Still Life With Crows

cornfields, Hazen could see the state police teams moving. Farther down, the SOC teams were on their hands and knees, combing the sandbeds along the creek for something,any thing. Above droned two spotter planes, crisscrossing back and forth, back and forth. Why couldn’t they find the body? Had the killer taken off with it? There were state police roadblocks up, but the killer could have escaped during the night. You can drive a long way in a Kansas night.

He glanced up and saw Smit Ludwig approaching, notebook in hand.

“Sheriff, mind if I—”

“Smitty, this is a restricted area.” Hazen had just about had it.

“I didn’t see any tape, and—”

“You get out of here, Ludwig. On the double.”

Ludwig stood his ground. “I have a right to be here.”

Hazen turned to Tad. “Escort Mr. Ludwig to the road.”

“You can’t do this—!”

The sheriff turned his back on the entreaty. “Come on, Mr. Ludwig,” he heard Tad say. The pair of them disappeared in the trees, Ludwig’s protests increasingly muffled by the muggy air.

The sheriff’s radio crackled. He hoisted it.

“Hazen here.”

“Chauncy’s been missing from his hotel since yesterday.” It was Hal Brenning, state police liaison officer, down in Deeper. “Didn’t return last night. Bed wasn’t slept in.”

“Hallelujah, what else is new?”

“He didn’t tell anyone what he was doing, where he was going. Nobody up here knows anything about his itinerary.”

“We checked into that,” Hazen replied. “Seems he had car problems, left his Saturn over at Ernie’s Exxon. Insisted it be fixed that day, even though Ernie told him it was a two-day job. Chauncy was last seen eating a late dinner at Maisie’s. Never picked up the car, though. Looks like he went into the cornfields and was doing a little last-minute research on the sly, collecting and labeling ears of corn.”

“Collecting corn?”

“I know, I know. Insane, with a killer running loose. But this Chauncy liked to play his cards close to his vest. Probably didn’t want anybody prying, asking awkward questions.” Hazen shook his head, remembering how upset Chauncy had become at Pendergast’s talk of cross-pollination.

“Well. Anyway, we’re looking through Dr. Chauncy’s papers now with some of Sheriff Larssen’s boys. It looks like he was going to make some kind of announcement today at noon.”

“Yeah. The experimental field project which Medicine Creek wasn’t going to get. Anything else?”

“Some dean from KSU’s coming down with their head of campus security. Should be here in half an hour.”

Hazen groaned.

“On top of that, we’ve got a dust storm brewing. There’s a weather advisory out for Cry County and the eastern Colorado plains.”

“When?”

“The leading edge could come as early as tonight. They say it might be upgraded to a tornado watch.”

“Great.” The sheriff punched the radio off, holstered it, and glanced up. Sure enough: thunderheads, darker than usual, were piling up to the west, as if a nuclear war was being fought somewhere over the horizon. Any Kansan with half a brain knew what clouds like that meant. There was more than a dust storm coming. At the least, the creek would be up, scouring the whole creek bed. The fields would get drenched, maybe flooded. There’d probably be hail. And there would go all their clues. They’d get nothing more to go on until . . . until the next killing. And if there were indeed tornadoes, it would shut down the whole investigation while everyone dove for cover. What a frigging mess.

“Weeks, if those dogs aren’t going to track, then get them the hell out of here. Your dragging them up and down the creek is just wrecking the site for everyone else. This is a disgrace.”

“It’s not my fault.”

Hazen stalked off down the creek. It was a ten-minute walk to the spot where his cruiser and a dozen other vehicles, marked and unmarked, glittered alongside the road. He coughed, spat, breathed through his nose. There was definitely that curious stillness in the air that precedes a storm.

And there on the gravel shoulder was Art Ridder, getting out of his idling vehicle, standing and waving. “Sheriff!”

The sheriff walked over.

“Hazen, I’ve been looking all over creation for you,” said Ridder, his face even redder than usual.

“Art, I’m having a bad day.”

“I can see that.”

Hazen took a deep breath. Ridder might be the town’s big shot, but there was only so much crap he was going to take.

“I just got a call from a guy named Dean Fisk, up at the Agricultural Extension. KSU. He’s on his way down with an entourage.”

“I heard.”