of dandruff shampoo sat on the tub ledge. Rope soap dangled from the showerhead.
Slidell clomped up the hall. I joined him in the bedroom.
Here Evans had shown a bit more flair. The walls were red, and a fake zebra-skin carpet lay on top of the beige wall-to-wall. A black sateen spread covered the mattress, and a leopard-skin hanging served as a headboard. The rest of the room was taken up by a pair of bedside tables and a metal cart holding another flat- screen TV.
“Toad should have stuck with bland.”
For once Skinny’s comment on taste was apt.
Slidell slid back a closet door and started going through clothes. I opened a drawer in the near bedside table.
“Check this out,” I said.
Slidell joined me. I pointed to a small blue package with a Texas big-hair cowgirl on the label.
“Rough Rider studded condoms,” Slidell read. “So our boy’s a player.”
“Or wants to be. Any missing?”
Slidell counted. Nodded. Returned to the closet.
Seconds later I heard, “Hell-o.”
I turned.
“Look what our rough rider’s hiding with his loafers.”
Slidell held a shoe box. In it were perhaps a dozen DVD’s. He read several titles.
Slidell’s eyes rolled up to mine. A grin crawled one corner of his mouth.
“So Evans twirls baton for the other team. Guess that takes care of motive.”
Tossing the box to the bed, Slidell thumb-hooked his belt. “No room in the kitchen. So where would this douche bag stash a freezer?”
“There’s an interior door in the garage.”
“There surely is.” Slidell checked his watch. “Let’s have us a look-see.”
Slidell thundered down the stairs. I followed at a slightly safer pace.
Outside it was dark, the crepe myrtles a ragged barrier between Widget’s yard and the golf course beyond. No lights shone from the brooding bunker that was the main house.
The garage was unlocked. Slidell charged straight to the inside door and tried Gracie-Lee’s key. It didn’t fit.
Slidell twisted the knob to the right and the left. Shoulder-slammed the wood. The door held fast.
Slidell raised his foot and kicked hard. Still the latch held. He kicked again and again. The jamb buckled and splintered. A final hard thrust and the door flew in.
Slidell found a switch. The man was damn good with lights.
A fluorescent tube came to life with a loud, buzzing hum.
The room was about eight by ten. On the left was a sideboard or old bathroom vanity wrapped with padded quilting secured by rope. On the right was shelving.
Straight ahead, the wall was covered with pegboard studded with metal hooks. A tool hung from each hook. Hammers, screwdrivers, a wrench, a carpenter’s saw.
My heart leaped to my throat.
No way. Klapec wasn’t decapitated with a handsaw.
I scanned the shelving.
Overhead, the fluorescents hummed and sputtered.
I spotted it on the second shelf down. A cardboard box with the words
Beside me Slidell was tugging at the rope covering the quilted object. My hand shot out and wrapped his arm. He turned.
Wordlessly, I nodded at the box. Reaching up, Slidell jerked it to the floor and tore back the flaps. Inside was an old McGraw-Edison circular saw.
Our eyes met.
“Yes” is all I said.
Unhooking a hedge clipper from the pegboard, Slidell cut the bindings on the quilt with four quick snaps. Together we grabbed the fabric and pulled.
The object wasn’t furniture or cabinetry. It was a Frigidaire chest freezer, standard white, maybe eight-cubic- foot capacity.
“Sonovabitch.” Slidell elbowed me aside in his eagerness to view the contents.
“Shouldn’t CSS take photos before we open this?”
“Yeah,” Slidell said, flipping the latch and heaving upward with both hands.
Above the whoosh of frozen air and the overhead buzzing I heard a muted pop.
“What was that?” I asked.
Slidell ignored my question. “Don’t look like Evans ponied up for the auto-defrost model.”
Though the comment was flip, Slidell’s tone was stony. And he was right. The freezer’s interior was completely crusted over with snow and ice crystals.
On the upper left was a rectangular wire basket filled with plastic bags. I scraped several to clear the labels. Frozen supermarket vegetables. Ground beef. What looked like a pork roast.
Flashback to the imprint on Klapec’s back. The basket?
No. That pattern was linear. The basket was constructed of stainless steel in a woven arrangement.
I kept the observation to myself. I was mesmerized by another plastic-wrapped object tucked into a corner on the freezer’s bottom.
Roughly round. A ham? Too large. A small turkey?
I reached in and lifted the frozen mass. The plastic was surprisingly frost free. What was wrong there?
The object was heavy, maybe four or five kilos. As I balanced it on the freezer’s edge, my own words slammed back from the past. My lecture to Slidell on the weight of a human head. About the same as a roaster chicken, I’d said.
Hands trembling, I pressed the clear plastic against the object inside. Details emerged, cloudy and blurred, like objects at the bottom of a murky pond.
An ear, blood pooled in the delicate arcs and folds. The curve of a jaw. Purple-blue lips. A nose, flattened and pressed to a blanched white cheek. A half-open eye.
Suddenly, I had to have air.
Thrusting Klapec’s head at Slidell, I rushed outside.
Gnawing at a thumbnail, I paced, waiting for Slidell to emerge. Waiting for the CSS truck to arrive.
Seconds dragged by. Or maybe they were minutes.
I heard the muffled sound of Slidell’s phone.
My eye drifted to the myrtles and the hint of golf course beyond. I crossed to the hedge, wanting a peaceful vista to calm my nerves.
And tripped over something lying in the shadows.
Something with bulk and weight. Dead weight.
Heart hammering, I scrabbled to my knees and turned.
Glenn Evans lay faceup on the lawn, eyes vacant, blood oozing from a hole dead center in his forehead.
37
SLIDELL BURST FROM THE GARAGE, HEAD SWIVELING, GUN TWO-fisted by the side of his nose.
Seeing his alarm, I realized I’d cried out.
Slidell ran to me and peered down at the body.
“What the fuck?”
