"Tempted?" Tim said. "Not for a second. Not with where you're going."
Bear threw the silk robe over TD's shoulders. "Maybe we book you in like this, see how they dig your Prince getup in the tank."
"Actually, I hear mail offenders are greatly feared on the inside."
Frisk's voice sputtered from the primary channel – "Fucking computer in here's got more levels of security than I've ever seen."
TD grinned. "Good luck there, Neos."
A howl sounded from deep in the woods.
The first hint of unease crossed TD's face as he took in their expressions. "What? What?"
Their portables all sputtered at the same time, and Danner's voice crackled through. "Cosmo just alerted on a fresh female cadaver. Looks like the rain washed away part of the grave. I've got visual on an exposed head and upper torso.
A deep red bloomed beneath TD's cheeks, making his freckles disappear.
"Does the name Nancy Kramer ring a bell?" Tim said.
"Never heard it. We get trespassers – I order them removed. I don't keep track of the Protectors' recreational activities. They could be dumping nuclear waste out there for all I know. You'll have to do better than that." TD cocked his head, studying Tim. "I'd never kill someone. I don't have to. You think I seek control from people? Not nearly as much as people want to give up control to me. That's why you'll never get me. I've never done anything to anyone they didn't want done to them." His eyes locked on Tim's. "Including you."
Danner's voice cut in. "Hang on. We've got another body here."
Tim felt his stomach drop out of his body. He thought of Will down at the staging point, no doubt privy to the same radio transmission. He thought of Ginny on the coroner's table, cold and firm, the wisp of hair in her mouth.
Bear said, "Go make the ID. I got him."
Tim shot past Guerrera and Zimmer at the door, shouting into the radio for Danner to give him his bearings.
"- northeast about a half mile, just past a low run of granite."
Tim crossed the clearing at a dead sprint, crashing into the woods.
The Racal coughed out the updates as the rest of the operation wrapped up.
Denley in the mod – "We can't access the corresponding Dead Link computer files. The folders are useless on their own -"
Tannino shouting, "Can you make a positive ID on the body as Leah Henning?"
"- the face is messy with mud -"
His right leg throbbing, Tim stumbled between trees, over rises. Behind him he heard Bear, Thomas, and Freed spreading out in the woods, shouting to one another.
A gunshot came at him in surround sound – echoing through the trees and amplified on the portable – and then a flurry of barks and snarls.
Bear's voice issued from the portable. "We're on the way."
Tim accelerated, trying to ignore the screeching pain through his leg, radio pressed to his lips. "Danner. Danner. Danner."
He'd just hit the granite hump when he heard the double whistle -Skate's release command. Before he could raise the MP5, a Doberman flew through the brush at him. He got an arm up in the jaws before he went down, and he rolled to a stop at a broad pair of boots, looking up past the slobbering jaws at the bore of a Sig Sauer and Skate's face.
Skate's fingers snapped, and the dog released Tim's arm and sat. At the sloped root of an oak, Cosmo squared off over Danner's body, snarling at the other Doberman. Danner's hand, gripping his shoulder near the base of his neck, was slick with blood. He was breathing but weakly.
Part of the hillside had slid away under the weight of the rain. Just past the oak, a half-exhumed corpse thrust up from the earth like a vomited secret. The female form was sticky with sheets of mud, like a tar-mired seagull. Ten feet to its left, a gnarled hand reached from the earth like a B-movie effect.
The image of Leah carrying her own shovel to this spot made Tim cringe with grief. He flashed on a crime-scene photo of Ginny, the snow-angel imprint her torso had left in the muddy creek bank where it had been found.
Skate stripped him of his weapons and said, "Git up."
Tim found his feet. The sounds of the other deputies grew fainter – deputy marshals in the woods was like the start of a bad joke.
Skate nodded at Cosmo. "A person, sure, but I couldn't shoot no dog."
One of the Dobermans lunged for Danner, but Cosmo repelled him. Skate put his dogs on a sit-stay, his index finger pointing to the mud. They froze, black-marble eyes on Cosmo, licking their chops, the scent of Danner's blood driving them wild.
Skate's cheeks were heavy, almost mournful. "You had to come poking around in paradise, didn't cha?"
Tim held his hands up, loose, a feigned "keep cool" posture that kept them ready. The semiauto was double-action; Skate would want to cock it for a smoother pull.
Skate took a step forward, a tear beading on the brink of his eyelid. The gun bucked slightly in his hand when he thumbed the hammer. Tim lunged for him, catching the barrel in the rising fork of his right thumb and index finger, his left hand chopping Skate's elbow, bending the arm. The gun snapped up and fired just below Skate's chin, sending off a mist of blood as it blew off his face.
Skate staggered back, the Sig plunking into the mud, his dogs watching the flat sheet of his face with their heads cocked inquisitively. He let out a pained grunt, and his breath bubbled through his former mouth, emitting a faint double whistle.
The release command.
The Dobermans fell on him, snapping and tearing.
Tim tugged the pepper spray from his belt and directed two blasts into the dogs' snouts and eyes. They whimpered and dropped, pawing their faces. Skate no longer moved. Tim could barely look at what was left of him.
He shouted for Bear and tried to get at Danner, but Cosmo lowered her head and growled at him, driving him back. He was radioing Miller by the time Bear, Thomas, and Freed stumbled over the granite crest. Letting them take over, he ran to the first corpse, sliding on his knees through the sludge. His hands scrabbled over the bloated face, bending the mud-slick hair aside.
Nancy Kramer.
He'd seen TD give the command to march her into the woods. With the help of a forensic entomologist, a medical examiner could set the time of death, corroborate Tim's eyewitness account.
Bear was squatting, murmuring to Cosmo until she came forward and licked his hand. Thomas stood over the Dobermans, can of pepper spray at the ready.
Freed sat by Danner, who groaned and said, "Damnit."
Tim trudged over to the other corpse. Only a slender, muddy hand was visible, shoved up from the moist earth.
The long road to Leah had ended here – four fingers and a thumb sprouting from the ground.
Tannino might want to call Judge Seitel for a telephonic warrant before digging; Tim didn't want to take any chances.
His breath caught in his chest. He crouched over the small hand.
A metal ring glinted through the grime on one of the fingers. A gold signet, inscribed with the letters DK.
The initials floated through Tim's head before striking chimes. Danny Katanga. The first investigator Will had hired.
Short little nervous guy, the PI was.
He moved back to Bear – already he could hear backup crashing through the growth.
Bear's stubbled face was heavy. "That her?"
Tim shook his head.
"We'll get more dogs out here, sweep some more."
Tim turned away, but he had nothing to look at behind him except the glittery remains of Skate's face, the thread of a necklace embedded in the meat of his neck.