Karin Slaughter - Skin Privilege

In the case of Hank's attic, someone would point out the way the rat turds and dust were disturbed in a large swath from the access panel to Deacon's final resting place and conclude that he'd been dragged there. Maybe they would notice the boxes stacked in front of the body and assume that he'd been hidden there, left to die. Certainly, they would see the deep cuts on his palms and forearms and say that he had tried to defend himself from someone who was wielding a very sharp knife. The fact of his missing clothes would indicate that there had been something on said clothes that the killer felt might lead back to him. Or maybe the doer got some kind of sick twist out of beating a sixty-year-old man to death and leaving him naked up in an attic to die.

The most disturbing part was the trophy – the patch of skin that had been removed right above Deacon's left nipple. Blood surrounded the area, but the wound had not been fatal. It was just the skin the killer had wanted, a twp-inch by two-inch square that had been expertly peeled from the body. The faded tattoos surrounding the missing flesh offered some clue as to what had been drawn on the removed section. Before his death, Lena had never seen Deacon without his shirt on, but she was more than familiar with the scenes adorning his chest. Deacon was Hells Angels, the original hate-mongers.

Someone had carved off his swastika.

The only good thing the missing skin told her was that Hank had not been involved in Deacon's death. The two had argued just about every day of their lives together, but Hank would never have hurt the only person in the world who could be called his friend. No matter what dark places Lena had let her mind go to over the past few days, she knew now without a shadow of a doubt that Hank would never intentionally harm anyone but himself. He was not a murderer.

The thought brought Lena to an obvious question: what had Hank been doing while someone had beaten Deacon to death and left him in the attic to die?

She had to find Hank. The local police would assume Hank had something to do with Deacon's murder. They would see a desperate drug addict and a violent death and leap to the obvious conclusion. Even Jeffrey would have a hard time believing Hank was innocent. He'd want to know how many days had passed with Hank living in the house and Deacon lying dead right above him. He'd want something more concrete than a missing piece of skin to prove Hank's innocence. Lena couldn't give him any of that. The fact that Hank was missing sure didn't do much to help matters. You only bolted if you had something to hide.

Or maybe Hank was hiding from someone. Maybe he was hiding from Lena.

She crawled back across the attic on her hands and knees, then dropped down onto the kitchen chair. Lena reached around the access panel and moved the box back in place. When she was finished, she found a rag in the bathroom and wiped the trim around the panel's opening so that her dirty fingerprints didn't show. She put the chair back in the kitchen, turned off all the lights but the one over the kitchen sink, then locked the door behind her.

She felt like a criminal as she drove her Celica through town. Hell, she was a criminal. Not only had she failed to report Deacon's death, she'd hidden the body, wiped off her fingerprints. She could just imagine sitting in Al Pfeiffer's office, the old fart leering at her as she told him what had happened. Al would find Hank. He'd bring him in and have him up on murder charges before Lena could even open the phone book and look for a lawyer.

Some of the outside lights were on at the bar as Lena pulled up, but there were no other cars in the lot. She assumed the lights were on timers, but then saw the rigged cords where Hank had strung together some cheap solar panels. The bulbs were a pale, fading orange and she doubted they would stay on for much longer. She leaned over and got the flashlight out of the glove compartment before getting out of the car.

Tape with the logo of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms still crisscrossed the front door. Lena checked the seal with her flashlight to make sure it hadn't been broken before heading to the back of the building. She felt the hair on the back of her neck go up as she crossed out of the semi-lit parking lot and walked along the dirt path that led to Hank's office. Considering the week she was having, she didn't think her paranoia an unhealthy emotion.

She had tried to cover the hole she'd kicked in the wall of Hank's office with a couple of trashcans from the bar. Unless you knew what you were looking for, the damage wasn't as obvious as she'd thought. She glanced over her shoulder, shined her light toward the woods, before pushing aside the trashcans and going into the office.

Inside, the shack looked exactly as she'd left it. She couldn't decide if it was a good thing or a bad thing that Hank hadn't been back. Deacon Simms was dead. Other than Charlotte Warren, Hank didn't have any friends he could turn to. There was no couch he could crash on, no spare room he could hole up in.

The checkbook was still open on his desk. She sat down in the chair and went back through the register. As far as she could remember, everything was the same as when she'd found Charlotte 's letters. Still, Lena flipped through the checks, making sure none were missing. Next, she went through the desk again, this time looking for anything that might connect to Deacon Simms. All she found was Hank's spare set of keys under a beat-up old copy of I Am the Cheese.

Lena pocketed the keys and flipped through the book, which bore the stamp of the Elawah County Library on the spine. Glued on the back of the cover was a paper pocket with a checkout slip tucked inside. 'Lena Adams' was scribbled on the strip where she'd signed out the book a billion years ago. She'd needed it for an English paper. Lena had loved the book but blown off the assignment. When the teacher had called Hank to let him know, Lena had lied, told him she'd lost the book. In addition to tanning her hide, Hank had made her pay for the book out of her allowance.

And the asshole had kept it this entire time.

Lena tossed the book onto the desk, accidentally knocking over a stack of receipts. She was scooping them up, trying to put them back in a pile, when she saw the telephone underneath. The phone was old, the kind they started making shortly after getting rid of the rotary dial. Lena reached behind it and followed the cord under the desk, looking for the answering machine. She guessed that as with the electric supply, Hank hadn't bothered to pay the phone company to get service all the way out to the shack. The galvanized pipe with the extension cord that led back to the bar was about two inches round – there was plenty of space for a long telephone extension cord.

She tucked the checkbook under her arm and knelt down to leave the shack through the hole.

There wasn't anything worth stealing in the office, but she moved the trashcans back in front of the hole.

The back door of the bar was padlocked, but that had been Hank's doing, not the drug agents. As with the front door, ATF had stuck their usual tape across the jamb but she easily cut the seal with one of the keys. Lena matched the Kryptonite key to the padlock, then a smaller Yale key to the deadbolt. The metal door groaned as it opened, the pungent odor of stale smoke and beer spilling into the night air.

The soles of her shoes snicked across the rubber fatigue mats as she walked through the kitchen. Something ran over her foot and she stood stock still, hoping that it was just a rat then hoping that it was alone. She used her flashlight to find the light switch, her mind conjuring a host of rabid rodents eager to attack. There was a noise in the corner that she chose to ignore as she walked to the front of the bar.