“This here track run all the way to the river?” A low sun sits above the mesquite as Whicher steers along the grit road. He looks at Shanon Summers in the passenger seat. She doesn't answer.
Set back from the track is a cluster of old-growth trees, Texas live oak, sugarberry. He sees an opening in the mesquite. “That the place?”
She nods.
The marshal slows the truck, steering into a small clearing.
A rutted gravel path leads beyond the trees.
Whicher cracks the driver window. Above the truck noise, dogs are barking somewhere. He steers by a thicket. Across the scrub is a group of wood slat barns.
To one side of the barns is a house built of river stone. Three dogs are running out, German Shepherds, teeth bared.
The farm's deserted, weeds grown high, no vehicles, no stock, no grazing animal.
“Kind of place is this?”
“I don't know,” Shanon says. “The family had it a long time.”
They reach the group of barns, dogs snarling, jumping around the truck.
Whicher parks by up the house.
“There's just Zach and his old man,” Shanon says. “We'd come out late, after the bars closed. Listen to music.”
Inside the house no lights show, despite the dusk.
“What's Zach do?”
“I don't know, they just kind of live here.”
Whicher cuts the motor. “I guess I'm going in. If you want to stay here, it's okay.”
“I'll come.”
He opens the driver's side, dogs circling. “Walk steady, don't let 'em see you're scared.”
The dogs fan out, growling. Whicher knocks at a battered door. He tries it, it's unlocked.
The door opens onto a mud room, a mess of boots, garbage. Jackets hung from wood pegs. They step inside.
A second door opens into a kitchen. There's a gnarled-looking table, dirty refrigerator. Every surface covered in junk, old papers, piles of rag.
“US Marshal,” Whicher calls out. “Anybody home?”
No answer.
“What made Todd Williams friends with Zach, you think? They hunt, fish? There's a lake close to here, that right, Comanche Lake?”
She nods. “Todd was in high school a while, they met then.”
“Only a while?”
“He was kicked out a lot, I think he moved one place then another.”
Whicher steps into the worn-down kitchen, smell of mold and grease thick in the air. “What y'all talk about?”
“I don't know.”
“You don't know?”
“Movies. Stuff. Getting away from here...”
Outside in the yard, the dogs are still barking, hollow-sounding.
Whicher steps through the kitchen into a front room. “Anybody home?”
Through the grime on the windows, he sees the scrub grown right up.
There's a noise—a door slamming. He steps back into the kitchen.
In the mud room, a man in a plaid shirt is toting a shotgun, face tight. “What the hell y'all doing in my house?”
Beneath the John Deere cap, his eyes dart from Whicher to Shanon in the sundress.
“I'm a US Marshal.”
The man's raw-boned, cords tight in his neck. He steps in the kitchen. Skin at his throat reddened. “I want to see a God damn badge...”
The marshal lifts a hand, slips out his ID, holds it open.
“The hell y'all mean a-coming in here? This all is private property...”
“Looking for the owner. The door was unlocked, no answer when I called.”
The man lowers the barrel of the twelve-gauge. “What do you want?”
Whicher takes him in; around sixty, skinny, the hard dry look of an outdoor man. “You have a son—Zach? Like to talk to him.”
The noise of the dogs is broken up now, a ragged burst then silence.
“He was friendly with a young man name of Todd Williams, that right?”
Tutton's jaw clamps shut at the name.
“Todd Williams was murdered four days back. Did you know that? My office is investigating.” Whicher glances around the squalid kitchen. “Is your son here, Mister Tutton?”
The old man cuts a look at Shanon. He doesn't answer.
“A homicide inquiry, people are expected to cooperate.”
Tutton's hands move on the shotgun. “I don't like a bunch of folk bustin' in on my property.”
“I can get a warrant, come back. I'm only looking to ask a couple questions. You want me to get a warrant, I'll do it. Take the place apart, if I've a mind to...”
The old man whips around on his heel, disappearing into the mud room. He bawls at the dogs; “Shut the hell up.”
Out the kitchen window, Whicher sees Tutton stomping up the yard.
Shanon steps by him.“I'm not staying in here...”
Whicher follows her outside.
Tutton's striding by a barn, shotgun in hand, the dogs running in his wake.
“I'll take a look around,” Whicher calls, “if you don't object...”
The old man steps out of sight around the back of the property.
Beyond the barns are live oak and cottonwoods, their leaves moving above the scrub. Something in the branches catches at Whicher's eye—low sun shining on strips of wire hung out in lengths. He's seen something like them before. He walks ahead, staring. Improvised antennae. Wires strung high in date palms—he's seen it before out in the desert, in the Gulf. Antennae for radio.
He turns back, walks to Shanon at the open door of a barn.
He steps inside, onto fresh straw, finds a stand-pipe, cranks it open. Water runs out. He cups a handful, smells it. It's clean. “When you came out here, you and Lindy and Todd, where y'all hang out? Back there in the house?”
“No,” she says. “There's a little barn, Zach has his stuff.”
“What stuff?”
“I can show you.”
They walk up through the yard to a wooden shack. Shanon steps inside.
There's a mess of old couches, a table, empty beer bottles, cigarette papers. Along one wall is a stereo. Hi-Fi—expensive-looking.
“This it?”
“We just listened to music, drank some beer. No big deal.” She stands in the center of the room, sweeps back a lock of blond hair.
Whicher steps over the stained rug, studying the music system. There's a deck, an equalizer, valve-driven amps, a limiter. A stack of speakers good as anything he's seen.
At the far right of the speakers a drape hangs from a wooden rail. The marshal pulls it back. A door's set into a rough frame. “What's this?”
“I didn't know that all was there...”
Whicher tries the handle. It opens.