I Shall Not Want (40 page)

The area was lit up like a used-car lot with the additional lamps Lyle and Kevin had set up. “Doc Scheeler,” Lyle said. Kevin was stringing police-line tape around trees and stones. Lyle stepped over the tape and held it down for the medical examiner. “Hadley’s on her way. And the state tech team, although they say it may be another hour.”

“Let’s see what we can ascertain before they get here.” Scheeler snapped his gloves on. They walked one after the other, in Lyle’s footsteps. Russ kept his eyes moving as he pulled on his purple gloves, hoping against hope to see a hair, a fiber, a track, anything that might—

They stopped. Russ stepped around the pathologist for a better view. Scheeler sucked in his cheeks. “Holy Mother of God,” he said. Russ lifted his eyes and met Lyle’s. The older man looked as grim as Russ had ever seen him.

“All right,” Scheeler said. “All right. Let’s see what he can tell us.” He opened his case and knelt, laying it next to the body. He began removing instruments and evidence bags.

“The VFW was up here on the third,” Lyle said, “putting in flags. We may be able to place someone on the scene later than that, but that’s a positive.”

“Dumped,” Russ said. “Already dead.”

“Probably,” Scheeler said from where he knelt. “The ground’s so dry, it would have soaked up a lot, but active bleeding would have stained all these dead pine needles.” He slid one long, rust-colored needle from beneath the body and held it up. “Dry,” he said. “And unstained. When did he go missing?”

“June twenty-third,” Lyle said.

“So. Two weeks.”

“How long has he been dead?” Russ asked.

“Very preliminary estimate, twenty-four to thirty-six hours.” The ME’s assured voice thinned out. “Whoever did this kept him alive for a long time.”

A silence followed that observation. After a while, Lyle said, “Different gun than the other three.”

“I can tell,” Russ said. Whatever had finally put Esfuentes out of his misery was a lot bigger than a .22.

“They’re not just getting rid of witnesses. They wanted information,” Lyle said.

“Jesus. You think?”

Lyle turned, his expression stung. Russ waved a hand in apology. “Sorry. I’m just… yeah. Information. If he had been meant as a warning, he would’ve turned up someplace a lot more public than this.”

“Whatever they wanted to know, this poor bastard couldn’t tell them,” Scheeler said. He gently lifted one hand with a slender steel rod. “This was done while he was alive. After the third finger, he would have told them anything.” The medical examiner slipped an evidence bag over the hand, concealing it from sight. “Who in God’s name was this kid?”

Russ’s throat tightened. “Nobody. Just a hardworking farm boy who came north for a decent job. He thought we were keeping him safe.”

“We did everything we could at the time.” MacAuley’s voice was rough. “Don’t start second-guessing yourself.”

It was good advice. Russ had passed it on to more than one young officer in his day. It didn’t make him feel any better.

“Russ?”

He snapped around at the sound of Clare’s voice. He could just see her outline in the unlit dimness behind the police tape, silhouetted against the whirl of white, red, and blue lights in the distance. He strode toward her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t want to interrupt. It’s just that the boys have left, and I didn’t know”—he was close enough to make out her face, now—“nobody told me. I wanted to find out.” He stopped in front of her. The shivering police tape drew a line between them. “Is it definitely Amado?”

He balled up his hands to keep from putting his arms around her. “Yeah. It is.”

“Oh, God.” She looked up at him. “Are you sure?” Before he could say anything, she answered herself. “Of course you’re sure.” She looked away. Wiped her eyes with both hands. “Can I see him? I won’t touch anything or get in the way. I just want to—”

“No,” he said.

“I’ve seen dead bodies before, Russ.” She straightened her spine. “I won’t break down.”

“No. Listen,” this time he didn’t stop himself. He gathered her against him, holding her tightly, hating to be the one to tell her. “Clare, he was tortured. Before he was killed. It wasn’t—” He shook his head. “I don’t want you to see—Christ, nobody should have to see something like this.”

He felt her inhale. Then stillness. Finally, she said, “Are you all right?” Her voice was unsteady.

“Yeah. Or I will be.” He took her shoulders and pushed her to arm’s length. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For last winter. For letting go. For treating you the way I did. I’ve been an asshole, Clare, but I love you, and I swear to God, I’d rather die myself than see you hurt.” Lyle’s words about letting the press know there was nothing to be found at St. Alban’s took on a new and terrible urgency. “Whatever the hell piece of information we’re missing, these guys looking for it want it bad. And they’re junkyard-dog vicious. I don’t want you alone until we’ve found them. Go to the Ellises’ house, get your deacon to move in with you, whatever you have to so you’re not by yourself.”

“I can’t promise that.” He couldn’t tell if it was anger or anguish in her voice.

“Russ!” Lyle called.

“Please, Clare. I don’t expect you to do anything because I ask you to.” She flinched at that. “But do it for Amado. His death at least gives us a warning. Don’t waste it.”

“Russ!” Lyle was impatient.

He left her with one glance over his shoulder. Walked back into the circle of cold light, inching his fingers into his glove once more. All around, the oak and maple leaves whispered and hissed in the wind.

“Take a look at this,” Lyle said. He and Kevin—pale, stiff-faced, but functioning—had rolled the body to one side. Doc Scheeler, kneeling, was tweezing some sort of short hairs or fibers from where they had crusted on the blood-soaked shirt. There were a lot of them, black and pale golden and tan where they weren’t stained with blood.

“What are they?” Russ asked.

Scheeler held a small tuft up before slipping it into an evidence bag. “I can’t be certain until I inspect this under the microscope, but I’m pretty sure it’s hair. He brought it with him; it isn’t on the pine needles beneath the body. I’m just finding them in one area, here, where the body rested on the ground, but that may not signify much. They could have appeared elsewhere and then blown off while he was exposed up here.”

“Maybe he was laid someplace where there was a lot of hair,” Lyle said.

“Or wrapped in a rug or blanket,” Russ said. “That would jibe with his being transported here. If somebody didn’t want to get blood all over the trunk of his car.”

“A dog blanket,” Kevin said. He looked at Russ. “You know. You put an old blanket on the sofa or on the backseat of a car? So the dog won’t shed on the good stuff underneath.”

Russ examined the hairs again. Sharp-tipped, two or three inches long. Black and tan. He remembered their last visit to the Christies: Kevin hurtling into the cruiser, half an inch away from being savaged. He looked at the young officer. Saw him nod.

“German shepherds,” Russ said.

This time, they went at dawn, warrant in hand. They had the animal control officer with them, a rawhide woman whose sleepy expression concealed an ability to think fast and move faster. P.J. loved animals, but Russ had no doubt she could put down the German shepherds if needed. He had dated one of her older sisters in high school. All the Adams girls had a ruthless streak a mile wide.

P.J. had said the dogs were likely to be asleep by morning, and she was right. Kevin opened the gate slowly and quietly this time, watching the drive every second, but no ravening beasts showed up to try and take a chunk out of him. The sky arched overhead, rose and pearl, and grasshoppers whirred out of the grass as they drove up the lane.

Russ parked in the same spot he had two weeks before. This time he could see how badly the house and barn needed painting. The Christies had inherited a lot—he glanced at the century-old maples shading the house and the fields and woods falling away in every direction—but they were lousy stewards.

Getting out of the car, he could hear the sheep bleating. Another car door
ca-chunk
ed, and Lyle walked up to stand at his side. “If anybody’s hiding in the sheep pen, you’re going in this time,” he said.

“Are you kidding? That’s what we brought Kevin for.” Russ turned away from the house. Kevin and Eric were in backup positions and P.J. was readying a trank gun, muzzles and restraint straps dangling off her belt. “Ready?”

“Yep.”

They mounted the porch steps. Russ rang the doorbell. Nothing happened. He rang it again. The door jerked open, revealing a twenty-something blonde in a baggy T-shirt and pajama bottoms. Her face was creased from sleep. “What is it?” she asked.

Russ dredged the sister’s name out of his memory. “Isabel?” he said. “We’d like to speak to your brothers.”

She blinked several times and rubbed her face. “Why?”

MacAuley pushed against the door, opening it farther. She stepped back. “We want to ask them about Amado Esfuentes.”

She came awake. “Amado? Why?”

“He’s been killed,” Russ said. “We believe your brothers may have some knowledge of the murder.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth. Her eyes went wide and white-edged.
Oh, hell
. Looks like Kevin was wrong about their relationship—or lack thereof.

“Are you sure?” she whispered. “Are you sure it was Amado Esfuentes? Not one of the others?”

“We’ve positively ID’d him,” Russ said. “I’m sorry.”

“He was tortured.” MacAuley had dropped his usual easygoing persona. “For information he may have possessed. Over many days. He must have thanked whoever put a bullet in his head.”

Isabel Christie made a sound like an animal in a trap. She backed away even farther. Russ stepped into the house.

“You knew him, didn’t you?” He kept his voice sympathetic.

She nodded.

“I met him a couple of times, too. He was a good-hearted, hardworking young man, with his whole life ahead of him. He didn’t deserve to die like that.” He bent down so he was speaking to her face-to-face. “Will you help us?”

She nodded.

“Where are your brothers?”

She took a deep breath. “Bruce…” Her voice wavered. She stopped. When she started again, it was steady. “Bruce is in the fifth wheel next door.” From the corner of his eye, Russ could see Lyle turn and point Kevin and Eric to the trailer. “Neil’s upstairs. Donald and Kathy were fighting last night, and he took off after she locked him out of their bedroom. He’s prob’ly at his ex’s house. Desiree Dwyer.”

“I thought she was out of town.”

She pointed in the direction of the dining room. “Different ex.” Russ and Lyle followed, skirting the long table and heavy Victorian chairs, into the minuscule back hallway. A narrow staircase rose steeply to a windowed alcove.

“Isabel,” Russ said. “Could you call your brother downstairs?”

She looked at him. There were purple shadows beneath her eyes that hadn’t been there when they arrived. “You think they did it?” she whispered.

“Evidence with the body points toward your brothers, yeah.”

She took another deep breath. Her face smoothed, became a mask of normalcy. She faced the second floor. “Neil!” she yelled.

“Wha‘?” A single snarling male voice, muffled by a door.

“Giddown here!”

“What the hell for? Jesus Christ, you know what time it is?”

She took a few steps up until she was level with the second-floor landing. “The ram’s busted the gate again. He’s at the ewes.”

They heard feet thudding on the floor, accompanied by steady cursing. “Donald!” The unseen voice—Neil—bellowed. “Git your lazy ass out of bed. The ram’s out!”

A door thudded open against a wall. “Shut up!” a woman yelled.

Russ winced. “The fiancée,” he told Lyle.

“He ain’t in here,” she went on. “He’s coolin‘ off downstairs.”

“No, he’s not,” Isabel said loudly. “He went to Desiree’s.”

“Uh-oh,” Russ said.

“
What
?” The shriek rose like a siren. “That no-good, belly-crawling, rat bastard son of a bitch—”

Isabel ducked out of the stairwell. Russ and Lyle backpedaled as someone large and heavy crashed down the steps. Neil Christie emerged, pulling a T-shirt over his head. He stopped when he saw them. “What the hell?”

“Neil, we want you to come with us,” Russ said. “We want to ask you some questions about Amado Esfuentes.”

The big man’s jaw unhinged, then clamped shut. He narrowed his eyes. “You arrestin‘ me?”

“Not yet,” Lyle said.

Neil swung his head, left, right, like a bull readying for a charge. Russ hoped he wasn’t going to try to take them. Then his gaze fell on Isabel, pressed against the dining room wall. “You,” her brother said. “You let ‘em in. You—the ram ain’t out, is he? You lying bitch!” He raised one meaty hand in a fist. Isabel cringed.

“Touch her and we’ll have you up on assault,” Lyle said.

“C’mon, Neil.” Russ dropped his voice some. Confidential. Persuasive. “You don’t want any trouble, and neither do we. You come on down with us and answer a few questions. You’ll be back in time for lunch.”

He could see the wheels and pulleys clanking slowly in Christie’s brain. But he was surprised when Neil turned on Isabel again. “Is Don really at Desiree’s? Or is that you lyin‘ again? Do they already have him?”

“No! It’s the truth!”

“We’ll pick up your brother from his girlfriend’s house,” Russ said.

At the same moment, Neil said, “So it’s just me? God damn!” and swung at the girl.

Lyle, who was closer, lunged forward, wrapping both arms around Christie’s midsection and heaving backward. Isabel ducked. Russ was unsnapping his cuffs from his belt, yelling, “Get his arm,” when a shrieking harpy flew from the stairwell and landed square on Lyle, screeching, “Leave him alone, you rat bastard son of a bitch!” Lyle staggered and released Neil, struggling to shake off the woman clawing and punching him.

Isabel ran. Neil pivoted after her. Russ slammed into him with a shoulder block, but his angle was wrong to put Christie down. Instead, he jolted sideways against the table, which scraped over the wooden floor.