'So? Find anything?'
'A lot of mud,' said McNeil aggrievedly, displaying his soiled boots and pants leg. He was a meticulous dresser, known and sometimes laughed at-but never to his facefor the exaggerated crease in his khaki trousers and shirts. The other officers whispered that McNeil did the laundry himself-not his wife, who reportedly had stopped speaking to him years ago.
'Did you go all the way?' Tee asked.
'What do you mean?'
'I mean you're walking on the road, the river's fifty yards into the woods. Did you cover both sides of the river all the way to the reservoir like I told you?'
'Close enough,' said McNeil.
'What's that mean, did you or didn't you?'
'Pretty nearly, Chief,' Metzger said. 'We went all the way up to that traffic signal back there.' He pointed to a yellow sign indicating a bend in the road where they had emerged from the woods.
'N' y did you stop there?'
'There's nothing in there. We ain't going to find anything. It's a wild-goose chase,' said McNeil. 'But they, shit, you want us to cover that last bit, we'll cover it. No problem.' Tee stepped out of the car.
He was a large man, his natural bulk enhanced by thirty pounds of overeating, and when he stood close to most people, the effect was intimidating. He put his chest against McNeil's, towering over him by nearly a head. McNeil stared sullenly back at him, not giving an inch.
'Glad to hear it's no problem, you doing what you're told,' Tee said.
'Now let's go see what you missed.'
The dog found the trash bag in the first minute of the search. It had settled back into its hole in the orchard after the water receded, and other bones were showing through the open tear in the plastic. 'Holy shit,' said Metzger, bending over the bag. Tee joined him and the two men gently moved the opening in the bag from one side to another, trying to get a full view of its contents. The skeleton's head tilted into sight, raffishly cocked as if it, too, wanted to get a look.
'It looks like a whole body,' Tee said.
'It does,' said Metzger, who had involuntarily jerked away when the head suddenly appeared. 'It really does.'
Tee faced McNeil. 'Nothing in this last little bit of woods, huh?'
'Fuck me, I didn't know.'
Muddy water still filled the bag, weighing it down, and they decided to leave it in its depression rather than risk tearing it completely by lifting it out.
Tee surveyed the area. The little orchard of cultivated pines covered no more than a few acres within the woods. At the thirty-five-dollar minimum they would fetch locally, just enough Christmas trees to make a nice annual Yuletide bonus for some industrious entrepreneur.
'Call town hall and find out who this plot of land belongs to,' he said to McNeil. 'Then call John Becker and see if he would be good enough to come out here.'
'This isn't a federal case,' McNeil said.
'I want to make sure the investigation is done right,' said Tee. 'He's on vacation, he won't mind advising.'
'I think we can handle it,' said McNeil.
'You thought there weren't any more bones in here too. Just make the calls.'
McNeil sauntered off, refusing to hurry.
'Keep the dog away from this,' Tee said to Metzger, but the dog had moved on and was now whining at the base of another small pine. Tee called after McNeil. 'And when you come back, bring a shovel.'
One corpse was a murder, a local offense, a state crime, an incident that fell within the jurisdiction of the town constabulary and the state police. Two corpses, if linked, were serial murder, a federal offense that landed within the purview of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
By the time Becker arrived at the orchard, the dog had turned its capacity from friendly adviser to active case officer.
5
'Zis is such a Inge groped for a word, casting an arm above her to indicate the motel room. 'How do you say? Zis room is so. 'Small.'
'No, no, it is small, of course it is small, but I mean it is also so..
' She waved her hand again. 'Help me.'
'Cheap.'
'Is it cheap? Yes? How much does it cost?'
'Thirty dollars for a 'short stay.'
'A short stay? Zat is us?'
'That's us. We have three hours, then they come rapping on the door to get us out.'
'Three hours? Thirty dollars? For a place such as zis? it is outrageous. Zere is not room enough to walk, ze sheets haf holes… zere is not even a clock. You must not pay so much, it is outrageous for such a… room.'
'Tacky. The word is 'tacky.'
'
'Tacky. Yes. So tacky… Do you agree? Do you like such a place?'
'I'll go anywhere to be with you,' he said.
'Oh, you are so sweet. Ven I first met you, I did not know how sweet you are.'
'You couldn't tell by looking at me?'
She shook her head, taking him seriously. 'You do not look sweet. You look..
'Tacky?'
'Now you are joking. You are funny, too. You also don't look funny ven first I see you… I said that wrong. You also did not look funny ven first I saw you. Is that right? I 'Your English is teffific,' he said. He lay on his back, studying the ceiling as long as she lay beside him, careful to keep his eyes on her face when she lifted herself on an elbow to look at him. The trick was to give the victims just enough response so that they thought he was actually participating in a conversation. It helped to shorten the process if most of his comments were compliments, it brought their attention back to sex sooner. They all seemed to need this pretense of their having a 'relationship.' It usually came, as it had with Inge, the second or third time they were together. They liked to believe that they saw qualities in his soul that drew them together, and that he responded to them in the same way. Even the young ones wanted to think it was meaningful in some particularly feminine way. For his part, he thought the sex was meaningful enough. It helped if they weren't shrews, but it didn't really matter too much. He could tolerate a couple of hours with any woman, even a harpy, as long as a good portion of the time was spent in sexual activity. He had known some harpies who were rather good at it, as a matter of fact. They converted their innate anger into a kind of physical restlessness that was quite arousing. Conversation with some of the older ones could be amusing.
They liked to gossip about people he knew in the community, and often they said things about other women that he could use later. Inge herself had come to him from one such referral, when another lover had mentioned lnge's employer and then Inge, saying the young all pair seemed lonely. It was enough to make him aware of her, enough to keep her in his mind so that when the opportunity arose he was prepared.
Inge leaned over him now, her breasts dangling 'Onto his naked chest, her heavy blond hair falling around his face like sunshine.
'You are so quiet,' she said. 'What are you thinking about?'
He realized he had tuned out for a moment. 'I was thinking about you,' he said.
'What vere you thinking about me?' She smiled, timidly, hoping.
So pathetic, he thought. Why are they all so needy of sweet talk?
