Still Life With Crows

“Any explanation for the, ah, the strange tableau? You got any theory on the arrangement of the body and the various appurtenances?”

“Appurtenances?”

“Yeah. You know, the stuff around it.”

“Not yet.”

“Could this be some kind of satanic cult?”

Tad glanced involuntarily across the street. The black-clad figure had lifted his bag but was still standing there, motionless.

“That’s a possibility we’ll be looking into, for sure,” said Hazen. “We’re obviously dealing with a very sick individual.”

Now Tad noticed the man in black taking a step into the street, strolling nonchalantly toward them. Who could he be? He certainly didn’t look like a reporter, policeman, or traveling salesman. In fact, what he most looked like to Tad Franklin was a murderer. Maybethe murderer.

He noticed that the sheriff was also staring, and even some members of the press had turned around.

Hazen fished a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket. He resumed talking. “Whether it’s a cult, or a lunatic, or whatever, I just want to emphasize—and Smitty, this will be important for your readers—that we’re dealing with out-of-town, perhaps out-of-state, elements.”

Hazen’s voice faltered as the figure in black stopped at the edge of the crowd. It was already well into the nineties but the man was dressed in black worsted wool, with a starched white shirt and a silk tie knotted tightly at his neck. Yet he looked as cool and crisp as a cucumber. The gaze from his silvery eyes was directed piercingly at Hazen.

A hush fell.

The black-clad figure now spoke. The voice wasn’t loud, but somehow it seemed to dominate the crowd. “An unwarranted assumption,” the figure said.

There was a silence.

Hazen took his time to open the pack, shake out a butt, and slide it into his mouth. He said nothing.

Tad stared at the man. He seemed so thin—his skin almost transparent, his blue-gray eyes so light they looked luminous—that he could have been a reanimated corpse, a vampire fresh from the grave. If he wasn’t the walking dead, he could just as easily have passed for an undertaker; either way, there was definitely the look of death about the man. Tad felt uneasy.

His cigarette lit, Hazen finally spoke. “I don’t recall asking your opinion, mister.”

The man strolled into the crowd, which parted silently, and halted ten feet from the sheriff. The man spoke again, in the mellifluous accent of the deepest South. “The killer works in the blackest night with no moon. He appears and disappears without a trace. Are you really so sure, Sheriff Hazen, that he is not from Medicine Creek?”

Hazen took a long drag, blew a stream of blue smoke in the general direction of the man, and said, “And what makes you such an expert?”

“That is a question best answered in your office, Sheriff.” The man held out his hand, indicating that the sheriff and Tad should precede him into the little headquarters.

“Who the hell are you, inviting me into my own damn office?” Hazen said, beginning to lose his temper.

The man looked mildly at him and answered in the same low, honeyed voice. “May I suggest, Sheriff Hazen, that that equally excellent question is also best answered in private? I mean, foryour sake.”

Before Sheriff Hazen could respond, the man turned to the reporters. “I regret to inform you this press conference is now over.”

To Tad’s absolute amazement, they turned and began shuffling away.

Four

 

The sheriff took up position behind his battered Formica desk. Tad sat down in his usual chair with a tingling sense of anticipation. The stranger in black placed his bag by the door and the sheriff offered him the hard wooden visitor’s chair that he claimed would break any suspect in five minutes. The man settled into it with one smooth elegant motion, flung one leg over the other, leaned back, and looked at the sheriff.

“Get our guest a cup of coffee,” said Hazen, with a faint smile.

There was enough left in the pot for half a cup, which was quickly passed.

The man accepted it, glanced at it, set it down on the table, and smiled. “You are most kind, but I am a tea drinker myself. Green tea.”

Tad wondered if the man was weird, or possibly a faggot.

Hazen cleared his throat, frowned, shifted his squat body. “Okay, mister, this better be good.”

Almost languidly, the man removed a leather wallet from his jacket pocket, let it fall open. Hazen leaned forward, scrutinized it, sat back with a sigh.

“FBI. Shit-fire. Might have known.” He glanced over at Tad. “We’re running with the big boys now.”

“Yes, sir,” said Tad. Although he’d never actually met an FBI agent before, this guy looked exactly the opposite of what he thought an FBI agent should look like.