thinking that if he did actually have a type, she would be in the running. Forget that the woman had amazing brown eyes and could make an FBI-approved navy-blue suit look official as well as make it come alive, the woman was smart. She actually knew what blade chattering was. Definitely a woman who could steal his heart. It had been a long time since any woman had gotten his attention enough for him to check out her ring finger.
According to his mother, it had been an abnormally long time. “It’s not good for such a young man to be so alone,” she would tell him at every opportunity. But after Kate he had chosen to be alone. Besides, how could he begin to fill the void that Kate had left? When she drowned it was as if she had taken him down under with her. Even now he couldn’t think about her without remembering, without feeling her cold, lifeless body, without remembering all those hands trying to pull him away as he continued over and over to pump her chest and try to breathe life into her blue-lipped mouth.
Suddenly Adam realized Simon was staring at him, waiting for him.
“You okay, Professor Bonzado?”
“I’m fine.” He turned back to the road, pretending to be distracted, then realized he had actually forgotten something. “What time do you need to get to your job?”
Simon checked his wristwatch. “Not until later this afternoon.”
“You still have my keys?”
“Oh, yeah, sorry.” Simon shifted the sandwich bags to one hand while he dug in his jeans pockets for the keys.
“You mind going back to the El Camino?”
Simon looked eager to please.
“There’s a pry bar that might help us open up some of the barrels. You mind getting that?”
“No, not at all.” He started handing the bags to Adam, making sure he had a grasp of everything. “Is it still under the seat?”
“I tossed it into the bed, but I bet it got shoved clear to the back when we loaded everything else.”
As Simon headed back, Adam took a deep breath, hoping to wipe out the images of Kate he thought he had buried long ago. Henry waved at him, then met him halfway, rescuing several of the bags before Adam dropped them.
“Hey, everybody. Lunch,” Henry yelled.
Adam watched the group stop, setting tools down and placing evidence bags in containers. They gathered around as if there was nothing unusual about sitting down to eat sandwiches and drink Cokes in the middle of a rock quarry surrounded by barrels stuffed with dead and rotting bodies.
“Where did you get these?” Agent O’Dell asked, unwrapping a sandwich.
“Vinny’s Deli.”
“Vinny’s has the best sandwiches in Connecticut, O’Dell,” Henry told her, but Adam could tell she hadn’t asked because it looked absolutely mouthwatering. If she had, she wouldn’t be so interested in the white paper it had been wrapped in.
“This looks like the same stuff you found with Mr. Earlman,” she said, looking at Carl.
“I think you’re right.”
“What the hell are you two talking about?” Henry seemed a little pissed off that they weren’t paying attention to their sandwiches.
“This white, waxy paper,” she explained, and now Adam remembered it. “We found something like this in the barrel with Mr. Earlman.”
“Lots of people use this stuff, O’Dell.”
“Actually, I don’t think so, Sheriff. I’ve never seen this stuff on the shelves of your regular grocery store. I bet it’s a specialty item.”
“So what the hell are you two saying? That the killer has himself a sandwich while he’s slicing and dicing his victims?”
Adam wondered if it was simply the exhaustion that had Henry’s face flushed and his voice raised. Maybe the fall sunshine that heated up the rocks and caused the beads of sweat on his upper lip had taken a toll on the aging sheriff. Or was Henry’s panic slipping out? So far he had almost appeared too calm.
Whatever it was, Henry was waiting for an answer, standing in front of O’Dell, towering over her. She didn’t look the least bit intimidated by the big man, and instead ripped off a piece of the paper to stick in her pocket. Everyone else stood watching, waiting, as if for permission to return to their lunches. Adam couldn’t figure out why Henry was suddenly being so tough on Agent O’Dell. After all, he had invited her into the investigation, hadn’t he?
“You think this could be important?” Henry finally asked, his tone almost back to normal. He must have realized he couldn’t rattle O’Dell so easily.
“When a killer uses something out of the ordinary like this it’s often because he has it handy. It may be a way for you to track him down.”
“A piece of paper?”
“Sometimes it’s the simplest things that lead us to a killer. What we might otherwise think is an insignificant piece of evidence. A serial killer named John Joubert used a strange piece of rope. It had unusual fibers. I think it was made in Korea, not something just anyone would have around the house. He tied up his young victims with it. When they arrested Joubert they found more of the rope in the trunk of his car. The rope was something he had access to as a scoutmaster. He had plenty of it handy and he never considered that it might be something that would be used to finger him. Whatever this white paper is, I’m guessing this killer has plenty of it available to him.”
“Okay.” Henry still didn’t sound convinced. “But what the hell is he using it for?”
“I need to see more of the victims, but my guess right now…” O’Dell hesitated, looking around the group as if deciding whether or not to share her opinion. “My early guess is that he’s using it to temporarily wrap things.”
“Things,” Henry chided as if impatient.
“Yes, things like Mr. Earlman’s brain.”
CHAPTER 22
Maggie accepted the Diet Coke Sheriff Watermeier offered. She preferred Diet Pepsi, but knew this was a sort of peace offering. As the others finished their lunches, Watermeier sat down next to her on the boulder.
“When we finish later this afternoon, I need to take a minute and throw a bone to those media piranhas.” He smiled, pleased with his own pun. “Then Stolz says he’ll do the autopsy of the woman we found yesterday. That suit your time schedule?”
“Yes, of course.”
He continued to sit quietly at her side, and she wondered if there was something more he needed to tell her, something more he wanted to share.
“It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?”
She glanced at him, surprised. That wasn’t exactly what she expected from the rough-and-tough, ex-NYPD- turned-small-town sheriff.
She followed his eyes, taking it in for the first time since she had arrived. Maggie couldn’t help thinking how quiet it was. The trees were still thick with splashes of orange and yellow with flaming red vines licking up the trunks. And the sky seemed so blue it looked artificial. Even the ankle-high grass was dotted with tiny yellow flowers.
“Yes,” she finally agreed. “It is beautiful.”
“Everybody ready?” Watermeier broke the momentary peace, standing suddenly as though he needed to snap back to attention.
They joined the others where Adam Bonzado and his students had brought down another cracked barrel. This time Maggie pulled her jacket up over her nose. Already the stench was overbearing and the pry bar had only broken the seal. Despite Bonzado’s effort the drum’s lid came undone bit by squeaky bit, reminding Maggie of opening a lid off a vacuum-sealed can of coffee.
