Ilse shivered as she stared across the dusty road leading to the old gray barn. A large metal silo arose from the ground behind it. A farmhouse settled the top of a hill. Night had fallen now, and orange lights glared from the farmhouse towards the rest of the land around it. The last time she'd been on a farm with Agent Sawyer, they'd discovered a stack of bodies. Now, she could see the flashing lights of police cruisers up ahead where a new corpse had been discovered.
They had parked further up the path, where Sawyer had wanted to exit the vehicle and walk the rest of the way. As they moved, he frowned at the ground, studying the dust and the dirt, hands jammed in his pockets, lips drawn in a thin line.
Ilse moved slowly along behind the taller man, careful not to get in his way. Sawyer could get quite particular when like this. Also, she felt like she was getting to know him a bit more now. She'd seen the signs of PTSD back at the house, when smashing the window. For a brief moment, in his haunted gaze, Sawyer had transported himself somewhere else. He'd been running to save a woman in a basement... But the woman he'd been trying to save had been from a past life. She felt a surge of pity for Tom, but just as quickly refused to ever voice the emotion. He'd only resent her pity.
Plus, he was a damn good investigator. Like a hound searching for a scent, he scanned the road. After a few paces towards the barn, without even glancing towards the police gathered around the entrance, Sawyer took a step off the beaten path, into the undergrowth and rock-strewn, muddy ground lining the trail.
“See anything?” Ilse asked quietly.
Sawyer grunted once but kept going without reply.
Ilse let out a faint sigh, but kept her silence, allowing her partner to work in peace. After another few paces, Sawyer hesitated, then said. “Big silo.”
She turned to look in the direction of the metal storage unit jutting into the air.
“What about it?”
Sawyer paused, taking his hat off and running a hand through his hair. “Farmer would've gone that way,” he said simply, pointing with his hat towards the silo.
“And?”
“Someone came this way.”
Ilse hesitated, leaning over the edge of the path and staring towards the indicated section of ground. “You're... sure?”
Sawyer clacked his teeth in an impatient sort of chomp and shrugged a bony shoulder. “Mhmm.”
Blue and red lights illuminated off the bean silo and the gray barn, casting long shadows and flitting shade across the roads. In the distance, thanks to the headlights of the cars, Ilse spotted the fields, flat, cultivated land as far as she could see.
“Is it true the farmer had a record?” she said.
Sawyer nodded once. He looked at her. “Sexual assault. He's on the registry.”
Ilse frowned. “Sexual assault? You don't think it has something to do with Kent, do you?”
Sawyer shrugged, pulling at his face. “Some men can be awful. Hate to say it, but it's more common than you'd think.”
“Predators,” Ilse said simply. “Not protectors.”
Sawyer stepped back onto the road, studying her, then shrugging once. “Guess not,” he said. “No. Not protectors.”
She noticed the way Sawyer scowled, moving up the road now in the direction of the cruisers and their flashing lights.
Sawyer paused, glancing towards the silo again, frowning now.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Ilse said, watching him.
“Hmm?”
“Looking off like that—what are you seeing?”
Sawyer glanced back at her. He massaged his jaw. “Missing vines.”
“What?”
“Vines—should be on the east side of that silo. Sun comes up over there, yeah? Vines are missing.” He pointed one way then the other, then lowered his hand. “Rest of the silo has vines. But that's a bald patch.”
Ilse frowned, looking in the direction where he'd indicated. Then she noticed it too. A damp, silver patch on the side of the silo amidst a forest of vines and green leaves.
“Huh,” she muttered. “Think that means something?”
Sawyer though had come to a halt, facing inside the barn now. Ilse's attention diverted, turning to look as well. As her gaze settled, flicking past an old tractor and a toolbox behind a wooden work bench, she went still.
Sawyer just looked into the barn, swallowed once, then said, “Yeah... yeah I think that means something.”
Ilse's eyes just bugged as she stared at the horrible spectacle inside the barn. She began to mutter beneath her breath, “BTK. Dennis. Ten. Wichita...,” but she trailed off as some of the officers inside the barn were shouting instructions at each other.
The man dangling from the rafters had been cut to pieces. Blood stained his naked chest, dripping down to his toes where it had congealed, thick and crimson. It wasn't rope that held him aloft, however, but a thick, green vine, with leaves attached. The vine wrapped around the man's wrists and neck and held him up, suspended in the air, dripping blood where it had pooled on the ground beneath him, spattering against the black tires of the tractor.
A couple of officers had climbed a wooden ladder to the loft and were trying to cut the victim down.
Ilse's lips felt numb as she stood next to Sawyer in the entrance of the barn.
“What was his name?” she murmured, her gaze fixated on the mangled mess.
“Lee Jackson, mid-fifties,” Sawyer replied, his voice grim. “A soybean farmer. Rudiger is still checking, but so far no connection to our other two victims.”
Ilse looked away from the body, wincing as she did. She didn't want to see it, but also couldn't unsee the image carved into the inside of her eyelids. “A soybean farmer?” she asked.
Sawyer grunted in the affirmative.
“It doesn't make any sense,” she whispered. “None of them are connected. Why is he choosing them? Is it all random?”
Sawyer hesitated, then muttered, “It's never random,” before striding forward into the barn to help lower the body from the loft.