Stranded (18 page)

Maggie stepped farther into the stall and wondered if Grace could be mistaken. Now inside, she could smell a strong rancid odor that she suspected was horse manure. Then she remembered what Creed had said when Grace had found the dead mouse. Any other scent was a mere distraction. Grace had been trained to find human remains, not dead animals and certainly not animal manure. Just then Maggie realized what she was smelling.

Her eyes darted to the bucket. Five gallons, metal, and sealed.
The smell couldn’t be coming from it and yet just the thought of what could be inside made her mouth go dry and her stomach do a flip.

She pulled a pair of latex gloves out of her jacket pocket and slipped them on as she approached the wooden trough. With an index finger she poked the middle of the heap under the thick wool blanket.

Something solid. Definitely not horse feed.

She found a corner of the blanket and started to peel it back but stopped when it resisted and sounded like separating Velcro. That small effort had already leaked more of the rancid odor.

Maggie glanced over her shoulder again. Tully was still on the phone. Creed and Grace were out far enough that the squeaky sounds were in the distance.

She tugged at the corner of the wool blanket again, wincing at the sound and smell but continuing, slowly, inch by inch. The putrefied flesh had melted into the weave of the blanket and as she pulled it back, she was also pulling away a layer of skin. The thick wool had attempted to mummify the body, but peeling it off had started to release the gases.

Maggie had to step away. Her pulse had begun racing. She needed to get her bearings. She turned and took a few gulps of air from outside the stall. It helped to settle her nerves. Then she went back to work. Again, carefully and slowly, she teased the wool away until she identified a forearm. That was enough. She was certain it was a dead body. She would leave it for the forensic investigators.

Before she stepped away, she saw bright red and blue. Because she had peeled away a layer of skin the tattoo had become even brighter. She knew that was true of tattoos since the ink pooled down below the top layer of skin. They were valuable in IDing
bodies. It made sense
not
to wait. She was this close already. At least she could take a look at it.

She tugged the wool away until she could see the entire image—an eagle head with piercing eyes over a prominent beak. Stenciled above on two lines was STURGIS 2000.

Maggie stopped. Stood back.

The son of a bitch was telling the truth
.

Otis P. Dodd was right about there being a body in the barn. And it looked like he was right about it being a tattooed biker.

CHAPTER 33

By late afternoon the quiet farmstead was no longer quiet. Maggie’s and Tully’s roles were quickly reduced to traffic control and site management. The crime scene techs, Janet, Matt, and Ryan, had arrived again from Omaha with their mobile lab. Agent Alonzo had told them that an FBI agent from the Omaha field office would also be making his way up, but so far they hadn’t seen or heard from him.

Grace had alerted to five other sites: one behind an old laundry house, another behind the barn, and three in the woods. Creed had given her a rest after each find, along with her pink elephant and some water. They were walking the pasture now but hadn’t gotten any more hits in the last hour. Creed insisted this would be their last grid of the property.

Sheriff Uniss had brought an anthropology professor from a nearby university to help direct his deputies on how to dig the places that Grace had alerted. Creed had warned them that the three in the woods could be surrounded by what he called secondary scatter; in other words, pieces of the primary targets. He had marked the primary not only according to Grace’s alerts, but also to his visual observations, pointing out one spot in particular
where the wild grasses were only half as tall as those surrounding it.

Maggie didn’t envy the digging crew. There were at least a dozen of Creed’s fluorescent flags telegraphing sites and some were in hard to reach areas, way off the beaten path.

The sheriff had sent one of his men to fetch sandwiches for everyone. Maggie and Tully were only getting to theirs. Tully went to get them some bottled waters and sodas while Maggie found them a quiet place at an old picnic table.

The sun wasn’t quite as warm today but it was another beautiful day, and Maggie was struck by the absurdity—such beauty alongside the macabre. Watching Grace had reminded Maggie of her dogs and she pulled out her cell phone. She pressed the contact number before thinking what time it was or what she might be interrupting. She heard it ring only twice, then was sent to voice mail. She listened to Benjamin Platt’s smooth, deep voice ask her to leave a message at the beep.

“Hey, it’s Maggie,” she said. “Just checking on my boys. Looks like we’ll be stuck here for a few days. I’ll try and catch you later. Bye.”

It seemed too casual, almost too abrupt. This was a man she had considered having a serious relationship with only a few months ago. They had become friends so quickly that the next step seemed not just natural, but inevitable. Then they both put the skids on. No, that wasn’t true—Maggie put the skids on. Ben wanted something more permanent. He wanted a family. And kids. She knew he still hurt deeply from losing his little girl despite it being almost five years ago. But Maggie wasn’t sure she’d be able to replace the void Allie’s death had left in Ben’s heart and in his life. And she wasn’t sure she wanted children.

“I snagged the last Diet Pepsis,” Tully said, coming back with sodas in his hands and bottled waters sticking out from each of his jacket pockets.

He popped the tabs while Maggie spread out napkins and unwrapped the sandwiches. There was a certain rhythm to their daily rituals, a sure sign they had been spending a lot of time together.

“Don’t forget to take your antibiotic,” she told him. “And drink water with it. Lots of water.” She uncapped and slid a bottle in front of him.

“I actually feel better today.”

“You still have to take it.”

“You’ve been talking to Gwen.” But he was already digging the plastic bag with the pills out of his trousers pocket. “I hate that she’s going back to talk to Dodd. I don’t care if she insists he’s harmless. I just don’t like her going back there.”

“Otis is the only one who can tell us who this killer is.”

“Do you think his name really is Jack?”

“Doubtful.” She took a bite. The lunch deputy had done good—turkey, provolone, and spicy mustard.

“Alonzo said that the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally was in August,” Tully said. “Sturgis, South Dakota, is about six to seven hours away from here. I-29 north then I-90 west. Alonzo also said attendance was around a half million. Can you believe that?”

Maggie shook her head. “August seems too long ago.” She pointed to his discarded wrappings. “Aren’t you going to eat your pickle?”

“Knock yourself out.” He slid the pickle atop the waxed paper to her.

“Just because he was one of the faithful doesn’t mean that’s when Jack got a hold of him.”

“How long ago do you think?”

“The wool blanket makes it tough to say.”

“He didn’t even bother to bury this one. Is he just getting sloppy?”

The CSU tech, Ryan, came out of the barn carrying the metal bucket. The picnic table was beside the house about a hundred feet away. When he noticed Maggie, he pointed to the bucket and gave an exaggerated nod, then continued to the mobile lab parked next to the barn.

“What was that about?” Tully asked.

“I told him our biker friend’s head might be in the bucket. Guess I was right.”

“Jack’s starting to be very predictable.”

Maggie’s cell phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number or the 785 area code.

“This is Maggie O’Dell.”

“Ms. O’Dell, my name is Lieutenant Detective Lopez. I’m with the Riley County Police Department in Manhattan, Kansas. Can you please tell me who you are and what the hell your phone number is doing in a plastic bag alongside a missing college student’s finger?”

CHAPTER 34

“Just when we thought this scavenger hunt couldn’t get any stranger,” Tully had told Maggie as they started yet another road trip.

“It might not have anything to do with our guy Jack.”

“Your guy Jack,” Tully corrected her.

Detective Lopez had shared very little, though he seemed to welcome Maggie’s offer of assistance. Actually, Maggie thought the man sounded relieved. What he had told them was that a nineteen-year-old college student named Ethan Ames was still missing. A search team had scoured the woods surrounding the rest area where he had vanished. His friend Noah Waters, who had been with him, was only babbling what amounted to nonsense. But because Detective Lopez believed the boy might be involved in his friend’s disappearance, the father refused to let him answer their questions without a lawyer.

Lopez explained that Maggie’s cell phone number had been scribbled on a piece of paper and enclosed in a plastic ziplock bag. Also in the bag was what they believed to be the right index finger of Ethan Ames. They had found it when processing the trunk of the teenager’s car. The car had been confiscated from the rest area.

The last thing the detective said to Maggie before ending their phone conversation was, “So is this some crazy satanic cult?”

Maggie and Tully had left the Iowa farmstead in the hands of a very young field agent from the Omaha FBI office and the CSU techs. The drive from Sioux City, Iowa, to Manhattan, Kansas, was five to six hours. Maggie took over driving the last half when she noticed Tully fading. They stopped only twice: once for gas and coffee and again for more coffee and to use the restroom. Each time they pulled off the interstate to a truck plaza, Maggie found herself watching and listening and searching.

It was late and the last 136 miles from Lincoln, Nebraska, was four-lane highway, then two-lane instead of interstate. Lots of small towns slowing them down and long, dark stretches of blacktop lit only by the moon and their headlights. There were few other vehicles on the road.

By the time they entered Manhattan, Kansas, and passed by the university’s campus, both of them were bleary-eyed and exhausted.

Detective Lopez had reserved two rooms for them at the Holiday Inn. They were to meet him in the morning. Because Ethan Ames was still missing, Creed had agreed to join them the next day. Grace was trained for live search and rescue as well. However, Creed insisted that Grace rest after her busy day. They had been on the road for eighteen hours before arriving in Iowa. He admitted that he needed the sleep, too. But he promised to make the drive early the next morning and meet them in Manhattan.

Maggie knew they had to be totally exhausted for Tully to get excited about their hotel. But these rooms were luxurious by their most recent standards. Best of all, they had adjoining rooms at the end of the hallway on the third floor.

Immediately they opened the connecting doors between their rooms. The configuration of the walls still left them a great deal of privacy. They couldn’t see into each other’s rooms or beyond the entryway but they could talk and go back and forth.

“They have room service until midnight.” Tully came into her room with the hotel’s menu along with his laptop computer.

“Tully, it’s almost midnight now.” She ignored him and started unpacking her nightshirt and toiletries.

“All we had were those sandwiches and that was almost ten hours ago. You gotta take a look. Their room service menu is from Houlihan’s. When we were checking in I noticed the restaurant is connected to the lobby.”

He left the menu on her bed while he set his computer on her desk and started punching keys. Maybe adjoining rooms weren’t such a good idea. They had another long day ahead of them and she was wiped out.

“Alonzo sent me a satellite photo of the rest area.”

Maggie glanced over as it came up and filled his computer screen. The last miles of driving she had noticed the increased elevation on their SUV’s GPS as well as a glimpse of the limestone bluffs. Much of the landscape was covered with evergreens and hardwoods in full bloom.