Shadows from the Grave (30 page)

“We’ll sort it out, boss,” Gina reassured him with a smile.

Chase raised his eyebrows at her confident tone. “You think so?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “This is a nine-day wonder. Something else will come along soon enough, and you’ll be old news again. In the meantime, we have chocolate to get us through, and I’m sure we can find some liquor somewhere.” She opened one of her desk drawers and pulled out a large basket filled with chocolates of all shapes and sizes. Picking out a dark chocolate square, she tossed it to him. Chase caught it, then unwrapped it and popped the whole thing into his mouth.

“I hope you’re right, Gina. I want my boring life back.”

Curtis Pace woke up Monday morning with something akin to sadness in the pit of his stomach. The thirteen-year-old knew this would be the last day he’d get to sleep in for a while. School started back tomorrow, and his parents had given him permission to while the day away however he wanted. To that end, Curtis decided it was a fine day for fishing, swimming, and whatever else he could come up with. He dragged himself out of bed and ambled downstairs to find that his mother had anticipated his activities. She’d packed a small cooler full of goodies and left a note propped against it, telling him he would find some sandwiches in the fridge. His mom didn’t do that sort of thing very often these days, now that he was old enough to fend for himself in the kitchen. The loving gesture made Curtis smile, since no one else was around to see how touched he was. He was thirteen, after all, no longer a little boy.

After scarfing down one of the sandwiches, he stuffed the rest in the cooler and headed out to the barn to get his bike.

“Hey, Curt,” his dad greeted him. Seeing the cooler, Joe Pace smiled. “You heading to the pond?”

“Yeah, unless you need me.”

Joe grinned at his son and walked over to ruffle his hair. “What if I said I do?”

Curtis tried to hide his disappointment. He shrugged. “Then I guess I’ll stick around.” His dad laughed and pulled him in for a tight hug.

“Baby boy, you have more than earned a day off,” Joe told him. “Go have fun.” He released Curtis with quick kiss to his hair. Embarrassed but pleased, Curtis ducked away and grabbed his bike. He took great pains to hide his own grin. He promised his dad he’d be careful, and then he was off.

It didn’t take him long to reach his favorite spot, a shady, flat area beneath a weeping willow. He decided to set the cooler aside and take a swim first, and then come back to eat. The pond next to the tree wasn’t large by some standards, but it was plenty big enough for Curtis’s plans. He splashed around for a while, and then turned onto his back and started floating, watching as a jet streaked across the sky.

That would be a cool job, he thought, to be able to get off the ground and go anywhere in the world. Curtis wasn’t sure what he wanted to do when he grew up, but he knew it was time to start thinking about it. He thought he might just see if his dad would take him to the library later to look for some books about the subject. Or maybe not. School started tomorrow, and he’d have plenty of reading to do then. He let his mind drift, along with his body, and then he noticed the buzzards. Using his hands and feet to steer himself through the water, Curtis changed positions to get a better look. When he saw that the birds were circling something in the vicinity of the highway, he grimaced. He thought he knew what they might have found.

The Pace’s neighbors, the Andersons, had come by early last evening. Their daughter Katy’s dog, Oscar, had disappeared, and they were searching for him. Katy was Curtis’s age, and the two had grown up together. He hadn’t noticed her as a girl until school registration a couple of weeks ago. Since then, he’d thought of little else. Now, seeing the buzzards, Curtis hoped he was wrong about what the birds were interested in.

Reluctantly, he climbed out of the water to pull his shoes back on. He then headed around the side of the pond toward the highway. He hoped it was just a deer, and not old Oscar. He certainly didn’t want to have to break the news to Katy that Oscar was dead.

The closer he got to whatever it was, the more his heart pounded. When he was about ten feet away, the wind shifted toward him, bringing with it the sickly sweet smell of death. Curtis swallowed against the nausea that rose up in his throat at the stench and trudged on. He knew from having found calves with his father that it was bound to be unpleasant, whatever it was.

Soon, he was close enough to hear the loud drone of the buzzing flies. The tall grass and weeds blocked the carcass from sight, but Curtis guessed it had to be larger than Oscar. The buzzing was just too loud.

He finally reached the old lane where the grass had been cut, and his eyes were instantly drawn to the rotting heap on the other side of the small clearing. Dimly he noted the trampled grass, the tire tracks. Most of his focus, however, was on the corpse sprawled on the ground. It was covered in a solid black mass of writhing, buzzing flies.

Curtis wasn’t sure how long he stood there, his hand covering his mouth to protect it from the flies and the smell. He wasn’t sure how he managed to not throw up. All he was sure of was that his wet shorts hid the shame of his having peed his pants, and that somehow he managed to make it home to the barn before he fell apart, secure in his father’s arms. He was also sure that he would never forget the horrific scene that had met him in the lane on a bright, sunny and otherwise perfect summer day. He would never look at that pond the same way again, never swim in its waters without thinking of what he had found. All thoughts of Katy and Oscar had fled, because the carcass had not been Katy’s dog. It hadn’t been a deer. It had been a human being.

When the call came in to the Olman County 911 call center, it was immediately routed to the sheriff’s department. The dispatcher who took the call sent the nearest patrol toward the Pace farm, and then paged Sheriff Dixon.

“What is it, Carrie?” the sheriff asked as he came in, a tall coffee from The Brown Bag in his hand.

The dispatcher handed him a slip of paper. “This call just came in, Sheriff,” she said. “Joe Pace found a body on his property.”

Wyatt cursed under his breath. “Get Ethan out there, as well as a CSU. And check with the state boys, see if they have anyone in the area.” He paused. “Did Joe have any idea who it was?”

Carrie shook her head. “No, sir. He said it’s in pretty bad shape. He wasn’t even sure whether it was a man or a woman.”

“Damn it,” Wyatt said. “Okay. Take care of those calls. I’ll go let Maria know.” Maria Pace was the department’s technical analyst and IT specialist. She was Joe Pace’s eldest child, and Wyatt knew the news was going to be upsetting. He dreaded having to tell her.

Upstairs at the lab, Wyatt knocked on the door frame. Maria had her back turned to the door as she bent over an open computer on her desk.

“Just a second,” she said in response to his knock. “Come on, you little piece of crap. Get in that slot.” Wyatt raised an eyebrow and started to ask if she was having computer problems, but he was distracted by the elastic bandage on her ankle. It was only then he noticed the crutches propped against the wall next to her desk.

“What’d you do to yourself now?” he growled, the purpose for his visit temporarily forgotten.

Startled, Maria turned around, her face red. “Sheriff! I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was you. What can I do for you?”

Wyatt came into the office with a scowl. “You can start by sitting down and telling me what happened to your foot.” Maria leaned up against her desk instead and crossed her arms.

“You make it sound like I deliberately set out to harm myself,” she chided. She was one of the few people working in his department who weren’t afraid to argue with him. “I twisted my ankle Friday evening, that’s all. I just have to stay off it for a few days. It’s nothing, really.”

Wyatt glowered at her for a few more seconds, but she wouldn’t budge, meeting him stare for stare. Finally, he sighed and threw his hands up in the air.

“Fine, have it your way,” he said. He suddenly remembered why he was there and shut the door. “Listen, I have something to tell you, but I don’t want you to get upset. Okay?”

An uneasy look crossed her face, and she straightened up against the desk. “Okay. What is it?”

“Your dad just called. Apparently, he found a body on his property.” When Maria’s face paled, Wyatt grabbed a chair and guided her into it. “Damned stubborn woman. I told you to sit down.”

Maria waved him off as she sat. “I’m fine, Sheriff. Did Dad know who it is? Or was, I guess.”

“Apparently, he couldn’t tell,” Wyatt said. “You should probably call him. We’ve dispatched units out there, and I’m going to head that way myself.”

Maria nodded and thanked him. “Should I go out there, do you think?”

“Why don’t you call first?” he suggested. Maria agreed and grabbed her cell phone off her desk. Wyatt waited and listened in unashamedly while she spoke with her mother.

“Are they okay?” he asked when she disconnected.

“They’re pretty shaken up, but everyone’s okay,” she said. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to head out there, be with Curtis. She said he’s the one who found the body.”

Wyatt handed her the crutches. “I’ll drive you,” he said. “That’s a rough thing for a kid to have to find. How old is he now, twelve?”

“Thirteen,” she answered. “I’ll meet you at your SUV?”

“Give me about five minutes to wrap some things up, and I’ll see you there.” He headed downstairs to let his assistant know what was going on and where he would be. He also used the time to remind himself of two important facts. Not only did the sheriff’s department have a non-fraternization policy, Wyatt was old enough to be Maria Pace’s father. Hell, he had gone to high school with her father, had played ball with Joe. He had enough on his plate as things stood, without adding the potential mess that a relationship with Maria would add to the mix.

“As if she would even give an old codger like me a second look,” Wyatt muttered to himself. That way lay trouble and heartache, and he would do well to remember that, no matter how much the scent of Maria’s perfume or the sound of her laugh remained in his mind.

~ * * * ~

Wyatt dropped Maria off at her parents’ house, and then headed to the crime scene to join Ethan and Robbie Bailey. Since the scene was off the highway, and there was no place for vehicles to really pull off, most of the law enforcement vehicles were parked in one lane of the highway. Wyatt parked at the end of the row of cars and walked up to Robbie, who was directing traffic.

The deputy nodded in greeting. “Sheriff,” he said. “Ethan’s back with the coroner. It’s pretty bad, sir.”

Wyatt thanked him and headed down the lane where Robbie had directed him. He stopped outside the taped-off area to sign in and don paper booties. Keeping a crime scene clean when it was outdoors was hard to do, but every little bit helped.

Ethan was about a hundred yards down the lane talking to the balding and paunchy coroner. About halfway between there and where Wyatt stood, a CSU tech was setting up a mold to make a cast imprint, presumably of a tire track. Wyatt asked the tech manning the perimeter where the safe areas to walk were.

“Straight down the middle of the lane, sir, until you get closer to the body,” he answered. Wyatt ducked under the tape and started down the path. Ethan saw him coming and met him halfway, bringing him up to date as they walked back to the coroner.