"Did you recognize the corpse?"
"Don't think I've ever seen her before. Best guess, a runaway. Hair looks like a city job. Nobody around here does that kind of cut. Maybe drug scene, maybe prostitute. Too old, too big for kiddie porn." She didn't mention the piercings and the ink.
The deputy nodded, her guesses echoing his own thoughts. Outside trouble, city trouble, Naskeag Falls or even Boston, dumped back here in the puckerbrush for the clamdigger hicks to solve. He filled out a few more blanks in the form, snapped his clipboard shut, and glanced over at Kate still talking and sitting on her rock.
"Take care of her. Okay? That trooper has a ramrod up his ass. I'll try to pry him loose."
And then he walked away, almost marched, radiating an air of Professional Police Officer. Alice shook her head. Surprising how macho men like the deputies were much more tolerant of lesbian or bi women than they were of gay men. Put a fag in Kate's position, they'd make life pure hell for him or kill him outright. Instead, Kate was just one of the boys.
Probably didn't hurt that she could squash any one of them at arm-wrestling. Or could have, before she took two bullets.
Alice zipped her bag shut, slapped the side pockets to set the Velcro, and hauled herself upright. She gritted her teeth against the ache throbbing deep under her left shoulder blade. One 9mm slug in the back could ruin your whole day. Or life.
Wescott had turned aside, answering whatever Andy Page was after. Alice ignored him. She walked straight up to Kate where she sat on one of the stone boulders, stabbed a forefinger at her nose, and then hooked her thumb downhill towards where her truck was parked, the "You're out!" gesture.
"Move it. Home. Bed. Now! I'll thaw out some pea soup."
Hot and hearty followed by large doses of quiet, that was the prescription. And hope the Morgan girls weren't raising too much hell. Praise to any and all gods that might be listening, Alice had never felt inclined to have children of her own. Borrowed ones were bad enough.
The trooper turned halfway back and reached one arm out with "Wait a minute!" body language. Alice glared at him, a look that had cowed a Doberman more than once, and just walked right by. The Haskell Witch was back in charge. She brushed straight through the trooper's arm, her attention turned to Kate as if that bulky blue-uniformed figure was so much fog.
"What's the model year on that old Dodge, anyway? Charlie asked the other day, said ordering parts would be a dite easier if he knew."
Kate blinked as if Alice had finally flipped out. She staggered to her feet and limped along behind, though, probably force of habit. In her condition, she'd likely take orders from a talking chipmunk.
"Hold on, there. I'm not done with either of you."
Alice spun back, turning her glare up two notches. "Fuck off, mister! You going to arrest us? My patient needs rest and food, stat! Any questions you've got, you can ask tomorrow or next week." Full Head Nurse mode, both barrels. She'd been told it added a foot and a half to her height.
Wescott looked stunned, eyes wide and color draining from his face. Before he could react, Andy Page tugged at his elbow. Alice walked on. As far as she could remember the legal mumbo-jumbo, this crime scene belonged either to the county sheriff or to Kate, anyway. State cops only got to boss in the unorganized townships. Locals usually deferred to the state boys, but they didn't have to.
She turned back to Kate. "Charlie says your registration claimed 1970. No way that's a '70 Dodge, unless it was made in Brazil."
"Uh, cab's a '59 or '60, I think." Kate looked nearly as stunned as the state trooper, but she was following. "You'd have to whip up a séance and ask Uncle Ray. 1970 was the year he made it street-legal and registered it. Used it as a jitterbug up 'til then."
Jitterbugs — jalopy woods trucks, some of them hand-built, others based on Model A Fords, you name it. Alice glanced back out of the corner of her eye. They were still in earshot of the cops. "Cab's a '59?"
"He told me the chassis and drive train came from an army surplus truck, can't remember if it was Korea or World War II. He welded up the cargo bed himself. He replaced the engine and transmission a couple of times before he died, playing around for more power and better gear ranges."
Her color was better now. Maybe walking helped, or maybe just talking about something totally unconnected to that long plastic-wrapped corpse in the stone circle.
That, and Power from the stones. The same Power that had made Alice shovel a ration of shit in that trooper's face. And made him swallow it.
Alice glanced back at the stones crowning the field. The place set her teeth on edge. It felt angry. Not angry at the killing — more like insulted. It didn't mind human sacrifice, but that murder hadn't been dedicated to the stones. The Power of the death had gone elsewhere. The blood had fed some other ground.
Garbage dump. That was what she felt. The killer had used the old stone circle as a garbage dump for a desecrated corpse. Sacrilege, whatever Powers you believed in. And it didn't feel accidental.
This was an attack on Kate. Alice didn't have a clue where the connection lay, but someone was trying to weaken Kate. Her and the rest of the Town of Stonefort — someone striking at
