Somers stared around in disbelief. Glover, the deputy who had given them grief, was standing half out of his car. He had partially chewed sunflower seeds down the front of his shirt.
“What the fuck are you waiting for?” Somers shouted at him.
Glover’s whole body jerked, and he threw himself into the sheriff’s department cruiser. He backed up too fast and hit a white sedan behind him hard enough for Somers to hear the squeal of metal and fiberglass. Then Glover hit the gas. The cruiser launched forward, and Glover lost control of it. He went halfway into the drainage ditch next to the drive. Then he bounced up on the other side and took out two fence posts. By some miracle, the deputy managed to get back on the dirt drive, and he rocked over the ruts as he sped away.
Somers watched him go. He wondered if they were hiring in Kansas City. Maybe he could have Palomo’s old job.
When it was obvious he couldn’t do anything else, he went back inside and did a brief check of the main floor. Then he went downstairs.
“Ree?”
“Back here.” Hazard emerged from an opening that Somers had missed on his first visit because it was partially concealed by a stack of drywall. “What was that all about?”
“Somebody walked inside the goddamn house while we were standing right here and got away with the fire safe. The one from the bedroom.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“It looked like Glover stood there and watched the whole thing, so maybe we’ll get an ID.”
“Unless he was too busy thinking about his cousin,” Hazard said.
“Really? Right now you want to start making jokes?”
“I have a very good sense of humor, John. You don’t appreciate it. Remember when I made up that pun about inosculation and gemels and—what’s the expression you’re making right now? Is it those refried beans from the airport last night?”
Because Somers was trying not to be in the running for the world’s shortest marriage, he decided not to respond to any of that. Instead, he crossed the basement to look into the opening that Hazard had emerged from.
It wasn’t an opening, he realized immediately. It was a doorway. It was easy to tell because the hinges were still partially attached—where someone hadn’t cut through them. The door, with the remainder of the cut hinges, lay just inside the room. Cables and power strips ran behind and under desks that lined the small room. Dust showed outlines where objects had been recently removed. A large, ductless AC unit was mounted on one wall, and a fan overhead spun lazily. To judge by the quality of the noise, Somers guessed that it vented outside the house.
“It looks like he had a serious setup down here,” Hazard said. “At least twelve computers, and if he was worried about cooling the room, then he must have been using all of them. A lot.”
“So,” Somers said, resisting the urge to rub his forehead, “what the hell was he doing?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
NOVEMBER 1
FRIDAY
2:11 PM
SHERIFF ENGELS WAS STANDING in the yard, hat in his hand, when they emerged from the house. He was listening to the squawk of a radio and then speaking in low voices to Deputy Weiss; the woman was shaking her head every few seconds. Beyond them, a dark-haired woman in Tyvek coveralls was approaching the woods where Krower’s body lay; Dr. Boyer had arrived, it seemed, and that meant things were really going to start moving.
“We’ve got a description,” Engels said as Somers and Hazard joined him. He nodded at Weiss, who moved off, her gait shortened by her old limp. “Glover described her as a blond female, white, approximately thirty years old.”
“The car?” Somers asked.
“A red coupe.” Engels grimaced and ran his finger and thumb across his mustache. “I’m sorry, John-Henry.”
“Every organization has jackasses,” Somers said. “Trust me; I inherited my fair share.”
“You ought to fire him,” Hazard said. “If I thought it would go anywhere, I’d suggest you slap him with criminal neglect as well.”
“I appreciate the input, Emery,” Engels said.
“You need someone reliable to secure the scene and the victim’s home.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
“That woman might have made off with valuable evidence—”
Somers squeezed Hazard’s arm, and with what looked like a great deal of effort, the big man cut off. Somers smiled an apology at Engels.
Engels waved a hand. “It was my mistake; he’s right.”
“Of course I’m right,” Hazard said. “I suppose we can look at the security footage to get a picture of her.”
“Wish we could,” Engels said. “Wherever those cameras are dumping their feed, we can’t find it. I don’t think we’ll have any luck in the short term.”
“If you had stationed a different deputy—” Hazard began.
“Good Lord,” Somers muttered. Before Hazard could provide any additional staffing advice, Somers launched into an account of what they’d found, but Engels stopped him. The sheriff hallooed, and a couple of men emerged from the line of trees behind the house.
“This is Gary Holliman,” the sheriff said, indicating a tall, heavyset man in a white, Matlock-esque suit. He had graying hair pulled into a ponytail that he wore under a Dakota hat. On his index finger, a silver ring with the sign of the cross glittered. “And this is Alvin Reinbold.” The second man had hair that was mostly white, although to judge by his complexion and all the freckles, at one point his hair had been blond or red. He was skinny, sun spotted, and boiled down to a kind of toughness that made Somers think of beef jerky. He wore a tracksuit jacket with a t-shirt and jeans, and he chewed a toothpick with zero sense of irony.
“Red,” the man who had been introduced as Alvin Reinbold said. He shook with each of them and added, “Red Alvin if you can’t stand plain Red. And we all call him Brother Gary, on account of his calling to the ministry.”
“He’s putting you on,” Brother Gary said. “Although if the Lord calls, I answer. That’s always been my motto.”
“Now,” Red Alvin said, “we locked down that house and had a deputy sitting on it, so I’m a little confused why I see him sitting in his car over there.”
“You had a shit-for-brains trying to keep us from doing our job,” Hazard said. “Contaminating an active crime scene. And, worse, he sat on his fat ass and watched a woman escape with possible evidence.”
“The Lord’s tongue is a two-edged sword,” Brother Gary said, “but I’d like to remind you that, as Christian men, we ought to keep our mouths clean. Unclean things proceed out of the mouth—”
“Shut the fuck up,” Hazard said.
Brother Gary looked like he might have something unclean currently stuck in his throat.
“That’s why we had that place locked down,” Red Alvin said. “So nothing would walk off. You boys stepped right in it, though, didn’t you?”