Still Life With Crows

“It could be anything.”

She sat down again, wringing her hands. “Oh dear.”

“We can take the powerline road,” Corrie said as she followed Pendergast out the door. “We’ll have to walk the last quarter mile, though.”

“Understood,” Pendergast replied tersely, getting into the car and closing the passenger door. “This is one instance in which you can exceed the speed limit, Miss Swanson.”

Five minutes later, Corrie was nosing the Gremlin down the narrow, rutted track that was known locally as the powerline road. She was familiar with this isolated, dusty stretch; this was where she came to read, daydream, or simply get away from her mother or the morons at the high school. The thought that a murderer might have lurked—mightstill be lurking—in these remote cornfields sent a shiver through her.

Ahead, the vulture had been joined by a couple of others, and they were now circling slowly, lazily. The car bumped and scraped over the washboard ruts. The last glory of the sunset lay in the west, an orgy of bloody thunderheads rapidly fading to darkness.

“Here,” said Pendergast, almost to himself.

Corrie stopped and they got out. The vultures rose in the sky, apprehensive at their presence. Pendergast began to stride swiftly into the corn, and Corrie moved into step behind him.

Abruptly, Pendergast stopped. “Miss Swanson,” he said. “You will recall my prior warning. We may well find something in the corn rather more disturbing than a dead dog.”

Corrie nodded.

“If you wanted to wait in the car . . .”

Corrie fought to keep her voice sounding calm. “I’m your assistant, remember?”

Pendergast looked at her inquiringly for a moment. Then he nodded. “Very well. I do believe you are capable of it. Please keep in mind your restricted SOC access. Touch nothing, walk where I walk, follow my instructions precisely.”

“Understood.”

He turned and began slipping through the rows of corn, silently and swiftly, brushing past ears that hardly rustled at his passage. Corrie followed behind, struggling to keep up. But she was glad of the effort; it kept her mind from thinking about what might lie ahead. But whatever it was, the thought of staying in the car, alone, in the gathering dark, was even less pleasant.I’ve seen a crime scene, she thought.I saw the dog. Whatever it is, I can take it.

And then, suddenly, Pendergast stopped again. Ahead, the rows of corn had been broken and swept aside, forming a small clearing. Corrie froze at the agent’s side, the sudden shock rooting her in place. The light was dim, but not dim enough to spare her any of the horror that lay splayed just ahead.

And still she was unable to move. The air lay still over the awful scene. Corrie’s nose filled with the odor of something like spoiled ham. She felt a sudden constriction in her throat, a burning sensation, a spasm of the abdominal muscles.

Oh shit,she thought.No, not now. Not in front of Pendergast.

Abruptly, she bent to one side and vomited into the corn; straightened; then bent and vomited again. She coughed, struggling upright, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Mortification, fear, horror all grappled within her.

But Pendergast seemed not to notice. He had moved ahead and was kneeling in the center of the clearing, completely engrossed. Somehow, the sheer physical act of retching seemed to have broken her paralysis, perhaps even prepared her a little better for the awful sight. She wiped her mouth again, took a cautious step forward, and stopped just inside the clearing.

The body was naked, splayed on its back, arms thrown wide, legs apart. The skin was an unreal, artificial grayish-white. There was a sticky sheen to everything. The corpse lookedloose, somehow, as if the skin and flesh were liquefying, coming off the bones. And in fact theywere coming off the bones, she realized with a shudder. The skin of the face was hanging loose, separating from the jaw and teeth; flesh was sagging and splitting at the shoulder and white bone could be seen poking through. An ear lay on the ground, misshapen and slimy, completely detached from the body. The other ear was missing entirely. Corrie felt her throat constrict again. She turned away, closed her eyes briefly, consciously slowed her breathing. Then she turned back.

The body was completely hairless. The masculine sexual organs had also fallen off, although again it looked as though an effort had been made to reattach them, or at least arrange them in the right place. Corrie had seen Stott around town, but if this was the body of the skinny drunk who ran the cleanup detail at Gro-Bain, there was no way to know. It didn’t even look human. It was as bloated as a dead pig.

As the initial shock and horror began to ebb, she noticed other things about the site. Here and there, ears of corn had been arranged into strange geometrical shapes. There were a couple of objects fashioned in an extremely crude way out of corn husks. They might be bowls, or cups, or something else entirely; Corrie could not be sure.

All of a sudden, she became aware of a loud droning sound, directly overhead. She looked up. A small plane was circling the site, flying low. She had not even heard its approach. Now the plane waggled its wings, veered away, and headed quickly north.

She found Pendergast looking at her. “The search plane from Dodge. The sheriff will be here in ten minutes, and the state police shortly thereafter.”

“Oh.” She could hardly work her mouth.

Pendergast was holding his small flashlight in one hand. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Can you hold this light?”

“I think so.”

“Excellent.”