string but there was no padlock in sight and no sign that
the doors had been forced.
Lomax followed his eyes. “We keep the sheds locked
if there’s something worth stealing in them,” he said,
“but we don’t bother when they’re empty, just peg the
doors shut. I doubt I’ve stuck my head in here since
Christmas.”
Carefully, Denning used a screwdriver to pull a chain
that released the catch for the other door and let it
swing wide, then used equal care to switch on a couple
of bare lightbulbs overhead that immediately lit up the
gory scene at the rear of the shed.
Blood, lots of blood, had pooled at a slight low spot
and blow flies and maggots were busily churning it on
this mild spring day. Small dried chunks were scattered
around.
159
MARGARET MARON
“Bone,” Denning said succinctly.
The bloody axe had been flung to one side but there
were deep gouges in the concrete floor where the blade
had come down heavily.
But that wasn’t the worst.
The real horror was a length of bloody rusty iron
chain that lay in heavy loops, the links caked in blood
and gore, the two ends secured with a lock.
“Dear God,” Lomax murmured. “He was alive and
conscious when the hacking started?”
Denning nodded grimly. “Looks like it.”
“And after it was finished,” said Dwight, “the killer
didn’t need to open the lock. He just pulled away the
pieces.”
Lomax turned away and bolted for the door. They
heard him retching, but there were no grins from any of
them for a civilian’s involuntary reaction.
Except for Denning, all of them had grown up on
working farms where food animals had been routinely
slaughtered to fill the family freezer for the winter, but
that sort of killing was done cleanly and as humanely as
possible.
This though—!
“Looks like his clothes over here,” said Denning.
Jockey shorts lay tangled with a jacket, shirt, and pair
of pants. Shoes and socks had been tossed into a corner.
“No blood,” said Richards. “So he was stripped naked
before the chain went on.”
