. She’d been told they sounded like freight trains. How close before they could be heard?
The windows of the Coffee Cup were steamy bright through the gloom. She angled into a parking slot and got out of the squad car. Wind, howling in fury, tore at her pants legs, and damn near blew her into the street as she fought against it. The air smelled of sulfur and dust. Grit and torn plant life peppered her face. Everybody looked up when she pushed through the door.
“We got a tornado coming,” she said. “Everybody should get home and find shelter. Weather bureau is saying we could have tornadoes reaching force three.” She didn’t know what that meant, exactly, but she knew it was potential disaster. She’d never heard Hazel have that tight sound to her voice. If unflappable Hazel was concerned, it was serious.
Ty Baldini, reporter for the local paper, looked up from the counter. “Get an identity on the woman in the silo?”
Ida could see his mind thinking headline: WOMAN IN SILO. Everyone in the place read it as though it hung in the air. Even killer tornadoes weren’t as interesting as a homicide victim buried in grain.
One whiff of the odor, they’d have skedaddled.
“We’re working on it.”
Ty snorted. “Sure sure. Blah-blah-blah.”
“I can only tell you we have new evidence.”
Ty shot to his feet. “What evidence?”
Oops. She should have kept her mouth shut. “Nothing I can talk about.”
He took a step toward her, and by God if it wasn’t menacing. The jerk. She could break him in two. Not that she would. Mangling members of the press probably wasn’t a good idea, since she really really wanted to keep this job.
“What would it be, if you could talk about it? Where’s the chief? I haven’t seen her around anywhere.”
“She’s making progress, and when—”
“What kind of progress? The citizens of this town have the right—”
Without warning, Phyllis, who had been a waitress here for probably as long as the place existed, came from the kitchen. “Knock it off, Ty. She’s trying to do her job.”
“But Phyllis, I’m just trying to—”
“Well, stop trying. She came in to tell us there’s a tornado on the way. You all get yourselves out of here so I can get the windows shuttered and head for the basement. The lot of you, if you have any sense, had better do the same.”
“Right,” Ida said. Running procedure from the manual through her mind, she gave the group a stern look. “Go to the basement and get under something sturdy. Stay away from windows. Take water, food, flashlight, radio, and extra batteries. The warning is in effect until two A.M. Listen to your radio to learn if it extends longer.”
The handful of customers got up and trooped out. Ty gave her a dirty look as he went past. “The citizens have a right—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go.”
Phyllis crossed her arms. “Pack of idiots. Don’t know enough to come in from a storm. Ty’s a good kid. Except he takes this reporting stuff too seriously. I don’t know if it means anything with the storm coming and all, but Kelby Oliver called earlier and ordered some hush puppies to pick up, then she never showed.”
Ida didn’t say that Kelby, most likely, had killed an as yet unknown woman and hightailed it for parts unknown. “When did she call?”
“Around seven. Said she’d pick them up on her way to work. I’m just a little worried, you know? She’s taken to stopping by and getting things Dr. Farley likes. She’s never failed to pick them up.”
“I’ll look into it. Maybe she’s busy getting herself into shelter, which is what you should be doing.” Ida helped Phyllis put shutters over the windows, then got in the cruiser. As she was pulling away, her radio crackled. It was Hazel, with a report of an accident on Larsen Road, telling her to investigate. Ida hit the overheads, gave the siren a whoop, and went into a U-turn. Larsen Road. West. Right.
Wind buffeted the cruiser as she sped through town and bumped into a turn onto an unpaved. Might as well be midnight, she thought as she turned on the headlights and tried to identify landmarks that looked completely different in the dark. Just ahead, past a dip in the road, light glowed. At the top of the rise, she saw an SUV, headlights on, parked by the side of the road. She stopped behind it and got out. Wind hit her so hard she got pushed several steps. The driver of the SUV was the concerned citizen who had reported the accident. She thanked him for calling it in and told him to find shelter.
A car missed the turn, hit a parked car, rolled down the embankment, smashed through the barbwire fence, tearing out the fence post, and came to an abrupt stop, front end mashed up against a boulder in th
e middle of a grassy field. Two shacky cabins at the top of the slope two hundred yards apart, trees behind, trees along the right edge of the field. A man was dragging what appeared to be an unconscious woman toward the cabin on the right.
Ida yelled, “Don’t move her!”
Switching on her flashlight, she made her way down the hard dirt of the embankment, sliding and nearly landing on her butt at the bottom. Staggering against the wind, she stepped over barbwire and tromped across uneven ground.
“Any closer and I’ll kill her!”
She froze. “She’s hurt. She needs medical attention.” Ida took a step.
Muzzle flash and the zing of a rifle shot. She switched off the flashlight so she wasn’t such a clear target. Talk about dark. Headlights from the cruiser provided the only source of light. How badly was the woman hurt? Who was this creep? And what the hell did he think he was doing?
Wind howled so loud she couldn’t hear anything else. Even as she struggled toward the trees on the right edge of the field, she was talking into her shoulder mike. She explained where she was and described the situation, requested backup and an ambulance.
“Help on the way,” Hazel said. “Wait for it.”
The cabin on the slope above had flickering light inside. A couple football fields across an empty pasture, the cabin she’d glimpsed earlier was lost in darkness. She considered running for it, but didn’t know where the sniper was. Creeping up on her?
Hairs prickled on the back of her neck. Shrieking wind made so much noise, she wouldn’t hear him sneaking up until he stuck the rifle in her face. Maybe he’d gone for the cabin. Or slipped away. Simply left the woman and taken off. Slowly, she shuffled across the field, stumbling on the uneven ground, to the row of trees along the right.
Suddenly, with no warning, hail pounded down. She crossed her arms over her head. Lightning split the sky. Whoever lay on the ground was getting pelted with golf-ball-size hail. Where was the jerk with the gun? How long before backup got here? She held up her wrist to peer at her watch, but it was too dark to see her hand, let alone the hands of her watch.
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