high-definition. She hadn’t discovered a remedy. Nothing worked. Not warm milk or alcohol, exercise or quiet. The only thing that had ever worked—but only once—was Benjamin Platt’s strong, soothing fingers working the tension from her shoulders and back. Although it was only a massage and hadn’t led to anything more, just the memory of it still made her flush.
Two of Lucy’s dogs, a gangly retriever mix and a three-legged boxer, came in and curled up at their mistress’s feet. Earlier, a pack had met the Jeep and escorted it down the long driveway to the house. Lucy had explained that people kept leaving their castaways at the edge of her property, knowing she’d take them in and thereby assuaging their guilt by not turning them in to the pound for a sure death sentence. When the headlights swept the side of an out-building Maggie had seen a couple more snouts peeking out of the small doors crafted into the shed.
A black German shepherd nudged Maggie’s elbow for a handout.
“Jake,” Lucy scolded in her low, gentle voice and the shepherd lay down by Maggie. “Usually he’s not this friendly. He showed up about a month ago, but he comes and goes as he pleases. He’ll be gone for days at a time.”
“Maybe he has another home somewhere.”
“I don’t think so. He comes back scraped up and starving. Hank thought he saw him in the forest one night. Worries me because they’ve also reported seeing a cougar. No, I think ole Jake just hasn’t decided if he wants to call this home.” Almost on cue the dog laid his head on Maggie’s foot.
“I have a white Lab,” she said. “Harvey. He sorted of ended up on my doorstep, too.”
“So you rescued him.”
“I like to think we rescued each other.”
Lucy smiled, a first since they’d met, then she wrapped long fingers around her mug of tea and sat back in the wicker chair.
“What do you think happened out there tonight?” Maggie asked. “It couldn’t have been just a game of Taser tag, could it?”
“I’ve never seen Tasers do what we saw tonight,” Lucy said, then seemed to consider it as she sipped. “Things aren’t always what they seem. For years ranchers used barbed wire for fencing. Cattle respected the boundary because it hurt to cross it. Intruders respected it because the barbs look vicious and dangerous.”
Maggie listened patiently, remembering the woman’s explanation for bagging the owl. Perhaps this was how she answered classroom questions, with proverbs and folk tales.
“Now some ranchers use the electric fencing. Unlike the barbed wire, the electric wire looks quite harmless. You can’t tell if it’s hot, if it’s dangerous, until it’s too late.”
Maggie quietly sipped her tea. Reached a hand down and petted Jake who released a heavy sigh before flopping onto his side to expose his belly. Without looking over at Lucy, Maggie said, “So what the hell does any of that mean?”
To Maggie’s surprise Lucy laughed, hard and long. She had to wipe her eyes before attempting an answer. And when she finally did, she prefaced it with “I think you and I are going to get along just fine.
“It simply means don’t dismiss something that appears ordinary. Outsiders come here and they tend to see a simpler life, an uncomplicated people. But human nature is human nature. People out here are capable of the same things as people in cities. You might think it’s easier to hide the mistakes, the evil—if you will—in the city, but sometimes it’s just as easy to hide things in plain sight.”
Lucy set her mug down and reached into her jacket pocket, pulling out what looked like bib lettuce in a Ziploc bag. She held on to it, fingering it carefully.
“I think this is
She fingered the bag and then looked directly at Maggie when she said, “I found this under one of the dead boys when I was examining him.”
“And you put it in your pocket?”
“Sheriff Skylar is a man who means well. Possession, distribution, and sale of salvia is illegal in more than a dozen states. Including Nebraska. There was a young woman whose body was found in the river several months ago. Some say she was tripping on salvia. Thought she could fly and jumped from the Highway 83 bridge. That bridge is a hundred and fifty feet above the water.
“There were friends with her at the time. No arrests were made. There was no mention of drug use. It was said to be an accident. Sometimes it can be devastating for grieving parents to learn bad things about their dead child. I thought it was important that this didn’t accidentally get lost or misplaced because of good intentions.”
Lucy set the plastic bag on the side table between them, relinquishing it, handing it over to Maggie.
“I’ll understand if you no longer want me to participate in this investigation.”
Maggie left the bag on the table, sipped her tea, and considered what Lucy had done. In most cases it could be viewed as obstructing a federal investigation. Perhaps even tampering with evidence and certainly not following the chain of command. What was it that her old boss and mentor, Kyle Cunningham, would say? “Rules were made for the head to judge when the heart got in the way.”
Finally Maggie looked over at the woman and said, “I think you and I are going to get along just fine.”
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9
SEVENTEEN
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mary Ellen Wychulis waited outside her new boss’s office. The undersecretary of Food Safety and Inspection Services hated tardy employees but obviously didn’t mind keeping them waiting. Mary Ellen crossed her legs and let her foot tap out her annoyance.
She was missing her son’s first official playdate. Her husband had emailed three photos—mostly blurs of babies surrounded by too many toys—but they were enough to make her ache. She had only been back at work three weeks and already she wished she had taken some extra time.
It didn’t help matters that she returned to a new boss; her old one, promoted up the ranks, had been kind enough to make sure her job was secure before he left. These days that was no small feat. And so she was grateful even if her new boss was obsessive-compulsive, an outsider who Mary Ellen believed was an obvious political pick.
Mary Ellen felt like she had spent the last three weeks teaching her the nuts and bolts of the job. But she held her tongue even when she realized her husband was, most likely, right. Had she not been pregnant, her previous boss would have recommended Mary Ellen for his old position. She didn’t like to admit that such bias still ran rampant in the federal government, especially at the upper levels. Had she been a man with the same qualifications, age, marital status, and even a new baby, she would, no doubt, be the new undersecretary.
The door to the office opened so suddenly that Mary Ellen startled. A man in a military uniform marched out then turned back.
“Keep me posted,” he said.
Mary Ellen could see that her boss, Irene Baldwin, had followed him to the door. The officer looked familiar but Mary Ellen couldn’t put a name to the face, although she realized he resembled too many military elite—thick- chested with steel-gray hair, a rubber-stamped scowl, and lifeless eyes.
She watched the man march all the way down the hall before it hit her. General Lorimer was the chairman of
