Still Life With Crows

“Like snuffling.”

“Dog?”

“No. More like . . . like someone with a bad cold.”

Hazen jotted notes. “Go on.”

“I had this sense there was something moving out there, right beneath my window, but I couldn’t really see it. It was too dark. I turned on the light. And then I heard a different sound, like a groan.”

“Human?”

Corrie blinked. “Hard to tell.”

“Then?”

“I shut my window and went back to sleep.”

Hazen lowered his notebook and stared at her. “You didn’t think to call me or your, ah, boss?” He nodded at Pendergast.

“I—I figured it was just the sprinkler system, which goes on every night around two. It makes weird noises.”

Hazen put away his notebook. He turned to Pendergast. “Some assistant you got there.” Then he turned to Tad. “All right, this is what we’ve got. Somebody dumped a pile of guts on the road. Looks like cow to me, there’s too much there for a dog or sheep. And that sack sitting next to it is full of ears of corn, freshly picked. I want you to check around all the local stock farms, see if anyone’s missing a cow, pig, any large livestock.” His eyes flitted back toward Corrie before returning to Tad. He lowered his voice. “This whole thing is starting to look more and more like a cult of some kind.”

Over Hazen’s shoulder, Tad watched Pendergast step forward and kneel before the pile of offal. He reached forward, actually prodded at something with his finger. Tad averted his eyes. Then he reached over and with one finger lifted the mouth of the canvas bag.

“Sheriff Hazen?” Pendergast asked without rising.

Hazen was already back on the cell phone. “What?”

“I would suggest looking for a missing person instead.”

There was a shocked silence as the implication sunk in.

Hazen lowered the cell phone. “How do you know these are . . .” He couldn’t quite bring himself to finish the sentence.

“Cows don’t normally eat what appears to be Maisie’s meatloaf, washed down with a glass of beer.”

Hazen took a step forward and shined his light into the glistening pile. He swallowed hard. “But why would the killer . . .” He paused again. His face was dead white. “I mean, why take a body and leave the guts behind?”

Pendergast rose, wiping his finger with a handkerchief of white silk. “Perhaps,” he said grimly, “to lighten his load.”

Thirty-Two

 

It was eleven o’clock before Tad finally returned to the sheriff’s office. The sweat was pouring off his brow, and his uniform was soaked to the cuffs. He was the last to return: the state troopers and Hazen, who had also been conducting searches, were there before him. The inner office had been turned into a command center, and a large group of Staties were standing around, talking on cell phones and radios. The press, naturally, had gotten wind of it, and once again the street was lined with TV vans, reporters, and photographers. But they were the only people in sight: all the residents had shut and locked themselves in their houses. The Wagon Wheel was closed and shuttered. Even the shift at Gro-Bain had been sent home for the day. Except for the hungry gaggle of media, Medicine Creek had become a ghost town.

“Any luck?” Hazen said immediately as Tad came through the door.

“No.”

“Damn!”The sheriff pounded his fist on the desk. “Yours was the last quadrant.” He shook his head. “Three hundred and twenty-five people, and every damn one of them accounted for. They’re canvassing Deeper and the surrounding farms, but nobody’s come up missing.”

“Are you sure the, um, guts were human?”

Hazen looked sideways at Tad, his eyes red, rimmed by dark circles. Tad had never seen the sheriff under so much pressure. The man’s muscular hands were balled into fists, the knuckles white.

“I wondered that, too. But the remains are now up at Garden City, and McHyde assures me they’re human. That’s all they know so far.”

Tad felt sick to his stomach. The image of the meatloaf, poking out of that ragged tear in the ruined guts, the beer foam mixing with the blood—that was going to stay with him the rest of his life. He never should have looked. Never.

“Maybe it was someone passing through,” he said weakly. “What local person would be out alone at that time of night, anyway?”

“I thought of that, too. But where’s the car?”

“Hidden, like Sheila Swegg’s?”

“We’ve checked everywhere. We’ve had a spotter plane up since eight.”

“No circle cut in a cornfield?”