“We’re still scouring the scene, so we haven’t started opening any more barrels yet. We’ll need to move some rocks to get to some of them. I don’t want us jumping in and destroying evidence.”
“Sounds like a good idea.”
“This missing person—” he shot her a look of suspicion “—she’s not someone that’s gonna cause all hell to break loose, is she?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“I checked you out, O’Dell.” He waited as if expecting her to protest. When she didn’t, he continued, “My office isn’t exactly in the Stone Age. We can do that pretty quickly.”
“I’m sure you can, Sheriff Watermeier.”
“Well, point being that I know you’re out of Quantico. FBI’s looking for a missing person, and I’m thinking that missing person must be someone important, right?”
“Every missing person we look for is important to someone, Sheriff Watermeier.”
He stared at her and this time she thought she saw the beginning of a smile at the corner of his mouth. He didn’t press the issue.
“You ever have a case like this?” He started walking, slowing down when he realized his long strides were keeping her a step behind him. “I mean, there’s not some crazy bastard who’s been doing this in other states, too, is there?”
“I did check, but nothing registered on VICAP.”
“Dr. Stolz—” he pointed to a small-framed, balding man in a suit “—hasn’t gotten to the autopsy yet of the woman we found yesterday. You can join us for that later, if you’d like. She’s a mess, though. I’m not sure you’ll be able to do a visual ID.”
“I have some of her physical characteristics that might, at the very least, rule her out.”
“Right now, the M.E.’s having a hell of a time. We’re trying to figure out how the hell to contain the barrels that have cracked open. He’s thinking we may need to set up some kind of temporary morgue out here. On the other hand, if we just pull them out…hell, who knows. My quick reference check said you’d been with the bureau for about ten years. Have you come across anything like this before?”
“There was a case in Kansas. I believe 1998 or ’99, John Robinson.”
“I think I remember that one. The Internet wacko, right?”
“Yes, that’s right. He lured women via the Internet to his farm, killed them and stuffed their bodies into fifty- five-gallon drums.” Maggie watched her feet. Rocks protruded out of the ground and were hidden by knee-high grass. “I didn’t work that case, but if I remember correctly, I think the drums were found in a storage shed, so there wasn’t as much risk of jostling things around as you’re dealing with here. Do you have any idea how many barrels there are? And how many are filled with bodies?”
“Could be as many as a dozen barrels. Maybe more. Doesn’t mean they all have dead bodies. But we’ve seen inside several of them. Weird crap, really weird.” He tilted his hat back and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “In one, it looks like there’s just a pile of bones, but in the other one…” He shook his head and pointed to the barrel he wanted her to see first. “In the other one, the body looks pretty well preserved. From what we can see. Either way, we’ve got one sick son of a bitch on our hands.”
He stopped in his tracks and Maggie waited. They were about a hundred feet from the commotion. A group was hunched over a barrel that had been brought down from the rock pile. Close by, several crime-scene techs searched the area on their latexed hands and padded knees, working their grid over the rocky surface. Maggie was impressed with the sheriff’s careful handling of the scene. Too often small-town law enforcement officers allowed unnecessary civilians within the perimeter. They couldn’t see the harm in letting the mayor or a local city councilor take a look. What they considered a smart move politically—sheriffs were elected, after all—oftentimes ended up contaminating a crime scene.
Suddenly, Maggie realized Watermeier was waiting, as if weighing what he wanted to ask or tell her before they joined the others.
“I spent over thirty years with the NYPD, so I’m not a rookie to messes, okay?” He met her eyes and held them, waiting for acknowledgment—a brief nod from Maggie—before he went on. “My wife and I moved here about four years ago. She’s part owner in a nice little bookstore in downtown Wallingford. The locals elected me because they wanted somebody with some real experience. We like it here…a lot. This is where we wanna retire in a few years.”
He stopped to watch his men, looking around him as if to take count. Maggie crossed her arms and shifted her weight from one leg to the other. She knew he didn’t need a response from her. And more important, she knew he wasn’t finished. She waited.
Finally he looked at her, his eyes meeting hers again. There was something in them Maggie recognized. There was determination, frustration, a bit of anger, but what Maggie recognized was just enough panic—just a glimpse—to tell her that the experienced Sheriff Henry Watermeier was also scared.
“This is one fucking mess,” he said, pointing to the barrel the group was focused on. “Whoever did this may have been doing it for years. I’m not gonna bullshit you, O’Dell. Even if we don’t find your missing person, I could use your help. I’m going to need it to find this goddamn psycho. I’m not a betting man, but if I were, I’d say he still lives around here. And if I don’t find him and haul his ass in, I can kiss my dream of retiring in this community goodbye.”
Watermeier waited for her response. But this time he avoided her eyes, looking, searching, assessing, all in an effort to downplay the enormous level of trust he had laid at Maggie’s feet. Trust and confidence he had invested in a woman he was meeting for the first time, a woman who had insinuated herself into his investigation. Whether out of desperation or simple strategy, Maggie could tell this was not something a tough, independent sheriff like Watermeier did easily.
She turned toward the group surrounding the barrel, and simply told him, “Then I guess we better get to work.”
Maggie didn’t glance back for his reaction, but soon he was beside her, restraining his long strides so that they walked side by side.
CHAPTER 19
Henry introduced Special Agent Maggie O’Dell to the rest of the group and watched the casual exchange and assessment. Of course, Bonzado got the longest look. Bonz looked like some California surfer dude instead of a professor in that goddamn Hawaiian shirt. But the kid was brilliant in a humble, nonarrogant way, and despite his getup, he was good at magically attributing an identity to a pile of bones. But Henry already knew what Dr. Stolz, the medical examiner, was thinking. He had shot Henry one of those famous “what the hell?” looks when he first saw Bonzado. And now, without saying a word, Henry could feel Stolz’s scowl saying, “The feds? You brought in the fucking feds already?”
Stolz was probably worried that it was a direct reflection on his own competence. Actually, Henry didn’t care what Stolz or any of the rest of them thought. He had learned a long time ago to live by one simple philosophy— CYOA—cover your own ass.
They had a body bag spread out under the lip of one of the barrels that had cracked open during Vargus’s shake-up. Henry would just as soon load it up and have the poor sucker join the woman from yesterday at the morgue. But this was Stolz’s call. He wanted to process the fractured barrels out here at the scene, worried that jostling around the fragile remains might compromise them. This process didn’t look any more efficient to Henry. But again, he reminded himself, it was Stolz’s call, Stolz’s risk to take. In other words, Stolz’s ass. He could only be concerned about one ass at a time, and right now it was his own.
All that could be seen of the corpse inside the barrel was the head and shoulders, a tuff of peppered gray hair and what looked like the lapels of a navy blue suit. Stolz and Bonzado, their hands covered in latex gloves, carefully groped inside, grabbing hold of anything solid that hopefully wouldn’t rip or tear or crack. At the other end of the barrel, two of Henry’s deputies held tight to a rope that had been secured around the cracked middle. They were ready to play a sort of macabre game of tug-of-war.
Henry handed Agent O’Dell a small jar of Vicks VapoRub. The smell would only get worse once they pulled
