Southern Cross (12 page)

“What
the hell’s that?”

“It’s
a Glock.” He checked the clip, slammed it back into place, and tucked it into
the back of his jeans. Like it was the most natural thing in the world. Teeth
brushed? Check. Clean underwear? Check. Fully loaded grenade launcher in my back
pocket? Check, and check.

“Do
you even know how to use it?”

“Yep.”
He got out without waiting for any follow-up questions. I scrambled out,
snapped the leash onto Einstein’s collar, and followed Diggs toward the house.
I didn’t want to be a dweeb, but up to this point in our lives, Diggs and I had
navigated some pretty hairy situations without resorting to capping anyone’s
ass.

“You
really think we need that thing?” I asked when I’d caught up with him, halfway
to the house.

“I
don’t know,” he said. “But I’d rather not need it and have it, than not have it
and die.”

When
he put it like that…

Still,
I was fairly sure the whole ‘If we’re all armed, no one gets hurt’ argument had
proven fatally flawed more than once.

We
reached the front door. The cement step up was split down the center and the
house had drifted about a foot from it over the years. Diggs had to lean
forward to knock. I started to say something more about the whole gun thing,
but he stopped me with a look.

“I’m
not going down without a fight again,” he said. Any trace of fun was gone from
his eyes. “If someone comes after you—us—I’ll damned well be ready this time.”

I
held up my hands in surrender. “All right, fine. Whatever. Just know that if
you inadvertently shoot me, I’m gonna be pissed. And if you hurt my dog, all
bets are off.”

“I’ll
keep that in mind.”

Diggs
knocked again. Einstein whined at the door, pawing at the bottom. There was no
answer, and I didn’t hear anyone screaming from the bowels of the basement or
anything. I took that as a sign from the universe that we should move on.

“Buddy
said the barn’s across the field there,” I said. “Maybe that’s where they are.”

“Could
be,” Diggs agreed. “Up for a walk?”

We
set out. Once we got past the house, an actual cleared path appeared within a
few yards. Most of the land was fenced out this way—good, solid fencing that
stretched all the way around, with no gaps that I could see. We followed the
fence line over a couple of rolling fields, the grass surprisingly trim
considering the condition of the house.

“Goats,”
Diggs reminded me when I said something. “Grass doesn’t grow too long with them
around.”

I
looked around for any sign of these alleged goats. Beyond the fencing and the
close-cut grass, however, I saw nothing. Einstein gave the ground a perfunctory
sniff, but even he didn’t seem convinced there was anything to be found. The
place was eerily quiet: the occasional birdsong, a car engine off in the
distance… otherwise, I heard nothing. When we finally cleared the last hill, a
bright red barn came into view. Diggs knelt beside a thick tire track deep in
the soft earth.

“ATV,”
he said. “Looks like it was carrying a heavy load.”

I
wasn’t sure whether it was my own imagination, too much TV, or recent
experience that made the statement sound so foreboding.

The
double doors leading into the barn were open, and the barn itself was pristine.
Shelves of stainless steel buckets lined one wall, while two barrels of
sweet-smelling grain sat nearby. Molasses, I suspected. Bales of hay tinged
with green were stacked neatly in the corner.

“Alfalfa,”
Diggs said. He shook his head. “It’s pricey—not the kind of thing people
usually feed around here. They might not have known what they were doing, but
they put some money into this venture.”

All
the stalls were mucked out, not so much as a stray goat pellet to be found.
“Where are the goats?” I asked, going for the most obvious question first.

“No
clue,” Diggs said. We walked to the other side of the barn, where another
double door opened up on the other side. Diggs scratched his head. “Nothing,”
he said. “I don’t see a trace of anyone—goat or human.”

“When
did Buddy say they were out here last?”

“Thursday.
The day after they found Wyatt.”

“That
was a week ago. It looks like maybe they split. No cars, no goats, no sign of
anyone at the house.” Roger Burkett was one of Reverend Barnel’s conquests.
That had to mean something. I don’t believe in coincidences in general, but I
especially don’t believe in them where crazy branding preachers are concerned.

We
headed back to the house, still searching the horizon for any sign of man or
beast. I thought of Barnel’s proclamation of an impending Armageddon. I had to
admit, it did kind of feel like we were in one of those sci-fi movies where a
mutant apocalypse had taken place while we weren’t looking. Any second now, I
expected a pack of freakish southern zombies to appear on the hillside, arms
outstretched, ready to save our souls and eat our brains.

“Maybe
we should call Buddy,” I suggested when we were almost back to the house.

“I’ll
call him when we’ve checked the place out,” Diggs said. He didn’t even slow
down. Suddenly, I had a pretty good idea what he’d been dealing with from me
over the past year. What a pain in the ass.

“What
if there’s someone in there?” I asked when we reached the front door.

He
knocked on the door. “If there’s someone there, they’ll answer. And if they
don’t…”

I was
familiar with the logic, having made the same argument myself upon occasion:
If
they don’t answer, we should bust in and make sure everything’s all right.

No
one came to the door. Einstein whined and pawed at it, his nose pressed to the
crack. Diggs started to knock again; his knuckles had barely grazed the wood
when I thought I heard something coming from inside.

A
whimper.

My
skin crawled and my heart dropped toward my navel. Einstein nosed at the door,
whining all the louder. “Did you hear that?” I asked.

Diggs
shook his head. He tried the door, but it was just as locked now as it had been
when we’d first shown up on the scene. I put my ear to the wood while he went
around to the side, looking for a way in.

“Hello?”
I called inside.

Nothing.
Einstein was frantic now, scratching at the door with a steady, low whine. Two
seconds passed. Then three. And then, again…

A
whimper.

It
was unmistakable this time—someone was in there.

I
stepped back and jogged over to Diggs, standing beneath a window that was open
just a crack.

“There’s
something in there,” I said.

“What
do you mean, some
thing
?” he asked.

“I
don’t know. It could be a person, or it could be an animal. It’s probably not a
mutant southern zombie, but I make no promises.”

He
gave me a look, lip twitching to keep from smiling, then retrieved a plastic
milk crate lying in the grass. He set it beneath the window and stepped up,
pushing the window up farther before he pulled himself into the house. Since
I’d seen this movie before and I was fairly sure it ended with someone
decorating their cave with our skins, I took that opportunity to call Buddy Holloway.
It went to voicemail just as Diggs’ feet disappeared through the open window.

“Hi,”
I said to Buddy’s voicemail. “This is Erin Solomon—Digg’s friend. Listen, I
just wanted to let you know you might want to check out the Burkett place
again. Soon. This afternoon would be great.” I hesitated. “Please.”

I
hung up. So, that didn’t actually incriminate us or say anything about the fact
that we were currently breaking into a locked house. But hopefully the deputy
would get the picture.

Diggs
stuck his head out the window. “Hey—are you coming or what?”

I
tied a very unhappy Einstein to the nearest tree, promised I’d be back soon,
and stepped up on the milk crate. Diggs took my hand and pulled me up.

That
cannon he was hauling around was looking pretty good about now.

 Once
through the window, I found myself in an old bathroom in serious need of
updating. I wasn’t expecting much based on the Hoarders’ exterior, but the room
was surprisingly clean... and very monochromatic. Mint green fixtures—toilet,
bathtub, and pedestal sink—were the perfect complement to the mint green tile
walls and the faded, mint green towels.

“Pretty,”
I said.

Diggs
nodded. “Green living at its best.”

I
groaned.

He
pushed the door open, landing us in a dimly lit, wood-floored corridor. Whoever
had been there last had left without turning off the heat: it was like a steam
bath in there. I tried the light switch, and a naked bulb flickered in a
wrought iron sconce on the wall. 

The
hallway was narrow, with a bizarre pineapple-print wallpaper and not a stitch
of art work on the walls. A swinging door brought us to the kitchen.

I
stopped moving.

“Do
you smell that?” Diggs asked.

I
definitely did: The smell of something rotting, strong enough to make me gag. I
pulled my shirt up over my nose, my stomach rolling.

“You
wanna keep going?” he asked.

“Hello?”
I called out in lieu of an answer.

This
time, the response was immediate and unmistakable: A whimper that grew to a
full-blown whine when I called out again. I didn’t bother to answer Diggs’
question, instead plowing on toward a narrow stairwell at the back of the
kitchen where the stench was strongest and the whining loudest. 

The
stairs were partially rotted, the ceiling was low, and the walls were narrow. I
thought suddenly of negotiating the tunnels with Diggs last summer, and my
newly regained courage wavered. It was even hotter here than the rest of the
house, the air wet and as heavy as a blanket. I focused on taking shallow
breaths through my mouth, and kept going.

At
the top of the stairs, there was a small, windowless room that had clearly been
used for storage. I shined my flashlight across stacks of boxes, dishes, and
books. A dingy curtain cordoned off a section at the back.

“Anybody
here?” I asked. The whining was coming from behind the curtain. I glanced back
at Diggs. The smell was nearly unbearable now. “You’re still with me, right?”

“Barely,”
he said grimly.

I
took a step forward. Then another. The curtain moved. My heart was already
thumping like a rabbit’s, but that movement kicked it up another notch. I took
a breath, mentally steeled myself for unspeakable horror, and pushed the
curtain aside.

Roger
Burkett was seated with his back against the wall, naked from the waist up. His
eyes were open, both arms outstretched and his wrists fastened with twine to
eye bolts screwed into the wall. His throat was slit from one side to the
other. I stared at the insignia over his heart, excised and re-stitched: An
inverted cross.

The
combination of buzzing flies, heat, and the smell of putrefying flesh was
overwhelming, to say the least. Solomon seemed unfazed. She moved forward,
ignoring the dead body before us in favor of the live one beside it: a
medium-sized golden retriever with feathered fur matted with blood. The dog lay
beside Burkett, its head on the dead man’s lap.

Solomon
knelt beside it, talking softly.

“You
should wait until we can get a vet here,” I said.

I
might as well have been talking to the dead guy.

She
sat down and reached for the dog—palm up, fingers outstretched. Solomon’s one
of those women who’s never actually still; I’ve slept with her, and even in her
sleep she moves more than your average, fully conscious American. The exception
is when she’s around anyone sick or injured—animal or human. It’s like she
becomes another person. Her mother always wanted her to be a doctor, something
Sol adamantly insists she was never interested in pursuing. I’ve always thought
she would be good at it, though.

The
dog stretched its muzzle toward her, still whining softly.

“She’s
hurt,” Solomon said. She scooched a little closer. The dog didn’t shy away.
“There’s a gash behind her ear.”

“Sol—”
I tried again.

She
ignored me, gently brushing her hand over the dog’s head. It came back sticky
with blood. “We need to get her out of here,” she said. She removed the dog’s
collar, decorated with penguins and dark with blood, and put it in her back
pocket. 

“And
the dead guy?” I asked.

She
barely glanced at him. “The cops are on their way. It’s not like he’s going
anywhere.”

Once
she was up, Solomon tried sweet talking the dog out of the room first, with no
success. Then, she looked at me.

“What?”
I asked.

“Maybe
if we put her on a blanket, we could carry her down.”

We
made a couple of clumsy attempts. By that time, I figured if the poor dog
hadn’t bitten us yet, she probably wasn’t going to. I hefted her into my arms.
She whined when I started walking away from Roger, struggling against me the
farther I got.

“Easy,
girl,” I said softly. She laid her muzzle on my arm and closed her eyes, still
whining quietly, as I made my way down the steep stairwell. Sirens were headed
toward us by the time we got outside, and I could barely feel the dog’s
heartbeat.

<><><> 

Einstein
had slipped his collar by the time we got outside, and was waiting anxiously
for both of us. He totally ignored Solomon and headed straight for me instead,
bumping up against me as I lay the retriever on the grass.

“Will
you get him out of here?” I said to Solomon. I like the dog, don’t get me
wrong, but there’s a limit to how much canine bonding a man can take.

Before
she could grab him, Stein lay down facing the retriever, his muzzle on his
paws, and whimpered softly. She opened her eyes. Stein thumped his tail. The
retriever thumped her tail. He licked her head, then settled in for what I was
guessing was the long haul.

Buddy
Holloway arrived on the scene a few minutes later, siren wailing. Solomon and I
sat cross-legged on the ground, the retriever lying on her side next to us, panting
while Einstein looked on anxiously.

Buddy
pulled up, took one look at the dog’s blood-matted fur, and I think was tempted
to turn around and run back home.

“The
body’s on the second floor,” I said.

“We
found the dog in there with him,” Solomon said. “I’m not sure how long she’d
been there.”

Buddy
crouched beside the dog, gently ruffling its ears. Einstein growled until
Solomon shushed him.

“Hey,
Gracie girl,” Buddy said quietly. He shook his head. “She hurt bad?”

“I’m
not sure,” Solomon said. “There’s a nasty gash behind her left ear. And she’s
dehydrated. Pretty freaked out. Her name’s Grace, you said?”

“Yup,”
the deputy confirmed. “She was just a pup when they moved back here. ‘Bout the
only thing Roger cared two figs about was this dog.”

“Apparently
it was mutual,” I said. “It took some doing to get her to leave.”

“She
may have tried to protect him, too,” Solomon said. “It looks like her gums are
cut up, which means she could have bitten whoever killed him. You could swab
for DNA… I read about that working before, on another case.”

Buddy
looked at me. I shrugged. “She doesn’t know about the way things work in this
part of the world, I guess,” he said.

“You
don’t have DNA in Kentucky?” Solomon asked peevishly.

“We
don’t have a lot of resources for
testin’
DNA,” Buddy corrected her. “We
can get it done… it just might take awhile. In the meantime, I’ll get her on
over to the vet. We’ll see what we can do for her.”

I
heard more sirens in the distance, which could only mean one thing. Sure
enough, thirty seconds later Sheriff Jennings and two other cruisers pulled
into the Burkett’s driveway. It wasn’t going to be a good afternoon.

Buddy
Holloway might be convinced Harvey Jennings had turned his life around, but as
far as I could tell the sheriff was exactly the same egomaniacal, abusive prick
he’d always been. Einstein was already none too happy that Buddy was trying to
abscond with his new girlfriend, but he went ballistic when Jennings showed up
on the scene. Grace started whining as soon as Jennings got out of his cruiser,
and Solomon had to physically drag Stein away while Buddy put the retriever in
his own car so he could get her to the vet’s.

Once
the dog situation was resolved, Jennings approached Solomon and me while the
other cops started dealing with the crime scene. In the light of day, I noticed
circles under the sheriff’s eyes that I’d missed the night before, and an
intensity that seemed to burn brighter thanks to the fatigue.

“Word
is, Danny Durham never come home last night,” he said to me.

“He
was out partying,” I said without missing a beat. “You know kids. He just
buried his father—he needed to blow off some steam.”

“Boggles
my mind how you can have one brother grow up so good, and one that just seems
like he sprung up right out of the devil’s seed,” Jennings said. “But I guess
you know something about that, don’t you, Diggs? That brother o’ yours that
died ‘cause of your carelessness and lies—the way Wyatt told it, your daddy
made it plain he thought he’d laid the wrong boy in the ground that day. Guess
that explains a few things ‘bout you, don’t it.”

I saw
Solomon clench her fists, clearly preparing to cold cock the bastard.

“What
do you need from us, Jennings?” I asked coolly. “We’ve got places to be.”

“You
say Danny was out,” Jennings said. “Where was he? Who was he with?”

“I
know the way you operate,” I said. “I’m not answering anything without a
lawyer. And you’re sure as hell not getting Danny in a room without one.”

“That’s
pretty much exactly what I expected,” Jennings said. “Somebody’s gonna catch up
to that boy, one way or the other. No way you can protect him this time. So if
you don’t have nothin’ to add, why don’t you two just get on home. Let us do
our jobs.”  

“Are
you sure?” Solomon asked. “I mean… we were in the middle of the crime scene.
Shouldn’t someone fingerprint us? Compare our shoe treads with others in the
room?”

Okay,
so she’d definitely been watching too much TV, but she had a valid point. Jennings sighed.

“Sounds
like a whole lotta work to me,” he said. “You didn’t kill Roger, am I right?”

“Sure,”
she agreed. “You’re right: we didn’t kill him. But wouldn’t it be easier to go
through the crime scene if you can rule out a couple sets of prints straight
off the bat?”

“You
know what kind of man Roger Burkett was?” Jennings asked her.

“Not
a great one, from what I’ve heard,” she said.

“That
about sums it up. ‘Not a great one.’” Jennings said. “He lied and cheated and
stole. Chased skirts and beat on his girl and was just about the laziest SOB I
ever laid eyes on. The Lord’s siftin’ through—that’s all this is.”

“I’m
pretty sure it wasn’t God who tied that guy up, slit his throat, and carved his
chest to pieces,” Solomon said. “Did you see him?” She was getting that
take-no-prisoners look in her eye that makes most men run like hell. It has an
entirely different effect on me, of course.

“I
haven’t had the pleasure yet,” Jennings said evenly. “But I got a good idea
what I’ll find.” He didn’t look even close to sane. I touched Solomon’s arm,
trying to get her to back off. Jennings looked past her, though, fixing his
attention on me.

“You
two was both there last night when Reverend Barnel gave his sermon,” he said.
“You might oughta think about what he had to say. We’re not twelve hours into
those last forty-eight he said we had in this world, and the sinners are
already fallin’. They’s gonna be a lot more before the end of the day. You can
mark my words on that.”

“And
on that note,” I said, holding more firmly to Solomon’s arm. “Maybe we should
just be on our way.”

“Maybe
you should,” Jennings agreed.

We
went back to the car. I pulled out without waiting for Solomon to buckle up.
Einstein careened across the back seat as I turned around and headed out at a
healthy clip.

“That
guy is certifiably nuts,” Solomon said. “How is he sheriff?”

“He
talks a good game, believe it or not,” I said. “And he used to hide his crazy a
little better than he is now. He’s fooled a lot of people along the way.” I
thought of Sarah—Jennings’ wife. Funny, gorgeous… and out-and-out terrified, by
the time I helped her get out of town.

We
were halfway down the road, still talking about Harvey Jennings’ psychotic
tendencies, when a black tank of an SUV with federal plates appeared in our
path. I looked at Solomon.

“Did
you call your boyfriend?”

“No,”
she said. “I mean—I’ve talked to him. But I didn’t tell him anything that was
going on.”

There
wasn’t enough room for us to pass, but based on the way the SUV was keeping to
the center of the narrow road, I assumed that wasn’t their intention, anyway. I
backed up until I was back in front of the Burkett farmhouse.

The
cops were in the middle of packing Burkett into the coroner’s van. Everything
came to a halt when the SUV pulled up, and a good looking woman with dark eyes,
dark skin, and a well-tailored suit hugging curves that would bring any
thinking man to his knees, stepped out of the driver’s side. I looked at
Solomon. She shrugged.

“Don’t
ask me—I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

We
got out of the car. Two men got out of the back of the SUV before the front
passenger door opened and Jack Juarez himself stepped out. Solomon held up her
hands at my raised eyebrow.

“I
swear—I didn’t call him.”

The
lady agent approached Sheriff Jennings. They spoke quietly while Juarez joined us.

“Hey,
baby,” he said to Solomon. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“I
was in a briefing this morning,” Juarez explained to us a minute later, “and
someone mentioned that a Domestic Terrorism team was headed to Kentucky to investigate some recent activity. Naturally, my first thought was, ‘Kentucky is a big state. What are the chances this has anything to do with my girlfriend?’”

“How
long did that thought last?” I asked.

“Not
that long,” he conceded. “I managed to convince Agent Blaze to bring me along,
since I’ve worked with the unit before.” He lowered his voice, glancing back at
the agent before he returned his attention to Solomon and me. “I didn’t expect
it to be a problem, though, since I didn’t think you were directly involved.”

“I’m
not directly involved,” Solomon said. Juarez looked at her doubtfully. “I’m
not,” she insisted. “Diggs is.”

Agent
Blaze joined us before we could continue the conversation. Sheriff Jennings
clearly hadn’t been happy about whatever she’d said to him, because he and his
men took their toys and went home, tearing out of the driveway without a word
to any of us. Blaze didn’t seem fazed. Juarez made introductions, and she eyed
Solomon and me speculatively.

“There’s
been a lot of activity here in the past week,” she said. “I’ll be working with
the local and state police, but I’d love to get your perspective on things.”

“Sure,”
I agreed. “But right now my main concern is my nephew—he hasn’t been seen since
sometime last night.”