Preston thought capitalism was great if people who looked like you were the ones sitting in the Capitol. For everyone else, well, sometimes it was like trying to climb a greased pole in mittens.
Preston started his combine. The 268-horsepower engine roared to life. He pressed the accelerator and drove it out of the three-wall shed where he stored it. The sun was slowly peering over the edge of the horizon. Despite the long days, the aches and pains, the uncertainty, a morning like this reminded him why he kept making his living in the dirt. Running a farm was a distinct act of will. He pulled his livelihood out of the soil through sheer determination. Yet that act connected him to the earth, to his father and his father’s father. This farm was his legacy. Hopefully it would be his two sons’ legacy as well.
Preston drove to the far end of the cornfield and started the harvest. He hummed to himself as the combine stripped the corncobs from the stalks and dropped the stalks back to the ground to help contribute to the next planting season. His humming became an old R&B song he had sung to his wife at their wedding reception. “Always” by Atlantic Starr.
Preston made it to the end of his field. His farm was small when compared with farms in the Midwest, but he worked the land with a practiced eye and a determination to maximize his production. He turned and headed back the other way. Preston was about to hit the high note that had made his wife tear up when he saw a strange object in the middle of his cornfield.
He pulled the hand brake.
Preston climbed down out of the combine.
“Jesus Christ,” Preston said when he got close enough to see what was in the middle of his field.
* * *
Titus stood in front of his bulletin board staring at the sheets of paper pinned to it with thumbtacks. Carla had given him the bad news when he had arrived at the office.
“I went back to Dayane’s place. Her car was gone and her roommate said she packed a bag and didn’t say where she was going or when she’d be back. I parked across the street for a couple of hours to see if she came back, but she never did,” Carla had said. Titus didn’t reprimand her. They had made a mistake and now they had to adjust.
He had added a sheet of paper with Dayane’s name on it to the board.
Steve sent word that Elias still hadn’t come home.
“Ask his wife about the boy they raised. Ask her about Elias’s brother and see if she has any pictures of the boy, if she knows where he is. It seems like he was the product of an illegal adoption and he was homeschooled. So we don’t know what he looked like then or what he might look like now,” Titus had said.
“You think that boy grew up to be the Last Wolf?” Steve had asked.
“It fits. There are some holes, but it fits. Ask about those pictures,” Titus had said.
Trey knocked on the door of his office.
“Come on in,” Titus said.
“I checked out Cole’s records, if that’s what you want to call them. He did most of his side work in cash. And the work he didn’t do for cash was for old folks. Like clearing a field or bushhogging. I asked his girlfriend did he ever talk about building a man cave or a big shed for someone, but she said he didn’t talk to her about work. I think we struck out,” Trey said.
“Well, it was worth a shot,” Titus said.
Titus turned to look at the board again. “Let’s go over what we think we know. The killer is a friend of Cole Marshall’s. He’s a friend of Dayane Carter’s. He’s a local. He might possibly be a boy who was abused out at Holy Rock who killed his play uncle. He got to know Spearman well enough that they shared their dirty little secrets. He was able to get these kids, some of them fairly street smart, to get in a vehicle with him. That was where Latrell came in. Cole and Latrell and Dayane all worked at the fish house.”
“Maybe we should go back to his girlfriend and ask her who he was tight with. She should know who his drinking buddies are,” Trey said.
“Yeah. Do it. You know, I saw Cole having dinner with his girlfriend and a boy named Dallas Processer and his wife. Ask her how close Cole and Dallas were,” Titus said.
“Dallas? I don’t know,” Trey said. “He was behind me in school. All he ever wanted to do was drive his daddy’s dump truck. He was just as quiet as a mouse. I can’t see him doing this.”
“The mask, Trey. We all wear a mask. Ask how close they were.”
“Okay. Can we talk about the shoot?” Trey asked.
Titus turned around and faced him.
“Go ahead.”
Trey cleared his throat.
“Well, I looked at the reports, and I looked at a bunch of the videos that are online. I talked to some of the kids and saw their videos. Titus, I’ve looked at this thing six ways to Sunday, and I can’t say this was a bad shoot even with what we know about Tom. He came at y’all with a gun in his hand. I’m not a fan of Roger’s, and Tom is suspect as hell, but I think they are in the clear. I’ll send you a copy of my report,” Trey said.
“You’re sure? I don’t want you just saying that because it’s our department,” Titus said.
“You taught us better than that,” Trey said.
Titus nodded. He would always have his own doubts, but the truth was the badge would protect them. Latrell had been carrying a gun. He’d killed someone. He’d participated in the killing of children. The Jamal Addisons of the world might lament his death, but for most he was just a problem that had been solved. That was the narrative that would take hold. The details be damned.
Whoever controlled the narrative controlled the truth.
That was another lesson he had learned from Red DeCrain.
The desk phone rang. He didn’t wait for Kathy to tell him what line it was. He just grabbed it and answered.
“Sheriff Crown.”
“Sheriff, Dr. Kim.”
Titus switched the handset to his left ear.
“Yes, Doctor.”
“We were able to identify four more of the victims through dental records and DNA. The seventh victim is still unknown. Would you like their information to make the notifications?” Dr. Kim said.
“Email me that. Doctor, where were the rest of the victims missing from?” Titus asked.
“Let’s see here, well, of course you know about Baltimore, then we have Columbia, South Carolina; Hillsborough, North Carolina; Wilmington, Delaware; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.” Dr. Kim rattled these locations off with detached efficiency.
“Do you have the approximate dates they were reported missing?” Titus asked. He pulled out his notepad.
“Yes. The Columbia victim was reported as missing June twenty-first, 2013; Hillsborough victim was July thirtieth, 2014; Wilmington August first, 2015; and Philadelphia was June tenth last year. The Baltimore victim was in 2010. Now, the unidentified victim is the most recent. We are going to try and do a facial reconstruction.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” Titus said.
“Sheriff, there’s something else,” Dr. Kim said.
Davy burst into Titus’s office. He didn’t bother knocking on the door. He stood in the center of the floor breathing like a pony.
“Titus, you gotta come. They found another body, in Preston Jefferies’s cornfield. You gotta come, it’s bad, it’s fucking bad!” Davy said. The words came out in rapid succession like a string of firecrackers.
“Doctor, I have to go. Send me the rest of the info in an email,” Titus said.
“Sheriff, I really think—”
“I’m sorry, Doctor, I have to go. We got another body,” Titus said. He hung up the phone and jumped from his chair. He grabbed his hat and followed Davy out the door.
* * *
He’s playing with us now, Titus thought. The wind blew through the cornstalks, making them chatter like teeth. There was a strange scent in the air that was an amalgamation of the stench of the wet earth, the acrid chemicals Preston used to fertilize his crop, and the body itself.
“Who put the sheet on him?” Titus asked.
“Preston. He called 911, then said he didn’t want to leave the body alone but he couldn’t stand looking at it either,” Pip said.
Blood had soaked through the white sheet, creating abstract expressionist drawings. Titus looked down at the soil. It was a mess of footprints from Preston and Pip and Steve and whoever else came up here to gaze at the body. Most likely the killer’s footprints had been trampled under their slow stampede. The road was about four rows over. Titus could hear cars zipping by, but he also heard the sound of gravel being crushed under the wheels of vehicles that had pulled over to get a better view of the proceedings.
Titus pulled on his latex gloves and pulled off the sheet.
“Goddamn,” he whispered.
Elias Hillington had suffered.
His body was naked as the day he was born. A wooden stake, about as big around as a baton, had one end shoved in the dirt. The other end was shoved in Elias’s anus. It was what was keeping the body upright. Flies buzzed around the body, playing electric blues on their translucent wings. The past few days had been unusually warm. While Cole Marshall had been spared the indignity of flies crawling across what was left of his face, Reverend Elias received no such consideration.