Behold the Child (10 page)

"Hello?"

No one answered, but something moved.

Alarmed, Kenzie flattened against the outside paneling and slid down the front wall of the trailer. He stopped at the door, knocked and then moved a few feet away before someone within could open fire.

"Police, open up."

"Okay, okay. Don't shoot me."

The door creaked. Kenzie barked: "Let me see your empty hands, both your hands, come out of that door. Do it now!"

The hands that emerged were trembling and festooned with tufts of white hair. Kenzie relaxed a bit. "You're doing fine, sir. Now come down the steps, please. Keep your hands where I can see them."

"I just needed a place to crash. I'm sorry." It was a hoarse voice that made Kenzie momentarily uneasy. But could
this
have been the caller? But the man that emerged from the trailer was easily seventy years old. He wore several layers of filthy clothing. His face was spider-webbed with blue and red veins and he had the wild, red-veined eyes of a hardcore wino. He was trembling. "I'll leave now."

"Move out into the snow for a minute." The man obeyed. Kenzie backed away and peered into the trailer. It was empty, except for a small motor scooter, a battered suitcase, a sack of fruit and some bottles of booze. No telephone or connection.

"You been here long, old timer?"

"Maybe two days, sir."

Kenzie holstered his weapon. "You see any sign of some bikers?"

The old man shook his head. He was shaking with fear. Kenzie softened. "Go back inside, then. But this is private property. I'm going to come back here in a couple of days, and I'd better find you gone by then. You hear me?"

"I do, sir. Thank you, sir."

Kenzie returned to the cruiser. He didn't like dead ends. He was already on edge from before, and now his adrenaline was sky high . . . so what the hell. He was really feeling pissed off, so why not run one more errand before lunch?

The chicken ranch two miles south of Twin Forks seemed as deserted as the trailer park. The old blue pickup was now up on blocks; parts were scattered in the snow, as if someone had half-heartedly started to work on it before losing interest. Kenzie stepped out of the cruiser, leaned over the wheel and honked the horn.

"The fuck?"

He honked again. Pat Black emerged from the trailer a few moments later, stamping himself into his snow boots. He seemed larger than ever. He wore a bulky gray sweatshirt and overalls. His bald pate was pink with rage.

"What's the boy done now?" Black demanded. Black's voice had the rasp of a smoker. It had to have been him making those calls. Kenzie saw Timmy peer out through the bathroom window then shut the blinds.

"Your boy hasn't done a thing," Kenzie said, cheerfully. He made certain his answer was loud enough to comfort Timmy. "Actually, I'm here to talk to you, Mr. Black."

Black cocked his head, baffled. "Yeah? Well then I want a lawyer."

Kenzie stepped closer. "As of right now, you don't really need one," he said. His lowered voice was trembling with rage. "You don't need a doctor yet, either. But you go on making telephone calls and I guarantee you'll need both."

Black laughed. His breath smelled terrible. "Big man," he sneered. "Got his badge and his gun and they make him a big man."

Kenzie knew he was being foolishly macho, but he couldn't help himself. He opened the door to the cruiser and threw his gun on the seat. He took the badge off his heavy coat and dropped it next to the Glock.

"There you go," he said brightly. "Now we're even."

Black's smile slipped a bit. "What?"

"Go ahead, bad ass. Take your best shot."

Black tensed up and then dropped his shoulders again. "Yeah, sure. And you'll just say I attacked a police officer. No way."

The back door of the house opened and slammed shut. From the corner of his eye, Kenzie saw a fully clothed Timmy, afraid of what was to come, heading for the tree line. The teenager was running swiftly, away from the certain wrath of his abusive father. For some reason the boy's long, lithe stride reminded Kenzie of his sister, Jenny. He figured the kid knew how to take care of himself in the snow.

"Get lost, cop. I ain't going for it."

Kenzie felt the heat in his chest and the world got hazy. He stomped across the icy ground, nearly losing his balance. He got in close to Black, peered up at him. His voice was clenched like a fist. "Stop making those calls, asshole, or I'll make you wish you'd run down your mommy's leg instead of being born."

"Blow it out your ass."

Kenzie was caught by surprise when Black hit him with a hard right cross. His mind went blank. He flew back and slid on his ass across the frozen ground. When he came to his senses again, Black was drawing back one booted foot to kick at his face.

Kenzie grabbed the leg, twisted hard and brought the bigger man down. He crawled up Black's pants, all thought of being a professional behind him now, and began to punch. Black grabbed at his eyes. Kenzie curled his right hand into knuckles and slammed it into Black's exposed throat.

Black turned purple and began to writhe. Kenzie, feeling a little embarrassed now, sat up in the snow. "It feels like you can't breath," he said. "But you'll live." He pulled at the back of his belt, rolled Black over and cuffed him. He got low, yanked on the cuffs and used leverage to force his prisoner into the cruiser. "And you called it, partner. You're under arrest for assaulting a police officer."

Most of the afternoon went to paperwork. Kenzie found a small, red mouse near his right eye and iced it. He called Laura and lied to her. He told her the day had been boring as hell, but that he had to work late pushing papers. Meanwhile, Black lay flat on his cot in the drab, grey cell; motionless and sullen, as if furious with himself for having fallen into such an obvious trap. He refused to talk to Kenzie and demanded to see a lawyer. Meanwhile, Kenzie was already annoyed with himself. He decided to release Black in the morning without filing charges. He'd made his point. The calls would stop.

Towards nightfall, Doc came over to resume their chess game. He produced some ointment for the shiner, but asked no questions.

The telephone rang again. Kenzie felt a wave of bumps wash over him, like the return of some childish superstition. He almost allowed Doc to answer the phone, but forced himself at the last moment. The sounds were there, just as he'd somehow known they would be; the kids, the rattling and the hissing of air.

But this time there were words, and they chilled his blood.

They smelled the boy long before they found him.

The night was bitter cold, the ground crackled with frost. A full worm moon burned white in the evening sky and their breathing spewed tiny, twisting dragons of fog. Kenzie left the police cruiser's lights on bright and walked over to the icy stream, one hand clenching the handle of his Glock. He paused at the edge of the woods to locate and turn on his heavy flashlight. He sprayed the beam from left to right, his nostrils twitching.

"Man, something stinks. I could barely understand the guy, but I think he said he'd left Timmy somewhere around here."

Heavy footsteps crunching along behind him; Doc grunting from exertion. Kenzie kept his eyes focused forward, following the narrow beam of light, and searched the woods.

"Too bad he didn't tell you who he was while he was at it."

"Hang on a bit," Kenzie said. "Could be he did."

They worked their way along the path, concentrating carefully. The flashlight caressed some brittle sage, paused for a second and moved on. Kenzie blinked. His breath caught in his throat. He moved the light back to find what he'd nearly missed.

"There, Doc. Look."

A child's black tennis shoe was jammed into a clump of brush like a ridged exclamation point.

"Wait here," Kenzie said.

Doc sighed and hugged himself against the cold. He seemed to briefly consider standing alone in the darkness. Then he said: "Fuck that. I'm coming with you."

Kenzie lost his footing on the bank, slipped onto his ass and slid down until his boots sank into the freezing water. He barely noticed. He was far more concerned about the amount of noise made by his handcuffs, mace and keys as they went jangling through the mud and sharp stones. The crazy bastard might still be nearby, watching them with amusement. He heard Doc stepping carefully, and the sucking sounds his large boots made in the muck. They approached the body.

The stench was like a force field, and it drove them back. Doc shook his head and gagged. "Sweet Jesus, is that from a human?"

Although Kenzie had been to his share of crime scenes as a homicide detective, he thought he'd left such things far behind. He reached into his coat pocket and grabbed some menthol chest rub. He dabbed a bit under his nostrils; offered some to Doc. The veterinarian took it gratefully and followed Kenzie's example. The menthol almost overpowered the stench of entrails and rot.

Kenzie examined the ground around the body carefully. He took some plastic bags out of his pocket and picked up a few things with tweezers; a nail, some threads and a dried-out wad of chewing gum.

Doc was obviously terrified. "Shouldn't you wait and let the State Police do that, Sheriff?"

Kenzie shook his head absently. "The number of predators we got around here, this place will be covered in coyote and badger prints come morning, and Timmy would be half eaten. Can't risk that. I'll pick up what I can. See, you never know. If this chewing gum belongs to our perp, he just left us some DNA to work with." But in his heart of hearts, Kenzie knew it belonged to the Black boy. Whoever had brought him here had struck him hard across the face, and the gum had gone flying. He took some photographs. The flash made the scene appear washed out, even more ghoulish.

Kenzie ran the beam up the body and flinched. A long plume of frigid air blew past his shoulder as Doc, leaning in close, gasped in horror. Kenzie sighed and took more pictures.

"Who could
do
such a thing? Gut him like that?"

Kenzie put the camera down and swallowed. The carnage to the boy's belly was hideous to behold, but he'd seen worse with LAPD. He kept reminding himself of that fact, almost as a litany:
I've seen worse, I've seen worse, I've seen worse.
Another flash photo: Timmy's eyes were rolled back in his head and several blood vessels had burst, spider-webbing the whites. As for the evisceration, it was ghastly, but hadn't killed him right away. No, Timmy had been strangled while he lay suffering.

"Do you think it was his stepfather, Sam? Is that why you busted him?"

"Good guess, but not likely, Doc. When I took the son of a bitch into custody this afternoon, Timmy was still alive."

"It could be Black got someone else to do it, then."

"Do
this?
I doubt it."

"What the hell happened here, Sam?"

"I think the boy fought back," Kenzie said. He wanted a cigarette. Badly. Even though it had now been a long time since he had smoked. He covered the boy's hands with plastic bags. "Look at his fingernails, Doc. He scratched and kicked, maybe thumbed the perp in the eye. Something that really hurt. I'd say the bastard lost his temper and sliced the kid open, then had no more use for him." He walked around a bit more, stepping carefully. "Looks like he used some brush to fuck up any trace of footprints."

"Look," Doc said. "Look over there."

Kenzie ran the beam along the ground. "Where?"

"Up there, Sheriff. To your right."

One lone print: A large one, the boot heel and a partial. It lay half-under a flat piece of rock part way up the bank. They'd gotten lucky. Kenzie stepped wide around the crime scene and eased close to the print. He took a photograph, measured the print carefully and noted the size and depth of the indentation. He piled some rocks up around it, hoping to preserve it for the forensics team that would come up from Elko in the morning. He paused.

"Doc. Come here."

There was something near the heel of that print, something grayish and dried up. Kenzie used the end of his knife to scrape some of the matter out into a plastic bag. He sniffed carefully. It smelled foul, even with the stench of the body and the open intestines lying nearby. He felt Doc behind him and held up the bag.

"What the hell is that?"

Doc whistled. "From pigs. That's pig shit."

After a few seconds of silence, Kenzie turned his head. "What, Doc? What are you thinking?"

Doc took a step back, his bulky body large in the moonlight. "I'm thinking that there is only one farm around these parts that has a lot of pigs."

Kenzie felt his heart kick. "Let's not get too excited yet," he said. "Maybe the perp just crossed that man's land to get here. Where is it?"

Doc shook his head and pointed south. "We're gonna drive, we got to go all the way down to Star Valley and go over the bridge. But a man could walk it in fifteen minutes going right across that field."

Kenzie jumped to his feet, excited. "Damn. You mean that old German guy Klaus, the one who hired me?
He
keeps pigs at his place?"

Doc nodded. "He surely does."

"I've always had a funny feeling about him." Kenzie grabbed his cell phone and tapped out a number. After a few rings, a sleepy Laura answered. "Laura? It's me. Honey, look. I want you to call the State Police right away. Now get a pen and take this down." He told her about the anonymous call, where the body was, and what he had already done at the crime scene.

"Sam, Jack Talbot called from Los Angeles. He said you were right about the phone calls, whatever that means."

"Thanks."

"Sam, this is terrible. Horrible."

"Yes, it is."

"What are you . . . "

"Now sweetie, don't worry about me. But tell them I have gone to interview a suspect by the name of Klaus Wachner."