Blood Avatar

19

1730

The only deputy with something new was Boaz. “Eric remembers running a guy out to Cameron Island last week. Remembers because the guy didn’t look quite ready for the weather, you know?”

“Who’s Eric?” Ramsey asked. They were grouped in the bullpen across from dispatch: the deputies slouching in chairs, Ketchum perched on a corner of vacant desk, and Ramsey holding up the wall next to a window.

Boaz’s eyes skimmed past Ramsey to the floor and then Ketchum. “Eric runs the ferry. He said the guy wasn’t really dressed for the occasion. This time of year, anyone going over to the island wears a hat, gloves, that kind of thing. But this guy wasn’t even wearing a parka, just a sweater under some kind of black duster, and his boots were way too nice. Like expensive leather, the kind you wouldn’t want to get wet. Description matches this Youssef, or Limyanovich, or whoever he is.”

“Did he say what day?” Ramsey asked.

“This past Wednesday.”

“Hunh.” Ramsey eyed Ketchum. “What’s on the island?”

“Nothing,” Ketchum said. “Besides the permanent residents, that is. Used to be real popular a while back when we had a bunch more tourists. A lot of condos, vacation places but not so much anymore and sure as heck not this time of year. Hunting season comes around, we issue just enough licenses to thin the herd of Morin odopudu. The only other thing is the old sandstone quarry. Not a working one anymore, you understand. Tourists like to hike in, gawk. But that’s it.”

And that was it. The meeting wound down. Ketchum handed out assignments for the next day, and fifteen minutes later, the deputies straggled out, with Boaz giving Ramsey a wide berth. Ketchum stared after the deputy’s retreating back then said, “Something going on between you two?”

Ramsey was embarrassed. “We didn’t see eye to eye on something. I almost lost my temper. Actually I pretty much told him I’d ream him a new asshole if he kept being one.”

“Is there anyone you don’t offend?”

“Have I offended you?” And when Ketchum shook his head, Ramsey said, “There you go.”

Sighing, Ketchum screwed his sheriff’s hat on his head. “I’m going home. I’m going to kiss my wife, have some supper, maybe talk to my boy. Then I’m going to sleep, and I sure as shooting ain’t gonna be dreaming about you.”

“And here I thought you cared.”

“You want to come on over? Have something to eat?”

Ramsey shook his head. “Naw, you go be with your family. I’m going to stick around here awhile.”

“What for?”

Ramsey hesitated. “What you said about the Schroeder case . . . that bothers me.”

“Why?”

“Schroeder died on Cameron Island, right?”

“So?”

“So, maybe nothing. But it’s the last big case around here and now Limyanovich goes to Cameron Island and he’s dead.”

“But Isaiah went hunting.”

“Maybe,” Ramsey said. “Only maybe he wasn’t after any deer.”

An hour later, Ramsey pushed up from Ketchum’s computer, tossed back the last dregs of cold, rancid coffee, then lobbed the cup for a garbage can. The cup rimmed the can, teetered on the edge, fell in. Probably the only slam dunk he’d see for a long time.

Needed to move. Needed a break. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and paced. The Schroeder case bugged him, but he wasn’t sure why. Something just a little . . . off.

Three years ago, give or take, Schroeder told his wife he was going hunting. He didn’t say where, and his wife told Ketchum she assumed he was going west, into the foothills where the russet-tailed odopudu, a relative of the Morin variety, rutted. Schroeder left his house before dawn. He’d taken along a thermos of hot coffee and a packet of sandwiches. He kissed his wife good-bye, climbed into his truck and drove away. Ida Kant recalled Schroeder stopping by for breakfast and a sack of pastries. That was the last time anyone saw Isaiah Schroeder alive.

Three days later, after the Kendrake Mountain rangers reported that no vehicle license matching Schroeder’s had passed into the mountain hunting preserve, Hank Ketchum went to Cameron Island on a hunch. He and three deputies found Schroeder’s body along a spit of land overgrown by Denebola cypress on the opposite side of the island. Schroeder was facedown, sprawled across a tangle of cypress roots—or rather, what was left of his face was planted in a pool of half-frozen, coagulated blood, his rifle and right arm curled beneath his body. He wore the tattered remains of an orange-blaze pryolene parka, a red-and-black-checked flannel shirt, and blue jeans. He had no day pack but a fanny pack and inside was camo face paint, hand warmers, a pair of gutting gloves, a sat-link, a planetary ID, a hunting license, and a candy bar still in its wrapper. His thermos, half empty, was found ten meters down an incline.

Small animals had done a pretty good job. Big chunks of Schroeder’s buttocks, thighs, and flanks were gone. His brains were gone, too, because the shotgun had blasted away the top of his skull, so all the animals had to do was slurp. Schroeder’s left arm was severed at the shoulder and missing. His feet, still in their socks, were in his boots, but each boot had been gnawed away from the leg at the ankle.

The doctor of record was Ezekiel Summers. Summers did the autopsy and ruled the death accidental; he thought Schroeder tripped and died when the rifle discharged into the angle of his right jaw. The round tore through bone and exited below the left ear.

The rifle’s magazine held ten rounds, and there were eight in the clip and one in the chamber. No box of ammo was found in Schroeder’s truck or his home. The only prints found on the weapon were Schroeder’s, and only his DNA was recovered at the scene. The bullets were clean, but the prints on the magazine were Schroeder’s.

Hannah Schroeder thought her husband had been more irritable than depressed, but couldn’t be specific. She had suggested counseling with their priest which her husband rejected. A check of the prisons showed no one released in the last six months with a grudge against the sheriff. Schroeder was buried; Ketchum was appointed sheriff in a special election that gave him the job for the next four years. And case closed.

Something wrong.

He ran through the report again. He read it twice before it hit him. Schroeder wasn’t wearing a hat.

Cold enough for a parka and gloves, but no hat. If a guy’s gonna stay outdoors in the cold for long, he brings a hat.

He reviewed the list of items in Schroeder’s fanny pack. Gutting gloves but no knife and no rope. So how was Schroeder going to field-dress his game? And camo paint with a bright orange blaze parka, that didn’t make sense. Ramsey did another search, nodded when he saw the results. Unlike Terran deer, odopudu could see red and orange hues. So why the camo paint when the parka was as good as taking out an ad?

But there was something else, something in the autopsy. Ramsey skimmed through the report, came to Summers’s report, read it, tabbed to the next section—then went back. Found the section that snagged his attention, read through it slowly.

A few minutes later, Ramsey threaded through the deputies’ bullpen and stuck his head into the dispatch’s office. “Can you give me the number for the hospital?”

“Sure,” the dispatcher said. “You want me to put the call through for you?”

“That’d be great.”