John Hart - The Last Child

“Listen, Allen-”

But the signal was dead. No one was there.

Hunt hung up the phone and settled lower in his seat. He watched for strange cars, and for Ken Holloway. He thought of her alone in that swaybacked house, and when, hours later, he dozed, he dreamed of taking her away from it. They were in his car, windows down, and he saw her the way she’d been. Wind whipped her hair. She put a hand on his face, said his name, and light made clear, sweet water of her eyes. It was a good dream, but he woke cramped and unhappy. The sun was low, in his face, and the dream was as false as a trick of light. His phone was ringing.

“Yeah.” Hunt scrubbed sleep from his eyes and sat higher.

“It’s Yoakum.”

The sun sliced in mercilessly. Hunt dropped his visor. “What is it, John?” Hunt glanced at the time: 7:21.

“I’m out at the Burton Jarvis site.” Yoakum paused and Hunt heard a voice in the background. A dog chuffed twice. “You need to get out here.”

Hunt’s fingers found the key in the ignition. “Talk to me.”

“We’ve got a body.”

“Is it Alyssa Merrimon?”

Yoakum cleared his throat. “I think we’ve got a lot of bodies.”

The Jarvis house was dark and silent when Hunt rolled into the drive. No patrol cars. No other detectives. There was Yoakum, pale and unshaven, popping mints from a metal tin. His shoes were slicked with mud, his pants wet from the knees down. Next to him stood Mike Caulfield, one of the department’s few officers dedicated to the canine unit. A veteran of thirty years, he was tall and stooped, with large, callused hands and a lick of hair so black that it had to be dyed. He wore thornproof overalls, equally wet and muddy. On a leash, at his side, sat the same mongrel dog that he’d used to search Levi Freemantle’s property. They met Hunt when he stepped out of the car.

“Yoak.” Hunt nodded, looked at the dog handler. “Mike.” They looked oppressed, both of them. The dog neither moved nor blinked. He watched his handler. “You haven’t called in support yet?”

Yoakum snapped the lid on his tin of mints. “I wanted you to see this first.” They started walking toward the woods behind the house. “Tell him, Mike.”

Mike’s head bobbed. “I woke up early this morning. Normally, when I do that, I like to go hunting; but I decided to give this place one last run.” He gestured ahead. “I’ve been working a grid, see, in a pattern out from the shed. But I decided, screw that, just for once, just to stretch my legs. I got out here at five and took a straight line for the river. That’s about two miles.”

They walked past the shed, still draped with yellow tape. Mike moved without hesitation, ducking branches, talking as he moved. “I got a bit more than a mile in when Tom started perking up. Another hundred yards, and he went ape shit.” Mike ducked his head again, embarrassed. “Relatively speaking.”

“I was at the station early,” Yoakum said. “I took the call.”

They pushed through a thicket, crossed a narrow stream that ran quick and light across a bed of exposed granite. The sun angled between gray-skinned trunks. The temperature rose. Yoakum slipped once and went down on a knee.

“What’s that smell?” Hunt asked. It was sickly sweet and furtive. A hint one moment, then a good, strong stench the next.

“The dump is that way.” Mike pointed. “A mile or two. You can smell it when the wind gets up.”

They walked farther, and Hunt saw the dog’s ears come up. His head rose, nose up and sniffing; then he dipped his nose to the ground and started pulling. The handler caught Hunt’s eye. “See what I mean?”

They passed through a final thicket and entered a wide, shallow depression. Hardwoods towered like monuments. Dead leaves, damp and rotting, made a carpet of the forest floor. Three orange flags protruded from the earth. They were small, mounted on thin, stiff wire. Otherwise, the earth was undisturbed. “You’re sure these are bodies?” Hunt asked.

Mike gave the dog a hand signal and he sat, eyes intent, nostrils flaring, but otherwise perfectly still. “Thirty years, Detective Hunt, and this is the best dog I’ve ever handled. You’ll find human remains under those flags.”

Hunt nodded and stared out at the flags, so bright and small in the vast, subdued depression. They were widely spaced, maybe fifty feet apart. “Three more. Damn.”

Mike and Yoakum exchanged a glance. Hunt caught it. “What?”

“I only had three flags,” Mike said.

“Meaning?”

Mike patted the dog. “Meaning, I’ll need more.”

Hunt stared at the wiry, leather-faced dog handler. His ears were drooping knots of cartilage, his nose long and hooked and ruddy. His lips hung with unnatural stillness, and Hunt knew that he was waiting for the question. “Are you saying that there are more bodies out there?”

Mike blew his nose into a bandanna. He nodded once, and the skin of his neck folded. “I think so.”

Hunt looked at Yoakum. “How long did Jarvis own this property?”

Yoakum’s face was bleak. “Twenty-four years.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“What do you want me to do?” Yoakum asked.

Hunt looked up, saw leaves that moved and jagged cracks of blue. “Call it in. Get everybody out here.”

Yoakum stepped away and opened his phone. Mike honked his nose one last time, then shoved the bandanna back into a pocket. “What about me?” he asked.

“Work the dog,” Hunt said. “We’ll improvise some flags.”

“Yes, sir.” Mike made a motion with his hand and the dog moved without hesitation. Nose down, tail up, it set off in a straight, determined line.

Hunt felt a breeze on his neck.

The dump smell rose.

The sun was less than a hint behind the trees when Johnny nudged Jack with a foot. The fire was dead and gray, the blanket heavy with dew. “It’s time,” Johnny said.

Jack blinked up at Johnny, who was dressed and ready. He scratched at his neck. “I’m eaten alive.”

“Me, too.” Johnny held out a hand and pulled Jack to his feet. “Want some breakfast?”

“What do we have?”

“Canned sausage or peanut butter. We’re out of bread.”

“Any grape soda?”

“No.”

Jack shook his head. “I’m good.

Johnny knocked dirt off the blanket, then took a leak on the side of the tobacco barn. His hands were smudged with soot from the fire. He thought of sacred things that weren’t sacred after all, and of the gun tucked under his jacket. He’d sat up late, spinning the cylinder, tilting its barrel against the light. He’d rubbed a wet thumb on the site, aimed at the fire and tried to keep his arms steady under the weight of it. He thought of Levi Freemantle and told himself that he knew what he was doing, then decided that it didn’t really matter. In the end, only Jack had a choice.

“You don’t have to come.”

Jack shrugged on the jacket. “You’re my best friend.”

“I’m serious,” Johnny said.

“So am I.”

Johnny stuffed the blanket in the pack, then cinched up the straps. “Thanks, J-man.”

“Don’t go pussy on me.”

“I’m not. I’m just saying-”

“I know what you’re saying.

Johnny opened the truck door. “Ready?”

“Rock and roll.”

Johnny drove through the stubbled field and under the surrounding trees. Out of the woods, they passed through the same gate, then followed the two-lane north toward the county line. Johnny stuck to the roads that he knew, then cut east, through a trailer park, to an unfamiliar road that turned, in a slow bend, away from town and the clutter that surrounded it. They rode past small vineyards and stone walls, went deeper into open country still dotted with antebellum mansions perched above rolling fields. Once, he stopped. He compared the map in the book with a road map of Raven County. “Do you know where we are?” Jack asked.