Still Life With Crows

camp. There was the scuffle, the riot of footprints mingling with Gasparilla’s own.

Pendergast stood now and approached the spot, licking the flashlight across the ground. There was the spot where Gasparilla had fallen, and from where—over the course of fifteen hours—he had dragged himself, in rolling fits, across the dirt. And there, on the far side of camp, were the footprints of the killer in the wet sand, well defined, heading into the creek.

The killer, carrying away his trophies.

The sand told the story.

Pendergast turned back and looked deeply into the wildly roving eyes. He saw nothing: no intellect, no memory, no humanity, nothing but the sheerest terror.

There would be no answers from Gasparilla; not now—and maybe not ever.

Twenty-Three

 

Sheriff Hazen entered the basement laboratory and took an unwilling look around. There was the same old sour smell, made worse by the overlay of disinfectants and chemicals; the same cinderblock walls painted diarrhea-tan; the same buzzing fluorescent lights. Breathing through the mouth did no good—the surgical mask did nothing but introduce a smell of antiseptic paper to the mix. What he needed was a frigging gas mask.

He summoned a variety of comforting sounds and images to mind: Hank Williams ballads; the taste of the first Grain Belt of an evening; going to the Harvest Festival as a kid with his dad and older brother. None of it helped. Sheriff Hazen shivered, and not just because of the smell of death.

He moved toward the bright end of the lab, scrubs rustling. The medical examiner was already there, swathed like himself in blue, and Hazen could hear the murmur of voices. There was a second figure beside the M.E., and despite the softness of the voice he recognized the southern cadence. Pendergast.

Pendergast had been right. It was a serial killer. And he was probably right that the killer was local. Hazen couldn’t believe it, hadn’twanted to believe it. He’d laughed out loud when he’d heard that Pendergast was spending hours closeted with Marge Tealander, knowing the old busybody would eat up his time and have him chasing down red herrings all over town. But now, in the wake of this new killing, he was forced to admit things did point to a local killer. It was damned hard to come and go from Medicine Creek without people noticing. Especially at night, when a set of car headlights in the distance was enough to send people to the window to see who was coming. No, this wasn’t the work of some drifter who killed and moved on. It seemed it was somebody who lived here in Medicine Creek. It was incredible, but there it was. Someone in town.

That meant he knew the killer.

“Ah, Sheriff Hazen, good to see you.” McHyde nodded politely, even deferentially.

The guy had really changed his tune. No more Dr. Arrogant. The case was big now, and the M.E. could smell the publicity. This was a ticket out of western Kansas for anyone who wanted to hop aboard the train.

“Sheriff Hazen,” said Pendergast, giving a little nod of recognition.

“Morning, Pendergast.”

There was a short silence. The body lay covered on the gurney. It seemed the M.E. had not begun his work. Hazen bitterly regretted arriving so early.

The M.E. cleared his throat. “Nurse Malone?”

A voice came from offstage. “Yes, Doctor?”

“Are we ready to roll?”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Good. Run the video.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

They went through the preliminaries, each one giving their name and title. Hazen could not take his eyes off the shrouded corpse. He had seen it lying in the field, of course, but somehow seeing it in this sterile, artificial environment was different. Worse.

The M.E. grasped the cloth and slowly, carefully, raised the sheet. And there was Stott, bloated, the flesh literally falling off the bones.

Quickly, Hazen averted his eyes. Then, feeling self-conscious, he slowly forced himself to face the gurney again.

He had seen dead bodies in his time, but they sure as hell hadn’t looked like this. The skin had split across the breastbone and drawn back from the fatty flesh, as if it had shrunk. It had also split on the hips and across the face. Melted fat had dripped out in several places and run into little pools in the gurney, where it had congealed white and hard under refrigeration. Yet there were no maggots—strange, very strange. And there seemed to be a piece missing from the body. Yes: a ragged chunk, torn away from the left thigh, the teeth marks still visible. Dog, it seemed. Man’s best friend. Hazen swallowed.

The M.E. began to speak.

“We have here the body identified as that of William LaRue Stott, a white male thirty-two years old.” He droned on for the benefit of the camera while they all stood around the corpse. Mercifully, the initial recitation was short. The M.E. turned to Pendergast and asked unctuously, “Any comments or suggestions, Special Agent Pendergast, before we proceed further?”

“Not at the moment, thank you.”

“Very well. We performed a preliminary examination of the body earlier this morning and have noted several important anomalies. I will begin with the overall condition.”

He paused, cleared his throat. Hazen saw his eyes flicker toward the videocamera positioned above the