Coven

“It’s the infundibulum, ampula, left side. See that lump?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“That’s the ovary. Next to the brain, it’s the most complex organ in the body, and, like the male testes, it’s the hardest. Harder than the heart, the kidneys, etcetera. It’s dense, heavily celled, firm. Understand?”

“I think so.”

Hatton punctured the ovary’s germinus with the scalpel. Globs of reddish gray mush oozed from the puncture. “See, see?” he said. “It’s almost liquefied, just like the testes on the other horse. But they’re not supposed to be like this. They should still be firm.”

“They’re decomposed,” Lydia ventured.

“No, no, no!” Hatton snapped. “There wasn’t time. The things hadn’t been dead twelve hours before we got them cooled down; they were still in rigor. These organs could not possibly decompose to this consistency in twelve hours under any condition.”

“Maybe it’s a disease, cancer or something.”

“Cancer! In every single animal, at the same time? That’s not how it works.” He washed his hands at a metal sink then shook them dry against the wall, disgusted. “I’m supposed to be the expert here. Shit. My people are going to want an explanation and I can’t give them one. I don’t know anything more than I did the minute we pulled in.”

Now Lydia understood why he’d been stonewalling. He was a preposterous sight, a grown man sitting dejected in a gore-splattered raincoat, hood, and face-shield. “How can you determine that the agro site is safe to reoccupy if you don’t know what killed the animals?”

“State protocol,” he said, shrugging. “We simply followed the standard legal procedures. The bloodwork all came back negative, which satisfied the state quarantine criteria. We screened for everything and found nothing; I had lab couriers coming in and out of here day and night. We exhausted every standard detection test. There were no mold toxins in the feed, no poisons, no bacteria, and there was nothing wrong with the water. We even ran tests on the grass, the soil, the water table. Nothing.”

“So what about this?” She pointed to the punctured ovary.

“All I can say is we’ve got some thus far undetectable factor that has degenerated the reproductive organs of every animal on this site. Even the chickens, for God’s sake.” He shook his head in sheer disillusion. “Have you ever tried to autopsy a chicken?”

“Can’t say that I have,” Lydia said.

««—»»

“Chief White’s at the main office,” Sergeant Peerce informed her when she walked into the substation. He quickly stashed a glossy magazine, titled Pizza Slut, into a drawer. Porker sat at the booking desk, taking care of a box of SafeWay chocolate cream wheels. He kept his face down when Lydia entered.

Peerce was smiling, flipping the cylinder of his Ruger Blackhawk open and closed. Click, clack. Click, clack. Other officers in for shift-change were smiling too. She glanced again to Porker, but he still refused to look up.

“Better get that prelim to Chief White,” Peerce advised. Click, clack. Click, clack. Smiling. “He’s been waitin’ on it.”

Lydia left for Main Administration. Something was going on and she didn’t like not knowing what. White’s personal cruiser was parked next to the dean’s Rolls. Inside, she passed the dean’s office. The man looked up from his huge teak desk as she passed. “Officer Prentiss! Please come in!”

Lydia hedged in. “Good morning, sir.”

“And a very good morning to you. That was fine work you did at the agro site yesterday. Chief White told me all about it.”

Did Chief White also tell you he’s putting a lid on it? “Thank you, sir.”

“And I hope you appreciate the necessity to accentuate certain details of the incident for the time being.”

Sure, lie to the public for convenience sake. Lydia nodded.

“Good, good!” the dean said. He was trying to be cordial, but Lydia knew he’d only called her in to bust her chops a little. “Keep up the good work,” he added. “And have a nice day!”

“You too, sir.” Lydia went back into the hall. Long display cases adorned the main lobby, local relics and artifacts disinterred by Exham’s archaeology department. Several battles of the Revolution had taken place nearby. One case displayed an array of sabers and bayonets. Another held firearms: flintlocks, wheel locks, cap and ball pistols. Lydia should’ve looked harder at the last case, which was hung with common tools of the colonial period. Rusted froes, cradle scythes, hammers, and mattocks. One space was labeled “Beam hewer, St. Clement’s Island, circa 1635.” But the large space over the label was empty.

She killed some time scanning the cases. What could she tell White? Eventually she dawdled into her boss’s office. White was drinking from a coffee mug with a Confederate flag on it. “Ah, there’s my girl,” he said. “You get that prelim?”

“It’s a health order, not a prelim,” she said, and gave it to him.

White stuffed it in a drawer. “That guy Latin say what happened?”

“It’s Hatton, and no, he didn’t. He’s taking the animals for more tests. He said whatever killed them isn’t contagious.”

“Well, then, that’s good, ain’t it?”

“Not when the papers ask about it.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. The papers don’t know about it, and they ain’t gonna. It’s all taken care of.” He gave her the eye. “You get what I’m sayin’?”

“Sure. You read my report on the burglary last night?”

“A’course I read it. What about it?”

“You want me to keep working on the prints?”

“Why? It wasn’t no burgle anyway, just some two bit vandalism.”

“Files were stolen, Chief. Someone specifically targeted them.”

“So what?” he said. “Some punk joker probably just grabbed a handful and throwed ’em all over the Route. Big deal.”

“So forget that too, huh? Like the agro site? Like the ax?”

White gave her a big shee it shake of the head. “You still thinkin’ on that goddamn ax? Shee it. You wanna take a couple days off regular duty and follow up on that shit, then go ahead. I’ll even pay ya. How’s that sound?”

“You’re serious?”

“Sure I’m serious. Go on an’ do your thing.”

This didn’t sound right. “Do I get a cruiser?”

“Hell, no. What I look like, fuckin’ Santa Claus?”

Take what you can get, Lydia. “Okay, Chief. Thanks.”

“You’re quite welcome, Prentiss, but remember. Anything you find out about any of this agro business, you report to me and to me only, ya hear?”

“Loud and clear, Chief.” Lydia turned to leave, but—

“Oh, and Prentiss?” The chief clapped once, rubbed his knees. “I almost forgot. I heard somethin’ a mite funny today, real funny.”

“Oh, yeah?” Lydia asked.

“Yeah, see, I heard you got a new boyfriend, and what’s funny about it is—and I mean real funny—”

“Real funny, I heard you,” she said, and now she knew why Peerce had been smiling and why Porker hadn’t looked her in the face.

“I heard this new boyfriend of yours is Wade St. John.” White stopped laughing. His face turned to brick.