skirted the island counter and stood on the side of the opening that went into the family room.
There was an acrid mix of smells in the home—chemicals Joe couldn’t identify, years of cooking residue on the walls, and a sharp metallic smell that took him back to Hank’s dining room: blood.
Holding his weapon out in front of him, he wheeled around the opening into the dining room and saw the Legacy Wall facing him. All the pictures were smashed and some had falled to the floor.
Furniture was overturned. A china cabinet was on its side, spilling coffee cups and plates across the floor. A wild spray of blood climbed the Legacy Wall and onto the ceiling. A pool of blood stained the carpet on the floor. It was a scene of horrendous violence.
“Jesus,” Nate said as he entered the living room from the front and looked around.
Joe called,
His shout echoed through the house.
Nate wrinkled his nose. “I recognize that smell.”
“What is it?”
“Alum,” Nate said, turning to Joe. “It’s used for tanning hides.”
THEY HEARD A sound below them, under the floor. A moan.
“Is there a basement?” Nate asked.
Joe shrugged, looking around.
They heard the moan again. It was deep and throaty.
Nate turned, strode back through the dining room toward the front door. “I remember seeing a cellar door on the side of the house,” he said.
Joe followed.
OUTSIDE, NATE TURNED and hopped off the front porch toward the side of the house Joe had not seen. They rounded the corner of the front of the house and Joe could see a raised concrete abutment on the side of the house with two doors mounted on top. The mud near the cellar was pocked with footprints leading to it. Someone was down there.
Nate ran to the doors and threw them open, stepping aside in case someone was waiting with a weapon pointing up. But nothing happened.
“Sheridan!” Joe called. “Lucy!”
The moan rolled out, louder because the door was open.
“Come out!” Nate boomed into the opening. “Come out or I’ll come in!”
The moan morphed into a high wail. Joe recognized the sound of Wyatt Scarlett when he had cried months before, after his brothers got in the fight.
Joe pushed past Nate and went down the damp concrete stairs. Nate followed. The passageway was dark but there was a yellow glow on the dry dirt floor on the bottom. The chemical smells were overpowering as Joe went down.
He had to duck under a thick wooden beam to enter the cellar. Nate didn’t see it and hit his head with a thump and a curse.
What Joe saw next nearly made his heart stop.
It was a taxidermy studio. A bare lightbulb hung from a cord. Half-finished mounts stared out with hollow eye sockets from workbenches. Foam-rubber animal heads filled floor-to-ceiling shelves, as did jars and boxes of chemicals and tools.
Wyatt sat on the floor, his legs sprawled, cradling Arlen Scarlett’s head in his lap. Arlen’s eyes were open but he was clearly dead. There was a bullet hole in Arlen’s cheek and another in his chest.
Hank was laid out on a workbench, his cowboy boots pointed toward the ceiling, his face serene but white, his hands palms up.
And there was a man’s entire arm on the floor near Wyatt’s feet, the hand still gripping a pistol. The arm appeared to have been wrenched away from the body it had belonged to. Joe didn’t think that was possible, but here it was right in front of him.
Joe didn’t even feel Nate run into him accidentally and nearly send him sprawling.
Wyatt looked up at Joe, his eyes red with tears, his mouth agape with a silent sob.
“Wyatt,” Joe asked. “What happened here?”
The youngest Scarlett boy closed his eyes, sluicing the tears from them, which ran down his cherubic face.
“Wyatt . . .”
“My brothers are dead,” Wyatt said, his voice breaking. “My brothers—”
“Who did it?”
Wyatt’s body was wracked with a cry. “Bill Monroe.”
Joe thought,
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know. He ran away.”
“Is that his arm?”
