Ochre was the colour of death.
It was the colour of the sky, and of the water lapping on the mud between the cattails and reed grass. Way across Vermilion Bay, above the strip of treetops, the unseen chimneystacks of petrochemical plants belched smoke into the sky. Burnt ochre in their case.
Tess didn’t doubt that she was tinged the same colour, because standing beside her Po had the caste of burnished brass, adding an unnatural hue to his usual pallor. She’d always thought of him as a man out of his time, and standing there in his worn jeans and denim shirt, a battered baseball cap shading the rising sun from his eyes, he looked like a photograph of a turn-of-the-twentieth-century farmhand, immortalized in sepia. The downturned lines in his face looked severe, shadowed as they were. To Tess his craggy features spoke of something more, though they were a contradiction in terms: strength and world-weariness. She knew he was in turn a man of sharp intellect and of savage bestiality. Some people feared Po – and rightly so – but right there in the swamp there was nobody she would rather have at her side.
‘You going to call this in?’
When Po spoke to her now his accent was again untainted by his Acadian heritage, and good job, because when they’d stopped at a fishing and hiking store to purchase appropriate clothing for the trip she’d heard him converse with the locals and had been lost within seconds. The Louisiana bayou dialect was a foreign language even in their common country.
‘Yes. We should,’ said Tess, but she didn’t reach for her cell phone.
Po cleared his throat, spitting between his boots. He was ankle-deep in mud, and unlike Tess hadn’t elected to wear the fisherman’s waders she’d purchased on Clancy’s card. His boots were military issue, waterproof, though he’d never seen service. Not in any conventional sense. He glanced again at the device he held in his hand, and grunted as if agreeing with the read-out on the screen.
They’d parked Pinky’s SUV beside route 319 approaching Cypremort Point and trekked through the swamps following the coordinates on a handheld GPS unit – also an acquisition charged to Clancy – to the northern shore of Hammock Bayou. The hike through the swamp had been taxing, the early morning air already thick with moist heat, buzzing insects, and bugs. More than once they’d swerved off trail to avoid snakes, some of them coiled in the low branches. Sweat had poured from Tess, dripped from her hair, gathered in her clothing. By contrast Po was still untroubled by the stifling humidity, which she found frustrating considering he’d been absent from these lands for years. He had no right to be so cool, not when she was practically melting. Of course, she’d forgotten about the wet heat as they’d stepped out from between the moss-covered cypress trees and onto the snarl of roots alongside the bayou. Instantly, she grew cold.
She’d witnessed violent death before, but experience didn’t prepare her for what they’d found.
Tall pilings had been driven into the mud, poles to which a fisherman could hitch his flat-bottomed pirogue or nets, but the bayou was absent of fishermen. On one of the pilings something else had been tethered, and bathed in the sharp light of the sun, there were too many shadows on the naked corpse to tell at first if it was man or woman. It was difficult to tell if the body was even the correct way up. Minus its head and the way the limbs had been contorted and secured by steel wire, the corpse was at first an amorphous jumble.
Po studied the corpse with that stillness that always disturbed Tess. She on the other hand sunk to a crouch and pushed her slick palms through her hair. She’d thought ahead, plaiting her pale locks and fixing them behind her ears, but still her hair had frizzed and she distractedly smoothed down stray curls as she looked in horror at the upended corpse.
The victim was a portly man, or at least he had been. He’d been gutted like a steer and his belly was now an open cavity, the loose folds of flesh hanging down over what would have been pendulous breasts if gravity hadn’t been defied. His genitals were missing. But if his murderer had followed his modus operandi then Tess suspected where she’d find them. Deep incisions covered the flaccid body, front, back, and sides, and Tess assumed the cutting had been done while he was still alive as a form of sadistic torture, prior to his decapitation.
‘You think it’s him.’ Po’s words weren’t as much a question as a statement of fact.
Tess rose from her crouch, and she placed her fists on her hips as she nodded once. ‘It’s him. But we have to be certain, right?’
‘We need to find his head.’
Tess searched around. If the killer had stuck to his MO, the decapitated head shouldn’t be far away, a requisite to the way in which Mitch Delaney had been displayed.
Po looked again at the screen of the GPS unit, then held it out to Tess. ‘I don’t think there’s any doubt it’s him.’
Tess read a location named on the screen, then followed Po’s languid nod towards a nearby peninsula crowned by cypress jutting into the bay. ‘Crawford’s Point,’ she repeated.
‘Our boys are having fun while they work.’ Po’s lips quirked at the grim humour, as if he found the killers’ joke worthy of acknowledgement.
‘They’re laughing at us, more like,’ Tess said.
Po shrugged. It didn’t matter to him the way it did others, or to Tess in particular.
A breeze blew in off the Gulf.
A sour coppery tang invaded Tess’s senses. Mitch Delaney’s corpse had been washed, cleansed of all forensic evidence, and this one probably had too. But this one had sat out here in the sun for what she guessed must have been the best part of yesterday, and begun to decompose. The insides of her cheeks watered, and she was forced to spit the way Po had, or else she’d vomit.
‘Look at the mud flats,’ Po said, with a flick of a wrist towards the base of the pilings. ‘No tracks. No human tracks at least. Tide’s been in and out a couple of times.’
Tiny footprints dotted the mud, but they were wading birds, and crabs. Some of the swamp dwellers had been feeding on the body, no doubt, but none of the larger scavengers had got to it yet. Tess ignored the obvious tracks and looked for something else.
‘They must have brought him in by boat,’ she said.
Po grunted. It was a fair deduction, because they hadn’t found signs of anyone approaching on foot from the swamp. Even if Sower’s two henchmen had helped the killer, it would have been impossible to carry the victim through the cypress roots and place him here without leaving a trail a blind man could follow. Hell, she’d almost passed out dragging only her weight through the swamp, let alone someone as hefty as Crawford Wynne. She was in no doubt who the victim was, but as she’d told Po there was only one way to be certain. ‘There,’ she said.
‘Hmm,’ Po replied. He too had spotted the faint trail twenty yards away. The tide had smoothed out the footprints down by the water, but higher up towards the mesh of entwined roots there were still uneven grooves in the muck. At the tideline a broken branch lay discarded: a makeshift broom thrown aside when finished with. ‘Looks as if our boys tried to brush away their tracks as they returned to the boat.’
Without waiting for Po, Tess slogged through the mud to where the trail disappeared between the cypress roots. He gave her room, waiting until she again crouched and ran her hands through her hair, before moving in behind her. This time her pose was more controlled, thoughtful. She crouched to study her find. Wedged among the snarl of roots was the missing head. Crabs had feasted on it, nipping away the flesh of the cheeks and forehead, stripping it down to the bone in places. But the face was still recognizable by the swastika tattoo that extended from above the right cheekbone and round almost to the nape of the skull. It had been a defining feature of Crawford Wynne back when he’d been an active white supremacist, a brand that had marked him for the asshole he was in earlier life, and up to the day of his violent demise. His killer hadn’t cared that the mud crabs would tear apart his face, but had taken pains to ensure they’d have a harder time getting at what was stuffed inside his mouth. Wynne’s lips had been stapled together, thick steel upholsterers’ staples driven through the flesh and into the bones of his jaws.
They’d have to wait until the pathology report came back to be certain, but she already suspected what would be found when Wynne’s mouth was opened. The pathologist would also state clearly that Wynne’s genitals had been removed and stuffed in his mouth while he was still alive. That was the punishment prescribed to all with the temerity to stand witness against Albert Sower, she realized.
Tess glanced at Po. He stood with his back to her, but it had nothing to do with his aversion to death. He peered back down the trail, and from this angle could see way across the Gulf. If there were any boats out on Vermilion Bay they were hidden by the haze on the water, the light now blazing orange as the sun pushed up from the horizon.
‘You think they’re out there watching us?’ Tess asked.
Po grunted, then spat between his boots. ‘Can’t see why they’d set this up if they weren’t around to enjoy the result of all their hard work.’
‘So we don’t give them any hint we’re on to them.’ Tess stood and walked away, concealing herself from view by the grey trunks of cypress trees. Now was the right time to call the police, and Emma Clancy. She could see Po scanning the swamplands, and his hand drifted to his holstered gun. Instead of taking out her cell, she reached for her Glock and racked the slide. She was glad that her hands didn’t shiver with fear or from the misfiring of damaged nerves.
‘What’s wrong, Po?’
‘Thought I caught a flash of yellow through the trees.’ He stared into the shadows between the cypress roots. ‘I don’t see it now.’
‘Yellow?’
‘Could’ve been a bird,’ he said without conviction.
‘Do you think it’s them?’ Tess’s heartbeat was suddenly loud in her ears, and the grip on her gun tightened.
Po continued to scan, listening keenly from the way he cocked his ears. Finally he rolled his head on his shoulders, and his hand fell away from his gun. ‘Probably nothing,’ he said, but Tess wasn’t buying it. ‘I don’t hear a thing.’
But that was a problem even Tess recognized. It was too quiet.
There were no animal calls, and even the sound of the surf was hushed. They were on the bank of an inlet, so the tide was barely noticeable, but Tess was positive that the lapping water had been noisier before. The quietude was unnatural though, a response of her body, adrenalin coursing through her, and before long she again grew aware of her pulse beating within her. She was holding her breath, and she released it in a slow exhalation as she checked the shadows between the trees for anyone skulking.
‘I don’t like this. It feels like a trap,’ she said, her words pinched by anticipation.
‘Let’s back out of here,’ Po suggested. ‘We’ve found Wynne and can direct the police to him with the coordinates. We don’t have to hang around.’
‘Wait. There’s something I need do first,’ said Tess, and this time she did pull out her phone. Gun in one hand, phone the other, she snapped a sequence of photographs, first of the severed head, then of the corpse tied to the piling.
‘What do you want those for?’ Po asked, his eyebrows beetling beneath the peak of his cap. He waved her away, and began following her back through the swamp.
‘Evidence. No, proof. I need to show Emma that we got within touching distance of Crawford Wynne.’
‘When news of his murder comes out, you might regret that decision.’
‘Nobody in their right mind would blame us for this.’
‘Don’t kid yourself. Some cops have suspicious minds. Others are lazy. They might decide that concentrating on us is easier than trying to find the actual murderers.’
‘You have a low opinion of cops.’
‘They have a low opinion of me,’ he reminded her. ‘And don’t forget, there are witnesses who’ll state that we were searching for Wynne, and it was obvious we didn’t have his best interests in mind.’
‘We’re here on behalf of the Portland DA’s office,’ Tess argued. ‘We can prove that as fact …’
Po shook his head. ‘I’m concerned about this scenario. We thought Sower’s guys left you those coordinates so they could set a trap. I’m beginning to think that it’s more of a set up. You think they got us out here, not to ambush us, but to place us at the murder scene?’
Tess understood how rash they’d been by coming here. For all she knew, Sower’s men could be lying in watch from across the bayou, or even way out on Crawford Point. Sower’s people had sourced cars; she doubted their ability to lay their hands on long-range rifles, but a camera with a zoom lens would have been no problem. Even now, those photographs of Tess and Po standing before Wynne’s corpse could be anonymously winging their way to a police email account. ‘No. Too complicated,’ she decided.
‘What is?’
As they slogged through the mud she mentioned her fanciful theory, but Po wasn’t buying it. ‘Like you say, it’s too much. No.’ He thought a moment longer. ‘It’s much simpler, right?’
‘Yeah,’ Tess agreed. ‘It’s a warning. They wanted us to get up close and personal, so that we’d know what would happen to us if we didn’t back off. That’s what the previous murders were about: designed to strike fear into the hearts of witnesses. It’s the same now that we’re involved.’
‘We should be scared,’ Po cautioned.
‘Yeah.’
‘But you aren’t?’
‘No.’ She was terrified. But more than that she was resolute. ‘This has just made me more determined to stop the sons of bitches.’
‘OK. Then let’s get the hell out of this swamp, and we’ll call the cops.’
‘Anonymously?’
Despite all his previous encouragement to the contrary, Po dipped his head in agreement. ‘I guess it has to be that way for now.’
Hector crouched, watching the reaction of the young woman through a handheld optical fieldscope that magnified her to a point he imagined he could reach out and touch her. He was a hundred yards away, concealed between jagged cypress stumps, though, so the temptation to grab her was wishful thinking. There was nothing more he’d enjoy than to get his hands on her, and to do with her what he’d recently subjected Crawford Wynne to, but he must deny his base desire. He’d gone to great effort to display Wynne’s corpse so it rang loud and clear as a warning, and now to simply murder the recipient of said warning would prove a waste of everything he must achieve.
His confederates had urged him to slay Wynne and have done. By all means display him as the warning Alberto desired, but why do so way out here in the bayous? They had no concept of irony, Hector believed, and didn’t appreciate the correlation of the victim and location the way he believed Teresa Grey or her caballero companion would. He’d made a point of Crawford within spitting distance of Crawford Point because he found the irony meaningful in a way his helpers would never understand. They didn’t find it humorous the way he did, and had complained at what they deemed an unnecessary workload for what they hoped to achieve. But they hadn’t protested directly to him, preferring to grumble to each other when they thought he wasn’t paying attention. They knew better than to question him outright, and it were best they heed that advice if they hoped to continue working for him after this.
Twice the trio had come to this bog, the first time to deposit Wynne, and there was no avoiding that trip, because the coordinates were already delivered to Teresa Grey, and therefore Wynne had to be here to be discovered. This second time they’d arrived in anticipation of Grey’s arrival, and Hector’s companions had muttered under their breath about having to wade through the cloying muck a second time. In fairness Hector also hated the mud with a passion, and was thankful for the waterproofs he’d donned on both occasions, though he wondered now if wearing garish yellow and orange was a good idea. He was certain that Grey’s companion had spotted him moments before when he adjusted position. Not that he feared the tall man, but this was neither the time nor place to confront him. The man looked at home in this swamp, and would be at an advantage, and Hector preferred that when the time came to kill him it would be under circumstances and at a location more suitable.
Besides, luring the duo here was never about trapping them in order to kill them, but about manipulating them, making them dance on the end of the strings he jerked. Murdering the witnesses who’d dare speak against Alberto was designed to engender the greatest reaction from his enemies. Stringing up Wynne’s corpse in this grotesque but fascinating fashion, in this equally evocative gothic setting, sang to Hector’s dark soul, and he knew its impact would be more shocking as a result. When it came time to kill Grey and her companion he’d repeat the hunt and kill pattern he enjoyed, then display them for all to see, not simply have them gunned down and gutted out here as his helpers had suggested. He’d sent the two fools to wait at their boat, preferring to relish the moment Grey discovered Wynne on his own. Jacky Boy argued that she wasn’t even coming and it was a waste of their time: he relied too much on that transponder they’d placed on the couple’s car. Hector knew they were coming, and his surety was rewarded sooner than he’d thought. In their urgency, Grey and the caballero must have driven through the night in another vehicle. He was glad he’d waited.
Through his scope he studied Grey’s reaction, noting the mixed emotions of revulsion, nausea, anger, confusion, and some form of resolution pass through her, and found the latter most satisfying. Grey was proving to be a worthy opponent, and admittedly if she hadn’t led him to Wynne he couldn’t share this moment with her now. It would be agreeable to snatch her, show her how appreciative he was, before taking her head as a trophy, but it wouldn’t be as satisfactory as waiting for an opportunity when he could take his time with her.
He turned the scope on the man, whom he’d learned was called Nicolas Villere. He was positive that those deep blue-green eyes peered directly at him, and a tremor went through him. He recognized something in Villere’s gaze that he occasionally saw staring back at him from mirrors. That was the look of a killer if ever he’d seen it, but Hector would never venture that they were alike. That would be like accepting that there was someone to be feared, and the very notion was anathema to him. Hector was the one to be feared, and he would allow no man to take that title from him. He lowered the scope, denying the trickle of unease that had gone through him as their gazes met, telling himself that what he felt was anticipation of their future meeting, and some disappointment that he couldn’t take the time to slay Villere now. Hector’s presence was demanded elsewhere, and he took some consolation in the fact. Word had reached his ears that Alberto had taken their campaign of terror up a level, and Hector’s special skills were required up in Maine. Alberto’s lackeys had snatched his latest prize and he couldn’t wait to unwrap it, and his satisfaction would be two-fold.
When it was done and his latest victim displayed in a manner that would shock the nation he knew that Alberto’s plan would implode. By following this path it guaranteed an end result Alberto had never anticipated: he’d planned on evading justice through the extermination of anyone who could bear testimony against him, but by doing so he’d only ensured his imprisonment. Once news broke of the mutilation of Emma Clancy the lid would be sealed on the box that Alberto was building himself, and Hector’s actions would nail it shut.
Alberto had once saved his life, for which Hector swore fealty. But in doing so, the balance of power had shifted between them, with the leader now relegated to follower. Hector was a man of honour, and would uphold his pledge to serve Alberto unswervingly. Ironically, and Hector loved the concept of irony, by following Alberto’s commands to the letter, that power shift would swing back in Hector’s favour. Once Alberto was caged for life – and Hector didn’t expect him to survive long after that – Hector would assume his vacated throne, one that should rightfully have been his all along.