Кей Хупер - Whisper of Evil

Ethan brooded for a moment. "But how do we find out whatever it was? You said it was more than forty years of parish birth records, right?"

"Right. Lots of babies born in the last forty years, I can tell you that much. And we don't even know if it's the births or something else. Place of birth, parents' names, stillborn children or kids that died young, witnesses to a birth, the doctors who delivered the babies — God knows what we're looking for. I sure as hell didn't see anything worth killing over."

"You're new to the area," Ethan noted, "so you might not have noticed what someone born and raised here might have seen."

"True enough," Justin said after a slight hesitation, still wary of saying anything about Shelby's involvement.

"Do you have the copies of the records?"

"Locked in the trunk of my car."

"When we get back to the office, bring them to me. If there's something odd there, I'm willing to bet I'd spot it as quick or quicker than anybody else would."

"George Caldwell may have been killed for spotting it," Justin reminded him.

Ethan didn't like to think that one of his deputies or detectives might be a traitor, and he was almost equally unhappy to think that one of them might be an FBI agent operating undercover, but one thing he was sure of was that he couldn't afford to play guessing games or second-guess his own instincts. So he continued to talk to Justin Byers as if the shadow of neither possibility had ever crossed his mind.

"George had trouble keeping his mouth shut," he told Justin. "I don't. Plus, it's entirely possible that he didn't realize what he knew was a threat. I'll definitely know."

"If you find something."

"Yeah. If I find something."

"And if you don't?"

"Then we're no worse off than we are now." Ethan shrugged. "At this point, I'm willing to try most anything."

"Including the paranormal? Like, maybe, talking to an avowed psychic?"

Grim, Ethan said, "Either Steve Critcher is less discreet than I thought, or somebody else saw me talking to Nell Gallagher."

Without answering that directly, Justin merely said, "It's a small town. Hard to do anything without being noticed."

"You mean unless you're keeping a nasty secret?"

Justin smiled wryly. "Yeah, I haven't quite figured that out yet. As for you talking to Nell Gallagher — was she able to tell you anything helpful?"

This time, Ethan did hesitate. "Maybe. I'd rather not say anything until we thoroughly check out Nate McCurry. And I mean thoroughly, Justin. I want to know who he talked to, who his pals were, who he dated in the last ten years, and who cleaned his teeth."

"Matt's out now with a couple of deputies gathering that information. What is it you're hoping they'll find?"

"A secret," Ethan said. "One secret all these men had in common."

"You mean they all had the same secret? Apart from all these nasty little bad habits we've discovered?"

"I think so. All except George, so far. I want to know if Nate did as well."

"It might help if I knew —"

"I know, but I'd rather not… contaminate your judgment when I have nothing solid, no evidence I could take to court, to support this… theory."

"Just information supplied by a psychic?"

With a grimace, Ethan nodded. "Exactly. Which, by the way, you don't seem too bothered by."

"I don't care if we find the answers in tea leaves, as long as we find them," Justin said frankly. "I've seen enough weird things in my life not to discount anything out of hand. Maybe it's possible for some people to see things the rest of us can't. Maybe it's just another rare but natural human ability. Who am I to say it can't be real?"

"Well, I'm not quite so untroubled about the possibility, but I'm also a lot less certain of my certainties than I was yesterday." Ethan sighed. "I guess we'll see. I'm going back to the office. I've got a shitload of reports and calls to handle. Stay here and get this wrapped up, will you? And do what you can to transport the body out of here quietly."

"I'll do my best." Justin watched the sheriff leave, then returned his gaze to the two technicians still working silently. He didn't suspect either of them of being something other than they appeared, but it certainly did no harm to oversee every possible aspect of the investigation just to make damned sure nothing fell through the cracks.

It didn't surprise him that Ethan Cole hadn't wanted to tell everything he knew; Justin hadn't exactly been either completely forthcoming or entirely truthful himself. He wondered if that reticence would come back to haunt both of them, then dismissed the thought.

Nothing he could do about that at the moment.

He was just about to ask the photographer if he was done yet when Brad spoke first.

"Hey, Justin? You guys see this?"

"See what?" Justin joined the photographer beside the bed.

"My zoom lens caught it," Brad explained. "See that little piece of material sticking out past the hem of his shorts?"

Justin bent closer and looked, frowning. "Yeah. So?"

"So I don't think it's part of his shorts. He's wearing regular cotton boxers, and that little bit of material is silk. Colorful silk, as a matter of fact."

"Some kind of lining, maybe?"

"Not unless it's homemade. I use that brand, and they're just cotton. No lining at all."

He'd investigated too many murders to have any squeamishness left, so Justin didn't hesitate to bend even closer and grasp the small bit of material. He pulled gently, carefully, beginning to draw it from inside the dead man's shorts.

"Looks like a scarf," Brad murmured, watching intently as more of the silky blue material became visible. "A lady's scarf. You can see little flowers — hey. What the hell?"

Encountering a sudden resistance, Justin stopped pulling and shifted position so he could gingerly lift the waistband of the shorts far enough to see inside them. "Christ."

"What?"

Justin hesitated, glanced up at Nate McCurry's open, sightless eyes, and murmured, "Sorry to do this to you, buddy, but I have to."

"Have to what?" Brad demanded.

"Help me pull the shorts down. You'll have to get a picture of this."

Brad opened his mouth, then closed it and rather gingerly helped Justin pull the dead man's shorts down around his knees. When the genitals were exposed, the photographer muttered something under his breath, then silently began snapping pictures.

The fingerprint technician, whose name, improbably, was Dolly Sims, came to the foot of the bed, studied the corpse for a moment, then said to Justin, "You guys ever consider you might be after a woman?"

"Not until now," Justin said.

She nodded. "Well, I'd say the odds are pretty good this was done by a woman. Maybe a woman scorned. Or just one who was real pissed off."

"Yeah," Justin murmured, looking down at what had been done to Nate McCurry. "Real pissed off."

The colorful silk scarf had been tied in a jaunty bow around his penis and testicles.

Being out in a rural area had its advantages; Galen had the satisfaction of knowing that the remains he and Nell had that morning uncovered were removed and taken to the FBI lab by a very efficient team who had arrived and departed unnoticed by any of the locals.

At least, he was pretty sure they had.

It wasn't yet dark when Galen settled back into place to watch the Gallagher house. Since Tanner's truck was still parked out front, he knew Nell wasn't alone, but as he studied the house he felt oddly uneasy. Something was different, and he didn't know what it was.

Something he saw?

Something he felt?

When his cell phone rang, he was definitely relieved to see the call came from Nell.

"Tanner giving you a hard time?" he asked in lieu of a hello.

"Not yet," Max Tanner replied imperturbably. "At the moment, Nell is out cold — and I want to talk to you. Face-to-face."