Cold Quiet Country Read Online Free PDF Page B

There’s something working underneath the surface. He isn’t here because he wants to own the crime scene. No, this goes back to the Militia, the Lodge.
    “You think you ought to look which way your killer went?” I say.
    “I bet you’re going to tell me.”
    “Took Haudesert’s little girl with him.” I face the barn door. “They’re out there, in that.”
    “On foot?”
    “There’s tracks, for now.” I pull a hanky from my pocket and wipe my nose. “I don’t give a shit for the politics, you taking my job. We got a girl to find. So run the show if that’s what you want. Tell me what to do, boss. We got to get a move on.”
    “Did the wife see the killer get away?”
    “No. He’s headed at the lake. You want to work the scene, or catch a murderer?”
    “What are you thinking?”
    “He’s got a girl slowing him down. He’s going to hole up somewhere, and there’s only one place within a couple miles of here, that-a-way.”
    “That farm. Coates’s place.”
    “That’s right. Empty the last month, and more guns inside than butter.”
    Odum stands. “What do we know about the killer?”
    “Not a damn thing. But a man named Gale G’Wain took a young girl out across the field—”
    “How young?”
    “Too goddamn young. I’m going to keep Sager here. You head to Coates’s and radio when you get there. Tell me what you see.”
    Odum stands at the Bronco, puts his hands on the hood while gazing into a gust that makes a million snowflakes into angry white hornets. Wind howls at the barn roof and a purple cloud blows past the sun. The land sparkles with whiteness and on the timber by the door, the blood drops glow like rubies.
    Odum squints across the field and says, “Coates’s place?”
    “Been dead a month, and the whole county knows it. Gale G’Wain knows it.”
    He studies me.
    “I’ll check it out,” Odum says. Looks away. “Tomorrow this is my scene. I want prints off the fork handle. Photos before the body is moved. You got to write down the widow’s statement. You got to mind the rules, Bittersmith.”
    “That’s Sheriff Bittersmith.”
    Odum looks again at Burt Haudesert; his eyes follow the length of the pitchfork handle. “How do we know it wasn’t the wife that did him? She’s plenty stout.”
    I point at a boot print in blood. “Yeah. Then she ran inside and took off her size elevens.”
    “All that proves is your boy was here when the blood was here.”
    “Goddamn it! We’ve got a girl out in that. Are you going, or am I?”
    Odum shakes his head, heads back to his vehicle.
    “And don’t take Travis. I’m keeping him in reserve. Might need him out here.”
    I wipe my nose again. With the wind, the temperature has fallen. Air that was comfortable a moment ago has become brittle. Them kids out there got to wonder what’ll become of them. With the right clothes, a man and woman can tramp around all day, and, if they’re smart, build a shelter and a fire to keep alive at night. But I don’t know if Gale G’Wain learned those skills. I don’t know who the hell Gale G’Wain is. The name sounds foreign—like a medieval hero. Only thing I do know: today is my last with this badge.
    “Look at this,” Sager says. He’s drifted to the loft ladder on the east side and stands above a girl’s coat on the floor. Discarded, in a pile.
    “Guinevere,” I say. I nudge Sager aside and try the ladder’s sturdiness. The rungs are smooth from a hundred years’ boots, polished by a hundred years’ oily hands. Slippy in the cold. One at a time, I climb. Eyes level with the loft, I go one rung higher, spot another coat spread out like a blanket on a nest of loose hay, with an imprint in the middle such as twain bodies would make. Isn’t hard to imagine a boy and a girl nestled, groping…
    When it came time for a sudden escape, the coat that covered them landed on the barn floor.
    Frost lines the gaps in the wall timbers, and a gust blows a fountain of snow through. A