“Uh… twelve regular, and two guys who call me if they’re too busy to snowblow their drives themselves. Plus I get a lot of pickups when I’m doing the plowing. Like, I’m doing one of my regulars and his next-door neighbor will coming running out with a twenty and ask me to do his drive, too.”
“Sounds profitable. How do you get your customers?”
“Most of ’em Seamus got, and they, you know, just kept calling up in the fall. My mom and dad talk it up, so I get some people who know them.”
“What do you use for the plowing?”
“I have an ’88 Ford Ranger with a fifty-four-inch Deere plow and cement blocks in the bed to weight it down.”
“Is it yours, or do you borrow it from your folks?”
“It’s mine. I bought it off of my brother.”
“Do you use it just for the business?”
“Naw, it’s how I get around. I mean, I don’t get great mileage during the winter, with the plow and the weights on, but I never get stuck, so it’s a good trade-off.”
“Especially on a day like today.”
The boy huffed a quiet laugh. “Yeah, I’ll be way busy as soon as this lets up.”
Ben slid the list of reported animal losses in front of him. “Do you plow for John and Zoe Kavenaugh?” The couple he hadn’t been able to reach.
“Yeah.” Tracey sounded surprised.
“And Dr. Irving Underkirk.”
“Yeah…” Surprise turning to suspicion.
“And Herbert Perkins.”
“How do you know all this?”
“All three of them have had an animal killed within the last month. Throat slit, body hacked up, but the meat uneaten. So we know it’s not a starving coyote or panther coming down from the mountains. I’m thinking it must have been done with a knife.”
He could hear fast, heavy breathing across the line. Nothing else.
“That’s a strange coincidence. Three of your customers reporting an outdoor animal butchered. And those are just the ones who called the police. I know of at least one other person who had an animal mutilated who hasn’t involved the cops. Yet.” He should have called Clare Fergusson back and asked for the name of the parishioner she mentioned. He would have had to trade information, but right now he’d give just about anything to have another name to throw at Tracey. “Do you have any comment?”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“I didn’t say you did. Just that it was strange. And another strange coincidence. Your mom discovered the body of a woman who also had her throat slit and got hacked up. Just like those animals. Were the Van Alstynes customers of yours as well?”
His answer was the blank buzz of the dial tone.
FORTY-THREE
Storms can come to the Adirondacks from any of the four compass points. Soggy and slow from the south, doily-sized flakes dropping straight as beads on a string from the sky. Canadian clippers from the north, with air straight off the arctic circle and fine dry snow that scours whatever it touches. Rarely, the wheeling nor’ easters that pound the New England coastline will fall in tattered remnants over the easternmost edges of New York.
But the storms that wrack come from the west. Massive low pressure systems rumbling out of Canada, crossing five Great Lakes before breaking over the shoals of the Adirondacks. Winds that have gathered speed for a thousand miles come howling through the ancient hills. Snow crystals that may have formed over the arctic regions of Hudson Bay hurtle downward, looking for their namesake river. As the snow falls faster and the winds continue to rise, the truck driver on the Northway and the shopper walking down Main Street may be caught in a whiteout, a spinning, shifting blankness that wipes the world away.
Smart people stay inside, watch through windows as the drifts mount two, five, eight feet against the barn door and rising, and shake their heads when a vehicle rolls down the road. “Damn fool,” Margy Van Alstyne says, as an SUV rumbles past her drive. She knows, however, that some folks have no choice but to be out in the storm.
Sergeant Ogilvie would have just as soon put off picking up the Shambaugh computers from the Millers Kill Police Department, but his guys from the state cybercrime analysis team were leaning on him to bring in the hardware. When he stomped through the hallway, shedding snow, he thought the station was deserted, but he found the dispatcher, who sent him downstairs to the evidence room. Durkee, the officer who had been working on the preliminary downloads, was overjoyed to meet him, and Ogilvie could see why: The poor bastard was working inside the small evidence cage to preserve the chain of custody. He had to admire the guy’s dedication. The room’s heat and lighting system must have been installed a century ago; compact fluorescents screwed into overhead bulbs flickered as if they were about to blow, and Ogilvie could almost see his breath in the cold.
He and Durkee both signed off on the custody sheets, and Ogilvie twisted no-release plastic straps around the CPU and sealed them with his department’s lead slug. Durkee helped him tote the things up the stairs, through the building, and down another set of stairs. They ducked heads and raised shoulders and stalked through the driving snow to get to Ogilvie’s van, then hightailed it back inside and did it again.
The three CPUs secured in a locker in the back, Ogilvie followed Durkee back inside one more time to get the hard-copy transcripts the Millers Kill officer had prepped and to take him up on the offer of a hot refill for his traveling mug.
“Crappy weather,” Durkee said, leading Ogilvie to the coffee machine. “I’m glad I’m not headed down to Albany.”
“I’ll take it slow. My boss thinks your perp might be part of an areawide identity theft ring. He’s practically wetting his pants over those CPUs.”
“I hope he finds some leads, then, because when we catch Shambaugh, he’s going down for Man One, not fraud.” Durkee crossed the squad room to his desk and retrieved a thick plastic document box. “Here’s the printouts.”
“Thanks.” Ogilvie hefted the box one-handed and slipped it beneath his arm. “So… word is this guy was ripping off your chief when he sliced and diced his partner.”
Durkee frowned. “He was there, all right. We’ve got the prints. The funny thing is-”
Ogilvie’s ears perked up. He did enjoy a juicy piece of information. “What?”
“It’s probably because I’m not real skilled in this. I’m sure you guys will uncover something. It’s just… I couldn’t find any trace of any of the Van Alstynes’ information in there. No SSNs, no card numbers-nothin’.”
Approaching the red light where Main crossed Route 17, Officer Kevin Flynn feathered his brakes and wished for the fifth time since leaving the station he had had the cojones to stand up to Investigator Jensen. Not so much about driving halfway across the township to talk with Quinn Tracey, but about taking his own truck.
He had just gotten back from interviewing first Shambaugh’s sister, and then his sister-in-law. Jensen called him into the chief’s office, where she had just moved in and set up camp. “O’Flynn,” she said, tossing a folder across the desk at him, “there may be a common thread in these animal abuse cases.”
“It’s just Flynn, ma’am.” He picked the folder up.
“Flynn.” She smiled insincerely. “This department has three reported cases, and I have information that there’ve been two more incidents that weren’t reported. You’ll see my notes. A kid named Quinn Tracey worked for the five owners.”
He looked up from where he had been flipping through the folder. “All five?”
“Amazingly, the brilliant investigative minds in this department hadn’t made the connection. Get yourself up to date and then get over to the Traceys’ house and talk with the kid.”
“Okay if I take my personal vehicle, ma’am? It’s better in the snow than the Crown Vics.”
“No, Officer Flynn, it’s not okay. You’ve got a uniform and a squad car. I expect to see you in both.”
