“If it’s that close, I’ll just take the camera, for now,” I said. “Once we’ve had a look, I’ll know what we need.”
He nodded and headed up the track, bending and snapping branches as he squeezed past his truck and the sheriff’s SUV—a much smaller Jeep that was parked twenty feet farther up the hill, in the last gasp of what had once been the road, eight decades before. As I reached the front bumper of the sheriff’s Jeep, where the route narrowed to a single-track footpath, I noticed a set of crumbling, moss-covered stone steps notched into a low embankment to my left, and—on a level shelf of forest floor a stone’s throw beyond—a rotting wooden building and a small cluster of gravestones. “So that must’ve been the church,” I said, pointing at the collapsing walls.
“It was,” Waylon confirmed. “And yonder’s the schoolhouse.” He pointed to the right, where I saw another crumbling structure, similar to the church in size, shape, and ruination, but lacking the tombstones, and standing—or, rather, leaning—rather closer to the path. “A few houses here and there, too,” he added, waving a hand in a vague arc, “but they’s kindly off the beaten track.”
“Wait,” said Miranda. “You’re saying we’re on the beaten track?”
“Yes, ma’am. Relatively speaking, that is.” He stopped and cupped his hands around his mouth and called ahead, in a booming voice, “Sheriff? We’re here. Hold your fire.”
“I will,” answered a quiet, amused voice, so close to us that I jumped. Jim O’Conner stepped out from the ruins of the schoolhouse. “I was just doing a little amateur archaeology here, while I waited. Dr. Brockton, Miranda, good to see you again. Thanks for coming.”
He strode toward us, his hand extending while he was still ten feet away. He was at least a foot shorter and a hundred pounds lighter than his deputy, but there was no doubt who was in command here. I’d seen other men his size carry themselves like bantam roosters: all puffed up, preening and strutting. O’Conner carried himself easily, with quickness, grace, and wiry strength—more like a bobcat than a rooster, I decided. Ever the gentleman, he shook Miranda’s hand first, then mine, with a grip that seemed somehow to be simultaneously easy and yet powerful.
“I’m always happy to help,” I told O’Conner.
“He’s not kidding,” Miranda added. “When he’s in a foul mood, I’m sometimes tempted to murder somebody, just so he’ll get a case and lighten up.”
O’Conner grimaced and shook his head—not to dispute what she’d said, but to express dismay, as best I could tell, about the case we’d be helping with. “Y’all might not feel the same when you see what we’ve got here,” he said.
I held up a hand to interrupt him. “Don’t tell us anything,” I reminded him.
“I know, I know,” he said. “You want to draw your own conclusions. It’s a good idea; I just don’t see how your conclusions can be anything but terrible when you see this.” With that, he turned and led us forward, higher up the hill. The farther we went, the darker and more sinister the woods seemed to grow, though I told myself that the effect was created purely by my imagination, in response to the sheriff’s ominous words.
Suddenly a man stepped from behind a tree, so unexpectedly I spooked like a horse spotting a snake in its path. He held up a hand, and I recognized Steve Morgan, a former student of mine from years back, now a special agent with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Steve and his wife, Christie, had met in my osteology class, so I was always glad to see him, feeling entitled to take credit for both his professional success and his personal happiness. “Steve,” I said, holding out my hand. “Good to see you. Glad to see the TBI is sending in the A-team on this one. But who’d you piss off at headquarters to get sent back to Cooke County? I thought Meffert was assigned up here.”
Morgan’s face fell. “I’m just temporary. Maybe. Bubba’s on medical right now.”
“Something serious?”
He nodded gravely. “Looks like pancreatic cancer. Not good.”
“I hate to hear that.” I meant it, not just because Meffert was a good agent and an old friend, but also, especially, because I had a deep and abiding hatred of cancer in all its insidious forms, ever since it had snatched my wife, Kathleen, from me years before. “Where is he? And is he up to visitors?”
“Not right now. He’s out at MD Anderson. I’ll let you know once he’s back.”
“I’d appreciate that. How about you? You glad to be back in Cooke County for a while?”
“Doc, that question is more loaded than my service weapon. Take this case here, for instance.”
“Not a word,” I told him, and he grinned. I turned to O’Conner. “Why didn’t you tell me this guy was waiting in ambush up here, ready to give me a heart attack?”