patrolmen, the scene became pandemonic. They must’ve called in a fifth of their day shift.
In the rearview, Kurt saw Bard’s T-bird pull up behind him and stop. Kurt got out and waited at the shoulder as Bard lumbered up, precariously balancing a pack of Hostess Ho Ho’s on a cup of take-out coffee.
“What’s this, the county clambake?” Kurt asked.
“You got your wish,” Bard said. “Choate shit his county trousers when he got word about yesterday. Ordered all available men out here for a class-A inside-out, and he emptied the county training academy for a full day. They’ll search here till noon, then spend the rest of the day on Belleau Wood.”
“Should’ve been done days ago. And they should have state out here, too.”
“Don’t look a gift headqueen in the mouth. A freebie’s a freebie, so what more do you want? The national fucking guard? And who needs the state? They’re too busy painting their cruisers the color of my dick; you think they got money to lend us some troopers for something as trivial as a murder investigation? Bugger them.” Bard pressed both of the Ho Ho’s together and ate them as one, in a single bite. “Besides, if these muzzleheads can’t find anything with this kind of manpower, there’s probably nothing to find.”
They cut into the woods until stopped by a familiar yellow ribbon. POLICE LINE, DO NOT CROSS. Past the cordon, several sergeants were lining up rows and rows of patrolmen for what seemed the most massive grid search in the history of law enforcement. The men appeared fidgety; the forest bubbled with nervous chatter. Lieutenant Choate and a pair of TSD technicians looked on immobilely from a stand of trees beside the trailer. At their feet were things that resembled small black suitcases.
Kurt glanced closer at the trailer. The door no longer lay where it had yesterday; it and parts of the trailer body itself had been removed to the county criminalistics lab. Footprints had been photographed and cast, leaving fringes of plaster in the yard. A tech plugged a portable UV set into a powerbox; the element glowed like neon. Another tech fumed siding with uranyl phosphate, which left stains that reminded Kurt of washed-out blood.
“What about the blood?”
Bard sipped the coffee as if it might bite him in the face. “Forestville grouped it down to AB-duffy-positive, which matched the blood in the scalp. According to some dog tags they found inside, Fitzwater was AB, so they’re satisfied it’s all his. And no word on prints yet, just that they’re punting them all to state, like last time.”
One county sergeant, with an irate, cherry-pink face, stepped before the rows of men. His voice crackled like splitting wood. “Shut up,” he ordered. “No talking, no jokes, no cocking around. Anyone lights a cigarette, I shove my thermos up his ass. And I don’t want to see any of you guys putting any of that chewing tobacco shit in your mouths. This is a crime scene—don’t fuck it up. I want it nice and slow, hear? If you see something, don’t touch it, just shout it out.” He scowled one last time and then moved his hands forward, toward himself, as if ground-guiding a tractor. The line of men crouched and began to advance evenly along the forest ground. “That’s it, greendicks. Nice and slow.”
Bard looked out past the search party. His voice gave a hint of despair. “I remember when the only things that went on around here were kids laying wheel and throwing beer bottles in the road. A downed powerline or fallen tree was hot news. Now look what we got… My whole fucking town’s gone right down the pooper in the space of a week.”
Kurt kept silent. He was thinking.
Bard let out a black chuckle. “You know, this job’s making me numb. Somebody’s ripping the shit out of people, and I haven’t even actually realized it until today. You know what I mean? It’s just now sinking in what’s honest to God going on. People are being murdered.”
Kurt nodded, half aware. He looked at the doorway of the trailer and remembered all the blood he’d seen inside.
He touched his chin, staring. He was trying to remember the last full moon.
««—»»
Kurt went back home when the search at Fitzwater’s had been wrapped up. Nothing had been found in the way of evidence, nothing left behind. He had a feeling that the search at Belleau Wood would yield similar results.
The house was empty. Vicky had left a note stuck to the refrigerator by a plastic parrot magnet, WENT TO BANK, BE BACK SOON, and Melissa had vanished. He began to fry up some canned hash for lunch, but flopped it all into the garbage when he decided he wasn’t hungry. He hadn’t eaten much in the last few days. He didn’t want to; it just didn’t seem worth bothering with. He needed to get back to work. He needed to do something. Even directing traffic or writing SRO’s was better than this.
The emptiness of the house closed in; he could feel it follow him shapelessly up the stairs and into his room, the ghost of himself. The glare of sunlight made him grit his teeth. At least a suggestion of decent weather, but still it depressed him. The onstart of a classic headache pulsed behind his eyes.
As he went to close the shades, the phone rang.
“Hello—”
“I’d like to speak to Officer Morris, please.” A woman’s voice, and one he’d heard somewhere before.
“That’s me.”
A pause, as if hesitant, as if the caller were tempted to hang up. “This is Nancy Willard. We met at the house the other day…”
“Oh, yes. What can I do for you, Mrs. Willard?”
“I, uh—” She paused again, this time to lower her voice. “I’d like to talk to you about something. You may be quite interested.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, not over the phone. I mean someplace private.”
“Sure,” Kurt said. “I’ll be over in ten minutes.”
“No, no,” she said. She seemed to speak with great care, holding her voice down. “Not at the house, either, if you don’t mind. It’s kind of involved, and I’d—”
Kurt frowned.
“—just rather it be someplace else, someplace out of the way, if that’s all right with you.”
“Of course it is, Mrs. Willard,” he said. “Name a place.”
“Oh, it really doesn’t matter to me,” she hedged. “Whatever’s convenient, I guess… Oh, how about…”
“How about Squidd McGuffy’s?” she said.
“Squidd. Squidd McGuffy’s. You’ve never heard of it?”
“Sorry, no. What is it, a fish store or something?”
She laughed shortly. “No, no, it’s a club, a tavern type of place.”
“Okay. Where is it?”
“At Hilltop Plaza, in Bowie, where the bookstore used to be. You can’t miss it. There’s a big sign in front with a squid on it.”
“Oh, say…six-thirty? Is that all right?”
“No problem at all. Squidd McGuffy’s at six-thirty.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll see you then.”
The line went dead.
— | — | —
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
