Consumed (7 page)

Beth nodded. “Could be.”

“I’m not sure we’re going to get everything we need here from the local sources. Maybe we should give Ball and the tech twins a call. I want whatever I can get on Owen Matheson, his family, and where they are now.”

“Yeah, I agree.”

I pulled my cell phone and made the call back to Virginia.

Richard pulled to the side of the road out near the town of Palmyra and yawned into his fist. Candy’s body was locked in the back of the pickup truck. He checked his surroundings and stepped out. Richard walked to the back of the truck and unlocked the gate. He pulled it open and looked down at the woman’s body, lying flat inside. Another person sat at the far end of the truck’s box, nearest the cab. Richard yawned again. Next to the body were blood streaks from Peaches, who he’d dumped twenty minutes prior.

Richard glanced around the side of the truck—nothing but darkness. He spotted no headlights coming in his direction. He reached inside, grabbed Candy’s body by the head, and slid her out from the back of the truck. Her body rolled off the truck’s tailgate and landed in the road with a thud.

Richard reached down and lifted her up. He carried her to the edge of the gravel at the side of the road and tossed her into the weeds. He lumbered back to the truck—stopping to yawn and shake his head once on the way. He closed up the back, took his seat behind the wheel and turned in the road to head back home. Richard grabbed his thermos of coffee from the seat next to him, popped the top, and drank what remained. The ride home was going to be another twenty minutes, and he could barely keep his eyes open. He hadn’t been sleeping well—the voices had been keeping him awake with their constant nagging.

Richard tried to stay between the lines though he caught himself veering over the center lines once or twice and into the gravel of the shoulder at least a handful more times.

“Richard! Wake your ass up!” he heard.

Richard’s eyes popped open. The headlights of the pickup truck were shining across three-foot-tall grass, shrubs, and weeds. All four tires had left the road on the far side of the street. He’d crossed the other lane and was heading for a field in the distance. Richard slammed on the brakes and came to a stop a few feet short of a fence post. He cranked the wheel, spun the tires in the grass, and made his way back through the weeds and brush to the road’s shoulder. He tried squinting hard to wake himself up and slapped the side of his face, but it did no good. He needed to rest his eyes, if only for just a moment. Richard put the truck in park and shut it off.

“You are not sleeping here!” he heard.

Richard didn’t respond. He adjusted his body back and forth and then rested his arms on his stomach.

“This is the stupidest place you could possibly stop!” he heard, followed by banging on the back of the truck’s cab.

Richard dozed off, paying no attention to his mother.

Color flickering in his eyelids woke him. Richard cracked his eyes open, and the color remained—red and blue. Richard looked into the truck’s driver’s-side door mirror and saw the light bar attached to the top of a police or sheriff SUV. A second later, a spotlight hit him in the face, reflecting from the truck’s mirror directly into his eyes. Richard held up his hand to block the light and glanced down at the truck’s radio—he’d been asleep just ten minutes. Richard rubbed his eyes with his fingers and dropped his hand to the handle of his hunting knife. He removed it from the sheath and placed it under his right leg for quick access. In the driver’s door mirror, he could see the cop stepping from his car. Richard looked to his right. The bench seat he sat upon was still soaked in blood from having killed the two hookers the night prior.

Richard readied himself. He saw the end of a flashlight tap on the door glass of the driver’s door. He heard the cop order him to lower the window. Richard did. His right hand wrapped the knife’s handle—about to yank it from under his leg and deliver the strike.

The deputy looked in at Richard and made eye contact. “You have to be the stupidest son of a bitch I’ve ever laid eyes upon,” the deputy said.

Richard stuck his left palm into his eye. “Mark,” he said.

The deputy took a step farther to shine the flashlight’s beam into the truck. He made a circle with the flashlight’s light on the bloody seat. “Tell me you did not just dump another whore in my jurisdiction.”

Richard remained quiet.

“I’m waiting for you to tell me you didn’t.”

“You haven’t been taking care of them. I had to get rid of them. You know what happens if I keep them around.”

“Are you going to hear their voices?” Mark mimicked in a high-pitched voice.

“Don’t make fun of me. You push me to the edge, and you won’t like the results.”

“What are you going to do?” Mark reached into the truck and flicked the side of Richard’s face. “Huh, stupid? What in the hell are you going to do about it?”

Richard yanked the knife up. The light from Mark’s flashlight shone off the blade.

“I want to see that,” Mark said. “I’ll put a bullet right between your eyes. Splatter your shit for brains all over this truck. And you know what? Tomorrow, I’ll get the key to the city and a parade for doing it.”

Richard set the knife down on the seat. “Just don’t make fun of me. Mom wouldn’t like it.”

“Mom is dead, buried in your basement. I don’t think she has much say in what I do.”

Richard said nothing.

“Exactly,” Mark said. “Hold on. You said
them
. You said I didn’t come to take care of
them
. How many did you dump?”

Richard looked down. “Two tonight,” he said, his voice low, just above a whisper.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. I was just driving until I found spots.”

Mark let out a puff of air in anger. He pulled out his service weapon and rested it on the window opening of Richard’s truck. “Now, I want you to listen to me very closely.” Mark reached inside the truck’s cab and tapped the barrel of the gun on the top of Richard’s head. “Are you listening to me, stupid?”

“Yeah,” Richard said. “Quit it.”

“Turn this piece of shit around, go back to where you dumped the whores, and pick them back up.” Mark placed his gun back in the holster on his hip. “Now,” he said.

“Where am I supposed to put them?”

The deputy lunged into the truck and grabbed Richard by the side of the head, catching equal parts hair and beard. He brought his face inches from Richard’s. “Does it look like I give a shit where you put them? Dig a damn hole. Stick them in the basement. Just get them off my damn streets.”

Richard grumbled something.

“What?” Mark pulled Richard’s head to the side.

Richard yanked his head away from his brother’s grasp. “Ow, I said that I can’t keep them around. You know that.”

Mark spoke through a clenched jaw. “Just get them and leave them in the truck. I’ll be over tomorrow to get rid of them.” The deputy let out a long breath, and his shoulders sank. He shook his head. “You know what would have happened if someone else rolled up on your dumb ass sitting out here?”

“I would have killed them,” Richard said.

“Yeah, except they would have called the damn truck in. The plates are stolen, but the truck will still come back to me. You can’t be out here doing this kind of stuff, Richie. You’re causing problems for me now.”

“What problems?”

“There’s two feds sniffing around. They’re asking questions. They’re looking for you. Do what I say. Get the bodies and then take your ass home.”

Richard started the truck as Mark headed back to his patrol vehicle.

I woke up before six, showered, shaved, spoke with my parents about nothing for the better part of an hour, and grabbed a coffee from the front desk of the hotel before seven thirty. The coffee they provided was surprisingly awful, and I realized I would need to address my caffeine intake more after a bit. Ball had taken my call around ten o’clock the prior night and said he’d get the twins on everything I’d requested and e-mail me whatever they found as soon as they had it. Before Beth left the previous night, we’d put together a loose plan for the day—basically to meet up with the Nashville PD and go do a little street walking to see if we could get anywhere with the local women for hire. We were talking about leaving around eight, yet I hadn’t seen or heard from Beth yet that morning.

I pulled on my suit jacket and headed for the bathroom. I stared in the mirror and straightened my dark-blue tie. The gray in my hair and wrinkles at the corners of my eyes didn’t look as bad as the last time I’d looked—I chalked it up to my day starting well and headed for the door to go see what was going on with Beth.

I was two steps from the door when I heard banging from the other side. I glanced through the peephole to see hair bouncing up and down, so I pulled the door open.

Beth stood in the hall, hopping on one foot while she tried to put a shoe on the other. “Come on, we have to go,” she said.

“Okay. Where’s the fire?”

“I just talked to Clifford. They found two more bodies this morning.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“No. I’m actually not. Are you ready or what?”

“Yeah, just let me grab my things.” My hopes for a good day had vanished before they could fully take hold. I stepped back into the room, gathered everything I’d need for the day, and followed Beth from the hotel, across the sky bridge, and to her car. I hopped in the passenger side, and we headed for Clarksville County.

As Beth merged onto the highway, she glanced over at me. “Clifford said that neither body has been removed from the scenes, and he instructed them to not remove the bodies until we’re able to view both sites. The two dump sites are twenty minutes apart.”

“Did he send you the locations?” I asked.

“Yeah, Clifford sent them to my phone. He’s meeting us at the closer of the two. The town is called Sango. Here.” Beth passed her phone to me. “Hit the prompts to make the phone navigate to the first location.”

I did, and the screen showed our route. The drive time showed as thirty-five minutes. I handed Beth’s phone back to her.

“Forensics team?” I asked.

Beth leaned forward and placed her phone between the dash and the windshield. “I’d assume it will come from the sheriff’s department,” she said.

“Any idea if Clifford is in contact with them?”

“I don’t know,” Beth said.

I rubbed the back of my neck and pulled my cell phone from my pocket.

“Who are you calling?” Beth asked.

“The chief deputy. We need to see where the local sheriff’s department is at with this, and I want to make sure we have a forensics team at both sites.”

“One would think that they would,” Beth said.

“Yeah, I’m not putting too much stock in the local effort here.”

I searched the number for the sheriff’s department and dialed.

“Clarksville County Sheriff, how can I help you?”

“Agent Rawlings with the FBI. I’d like to speak with Chief Deputy Whissell.”

“Um, one moment.”

Soft jazz music played in my ear as I sat on hold.

The woman came back on a moment later. “He’s actually out of the office at the moment. Would you like to leave a message for him?”

“Do you have a direct number? It’s regarding the two body dumps that occurred this morning.”

“Oh, yeah, okay. Let me put you through.”

I heard a click, which I assumed was her redirecting me to his mobile phone.

“Whissell,” he answered.

“It’s Agent Rawlings. I wanted to touch base with you on these bodies that have been found this morning.”

“Yeah, I’m at one of the scenes now.”

“Okay, which one?” I asked.

“The one by Sango. Albright Road.”

“We’re actually on our way there now. Did you have a forensics team on scene?”

“Team? No. We have a forensics guy. He’s on his way here.”

“Okay. We’ll be there in a half hour or so. Will you still be on scene?”

“Yeah, I’ll be here,” he said.

“Okay, we’ll see you in a bit.”

“Sure.”

I hung up.

“Well?” Beth asked, looking over at me.

“He’s at the scene we’re headed to. He says they have a forensics guy that will be at that scene as well. He also seemed just as
I don’t give a shit
as he did yesterday.”

“Maybe that’s just the guy’s demeanor,” she said. “Some people are like that.”

I shrugged and checked the e-mail on my phone, looking to see if anything had been sent from Ball or the twins. My phone showed no new messages. “Did you get anything from Virginia yet this morning?” I asked.

“Nope. Nothing yet,” Beth said.

“Did you make contact with the Nashville PD to let them know that we were heading out there today?”

“Not yet. We can give them a call after we know what’s going on out here,” she said.

“Fair enough.”

The freeway drive made twenty-five minutes of our trip, followed by a quick five minutes of local highway. Beth flipped on her turn signal and made a left down the street the remains were found on. After a mile drive, we spotted official vehicles on the left and right hand sides of the road. Beth pulled up behind a gray Crown Victoria sedan with a small three-inch antenna on the roof—Clifford’s car. Ahead of Clifford’s vehicle, in a line along the edge of the road, were a sheriff’s SUV and a coroners van. On the other side of the street, parked in the opposite direction, was a single sheriff’s cruiser. We stepped out and headed over. The scene had no police tape, no camera crews, no onlookers, and no team of people searching for anything.

We spotted Agent Clifford standing with Chief Deputy Whissell and two other men. One, wearing a white lab coat, I figured to be from the Nashville Medical Science place we’d visited the night prior, while the other was another deputy, stocky and wide—just a few yards ahead of the van was a tarp covering a body in the ditch. We walked up.

“Rawlings, Harper,” Agent Clifford said.

“Agent Clifford,” I said.

Beth gave him a nod.

“Let’s just go with Tom,” he said.

“Tom it is then,” I said.