Yellow cop tape was again strung across the gateposts and the driveway up to the house was again lined with official vehicles. But, this time, no cops were returning digging implements to their cars. And no one was guarding the gate. Rigg and Rozakis walked up the driveway.
Sheriff Olsen spotted them when they got up to McGarry’s Escalade. He charged across the broad back lawn, red faced. ‘I could arrest you for tampering with our crime scene,’ he said to Rigg.
‘That crime scene I discovered because you couldn’t?’
The sheriff glared at Pancho, who’d begun snapping pictures of him.
Rigg gestured toward the house. ‘Have you begun to wonder why nobody’s around?’
‘They’re out,’ the sheriff said.
‘Tell yourself that this evening, or tomorrow, or the next day, when no one has called to complain about you digging up the yard.’
‘I told you: I called McGarry’s office, talked to some assistant, left a message that we have a warrant. They say they don’t know where he is.’
Pancho started to walk past the drive, toward the cluster of men in back.
‘Hold it!’ Olsen yelled at him. ‘No pictures.’
‘He’s got drones,’ Rigg said. ‘He can get what we need from up above.’
‘Ah, hell.’ Olsen motioned for them to walk with him toward the mound, but stopped a dozen yards short of the dig. ‘Wait here,’ he said.
Several people surrounded the site. Two of them, crime-scene technicians, were kneeling in the hole, hammering gently with wide chisels and then using hand trowels to clear away the dirt surrounding the body. Four sheriff’s deputies stood watching, farther back.
‘What should we do with the dog, sir?’ one of the deputies called out.
‘Put it in Rigg’s car,’ the sheriff said. ‘Front seat, where it will thaw when he turns on his heater.’
‘Huh?’ the deputy managed, clearly startled.
‘Just put the damned thing aside!’ the sheriff yelled.
The sky had darkened and a light snow began to fall. ‘You said you don’t know this guy we’re digging for?’ Olsen asked.
‘I won’t be able to identify him,’ Rigg said.
‘Who will, then?’
‘A husband and wife that own a diner on Chicago’s old Skid Row, and a cabbie.’
‘They witnessed the bust?’
‘No. Only two residents at a flop a few blocks away did, but they’re on vacation.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘It’s Cook County. Those two have disappeared.’
‘Besides Lehman, who I expect to be uncooperative, McGarry should also be able to identify him,’ Olsen said, looking straight at Rigg. ‘This is his property, after all.’
Pancho Rozakis shook his head. ‘Paris, France,’ he said.
Olsen looked at the photographer, who was standing serene in cargo shorts, without a trace of the shivers. ‘What?’
‘Paris, France,’ Pancho said. ‘I followed him from here to O’Hare, slipped up behind him at the counter when he bought a ticket for that night’s flight. I didn’t buy a ticket for myself because Rigg here was too cheap to pay for international surveillance and, besides, I didn’t pack a beret.’ Pancho pulled his phone out of one of the many pockets in his shorts, brought up the picture of McGarry at the ticket counter and held it up for Olsen to see.
The sheriff turned to Rigg. ‘What set McGarry running?’
‘Me. I’d come here to show interest in his mound. He showed interest in me by waving a shotgun.’
Pancho held out a cell-phone photo of McGarry with the shotgun.
Olsen turned to look at the men circling the dig. ‘He’d figured what’s in the hole could stay hidden for all time, even if someone came digging.’
‘Because they’d stop at the dog, like you did,’ Rigg said.
‘We’re ready, Sheriff,’ one of the forensics men called out, straightening up from the hole.
‘Stay here,’ Olsen said, and walked to the hole. He stared into it for a long minute and then turned around and waved for Rigg to come up. Even from a dozen yards away, Rigg could see the shock on the sheriff’s face.
Pancho came too. ‘No damn pictures,’ Olsen said to him.
Pancho nodded and took another one, of Olsen looking at Rigg now with a slightly bemused expression.
Rigg looked down at the frozen face, contorted in fear, speckling fast with flakes of falling snow. He didn’t know Richie Fernandez.
But this face he knew.
He stared at it, trying to understand how he could have gotten so much so wrong.
The sheriff took Rigg’s elbow and guided him away so the body could be removed. ‘Who’s been fooled now, Rigg?’
Rigg turned to the closest forensics man. ‘Cause of death of the dog?’
‘Gunshot to the head.’
‘How long do you think the dog’s been dead?’
‘Long enough to freeze solid.’
‘Much longer than the man?’
‘The man’s more recent.’
‘Cause of death gunshot, too?’
The forensics man shook his head. ‘Blunt force trauma to the head.’
‘Like from the blade of a shovel?’ Rigg asked.
‘Sure, but we need to examine to be certain.’
‘Talk to me, Rigg,’ Sheriff Olsen said.
It seemed so horribly clear. ‘The first or second night I came out, McGarry must have spotted me watching him scooping snow on to this mound. He called Lehman to say I’d come snooping. They’d buried Fernandez deep, covered him with dirt and topped him with the dog to explain the grave if someone got too nosy. But their precautions didn’t calm McGarry, roosting nervous out here by himself. He kept watch. And, when I came back during daylight, he waved his shotgun, but he knew that wouldn’t be enough to keep people away. He panicked. When I left, he did, too. He took off for O’Hare. He must have called Lehman from there to tell him he was fleeing. Lehman couldn’t let him go off wandering, even overseas. McGarry knew too much. So Lehman must have promised him he’d take care of everything, and picked him up at O’Hare.’
‘Telling him they’d simply move Fernandez, replant the dog in the same place, and all would be well?’ Olsen asked.
‘Sure,’ Rigg said, ‘except, after they dug Fernandez up, Lehman whacked McGarry and put him in Fernandez’s former place, under the dog.’
‘No sense wasting a good hole,’ Rozakis said.
Olsen shook his head. ‘You know, when I first got tipped that the Fernandez fellow might be buried out here, I re-read your old posts in the Examiner, trying to figure how you could think McGarry would get involved with Lehman in the bust in the first place.’
‘McGarry must have had dreams of a greater political future, and Lehman must have played on that.’ Rigg waved his arm toward the vast expanse of the estate. ‘What better place to soften up a suspect without the bother of booking him right away? No lawyers, no neighbors, nobody to interfere.’
‘Lehman would have had to book him eventually,’ Olsen said.
‘He must have beat on him too much.’ Rigg paused, remembering what Feldott had told him. ‘Or maybe that was Lehman’s plan all along. To kill Fernandez for his DNA.’
‘You’re not making sense,’ Olsen said, but then his radio crackled. He listened and said, ‘Let him through.’ Turning to Rigg, he said, ‘Can you sit on this until noon tomorrow? I’ll hold a press conference then, but I’d like to search for Fernandez as much as I can before then.’
‘You think you’ll find him here, Sheriff?’ Rigg asked.
Olsen looked startled. ‘Why not?’
Rigg gave a shrug. McGarry’s little mound had just taught him how wrong he could be. ‘I get notified before other press if you find anything else here?’
‘Fair enough.’
Corky Feldott hurried up to them. His grim smile disappeared when he looked down into the hole. When he looked up, he was wild-eyed.
Sheriff Olsen nodded down at the corpse. ‘Stupid bastard,’ he said.