“Get down,” he repeated. “You, too, Doc. Get down and stay down.” Angie dropped to a crouch, and I followed suit. “I think something bad has happened here.” He stepped slightly to the side of the door. With his left hand, he took a handkerchief from his hip pocket and draped it carefully over the doorknob, then gave a slight turn and pushed the door open with the barrel of the pistol. “Mr. Pettis?” By now, huddled at the far end of the porch with Angie, I felt fairly certain Pettis wasn’t going to answer.
Vickery leaned forward just long enough for a quick look through the open door, then leaned swiftly back again. After a moment he risked a second look, this one not so brief, and then eased through the door, leading with the weapon. “Christ,” he said again, loudly. “Damn it. Fuckin’ hell.”
“Stu?”
“Pettis is dead. God dammit. The dog, too.”
“Oh, shit,” said Angie. “Can you tell what happened?”
“Hang on. Let me clear the place.” Inside, I could hear the agent’s breathing, deep and fast, with occasional shufflings of his feet as he moved through the small dwelling, which had only one main room—a combination living room, bedroom, and galley kitchen—and a tiny bathroom, as I remembered it. Finally he reappeared in the doorway, drenched in sweat, his chest still heaving. He holstered his gun, mopped his head with the handkerchief he’d used to open the door, and shook his head grimly. “Shot. Must’ve been right after he called the sheriff’s office. Blood’s coagulated, starting to dry. Bunch of flies have already found their way in.”
“Shot? Both of them?” Angie got to her feet. “Who on earth would shoot those two? And why?”
“Don’t know who,” said Vickery. “Got an idea why, though.”
“Why?”
“The collar’s gone.”
My head began to buzz, and I sat down on the porch. “The GPS collar? You think he and the dog were killed because of the tracking collar?”
“That’s my theory, until something better comes along,” he answered. “I’d say we can rule out a drive-by shooting, since we’re out in the middle of damn nowhere.”
“Probably robbery, too,” added Angie, “if all that’s missing is the collar. That collar wasn’t cheap, but it’s sure not worth shooting somebody over.”
“Not,” Vickery added, “unless you’re afraid of where the track might lead.”
Dead, the simple man and the friendly dog. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. I’d worked on a lot of forensic cases over the past couple of decades. I was good at them, and I liked my role. I came in long after the crime, helped recover bones, sometimes identified a murder victim or figured out the manner of death or the time since death. Then, sitting in my quiet sanctuary beneath Neyland Stadium, I wrote my report. My hands—safe inside my latex gloves and my sheltered office—stayed nice and clean. Always. Always before, anyhow.
Now Winston Pettis and his dog were dead, and they’d apparently been killed because of the GPS tracking collar. The collar I’d suggested putting on the dog.
Sitting at the far end of the screened-in porch, I bent my head into the corner and threw up.
Angie shepherded me outside to keep me from compromising the crime scene any further than I already had. Before leading me across the sandy yard to the Suburban, she stooped and checked the ground closely, looking for footprints that were not ours; looking for footprints we hadn’t unknowingly obliterated on our way in. This world is one big crime scene. As we made our way slowly across the scrubby grass and weeds, she shook her head in frustration. Then, as we reached the vehicle, she brightened. She pointed to a faint track in a bare patch of dirt behind the Suburban. “Looks like we might have a tire impression,” she said. She crouched beside it. “Not the clearest one I ever saw, but maybe better than nothing.”