August 22, 2004, 11:15 A.M.
The pond was almost completely dry, the bed fully exposed with the exception of a murky pool of emerald green water on the south end, just in front of the concession stand. It looked like a big hole in the ground, twenty-five feet deep, the openings to the limestone caves covered in thick green moss, drying out in the sun, filling the air with a stench Jordan had never smelled before—it was worse than the pigs. A loud hum was coming from a pump that had been set up to drain all of the water into the river. A huge black plastic pipe snaked out of the pond and into the high, brittle bluestem grass of the wetlands and disappeared into the woods. Two open canopies had been erected directly on the pond bed, white plastic tents with no sides, and several unfamiliar people milled about, taking very little notice of Jordan as he walked out of the woods.
He stopped at the end of the trail and took in the sight, fighting off the memory of the shooting, the sight of Holister wheezing, gasping for air. His own throat was dry. The sun was directly overhead, like an interrogation lamp pointed straight into his eyes. He didn't know what to expect, what he'd see, but this scene was the furthest thing from his mind. A forensic investigation that seemed to reach far beyond the shooting and the discovery of the skeleton was obviously under way. The magnitude of it was something Jordan had never seen, had never dreamed possible in his own backyard, in his own town.
One of the canopies was over the skeleton Holister found by the big sycamore, another was near the center of the pond, a few feet from the slide. Three more canopies were erected in the wetlands beyond the NO TRESSPASSING sign, one next to the other, lined up in a perfect row.
Yellow tape was everywhere, rounding the perimeter of the pond. Little pink flags were stuck in the pond near the first tent, marking shell casings from Jordan's gun. More pink flags hung limply in the woods along the spring.
Rotted soil and previously undisturbed leaves released a strong, sour odor that hung in the air, along with huge swarms of no-see-ums and mosquitoes. Jordan batted the invisible gnats away as he swept the area looking for Hogue, looking for some sign that he was in the right place.
Everything had changed so quickly . . . Kitty's house was nothing but ashes, his battered and bruised face was almost unrecognizable in the mirror, and now Longer's Pond was gone, nothing left but stinking earth and skeleton fingers reaching to the sky.
A helicopter flew over the tree line and hovered overhead, the thump, thump, thump of the blades dispersing the smell, and creating a heavy breeze that caused the canopies to regimentally snap against their metal poles and the pink flags to rise and flap in the wind. Voices were strained, unintelligible, but there didn't seem to be a sense of panic, an impending sense of doom, or an immediate threat. Three people occupied the canopy over Tito's bones, or the bones Jordan and Holister had assumed were Tito's, all on their knees, digging and brushing material away from the skeleton, focused and intent, methodically going about their business as if they were on a science class field trip.
Jordan thought he heard music somewhere, but it could have been the helicopter or the pump ringing together, creating a consistent beat. A line of deputies walked along the opposite bank of the pond, four brown uniforms staying even, prodding the ground with thin metal poles. Charlie Overdorf stood under another sycamore and watched the deputies; waiting for some sign, it appeared, to move into action. He did not see Jordan, or if he did, he didn't let on that he had. Charlie was talking into a radio, his EMT bag a few feet away.
The largest crowd was gathered among the three tents in the wetlands. A constant stream of deputies, firemen, and normal-looking kids, college students, traversed from the tents up and down the trail that led to the parking lot. It looked as if they were all attending a picnic of some kind, a lazy summer day when there was no hurry to be anywhere or do anything important.
Jordan could not help but search the tree line for unusual movement. He was sure the site was secure, but the dead pig was still fresh in his mind. The message tumbling over and over inside his head like the song he thought he'd heard. It was stuck in his ear and would not go away. Two dead pigs. Two dead pigs . . . Two . . .
He took the threat very seriously.
The other canopy in the middle of the pond was empty, save a white sheet anchored securely in the middle, and Jordan began to understand what he was seeing. A thought entered his mind that had never occurred to him until now, until he was standing on the edge of Longer's Pond, expecting one thing and finding another.
There were more bones than what he and Holister had initially found.
More skeletons than just Tito?
“McManus!” Sheriff Hogue hollered as he stepped out from the first canopy in the wetlands. “Over here.”
Without thinking, Jordan waved. Sure, he thought, as he headed toward Hogue, he's real happy to see you since you're both long-lost buddies. But oddly, Jordan was glad to see the sheriff at that moment, glad to see a familiar face.
Hogue met him halfway, walking directly across the pond, his boots squishing in the rotted leaves. The sheriff swatted away a swarm of gnats that hung over his head and coughed. “I'm glad you came out. We need to talk.” Hogue extended his hand for a handshake.
Jordan reluctantly shook Hogue's skillet-sized hand. He'd heard those words before—he hadn't noticed until that moment how much Bill Hogue and Ed Kirsch sounded alike.
The sheriff did not look overwhelmed and was barely sweating. For a big man, he moved with ease through the oppressive heat.
A thousand questions were forming in Jordan's mind—a million cautionary flags shooting into the air, each one warning him not to trust Hogue. He had an idea what the sheriff was up to and the smile on his face telegraphed his intention. Jordan didn't like it. At the moment, he had no choice but to play along.
“I've been stuck here all day, and it looks like I'll be here for a good while longer,” Hogue said.
“What's all this?”
“Bones and more bones. It's a fucking graveyard. Five skeletons so far. And I wouldn't be surprised if there aren't more. We started finding them as we swept the area looking for evidence of your shooter. One, then another, and another, and another. . . . The one Holister found is a kid, can't be more than ten or eleven years old. See that lady over there?” Hogue pointed to the first skeleton, Tito, the spot where Holister was shot. “She's a forensic anthropologist from Indianapolis University, Katherine Shead. Says she's never seen anything like it. Goddamned, if she isn't acting like a kid on Christmas morning. She seems to think this has more to do with the Mexicans than it does a serial killer or something like that. Thank God. She's just surprised nobody found anything before now,” Hogue said.
“There's never been a drought like this,” Jordan said flatly. “The woods get more traffic than the wetlands these days—especially since Buddy Mozel bought the land and closed down the swimming hole.”
“I think that's interesting, too,” Hogue said, staring at the anthropologist.
Jordan followed Hogue's gaze. Katherine Shead looked to be in her early sixties, her thick, wiry, gray-streaked hair pulled back in a long ponytail, dressed in khaki pants and a short-sleeved linen blouse, a white floppy straw hat at her side. A pair of glasses dangled from her neck, and her movements were swift, akin to someone thirty years younger. Her face was deeply lined with wrinkles, no doubt from spending a lot of time outdoors, practicing her craft, digging in the field. She looked like a walking encyclopedia of knowledge, and she immediately reminded Jordan of Kitty.
“What do you mean five? All kids?” Jordan asked after a long silence, scratching his shoulder.
Hogue shook his head. “That one,” pointing to the other tent in the pond, “is a baby. The others up there are all adults.”
Jordan let the words sink in. Something sparked in his memory, told him he shouldn't be surprised. He thought of the night José came to the door with blood on his hands, and then it flittered away, overcome by the immediacy of what he was seeing, what he was hearing. He took a deep breath. “The one Holister found? Is it Tito Cordova? Can they tell?”
“Nope,” Hogue said and then grew quiet, eyeing Katherine Shead curiously, watching her every move.
Jordan cast his eyes at the sheriff expectantly, waiting. The silence bothered him. Hogue's demeanor bothered him. The truth of what he was hearing was too hard to grasp.
“The lady, the professor, I guess, says that's impossible. The bones belong to a female,” Hogue finally said. He pulled a toothpick out of his front pocket and started picking his teeth.
“A girl?”
“Yes. Has something to do with the pelvis. She says there's no mistaking the fact. It was a little girl. So, there's no way those bones can belong to Tito Cordova. Holister's theory doesn't hold up. I think he just wanted it to be that boy. He'd mention it every once in a while to me. We all have cases that haunt us. Tito Cordova was Holister's. We're running checks on missing girls in the last twenty years. Haven't come up with anything yet, though.”
“I wanted it to be a boy, too,” Jordan said. “I wanted it to be Tito.”
“Sorry to disappoint you. I'd still like to take a look at the Cordova file. You know where it's at?”
“No,” Jordan said. “Any idea who that skeleton might really be?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
Jordan wiped sweat from his brow. His heart was beating rapidly. A girl? The skeleton didn't belong to Tito. Jesus, who could it be? The bigger question forming in his mind had to do with the note and the medallion. Why was the letter sent to Holister if the bones weren't the remains of Tito Cordova? What did the St. Christopher's medal have to do with all of this?
“You're looking a little pale, McManus. Let's go up and sit in my cruiser and get us some air-conditioning.” Hogue led, walking toward the trail to the parking lot.
Jordan hesitated. He wanted to talk to Katherine Shead. He wanted to know how she could tell for certain that the bones belonged to a girl. He still wanted to believe the skeleton he had touched was Tito Cordova. Finally found. But he followed Hogue. He didn't come to the pond to talk to some anthropology professor. He came to get his gun back. And to tell Hogue about the pig.
“I got five skeletons and a nearly dead local marshal shot in the back, McManus,” Hogue said over his shoulder as they passed by the tent with the girl's bones. “And no goddamned answers. The press is a having a heyday with this. I'm trying to find José Rivero. I got some questions for him, too.” The sheriff stopped and turned to face Jordan. “You seen him?”
Not since last night, Jordan thought. “No, I haven't,” he said, looking to the ground.
“Well,” Hogue hesitated, “I do have at least one answer for you.”
“What's that?” Jordan asked, turning his attention to the inside of the closest tent. The skeleton was free of dirt and mud, lying in a hole as if someone had gently placed it there on purpose. A tall college student said something about transport to another student who was brushing dust off the skull.
“Preliminary ballistics came back on your gun,” Hogue said.
The bones looked brittle, butterscotch yellow in places and black in other places. Jordan had tried to put Tito's face on the skeleton, build a body of flesh and blood in his imagination, but he could barely remember what Tito had looked like when he tried. Now, there was no face, no skin to put on the bones. It was a simple skeleton, the only remains of a person who could not tell their own story. A girl? It's a girl. . . . Who are you? What happened to you?
The memory of José at the door came back stronger . . . the baby had died, and José had argued with Kitty about the burial. Was one of the skeletons the baby? If so, he'd been right all along—he needed to talk to José. And something told him he better find José before Hogue did, or there wouldn't be any talking to him.
But what about the girl? Rosa. She had a deep cough, looked sickly in the truck, predicting the devil's arrival. Had she died, too? Did José bury her at the pond along with the baby?
“I'm sorry, what'd you say?” Jordan asked. Pain rippled through his body, and he wished Kitty was still alive so he could ask her some questions about the Mexicans, about José.
“Come on, let's go to the car.” Hogue turned and bounded up the trail.
Dazed, Jordan followed, keeping the skeleton in sight as long as possible. The parking lot was full of Carlyle County cruisers, all lined up, polished but covered in a thin coat of dust. Roll call. Two more fire trucks sat idling, blocking the lane. A third of the way down, yellow tape had been strung between two trees. Two deputies stood sentry against the crowd that had gathered beyond. In the distance, Jordan saw television vans with their satellite antennas reaching high into the air. The helicopter buzzed away, the thump of the rotors growing dim like a fading heartbeat.
“Fucking vultures,” Hogue said as he climbed inside his cruiser. He hit the ignition and turned the air-conditioning on full blast.
Jordan's throat was raw. “You need to send a deputy down Huckle Road,” he said, sitting gently on the hot leather seat.
“Why's that?”
“There's a dead pig in the middle of the road.”
Hogue reached around to the backseat and pulled two cans of Coke out of a small cooler. He handed a can to Jordan, looking at him as if he had just said something in a foreign language.
“A what?”
“A dead pig.” Jordan popped open the Coke and took a long drink. “It was shot in the head. Had a message written on it. ‘Two dead pigs.’ In blood.”
“Jesus Christ, what next?”
“I don't know.” Jordan took another drink, the cold liquid biting his throat as he swallowed. “I didn't have anything to do with this, Hogue. I didn't shoot Holister, and I didn't burn down my own house. I want to know what's going on as much as you do. I want to do my job.”
Hogue tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. Cool air was beginning to circulate in the cruiser. He picked up the mike and ordered two deputies to investigate Huckle Road, and secure the pig as a crime scene.
Static and an affirmative answer blared over the radio. Hogue turned down the volume.
“Timewise you're in good shape for the fire. A nurse saw you leave the hospital five minutes before we got the call,” the sheriff said, mounting the mike in the bracket on the dash. “It was definitely arson. Can't pin down the meth lab aspect yet. But the investigators found starter fluid cans. Might never be able to tell; there's nothing left.”
“I know.” Jordan breathed a quick sigh and took another drink of Coke. He wanted to tell Hogue “I told you so,” but he just nodded.
“I still think the fire is connected with all of this mess,” Hogue continued. “But I'm a little confused why somebody would do that. You got any enemies, McManus?”
“Everybody's got enemies. I've been a cop for seven years. I'm sure I've got my fair share.”
“You didn't answer my question.”
Jordan stared out the window at a thick stand of devil's plague. His answer was stuck in the base of his throat. “Ed Kirsch,” he finally said. “But I think you already know that.”
Hogue's face did not change, his stare was expressionless, waiting for Jordan to continue.
“Ginny and I have a history. Ed found out we, uh, spent some time together recently. He came after me with a pipe a little while ago, down from the house. I don't know if he burned it down. But I wouldn't put it past him.”
The sheriff nodded. “I'll talk to him. That boy's been a pain in my ass since the day he was born. He's just like his father—no good. I don't know why my sister put up with it all these years. Nine kids and no man to fend for her. Lord knows I've done my share, but I couldn't be a father to all them kids. She thinks the Lord will provide—her and that damned church . . .” Hogue stopped, apparently realizing he was talking about personal business to Jordan. He looked embarrassed, but only for a second. “What happened after Ed found you?” Hogue continued, his tone quickly all business.
“We got into a fight. My father broke it up.”
“Big Joe's back in town?”
“Came back today, as far as I know.”
“Interesting. You want to press charges against Ed?”
“No.” Hogue's response concerning his father did not escape Jordan's attention. Why would the sheriff think Big Joe's return to Dukaine was interesting?
“Well, that gives us something else to look into,” Hogue said. “Maybe Ed shot the pig. He doesn't like you—never has. He's the jealous type. And that wife of his, well, I don't mean to speak ill of Holister's daughter, but she's a wild one, too. Not very smart of you to go skinny-dipping in another man's pool—especially knowing the circumstances like you do.”
“I've already been beating myself up for days. I know it was a big mistake,” Jordan said. “But why would Ed shoot the pig?”
“You don't believe he'd do that?”
“I don't know what to believe. Could Ed Kirsch have set my house on fire? Yes. Was he the shooter? I don't know. I don't know whether or not he's got a grudge against Holister. I can't make the connection. I know he and Holister didn't get along. But Ginny and Holister didn't get along very well, either. Not after she married Ed.”
“All right. Like I said, we'll talk to him. I don't think he's the shooter either. Ed's a dumbass, but I don't think he's a killer.”
For the moment, Jordan decided not to implicate Ed as a meth user. He wasn't sure. But Hogue would figure it out for himself—or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he already knew. The drug bust Hogue was planning with the INS and DEA was not his problem at the moment. “You don't think my father has anything to with this, do you?”
“A lot of old news is becoming new again. We'll talk to him, too, now that I know he's in town.”
“What about the ballistics report?” Jordan asked, letting the words about his father settle in his mind. The interior of the cruiser was cold now, the extreme change in the temperature made him shiver as he asked the question. Hogue was still being coy.
Hogue looked at Jordan, made eye contact and held it. “It wasn't your gun that shot Holister. Plain and simple.”
It took everything Jordan had not to let his rage boil out. “I told you I wasn't involved from the beginning, Sheriff. This whole damn time you had me pegged as a ‘person of interest’ and you could have been out looking for the real shooter. The Town Board fucking suspended me—and asked for my badge. I'm a cop with a mark on my record, thanks to you,” Jordan said, his voice escalating with each word.
“You're not off the hook yet, McManus,” Hogue said.
“What do you mean I'm not off the hook?”
“The gun wasn't your gun. But the bullets that came out of Holister's back belonged to you. The serial numbers match the box of ammunition on your sign-out sheet from the day before. We found the casings near the spring. Right where you said the shooter was. Everything matches. You're still a person of interest, McManus. More so now than you were before. You're directly connected to the shooting. At the very least, you're a possible accomplice. I'd get a search warrant for your house, but that obviously won't do us any good, will it?”
“No, it won't do any goddamned good—someone burned it down, remember? Jesus Christ, Hogue, you're tellin' me I'm still a person of interest? You can't be serious?”
“I am. And I'm getting a search warrant for your brother's tavern. He's going to need to come up with an alibi for the time Holister was shot and for the fire.”
“He's in a wheelchair. How in the hell could he have been the shooter?”
“Did he ever have access to your weapon?”
Jordan hesitated. “Yes.”
“Then he's a suspect,” Sheriff Hogue said.