But he had been here. She trusted her information. More importantly, she trusted her feelings, and she could sense his presence here.
She walked up the path and tried the front door. Locked. She walked around to the rear, which had a small patio with a pool, overlooking the hills. Hill Country-she got it now. It really was quite pretty here-endless vistas of soft hills, blue sky, a temperature of eighty-five this late in October. The only ugly note were the gnarled and stunted trees, which bent toward the ground like sour old women. Some were pecans, Tess could see the nuts coming in. The others were a mystery to her. Cottonwoods? Maury had been prattling about something that sounded like Wee-satches as they drove around Austin, but she hadn't paid close attention to his travelogue.
The back door was locked, too. Tess went to the Toyota and returned with a glass cutter from the old-fashioned picnic hamper she kept in her trunk. She had been accumulating the tricks of her trade-the gun, the lock picks (which she couldn't quite master), and this sweet little glass cutter, her favorite by far. She removed one pane, complimenting herself on her neatness, put the piece of glass aside, reached in and unlocked the door.
The house looked unused. No, the house looked as if someone wanted it to look unused. An important distinction. Covers over the furniture, no dishes out, garbage emptied, nothing in the old-fashioned refrigerator except ice-in trays and caked on the sides. Dusty cans of pork and beans and succotash were the only things in the cupboard. But Tess was convinced that the house had been inhabited, and fairly recently.
She opened the cabinet below the sink, found a wrench and took apart the pipe. She had dropped enough earrings down the drain to know how to do this quickly and efficiently. Exactly what she had expected-a few pieces of pulpy bits that had been washed into the sink, rotted and ripe-smelling, but evidence that people had been here, and not that long ago.
She wandered through the small house, hopeful of finding more clues. Weekend houses were such strange places, sterile even when they weren't rented out to others. A line from a favorite short story surfaced in the strange little swamp of her mind: something about the secrets of summer houses, which no real house would deign to keep. Not only could she find no traces of Crow, but she really couldn't discern anything about the owners. Rich, presumably, because they had this place. Yet the house wasn't opulent, far from it. It looked sad and lonely to her, not so much neglected as disowned and forgotten.
She left the house, wiping her fingerprints from the surfaces she remembered touching, putting away her tools. What now? Where now? She found herself drawn back to the view. The sun was sinking below the hills, and the shadows were purple. In the violet light, she noticed a shed in a grove of trees that looked as if it had been converted into a pool house.
She walked over and tried the old wooden door. It was stuck, probably swollen from years of moisture and heat. She yanked harder, and it recoiled on her, almost knocking her off her feet.
What the door couldn't do, the smell accomplished. She fell to her knees, retching reflexively. For here was something much more pungent than a few carrot peelings: a nice, ripe human body in brand-new blue jeans and a denim shirt, a gaping hole in the chest, the face blown away for good measure, as if this was someone so reviled he had to die twice.
Chapter 6
The sheriff held a metal wastebasket beneath Tess's chin. It was the third time she had thrown up in the hour she had been here, and his courtly manner was wearing thin, exposing the hard little kernel of his personality. The first two times she had gotten sick, he had let her leave his office and visit the ladies' room, a secretary posted outside the door. Such niceties were now officially over.
"Is that it?" Sheriff Kolarik asked.
"Probably. I haven't eaten that much today."
"Remind me to be thankful for small favors."
He meant it to be funny, but it didn't quite come off. The sheriff was young, no more than thirty-five or so. Maybe even younger. He had shiny black hair, shinier in the band where his hat had rested, and blue eyes that were almost too bright. Medium height and weight, not exactly the iconic Texas sheriff that pop culture had taught Tess came in two varieties-pot-bellied redneck and Gary Cooper. But his face was tanned and the sun had etched lines at the corner of his eyes and mouth. He also had a deep crease across the bridge of his nose, as if he squinted too much. That crease seemed to be growing deeper the longer Tess was in his office.
"Now tell me again what brought you to the old Barrett place," he suggested in a would-be friendly tone.
"I told you. I got lost and I stopped to ask directions."
"All the way from Baltimore, Maryland. I'd say you were lost."
He was looking at her PI's license, which was on his desk along with her cell phone and every other piece of plastic from her wallet, even her Nordstrom credit card, a relatively new link in her identity chain. Jackie had convinced her to start wearing makeup this fall, taking her to the M.A.C. counter and buying her the darkest lipstick Tess had ever used. Paramount. She seldom applied it, but she liked knowing she had it in her purse, in case a lipstick emergency came up. This little black tube was also rolling across the sheriff's desk. Esskay was sleeping in the corner, unperturbed by the day's events, although the sheriff had threatened to take her to the nearest hospital and have her X-rayed. He had heard of people smuggling things in dogs, he had told Tess. She had countered that one would probably use a fatter dog for such an operation, as opposed to one on which you could count each rib.
"Theresa Mon-a-ghan," the sheriff said. He hit the G hard, but something in his smart-alecky smile told Tess he knew better. "What brings you down this way, Miss Mona-ghan?"
"Vacation."
"You must be doing well. Most folks who work for themselves don't get to take many vacations. I know. I used to be one of them."
Tess pretended the interest he obviously expected of her. Baltimore or Blanco, in a bar or behind bars, the one thing men wanted to do was talk about themselves. "Really? What did you do?"
"Started a software company, then sold it for a lot of money. I'm a millionaire, and not just on paper. I moved out here thinking I'd take it easy, got bored in about six weeks and ran for sheriff. I spent one hundred thousand dollars on my campaign, and the only reason I won was because the incumbent died the day before the general election. That was six years ago. They like me now. Returned me to office with sixty percent of the vote last time around."
He leaned across the desk toward Tess, hands clasped as if he were praying. "You see, they like me because I don't take shit from the outsiders who are moving here. Converts make the best adherents, you know. I hate outsiders more than any fourth-generation Hill Country type ever could."
Message received: She wasn't to treat him like some local yokel, nor should she contemplate filling out a change-of-address card anytime soon.
"So, let me rephrase my question. You sure you're here on vacation? Or is there something going on in my county I should know about, something that would bring a private investigator all this way? Something that has to do with that ripe ol' boy you found?"
Against her will, she once again saw the vivid image of the body in the shed, its face missing, along with most of the chest. If it was Crow, her job was done. That was the possibility that had first made her nauseated. She grabbed the metal trash can, just in case.
"I'd like an answer, Miss Monaghan."