Out Of Time (28 page)

About thirty minutes later, we heard the truck engine rev to life. Slim Jim pulled me back into the woods, and we watched as the headlights bounced up the hill toward us. “Don’t move,” he warned me.

The lights swept over our heads in an arc as the driver reached the pinnacle of the hill and slowed for the curve. I thought my heart would burst from my chest. Slim Jim’s hand tightened on my arm until the vehicle regained speed and disappeared down the hill toward the highway.

“I thought he was going to stop,” I said, gasping for breath and rubbing my elbow.

“He was searching for something,” Slim Jim decided. “He broke in through a window and was searching the house.” He sounded pleased, as if he was enjoying a new game and having a mighty fine time.

“How do you know it’s a ‘he’?” I asked crossly. I wasn’t sure I liked Slim Jim invading my turf.

“I got good night sight and he was driving a black Ford F-150 with reinforced rear wheels,” Slim Jim answered with annoying confidence. “How many women do you know who drive one of those?”

Good point. I started down the road toward the house and was tackled from behind. Slim Jim was turning out to be a wee bit overprotective.

“Get off me,” I hissed. “I almost blew my foot off. I’m carrying a .44 magnum, you idiot. Let go of me. I want to see what he wanted in the house.”

“If he found what he was looking for, it’s gone.” Slim Jim explained. “If he didn’t, you’re not going to find it, either. I can’t take the chance he might come back. Every hunter knows you don’t go charging through the brush after some varmint unless you know what that varmint is.”

I hated it, but Slim Jim was right. 

“I’d kill to brush my teeth,” I told Slim Jim early the next morning as I rinsed my mouth with leftover iced tea and spit it out on the campfire embers. It sizzled and sent a pleasing wisp of steam up into the brisk morning air. Dawn would break in a matter of minutes; the dark was nothing more than a shadow hovering in the pine trees at this point.

“Waste of time,” Slim Jim offered. He was polishing off the remains of his midnight supper. “Sure you don’t want some rabbit?”

I shook my head. I was a country bayou girl, but I’d grown up eating gator and leaving the bunnies alone so they could terrorize vacationing presidents.

“I feel great,” I announced. “You’d think my back would hurt and I’d be cold, but I feel great. I must be getting over my injuries.”

“Clean air,” Slim Jim offered. “Night out is good for the soul.”

I checked my watch. “Reporters are waiting. I gotta go make my calls.”

“And I gotta go.”

There had never been any question that Slim Jim would disappear once the reporters and cameras arrived. He kept such a low profile that I often wondered what the hell he was really up to. Sometimes he disappeared for nights on end and old Mama Jones wasn’t talking. I never asked. I’d learned to mind my own business unless I was paid not to.

We erased all evidence of our night spent guarding George Carter’s body, then headed back toward the truck. The man at the country store eyed us curiously when we entered the place. We were an odd couple indeed to be spending evenings together in the wilds. “Where’s the dogs?” he asked.

“Hell, they’re home sleeping,” I explained. “Too damn early for them.” That confused him into minding his own business. He even let me use his phone, though he did linger near the junk food rack, dusting off cellophane wrappers while he eavesdropped. Slim Jim waved good-bye through the window as I dialed. He looked relieved that his duty was done.

I called the N&O reporter I had alerted the night before. I chose her because she had written the series on Gail’s little girl and displayed more sensitivity than most when it came to covering the trial. As arranged, she was ready and standing by with a news crew from Channel 5. They had invaded the all-night Bluebird Diner outside of Pittsboro and eaten heartily while waiting for my phone call.

“I wasn’t sure you’d really call,” she said. “I’d have had a lot of pissed-off people on my hands.”

“I’m a woman of my word,” I assured her. “Just remember our deal.”

“Don’t worry,” she promised. “I will.”

I gave her directions to Pete Bunn’s farm. She promised to be there in fifteen minutes. I waited for the full fifteen just to be safe, then made my second call.

“Chatham County Sheriff’s Department,” a voice muttered into the phone.

“I’d like to report a dead body,” I said calmly.

The country-store owner was so surprised he forgot to dust the Devil Dogs.

The Chatham County sheriff was wasting his time trying to interrogate the N&O reporter and the Channel 5 news crew.

“How the hell did you get here before us?” he demanded. Not a person spoke. “Don’t give me that first-amendment crap,” the sheriff warned, but still no one answered. I didn’t blame them. I was saying as little as possible myself.

He was a tall man with huge shoulders and a big belly that overflowed above his belt. And his tan sheriff’s uniform was so starched it could have stood at attention without him. His hat was pushed back, revealing a basketball-shaped scalp, completely devoid of hair. Worst of all, he had tiny dark eyes that gleamed beneath a prominent forehead. I was glad I lived in Durham County.

He trained his small eyes on me. “What the hell were you doing here?” he asked impatiently. “Tell me again how you discovered the body.”

Overhead, the cloud cover had thickened. The threat of rain had been hovering over us all morning and the gray day mirrored my suddenly ominous mood. My plan was not going as well as expected. I’d never met the Chatham County sheriff and he had turned out to b Vdiv> rrored me a whole lot smarter than I had hoped. He looked downright scornful as I repeated my lame story about coming out to the farm early the evening before in order to question Pete Bunn in connection with a missing-persons case I was pursuing. I said I had grown suspicious when no one was home. “I decided to walk around the property,” I explained. “When I got to this junk pile, I was poking around and found a man’s shirt with what looked like blood on it, and when I moved some stuff around to investigate, I noticed the shallow grave. It was getting late and I was afraid to stay. So I came back early this morning and found the body.”

“Had to move an awful lot of junk around to find that grave,” he said in a dry voice. It sounded like the warm-up hiss of a rattlesnake.

We were interrupted by the arrival of an out-of-breath deputy. He had huffed and puffed his way up the hill from the house to deliver his news.

“The house has been broken into and searched,” he reported. “It’s trashed. Everything is upside down, dumped on the floor. No blood, though.”

The sheriff stared at me and waited.

“Don’t look at me,” I protested. “I didn’t go near the place.”

He turned his back and spoke to another one of his deputies. “Anything yet? You’re trained in that crap. What or who is it?” he demanded.

The crew of deputies had worked hard and uncovered the entire body in little more than an hour. What was left of George Carter now stared up at the treetops, oblivious to the activity swarming around him.

“Black male, about six feet five,” the deputy reported. “Gunshot wound to the chest. Probably an exit wound. I’d say he was shot in the back. He’s wearing jeans. Part of a shirt. No identification. Body’s been in the ground awhile. A couple months, at least, would be my guess. “

“This the Pete Bunn fellow you’ve been trying to question?” the sheriff asked.

I shook my head. “Pete Bunn is white.”

The sheriff looked disgusted. “Then who the hell is this?”

The news crew had begun to roll film in order to capture the unearthed body and I was careful to step out of the way. Slim Jim Jones wasn’t the only one who preferred to keep a low profile.

“Where do you think you’re going?” the sheriff demanded. He crooked a finger the size of a link sausage and beckoned me to come closer. I inched a foot toward him an [towiffd stopped.

“Any idea who this might be?” he asked in a dangerously calm voice.

I coughed modestly. “I have an idea,” I said.

“Please enlighten me,” the sheriff commanded between clenched teeth.

“There’s a Durham police officer who disappeared about two months ago who fits the description of the body. His name is George Washington Carter. He used to work with Pete Bunn. It might be him.” As I spoke, I noticed a deputy slip quietly from the clearing and head toward one of the patrol cars pulled up in the driveway. Word would be out soon.

“Why do you think he’s here?” the sheriff asked, sounding as if every syllable he spoke to me caused him great personal pain.

“I don’t really know,” I lied.

Her timing could not have been worse: as if on cue, the newscaster from Channel 5 planted herself next to the clearing and began to report in a loud camera voice that dripped with professional concern. “Sources close to the investigation have identified the body as that of a Durham police officer missing since January,” she confidently announced. “The name is being withheld until the family can be notified. In another surprise twist, some investigators are claiming that his death is related to the sensational Roy Taylor murder of eight years ago and may also be linked to the recent suicide of former Superior Court Judge Peyton Tillman. While this connection is still being confirmed, some law-enforcement officials have expressed private concern about the upcoming execution of Gail Honeycutt for Roy Taylor’s death. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, one insider told this reporter that new evidence linked to the body you see behind me could clear Gail Honeycutt and lead to new indictments in the Roy Taylor murder.”

Not bad, I thought. Now all I had to do was come up with the evidence.

The sheriff was staring at the newscaster with tightly drawn lips and a thunderous expression.

“At least someone knows what’s going on,” I ventured.

His answering glare could have curdled milk still in a cow.  

By noon, the clearing had turned into a law-enforcement circus. A squadron of state troopers had arrived to restore order and give the locals a helping hand. The State Bureau of Investigation had also joined the crew once word got out that the victim was probably law-enforcement. The SBI officers were conspicuous by their sex (male), their attire (three-piece suits) and their technology (earpieces, cords, walkie-talkies, beepers). T [, b0”>

The Channel 5 crew had departed so that their scoop could lead off the afternoon news, but other television stations had arrived. It had been a slow news month so far, highlighted by a wild dog terrifying rabies-fearing mothers in Cary and a loose tiger cub thought to be roaming Durham. The intrepid dog remained at large, eluding all attempts at capture and achieving the status of a canine Che Guevara. Meanwhile, the tiger cub had turned out to be an obese tabby cat. Every reporter in the Triangle was dying for a real news story and they were there to get one. Unfortunately, no one knew what was going on beyond the information I had fed to my selected reporters. The others were desperate for details, but none of the officers was talking. There was nothing to do but eavesdrop on the argument raging in one corner of the clearing.

The sheriff stood at the center of a tightly knit huddle of law-enforcement officers. Behind them, the combined forensic team snapped photographs and bagged evidence. The officers were arguing jurisdiction, I was pretty sure, and I had my money on the sheriff to win. He looked like he could whip the fur off a grizzly and would, if he ever got a chance. He was definitely king of the hill.

Until a new contingent arrived, that is. Like a gang of gentlemen thieves in a bad Western, a line of four men dressed in suits appeared at the head of the trail through the woods, their figures silhouetted by a rare burst of sunshine. They advanced in unison, badge wallets flipped open to display shiny metal. The city of Durham was weighing in with a high-level team of investigators—they hadn’t sent the junior varsity. Another line of suited detectives stood behind the first, and I spotted Steven Hill in the center of it all. His eyes locked on mine from across the clearing. I was the first to blink.

He wasn’t quite human, I thought, not with emerald-green eyes like that. If I’d had a wooden stake with me, I’d have held it at the ready, because I could smell that he was after blood. Specifically, mine. His look told me that.

My only chance for escape was that Chatham County would win the jurisdiction argument. But that hope evaporated when I saw two grim-looking men dressed in black suits and sporting short haircuts bring up the rear of the Durham squad. Immediately, most of the SBI agents scurried over to them and began to argue in low tones. Local FBI field agents.

Okay, I thought. Keep calm. Keep very calm. So Steven Hill had the FBI backing him. They were unlikely to shoot me on the spot.

The sheriff wasn’t waiting around to lose the pissing contest. As soon as he saw the new arrivals, he stepped away from the crowd and began to wave at someone at the far side of the clearing. Everyone was so busy arguing that few people noticed at first when a small earthmover appeared with a Chatham County deputy at the wheel. The driver began to carefully scoop up the remains of the junk pile in the vehicle’s jagged-edged front loader. I hid a smile. If the sheriff wasn’t going to be allowed to play his way, he was [s w co going home—and he was taking the whole sandbox with him.