“You think maybe they were here on business?”
“What do you think?”
“I think we should flag the car. Send out its plate and description to area law enforcement.”
“I think you’re right, Officer Knox.” He grinned again.
“What?”
“Who’s The Man? You’re The Man. Say it with me now. Who’s The Man?”
She mumbled.
“I didn’t hear you!”
“I’m The Man! Idiot.” She shook her head and looked out the window. Her own reflection, limned by the computer lights, looked back at her. She thought it might be smiling.
III
Amado Esfuentes wiped the sweat from his forehead before tugging his work gloves back on. He reshouldered the spool of electrical cable he had set against the fence post. “Ready?” he asked Raul. Raul groaned as he picked up the buckets of porcelain conductors and screw plates.
“If this was barbed wire, we’d have been done by now,” Raul said.
“If you worked as hard as you complain, we’d be done by now.” Amado wished, as he had every day in the month since the accident, that his little brother was toiling beside him. Octavio worked more and talked less than any other man on the crew, and when he did have something to say, he didn’t whine like Raul. But Octavio was in town, sweeping and polishing for a lady minister and answering to the name “Amado.” Meanwhile, Amado was the McGeochs’ foreman “Octavio,” always partnering Raul because he couldn’t, in good conscience, stick any of the others with the laziest guy on the farm.
“Cheer up.” Amado let the electrical cable slip off the wooden spool as he walked over the uneven ground toward the next fence post. “We’ll be finished and back before lunch,” he said. “And this is better for the cows than barbed wire.”
Raul gave a detailed suggestion of what Amado might like to do to the cows.
“Oh, I would,” Amado said, “but I’m afraid I might hurt them, on account of being so large.”
Raul roared with laughter. They reached the next post, and Amado clipped off the cable while Raul screwed an insulating plate into the wood and attached the conductor. Amado threaded the cable through, untwisted the wires, and fastened them around the conductors. Then he did the same thing in the opposite direction for the next length of cable.
Amado tied off the insulated black wire, and they picked up and moved down the line. This portion of the property was divided from the mountain by a swiftly churning stream that cut a hollow almost deep enough to call a gorge in places: an irresistible lure that would mean lost and trapped cows, in the best cases, and broken legs and drowned carcasses in the worst. Amado had no problem taking a little extra time and fencing it off nice and tight.
“Mark my words, they’re going to have us back here next month, hauling in watering troughs and throwing hoses into that creek.”
Amado, tugging the cable taut, grunted. “It splits, maybe a kilometer from here. One branch runs into the McGeochs’ land. The cows can water from that.”
Raul stared. “How do you know? We haven’t worked this section before.”
Amado knew because he had crossed this stream several times in the past weeks, headed up the mountain to meet with Isobel Christie in a high, sheltered meadow that straddled Christie and McGeoch land. Not that he was going to tell Raul that. “I followed the stream that runs past our bunkhouse one evening. I was curious.”
Raul shaded his eyes against the strong rays of the morning sun as he followed the path of the water. “You’re crazy. I wouldn’t get off my bed if I weren’t getting—” He took a step forward, then another.
“Hello there. Aren’t you forgetting your buckets?”
“What’s that?” Raul’s voice sounded different. Amado holstered his wire cutters and walked over to where the other man stood, a scant foot away from the crumbling edge of the stream gully. Raul pointed. “There. You see that?”
Amado nodded. It was an odd shape, soft amid the sharp angles of rock and tree and spiky fern. Half hidden in a cluster of bushes and sucker vine. White and red against the brown and gray and green. He stooped, picked up a rock, and lobbed it as hard as he could toward the thing. A cloud of furious flies rose into the air. Something dead.
Raul’s lips thinned. “A cow?”
“I don’t think so.” Amado stepped over the grassy edge, taking a moment to let his boot find a good firm hold in the gully’s soil.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to take a look.”
“Forget it! Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with us! Leave it alone!”
Amado ignored him, making his way down the steeply angled slope step by step, pausing when too much earth crumbled beneath his boots. He reached the water and walked downstream a few yards, until he reached a wide and shallow spot. He forded the stream the same way he descended into the wash, slowly and carefully.
Downstream and downwind, he could smell it. His nose wrinkled and he turned his head without meaning to, overwhelmed by the sour-sweet reek of corruption.
“You’re crazy! You’ll have the police out here! We’ll have to hide in the woods again!”
Amado dipped his neckerchief in the water and held it close to his nostrils. It helped some. He hiked up to where the bushes were dug into the slope with knotted half-visible roots that looked like old men’s fingers.
He saw the flat green leaves and the starburst clusters of tiny white flowers. He saw the pale birch saplings trembling in the mountain’s exhalation. He saw the dead thing. He saw the bloat, and the burst skin, and the white bone and the gray brain. He saw the place where an animal had chewn off the cloth and started to—
He turned away. Closed his eyes and gritted his teeth against the acid rush of his stomach’s contents. He retraced his steps downslope, recrossed the stream, and climbed the opposite side to the gully.
Raul just looked at him. He knew what it was. He had known since he first spotted it. His eyes pleaded with Amado to ignore what they had found. “Let’s just go,” he whispered. “Finish the fence. We don’t have to have seen anything.”
Amado shook his head. The . . . thing caught in the underbrush may have had a family. Had a girl. Had friends. Somewhere, someone was praying. Waiting and hoping and dreading.
“Let’s go get the truck,” Amado said. “We have to go back.”
IV
Clare attributed the sense that she was being watched to her general uneasiness. Standing in the McGeochs’ barnyard, struggling to make light conversation with Russ Van Alstyne’s sister, was not her idea of a fun way to spend a Friday morning. She kicked out her ankle-length skirt, surreptitiously checking to make sure she hadn’t marked the black cotton with dust—or worse—from the barnyard. She had a Eucharist to celebrate at noon, and she didn’t want to show up smelling like cow manure.
“So,” Janet said. “I’m pleased Amado is working out for you. I mean, with his broken arm and all.”
“Mmm.” Where was the kid? Janet had called the bunkhouse’s phone right after Clare arrived. That had been ten minutes ago. He knew they needed him at the church today. Or at least she thought he did. Giving him directions by reading out of a Spanish-English phrase book left room for misinterpretation.
“So . . . how’s the lady who was driving them—him? The nun.”
“Sister Lucia. She’s in rehab in Glens Falls. Broken hip. She sounded mighty peeved about it when I called her. They’re keeping a close eye on her. She was pretty banged up for a woman her age.”
“Ah. Good.” Janet shoved her hands in her jeans pockets. “Elizabeth’s down in Albany for a conference?”
“Diaconate training.” And what was with Janet? When they had met in the hospital, she had been to-the-point and self-assured. Very . . . Van Alstyne-like, Clare supposed. Now she was as jumpy as the proverbial long-tailed cat.
“It said in the paper you’re having a choral concert tonight.” Janet twisted around as she spoke, looking i
n the direction of the old bunkhouse, hidden from their view by the massive barn.
“Yeah. Last one of the season before the choir disbands for the summer.” Clare blinked. It wasn’t her imagination. That shadow, the one between the side of the barn and the milk tank. It had moved. “Janet. Is that . . . Amado?”
The shadow detached itself from the barn and walked into the sunlight. No, not her employee. This clean-shaven man was a half-dozen years older, broader at the shoulders, with two whole muscular arms and the grimly determined expression of someone carrying out an unpleasant duty.
“My,” Clare said. “You certainly got those legal replacement workers fast.”
Janet’s mouth opened. Clare could see her casting about for a denial. Then she shut her mouth. Her face collapsed into lines of guilt and anxiety. “You can’t tell. I mean it, Clare, we could be seriously screwed if you told.”
Clare sighed. “How long have they been here?”
“The first one got here the morning after the accident. The last one”—she flicked her fingers in the direction of the man crossing the barnyard toward them—“got in two days later.”
“Did you check their papers?”
“Of course we did!” Janet ran her fingers through her blond hair. Clare could see where her roots were coming in, sandy brown and gray like her brother’s. “They were all fakes. Just like the one Agent Hodgden showed us.”
The man was almost to them. “Janet, have you and your husband thought this through? I mean, not just about the fines or what all you’ll be liable for. What about Russ?”
“What about him?”
Clare put her hands on her hips. “Playing dumb doesn’t suit you.”
Janet exhaled. “He’s not going to find out. We keep them out of sight if someone’s here.”
“Oh. You mean, like right now?”
“He’s not supposed to come into the barnyard if he sees—” her voice switched abruptly from panic to control. “Hola, Octavio. ¿Qué pasa?”
“Señora McGeoch,” he said. His dark eyes flickered toward Clare. She could see a resemblance to Amado, in his aristocratic cheekbones and his nose like an adze. She remembered what Paula Hodgden had said, about groups of men coming from the same village. If it was anything like Millers Kill, they were all related in some degree. “Señora Reverenda.”
She nodded. “Hola.”
“Raul y yo cercábamos el pasto lejano—” He broke off. Looked at the expression of incomprehension on Janet’s face, an expression Clare knew was mirrored on her own.
“I fix fence. Encontré un hombre muerto.” He spoke slowly and clearly. “Hombre muerto.” He pointed past the barn, once, twice, three times. A long way that way.
Janet gaped. “A dead man?”
He nodded. “Dead.” He held a finger like a gun next to the back of his head. “Man.” He gestured toward himself, then expanded his arms, as if he were growing larger.
Bloating, Clare realized.
“Oh, my God.” Janet’s knees buckled. Clare and the man—Octavio—caught her by her arms. “Oh, my God,” Janet repeated. “Oh, my God.”
“Octavio,” Clare said, “El hombre es muerto con—” she couldn’t begin to guess the Spanish word for gun. She shifted, so she could support Janet with one hand, and made the same gesture he had, finger and thumb. “Bang-bang?”
His lips twitched, but he kept from smiling. “Sí. Bang-bang. Allí hacia fuera lo están por un rato.” He pinched his nose and waved his hand in the air, as if dispelling a foul smell.
“No—uh, ¿Muerto naturale?”
He shook his head. “Bang-bang.” He touched the back of his head again and, for a second, something moved behind his eyes. The photographic image of horror, that, Clare knew from personal experience, would never, ever leave him. She reached out and squeezed his forearm. He looked at her, surprised.
“Are you okay?” She hoped her quiet tone would convey everything she couldn’t communicate with words.
His expression eased. “Estoy bien. Gracias. I am okay.”
A nasty thought occurred to her. “Janet, are you sure every one of your missing workers showed up?”
Janet nodded. “Well, unless there was an extra man coming along they hadn’t told us about.”
“El hombre. Es anglo? Or—um—Latino? Un amigo?”
“No Anglo. Latino. No amigo. Un extranjero.”
“A stranger?” Clare said. The man—Octavio—looked at her steadily. Across the barrier of language, she suspected they were both thinking the same thing: If it isn’t one of the McGeochs’ workers, who could it be?
“Oh, my God,” Janet said again. “Somebody’s killed an illegal on our land. What am I going to do?”
Clare shook her. “First, you’re going to stand up.” Janet took a deep breath and got her legs underneath her. “Then, you’re going to call the police.”
“I can’t! What am I going to say? That my illegal employee whom I should have turned in to the ICE found a body on my property?”
Clare frowned, thinking. “It may not be important who found the body.” She turned to Octavio. “Did you touch anything? Touch,” she mimed poking, picking at, opening, “el hombre?”
He shook his head. Held up his hands. “No.”
“Okay, then.” She looked at Janet. “What was Octavio doing and where was he doing it?”
Janet took another deep breath. “He’s our foreman. He and one of the other men were stringing electrical fencing. Out at the farthest pasture. About three miles from here, right up against the mountain.”
“Is that a job you can do?”
“Of course.” Janet’s face cleared. “Of course! I was the one who found the body.”
“Okay. Take Octavio with you to show you where, and as soon as he’s done that, he can take off.” There was a small voice in the back of her head suggesting that none of this was a good idea. She ignored it.
“I can stop by the bunkhouse on the way out and tell the hands to hide.”
Clare raised her eyebrows. “They’re in the bunkhouse?”
Janet looked down at her sneakers. “That’s the drill if anyone pulls into the barnyard. Get out the back of the barn as quickly as possible and go to the bunkhouse.”
Clare shook her head. “You have got to find some way of getting these guys papers. There’s no way you can carry on like this for the entire summer.” She rubbed at the back of her neck, where sweat was gathering beneath her dog collar. “I suppose Amado is hiding out there?”
The foreman looked at her.
“Yeah,” Janet said.
“Well, tell him it’s okay to come out. We’ve got to get the church cleaned for the Eucharist and then ready for the concert tonight.”
Janet clutched Clare’s arm. “You can’t go!”
“Janet, you don’t need me. Let Octavio show you where the body is, and then as soon as he’s out of sight, call the MKPD.”
“I need you to call them for me!”
“Me? Why?”
“Because I’m a terrible liar. You’ll be able to do it so much more convincingly.”
Boy, if that didn’t win the prize for backhanded compliments. She thought of another summer, Russ, grinning at her from the driver’s seat of his pickup. You’re pretty sneaky, for a priest.
“Please, Clare. Please, please, please.”
“Oh, good Lord.” She tilted her head up toward the clear blue sky. “All right. I’ll give you ten minutes to get there, and then I’ll call. But I think it’s muddying the waters unnecessarily.”
“Thank you!” Janet hugged her, hard. “Cell phones can get tricky out here. Go ahead and use the phone in the tack room.” She whirled and, beckoning to the foreman to follow her, vanished around the barn. A moment later, Clare heard an engine fire up.
It struck her that she was going to be on the fringes of a police investigation. Again. The bishop was not going to be happy with her. Her deacon was not going to be happy with her. Russ was most defin
itely not going to be happy with her.
That thought, at least, cheered her up. She headed into the barn to find the phone.
V
“Fifteen fifty-seven, this is Dispatch.”
Russ slowed behind an eighteen-wheeler signaling to turn into the Wal-Mart. He nodded to the officer riding beside him. “Go ahead. Pick it up.”
Hadley Knox unclipped the mic and switched it on. “Fifteen fifty-seven, go ahead, Dispatch.”
“What’s your forty?”
“Uh . . . Morningside Drive, headed toward Fort Henry.”
Outside the garden shop at the Wal-Mart, they had wading pools and riding mowers. He shook his head. Memorial Day was less than a week away. It had only been a little over four months, and they had already slid through two seasons. Was this how it was going to be for the rest of his life? Him, pinned to a snow-ravaged crossroads in January while the world reeled about him?
Harlene’s voice slammed his book of remonstrance shut. “We have a report of human remains found on the property at Three-fifteen Lick Springs Road.”
Knox stared at the mic. “Human remains? You mean, like a dead body?”
Russ should have corrected her response, but he was too busy trying to envision the farms along the Lick Springs Road. He had a bad feeling he wasn’t going to like this. He gestured for the mic. “Harlene,” he said, “isn’t that my brother-in-law’s new place?”
“You got it, Chief.”
Christ on a bicycle. That spread had more trouble attached to it than the Dew Drop Inn on a Saturday night. “What do we know?”
“Possible gunshot victim. Latino. Not fresh. No identification as yet.”
“Latino?” His stomach soured. Christ. None of the men who had fled the van wreck had been spotted since that night in April. What if one of them had been hurt bad? Not fresh. Yeah, a month-plus out in the open would definitely be not fresh.
“You call the ME?”