anytime they ventured an inch or two closer. Yet Luc could still see the barrel toppled over, its side dented in. One big chunk of brownstone kept it from rolling down the pile of rocks. A blue plastic tarp now covered her, but he could still see the image of that gray-blue arm flung out of the barrel, protruding halfway, as if the body were trying to crawl out. That was all he had been able to see—all he needed to see—that arm and a hunk of matted hair.
Luc felt a nudge at the back of his leg and, without looking, he reached down for the dog to lick his hand. Only there was no lick. He glanced at Scrapple, who immediately went into his defensive stance, gripping harder on the prize he had brought to show his owner. Another bone. Luc ignored him, and his attention went back to the excitement beyond the trees.
Suddenly, it hit Luc. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? He looked back at the dog working his paws to hold his large treat as he chewed on the fleshy end and tried to get his teeth around the perimeter. Luc’s knees went weak.
“Holy crap, Scrapple. Where in the world did you get that?” he said to the Jack Russell, but now everyone around him went silent as they twisted and turned to see.
Luc glanced at the girl reporter and asked, “You think that’s what it looks like?”
Instead of answering—or as if confirming it—she began vomiting on Calvin Vargus’s size-thirteen boots. Her hand went up to block the camera and in between gags she yelled, “Shut it off. For God’s sake, shut off the camera.”
CHAPTER 8
Sheriff Henry Watermeier didn’t need a forensic expert to tell him what he was looking at. The larger bone Luc Racine held out to him had enough tissue to keep the smaller bones attached. And although some of the smaller bones were missing and the flesh was now black and deteriorated, there was no question as to what the Jack Russell terrier had dug up. What Luc Racine held out in shaking hands—his palms faceup as if making an offering—was definitely a human foot.
“Where the hell did he find it?”
“Don’t know,” Luc said, stepping closer, his eyes never leaving Henry’s as if willing himself not to look at the dog’s discovery any more than necessary. “He brought it to me. But I don’t know where he found it.”
Henry waved over one of the mobile-crime guys, a tall, skinny Asian man with a name tag reading “Carl” on his blue uniform. He reminded himself that it wasn’t a bad thing he didn’t know all the mobile-crime guys by name, even if they were from up the road at Meriden’s Police Crime Lab. Just meant the really sick bastards were committing their crimes somewhere outside the boundaries of New Haven County. For the second time today, Henry found himself hoping this sick bastard didn’t seriously fuck up his own retirement plans. He had come this far with a perfect record—no unsolved mysteries during his reign—and he’d sure as hell like to keep it that way.
“That didn’t fall out of the barrel, did it?” Carl asked as he shook open a paper evidence bag, then held it under Luc’s outstretched hands, positioning it for Luc to drop the bones into the bag.
But Luc, who had seemed anxious to get rid of the thing, now only stared at Henry. He nodded at Luc to put it into the bag, and like a sleepwalker waking suddenly, Luc jerked—almost as if snapping back to reality—and he dropped the bone.
Henry kept an eye on him, studying him. Luc Racine had been one of the first people Henry had met when he and Rosie moved here. Hell, everyone knew Luc. He was the best, friendliest postal carrier in the area, making it a habit to remember his customers by name. Henry remembered a package that Luc had delivered when Henry wasn’t home, wrapping it in plastic and leaving it on Henry’s front portico with a note explaining that it had looked like rain. That wasn’t so long ago, and now Luc Racine had taken early retirement. Word was he had early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
How was that possible? The man looked younger than Henry. Though his hair was silver-gray, he had a full head of it, not like Henry’s, which seemed to get thinner and thinner and receded away from his forehead more each day. Racine looked fit and trim, too, arms tanned and twisted with muscles from lifting and carrying years’ worth of junk mail. Although Henry had a bit of a paunch around the middle, he prided himself on the fact that he could still fit into his NYPD police uniform that he had worn…God, had it been thirty-some years ago?
As Henry assessed the man standing in front of him, he couldn’t help thinking that Luc Racine appeared the picture of health for a man in his sixties. Except for that blank stare, the one that came out of nowhere. The one staring back at him right now that looked lost, gone, miles away.
“I think there are others,” Luc said, reaching under his trademark black beret and scratching his head, his fingers digging into the shaggy hair as if penetrating his scalp would help him remember.
“Others?” Henry checked Luc’s eyes. Was this part of the disease? What was he talking about? Did he forget where he was? Did he forget what had just happened? “Other what?”
“Bones,” Luc said. “I think ole Scrap maybe brought me some others. He’s always bringing me stuff, scraps, bones, old shoes. But the bones…I just thought he found leftovers from the coyotes’ kill. You know, from down by the pond.”
“Do you still have any of them?”
“I don’t.”
“Damn.”
“But Scrapple probably does. I’m sure he’s got some of them buried around our place somewhere.”
“We’ll need to look. You don’t mind us doing that, do you, Luc?”
“No, no. Not at all. Do you think the bones belong to that lady in the barrel?”
Before Henry could answer, one of his deputies, Charlie Newhouse, yelled for everyone’s attention. Charlie and two of the crime lab guys had been trying to carefully lift the barrel with the woman still inside down off the rocks. All the photos had been taken, the evidence gathered, and the assistant M.E. had made his initial examination. It was time for the transport, but Charlie seemed all excited about something. Charlie Newhouse, the one guy Henry remembered never getting excited except after a few beers and then only when the Yankees managed to make a triple play.
“Okay, you got our attention.” Henry joined the others and looked up at Charlie, putting his hand to his forehead to block out the sun. “What the hell is it, Charlie?”
“Might not mean a thing, Sheriff,” Charlie said, securing his balance as he paced from rock to rock, looking down into the pile as if trying to locate lost change. He then squatted to get a better look. “Might not mean a thing at all, but there’re more barrels under here. And something sure smells to high heaven.”
CHAPTER 9
Adam Bonzado shoved aside Tom Clancy with one hand while he maneuvered the winding road with the other, twisting and pulling at the stubborn and cracked vinyl steering wheel. At each incline the old El Camino pickup groaned as if there were another gear it needed to be shifted into. Adam stirred up the pile of cassettes strewn across the passenger seat, the pile that somewhere included the other three cassettes for Tom Clancy’s
Sheriff Henry Watermeier had sounded strained, may be even a bit panicked. Not that Adam knew Henry all that well. They had worked a case last winter. A skull found under an old building that was being demolished in downtown Meriden. All Adam could determine was that it was a small Caucasian man older than forty-two but younger than seventy-seven who had died about twenty-five to thirty years ago. It was difficult to tell with only the skull. The body must have been buried somewhere else. With all their digging, they had found nothing more, and so, the time of death had been a major guess, based more on architectural facts than archeological ones. Despite the lack of evidence, Watermeier seemed convinced it had been a mob hit.
Adam smiled at the idea. He couldn’t imagine the mob operating in the middle of Connecticut, although Watermeier had quickly filled him in with a couple of tall tales. Or at least that’s what they sounded like to Adam,
