Still Life With Crows

Staties find it on their own. If it really meant anything, anyway.

When he pushed his way back into the clearing, the trooper captain came forward at once. “Sheriff Hazen, I was just looking for you,” he said. He was carrying a handheld GPS unit in one hand and a USGS topographical map in the other, and his face was wearing a very different expression than it had just moments before. “Congratulations.”

“What’s that?” asked Hazen.

The captain pointed to the GPS device. “According to this reading, we’re inside the boundary of the township of Medicine Creek. Twelve feet inside the boundary, to be exact. Which means it’s your case, Sheriff. We’re here to help, of course, but it’s your case. So let me be the first to offer my congratulations.”

He beamed and held out his hand.

Sheriff Dent Hazen ignored the hand. Instead he plucked the pack of cigarettes from his breast pocket, shook one out, pushed it between his lips, and lit it. He inhaled and then spoke, the smoke puffing out with his words. “Twelve feet?” he repeated. “Jesus Christ.”

The captain let his hand fall to his side.

Hazen began to talk. “The victim was murdered somewhere else and carried here. The murderer came through the corn over there, dragged her the last twenty feet or so. If you follow the row backwards from that broken stalk, you’ll come to a piece of caught fabric. The fabric matches that of the victim, but it’s caught too high on the stalk for her to have been walking, so he must’ve been lugging her on his back. You may see my footprints and the place where I took a piss in the adjoining row; don’t bother with that. And for God’s sake, Captain, do we really need all these people? This is a crime scene, not a Wal-Mart parking lot. I want only the M.E., the photographer, and the evidence gatherer on site. Tell the rest to back off.”

“Sheriff, we do have our procedures to follow—”

“My procedures are now your procedures.”

The captain swallowed.

“I want a pair of certified, trained AKC police bloodhounds here ASAP to get on the trail. And I want you to get the forensic evidence team down from Dodge.”

“Right.”

“And one other thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I want your boys to pull over any arriving press. Especially television trucks. Tie them up while we complete work here.”

“Pull them over for what?”

“Give ’em all speeding tickets. That’s what you boys are good at, right?”

The captain’s tight jaw grew even tighter. “And if they’re not speeding?”

Sheriff Hazen grinned. “Oh, they’ll be speeding, all right. You can bet your ass on it.”

Three

 

Deputy Sheriff Tad Franklin sat hunched over his desk, filling out reams of unfamiliar paperwork and trying to pretend that the unruly knot of television and newspaper reporters just outside the plate glass window of the Medicine Creek Sheriff’s Department didn’t exist. Tad had always liked the fact that the sheriff’s HQ was located in a former five-and-ten-cent storefront, where he could wave to passersby, chat with friends, keep tabs on who was coming or going. But now the disadvantages of the office had suddenly become obvious.

The fiery light of yet another hot August sunrise had begun spilling down the street, stretching long shadows from the news trucks and gilding the unhappy faces of the reporters. They had been up all night and things were beginning to look ugly. A steady stream came and went from Maisie’s Diner across the street, but the plain food only seemed to make them grumpier.

Tad Franklin tried to concentrate on the paperwork, but he found himself unable to ignore the tapping on the window, the questions, the occasional shouted vulgarity. This was getting intolerable. If they woke Sheriff Hazen, who was grabbing a few winks in the back cell, things might get even uglier. Tad rose, tried to put on as stern a look as possible, and cracked open a window.

“I’ll ask you once again to step back from the glass,” he said.

This was greeted with a muffled chorus of disrespectful comments, shouted questions, a general undercurrent of irritation. Tad knew from the call letters on the vans that the reporters weren’t local; they were from Topeka, Kansas City, Tulsa, Amarillo, and Denver. Well, they could just ride on back home and—

Behind him, Tad heard a door thump, a cough. He turned to see Sheriff Hazen, yawning and rubbing his stubbly chin, the hair on one side of his head sticking out horizontally. The sheriff smoothed it down, then fitted on his hat with both hands.

Tad closed the window. “Sorry, Sheriff, but these people just won’t go away—”

The sheriff yawned, waved his hand casually, turned his back on the crowd. A particularly angry reporter in the rear of the crowd shouted out a stream of invective, in which the words “redneck in miniature” could be heard. Hazen went to the coffee pot, poured a cup. He sipped it, made a face, spat the coffee back into the cup, hawked up a loogie, deposited it in the cup as well, and then poured everything back into the pot.

“Want me to get a fresh pot?” asked Tad.

“No thanks, Tad,” the sheriff replied, giving his deputy’s shoulder a gruff pat. Then he turned back to face the group through the glass once more. “These folks need something for the six o’clock news, don’t you think?” he said. “Time for a press conference.”