had found exactly one week ago.
A full week and they were no nearer an identity.
The man indicated the general area where he had first
seen the buzzards and they approached gingerly, sweep-
ing the ground before them with their lights. They saw
nothing of interest in the weeds and nothing on the
shoulder of the road, but when they walked in the op-
posite direction, shining their flashlights in the ditches,
Detective Jack Jamison noticed that water had ponded
up and frozen solid behind a clogged culvert. He started
to walk on, but something seemed to be embedded in
the dirty ice.
“I think it’s the other arm!” he called.
The others quickly joined him on the edge of the road.
Three flashlights focused on the ice, and the shape was
so similar to what they hoped to find that it took a poke
with the shovel to confirm that the object was only part
of a tree branch that had broken off and lodged there.
101
MARGARET MARON
Disappointed, they walked on.
“At least it’s on a line with the other parts,” Deputy
Richards said. Despite a red nose and cheeks, her cold
seemed to be drying up and she had turned out when
Dwight paged her, even though technically not on
duty.
There was something different about her tonight,
Dwight thought. She wore jeans instead of her usual
utilitarian slacks and the turtleneck sweater peeping out
of her black suede jacket was a soft pink. And was that
perfume drifting on the chill night air?
He gave himself a mental kick in the pants. Of course!
Friday night? Young single woman?
“Sorry for messing up your evening,” he said.
She shrugged. “That’s okay. Goes with the job,
doesn’t it?”
And that was something else new. Heretofore, when-
ever he addressed a personal remark to Richards, she
usually turned a fiery red. He realized now that it had
not happened in the last few weeks. She was a good of-
ficer, but he had begun to think she was never going
to be able to join in the department’s easy give-and-
take, yet she had finally adapted and he had not even
noticed.
Just as Dwight was ready to call it a night, Jamison’s
light caught something amid a curtain of dead kudzu
vines that entangled a clump of young pines growing
on the ditchbank. He thought at first that it was an old
weatherstained cardboard box. Nevertheless, he walked
over to check it out.
