Karin Slaughter - Skin Privilege

Sara hadn't even noticed until then how badly he'd been hurt. She had always taken care of Jeffrey's body. Over the years, she had disinfected his cuts, rubbed arnica gel into his bruises, bandaged sprained ankles and broken fingers. After impromptu football games, she had iced his knee so he could walk the next morning. Hours he spent fixing things around the house were rewarded with long back rubs and whatever else she could think of to help him relax. Even after the divorce, when Sara couldn't stand to be in the same room with him, she had rushed to the hospital when a stray round of buckshot had lodged in his leg.

She hadn't seen him cut open his hand yesterday. She had seen the shotgun being fired into the air, then the second warning shot, close enough to stop her heart beating in her chest. She had watched Jeffrey lurch forward, sliding on the gravel, but she hadn't thought to check him out, to look for cuts and abrasions. All she'd been able to focus on was the absolute terror she'd felt each time Al Pfeiffer pulled the trigger, and her white-hot fury when Jeffrey had slowed the car afterward.

His foot had come off the pedal. Sara had thought something was wrong with the car. She had looked down, panicked, to see what was wrong, and seen exactly why the car had slowed almost to a full stop. She had looked at Jeffrey then, the way his mouth twisted up at the corner as Al Pfeiffer gave him that look. God, that look. Sara had wanted to slap it off his face. They were just like a couple of boys on the playground seeing who could kick the most dirt in the other's face before a teacher came along. Lena was the same way – she didn't have a dick to swing around, but she could certainly kick up dirt with the best of them.

That was when Sara had finally realized why they had really trekked all the way down to the swamp, why Jeffrey was clutching at the slimmest lead to Lena 's disappearance he could find. Sara had been the one standing outside the bathroom when Lena ran, but Jeffrey had been in the hallway. He had been less than ten feet from Lena, less than ten feet from stopping her escape.

Jeffrey had been duped, too, and his ego wouldn't let him get past it.

Last year, Sara had taken a ballistics course at the GBI academy in Macon. She had just dealt with two shooting cases at the morgue and she wanted to better equip herself for investigating gun-related crime. As part of the course, there had been a technical session at the firing range. The instructor had used different weapons and ammunition to shoot gel-filled dummies at various distances to give the students a better understanding of pattern and dispersal. The Remington Wingmaster was one of the most popular shotguns on the market, favored by police and bad guys alike. Using heavy density shot, the weapon dispersed sixty percent of its pellets into the target from a distance of sixty yards.

By Sara's estimation, when Jeffrey had slowed the car yesterday, they were approximately sixty yards from Al Pfeiffer.

He should be glad she lived long enough to slap him.

Up ahead, Valentine turned on his blinker. Sara followed the cruiser into the Elawah County impound lot. There were about fifty trucks in various states of destruction piled around the compound, front ends hanging off like loose teeth, back bumpers crumpled into tailgates. Knowing small towns, she guessed that most of the owners either did not have the money to get their trucks out of impound or they were still in jail waiting to be tried on drunk-driving charges. Basically, the county lot was a glorified insurance processing unit.

The sheriff's car bumped down a short gravel strip, then parked on a paved lot. Ahead, Sara saw a large metal building, about fifteen feet high by thirty feet square, and guessed that the car from the accident had been towed into the building for examination.

Not that what had happened to the Cadillac Escalade had been an accident. Sara tried to enter every case with an open mind as to cause, but it wasn't as if an SUV found burning in the middle of a football field could have gotten there by chance. Someone had parked it there, deliberately set it on fire, and walked away, leaving the body inside.

The question remained: was that someone Lena Adams?

Sara got out of her car. The smell of gasoline and oil mixed in the air with an undertone of car exhaust. No noise came from the shop. She guessed the mechanics were taking their morning break.

Jeffrey and Valentine walked toward the BMW. The sheriff kicked some mud off the wheel. 'Looks like you've been off-roading, Chief.'

Jeffrey told him, 'I was down around the Okefenokee yesterday.'

Valentine's eyebrows shot up. 'That so?' he asked, making a show of scratching his chin. So much for peace and understanding being brokered on the drive over. He told Jeffrey, I know some folks who moved down to the swamp a while back.'

'Friends of yours?'

'Oh, I wouldn't say that.' Seemingly out of the blue, the sheriff announced, '"Land of the Trembling Earth."'

Jeffrey was silent, so Sara asked, 'I'm sorry?'

Valentine explained, 'That's what the Indians called it. Okefenokee, Land of the Trembling Earth.

Only about six percent of the swamp is on solid ground, see. The rest is just a couple of feet of felled vegetation riding on top of the water. You walk on it and it's like walking on a pool float, only a little bit easier.' He tipped his hat down, blocking the sun out of his face. 'You go down there, too, ma'am?'

'Yes, I had the pleasure.'

'Lots of skeeters, gators, even some meat-eating plants.' He chuckled at this last bit, as if it brought back a fond memory. 'My daddy took me and my little brother there once when we were kids. Took us three days to paddle from the east to west side; liked to nearly killed us. Saw all kinds of crazy things.' His eyes slid over Jeffrey's way, and his affable voice changed to a warning. 'Dangerous place down there.'

Jeffrey crossed his arms over his chest. 'I guess for some it might be.'

Yet again, Sara had managed to get downwind at a pissing contest. She clapped her hands together to break the standoff, telling Valentine, 'Well, I suppose the body is inside?'

'Yes, ma'am,' he said, indicating the office beside the building.

Sara walked toward the office, the two men following.

Valentine asked Sara, 'How was the drive down to the swamp?'

'Fine, thank you.'

He reached ahead of her to open the door. He chuckled to himself. 'Say, you didn't happen to see Lena Adams down there thumbing a ride, did you?'

Sara forced a smile back on her face. 'Afraid not.'

Valentine smiled back as he opened the door. 'Had to ask.'

Instead of the filing cabinets and desks Sara had been expecting, they walked right into what could only be the morgue. A large stainless steel gurney was chocked to the concrete floor, an open, empty body bag lay on top. The sink and dissecting trays up against the wall were much like the ones back at the Grant morgue, but the freezer for body storage was a walk-in type used in larger restaurants. She didn't see a Dictaphone. Jeffrey would have to take notes on her findings.

'Not too shabby,' Valentine interjected, though she could tell from the look on his face that he was slightly ashamed of the morgue's location. 'Most of our autopsies are car wrecks, accidents, that kind of thing. We handle the load from Seskatoga, Ahlmira, and a couple of other counties. Having the morgue on site makes it easy to take them from one to the other.'

'Of course,' Sara said, feeling like she had just insulted the man when in fact the facilities were more than serviceable. She was lucky not to be stuck in the embalming room at the local funeral parlor. 'Where's the Escalade?'

'Through here,' he said, opening another door. A large, open warehouse was on the other side. Two desks and a row of filing cabinets were shoved into the corner. Tools lined the far wall. Six hydraulic lifts had cars on them, but no mechanics were in sight. Car parts were scattered around, crashed vehicles in various states of disassemble so that damage could be assessed, blame placed on the right head. Sitting in the middle of the warehouse was obviously the SUV.