“What are you doing, Justin? No one’s allowed back here.”
“I was just taking a shortcut.”
“Come on, let’s get out of here before someone notices.” She took his hand to lead him away, but he stayed put.
“What are those guys doing over there?”
She frowned at him, but put a hand to her forehead and squinted into the morning sun, taking a look at where he was pointing.
“It’s none of your concern.”
“So, you don’t know?”
“It doesn’t matter, Justin. Please, you don’t want to get caught back here.”
“Or what? No one will talk to me for weeks? Or no, maybe I won’t get my week’s ration of gummy rice and beans.”
“Justin, stop it.”
“Come on, Alice. Just tell me what those guys are burying, and I’ll go nice and quiet like.”
She dropped his hand, practically shoving it away, and suddenly he realized how stupid he was being. She was the only person he cared about, and now he was pissing her off, just like he seemed to piss off everyone else.
“They’re burying the money we collected at the rally last night.”
At the end of each rally, about a half-dozen wicker baskets were passed around for what Father called a “gratitude offering” to God. Those baskets usually ended up overflowing.
“Whaddya mean, they’re burying it?”
“They bury all the cash we take in.”
“They’re putting it in the ground?”
“It’s okay. They put mothballs in the boxes, so the bills don’t get all moldy.”
“But why bury it?”
“Where else would they put it, Justin? You can’t trust banks. They’re all controlled by the government. ATMs and electronic transfers-all of that stuff is just so the government can monitor and take your money whenever it wants.”
“Okay, so why not at least invest some of it, like in the stock market?”
“Oh, Justin, what am I going to do with you?” Alice smiled and patted his arm as though he had made a joke. “The stock market is controlled by the government, too. Remember reading in your history classes about the Great Depression?” She was using her calm teacher voice with him. At least the worry lines had left her face for the time being. “Anytime the stock market takes a plunge, it’s the government causing the decline, stealing people’s hard-earned money and making them start all over again.”
Justin hadn’t really thought about it before. He knew his dad got really pissed when he lost money in the market. Alice knew so much more about this stuff than he did. History had never been one of his strongest subjects. He shrugged, pretending it didn’t matter to him. This time when she took his hand to lead him away, he let her and enjoyed the feel of her soft skin. He wanted to ask her about last night, about Father and the perverted moves he had made on her. Yet, at the same time, he didn’t want to talk about it. He just wanted to forget it had ever happened. Maybe it was best that they both did.
As they walked to the cafeteria, Justin decided instead to think about how much money must be buried in that hole. He couldn’t help wondering how many others knew about it. When they decided to leave maybe he and Eric wouldn’t need to hitchhike, after all.
CHAPTER 21
FDR Memorial
Washington, D.C.
Ben Garrison put his gloves back on and slapped the back of his camera shut on a fresh roll of film. He certainly didn’t want to waste any time or give Detective Racine a chance to change her mind. He stepped in closer, focusing on the woman’s face. She looked so peaceful, almost as if she were simply sleeping, despite being set up against a tree. Ben was fascinated by the blue tint of her skin. Had it been caused by the cold last night or a delayed reaction to the strangulation?
Even more fascinating were the flies, hundreds of them, persistent despite the activity of officers and detectives examining the area around them. They were huge and black, not your ordinary houseflies, and they seemed to be taking up residence in every one of the body’s orifices, especially the warmer, moist areas like her eyes and ears. Her dark pubic hair looked alive with them. Already Ben could see what had to be milky gray eggs nestled in the mass of thick hair.
Death and its rituals and all the natural processes that went along with it amazed him. No matter how many dead bodies he saw, he continued to be fascinated. Less than twenty-four hours ago something warm and pulsating had been housed within this body. In New Caledonia the old men called this a word that meant shadow soul. The Esquimaux of Bering Strait referred to it as a person’s shade. In Christian faith it was simply referred to as the soul. But now, whatever it was, it was gone. It had disappeared into thin air, leaving behind an empty, hollow carcass for insects to feed upon.
He remembered reading somewhere that in a week’s time, a human cadaver could lose about ninety percent of its original weight when left exposed to insects during a hot summer. Insects were certainly efficient and predictable. Too bad human beings weren’t. It would make his job so much easier.
“Hey, watch where you’re stepping!” a uniformed cop yelled at him.
“Who the hell are you, buddy?” a guy in a navy windbreaker and baseball cap wanted to know. He looked more like a third baseman than a cop. When Ben didn’t answer and continued to snap shots, the man grabbed him by the elbow. “Who let this guy back here?”
“Wait a fucking minute.” Ben twisted free and was immediately accosted by two uniforms. Now he could see the white letters on the back of the guy’s windbreaker: FBI. Shit, how was he supposed to know? The guy looked like a clean-cut, fucking Boy Scout.
“It’s okay.” Racine finally appeared to rescue him. The knees of her carefully pressed trousers had leaves sticking to them and her short blond hair had been tangled by the wind. “I know the guy. He used to shoot crime scenes for us before he became a big-shot freelancer. Steinberg isn’t here yet. He’s across town at another scene. We’ve gotta get some shots before the rain starts. Hell, we lucked out. Garrison just happened to be in the neighborhood.”
The officers let go of Ben’s arms, giving him a shove just as a reminder that they could. He checked his camera settings to make sure they didn’t get all fucked up. Assholes. He was doing them a goddamn favor, and they still treated him like shit.
“Come on, boys. Show’s over,” Racine told the mobile-crime-lab guys who had stopped crawling around in the grass to watch the commotion. “We’ve got to hurry up before our evidence gets washed away. That goes for you, too, Garrison.”
He nodded but wasn’t paying much attention. He had only now noticed that no matter where he stood, the dead woman’s eyes seemed to follow him. It had to be one of those strange illusion things, right? Or was he getting paranoid?
“Hey, camera guy,” the FBI agent called to him. “Get a shot of this.”
The guy stood behind Ben, pointing to a spot on the ground about five feet away from the body.
“The name’s Garrison,” Ben said, waiting for the guy to meet his eyes, and when he did, Ben made it clear that he wouldn’t proceed until the guy acknowledged him with a little respect.
He tipped back his baseball cap and smiled. “And you just happened to be in the neighborhood, is that what Detective Racine said?”
“Yeah. What about it? I was getting some fucking stock shots of the monuments.”
“On a Sunday morning?”
“Best time to do it. No oddballs monkeying around, thinking it’s funny to screw up my shots. Hey, I’m helping you guys out here. Maybe you could quit busting my balls.” Ben kept his tone calm, confining the anger, when he really wanted to tell this guy to go fuck himself.