me on that?” Hackberry said to the fireman.
Outside, fifteen minutes later, Hackberry watched two paramedics zip a black body bag over Cody Daniels’s face. The coroner, Darl Wingate, was standing two feet away. The rain had almost quit, and Darl was smoking a cigarette in a holder, his face thoughtful, his smoke mixing in the mist blowing up from the valley.
“How do you read it?” Hackberry said.
“If it’s any consolation, the victim was probably dead when the nails were fired into his rib cage. Death probably occurred from cardiac arrest. The main reason crucifixion was practiced throughout the ancient world was that it was not only painful and humiliating but the tendons would tighten across the lungs and slowly asphyxiate the victim. The only way he could prolong his life was to lift himself on the nails that had been driven through his feet or ankles. Of course, this caused him to increase his own torment a hundredfold. It would be hard to invent a more agonizing death.”
“I’d like to believe this poor devil didn’t go through all that, that he died early,” Hackberry said.
“Maybe that’s the way it went down, Hack,” Darl said, his eyes averted. “Did you know I got a degree in psychology before I went to med school?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I wanted to be a forensic psychologist. Know why I went into medicine instead?”
“No, I don’t,” Hackberry said, his attention starting to wander.
“Because I don’t like to put myself into the minds of people who do things like this. I don’t believe this was done by a group. I think it was ordered by one guy and a bunch of other guys did what they were told,” Darl said.
“Go on.”
“The guy behind this feels compelled to smear his shit on a wall.”
“Are you thinking about Krill?”
“No. The perp on this one has a hard-on about religion.”
“How about Temple Dowling?”
“Stop it. You don’t believe that yourself.”
“Why not?”
“Dowling is inside the system. He’s not a criminal.”
“That’s what you think.”
“No, the problem is the way you think, Hack. You’d rather turn the key on a slumlord than a guy who boosts banks. You’ve also got a grudge against Dowling’s father.”
“Say that again about religion.”
“I have to give you an audiovisual presentation? We’re talking about a murder inside a church, on a cross. It was done by a believer.”
“A believer?”
“Yeah, and he’s really pissed.”
“How about Jack Collins?”
“Collins is a messianic killer, not a sadist.”
“You should have been a cop, Darl.”
“That’s what I did in the army. It sucked then and sucks now.”
“Why?”
“Because arresting these bastards is a waste of time,” Darl said.
Hackberry walked toward his cruiser, where Pam and R.C. were waiting. The hair was singed on the backs of his arms, and the side of his face was streaked with soot. The churchyard was filled with emergency vehicles, the red and blue and white flashers pulsing in the mist.
“Wrap it up here,” he said to Pam.
“You tried to save him, Hack. When you went inside, you didn’t know if the roof was coming down or not,” she said.
“Call Ethan Riser.”
“Riser is no help,” she said.
“She’s right, Sheriff. Them FBI people wouldn’t take time to spit in our mouths if we were dying of thirst,” R.C. said.
Hackberry opened his cell phone and found Riser’s number and punched it in, then walked off into the darkness and waited for the call to go to voice mail. Surprisingly, the agent picked up.
“Ethan?” Hack said.
“Yeah, who’d you expect?”
Hackberry told him what had happened. “I need everything you can get me on Josef Sholokoff. I need it by noon tomorrow.”
“Can’t do it, partner.”
“Cut this crap out, Ethan. I’m not going to put up with it.”
“There’re probably fifty agents in half a dozen agencies trying to shut down this guy. If you screw things up for the government, they’re going to drop a brick shithouse on your head.”
“Where are you?”
“In the Glass Mountains.”
“Who’s with you?”
“A friend or two.”
“I think you’re trying to take on Collins by yourself.”
“Collins is long overdue for retirement.”
“You don’t know him. I do. Let me help you.”
“I wish you’d been with me when we had bin Laden’s family on the tarmac. But this one is all mine,” Riser said.
“That’s a dumb way to think.”
“Did you ever hear of this black boxer who went up against an Australian who was called ‘the thinking man’s fighter’? The black guy scrambled his eggs. When a newsman asked how he did it, the black guy said, ‘While he was thinking, I was hitting him.’”
“Don’t hang up.”
“See you around, Hack. I’ve been wrong about almost everything in my life. Don’t make my mistakes.”
Early the next morning, as Jack Collins listened to Noie Barnum talk at the breakfast table in the back of the cabin, he wondered if Noie suffered from a thinking disorder.
“So repeat that for me, will you? You met the hikers on the trail and you did what?” Jack said.
“I wanted to try out that walking cane you gave me, and I made it down the hill just fine and along the edge of the creek out to the cottonwoods on the flat. That’s when my breath gave out and I had to sit down on a big rock and I saw the hikers. They were a very nice couple.”
“I expect they were. But what was that about the Instamatic?”
“At least I think it was an Instamatic. It was one of those cheap cameras tourists buy. They said they belonged to a bird-watching club and were taking pictures of birds along the hiking trail. They asked me to take a snapshot of them in front of the cottonwoods. It was right at sunset, and the wind was blowing and the leaves were flying in the air, and the sky was red all the way across the horizon. So I snapped a shot, and then they asked if they could take my picture, too.”
“But you’ve left something out of the repeat, Noie.”
“What’s that?”
“The first time around, you mentioned this fellow’s line of work.”
“He said he was a Parks and Wildlife man. He didn’t look to be over twenty-five, though. He said he and his wife were on their honeymoon. She had this warm glow in her face. They put me in mind of some folks I know back home.”
“And where do they live?”
“He said Austin. I think. Yeah, that was it. Austin.”
“Austin. That’s interesting.”
Jack got up from the table and lifted a coffeepot off the woodstove with a dishrag and poured into his cup.
