Little Girl Gone (An Afton Tangler Thriller #1)(95)

“Same as the baby from Cannon Falls.”

“What the hell?” Afton was mystified. “When I asked if there might be a connection, I was pretty much grasping at straws. But this . . . this almost confirms it.”

“Not exactly,” Max said. “We still don’t know what this oxalic acid shit is used for. It could be a component in some common household product.”

“Okay. Let me Google it.”

Afton hunted around for a few minutes. “Well, crap. It says here there are all sorts of industrial uses.”

“There you go.”

“One of them is for pickling.”

“Pickling what?” Max asked. “Pickling pickles?”

“I don’t know,” Afton said. “I’m still reading this shit.” She mumbled to herself as she skimmed along. “Okay, here’s something else. It also says that oxalic acid is used in taxidermy.”

“Taxidermy?” Max said.

“For pickling and tanning hides. To stop bacterial growth and degrade the soluble proteins.”

Max frowned. “No shit.”

But Afton’s brain had begun to spin. “Think about this,” she said, starting to get excited. “If you look at this as a kind of hobby activity, taxidermy might not be all that different from creating reborn dolls. You’re working with stuffing material, glass eyes, and animal hairs and fibers.”

“Holy crap,” Max said. “We gotta take this to Thacker.”


*

THACKER was impressed. So was Don Jasper.

“We need to start looking at taxidermists,” Jasper said, jumping on the information.

“We can make some calls,” Max said. “Maybe go out and start canvassing, talking to area taxidermists.”

“No, no, you two stick around,” Thacker said. “Let the FBI take care of all that. They’re the computer geniuses. They can run down a list of area taxidermists, start asking questions, and alert the various law enforcement agencies around the state. Maybe bring in the DNR people, too, since it could involve animal parts.”

“This is good work,” Jasper said. “This is actionable information.”


*

BUT there wasn’t nearly enough action for Afton and Max.

“The thing is,” Afton said, “if this is somehow connected to taxidermy, it could be a taxidermist over in Wisconsin.”

“So we alert Wisconsin taxidermists as well as state law enforcement officials,” Max said.

Afton had continued her search on the Internet. “I found something else that’s interesting.”

“What’s that?” Max asked.

“There’s a company over in Menominee, Wisconsin. Burdick’s Taxidermy and Supply. Besides doing actual taxidermy, they claim to be the Midwest’s largest distributor of taxidermy supplies.”

Menominee’s just thirty minutes from Hudson,” Max said.

“That’s what I’m thinking, too. Hudson’s become a sort of . . . what would you call it? A chokepoint for us.”

“Problem. There are three inches of fresh snow on the roads and the National Weather Service is predicting seven more.”

“So?” Afton said. “We’ll take the Navigator.”





41


THE accumulation of snow on the Interstate had made driving so treacherous that Afton and Max barely made it to Burdick’s Taxidermy in Menominee.

“I was going to close early,” Burt Burdick told them when, after a nerve-racking ninety-minute drive, they finally showed up at his door. “But then I got your call. Not many folks crazy enough to venture out on a day like this. Especially when you’re coming all the way from The Cities.”

Burdick was short, stocky, and wore a khaki shirt and matching stiff pants tucked into hunter green rubber boots. Afton thought he looked like a DNR guy who’d been defrocked of all his wildlife badges.

“We appreciate you staying open for us,” Max said. “I hope you’ve got a vehicle with four-wheel drive. Conditions are seriously lousy out there.”

“Drive a Jeep Grand Cherokee myself,” Burdick said. “Should be okay if this conversation doesn’t take too long.” He stared at them through thick glasses that magnified his inquisitive brown eyes. “What is it you detectives are so hot to talk to me about anyway?”

Without getting into specific details, Max told Burdick about the crystals of oxalic acid that had turned up on two separate bodies. He didn’t mention anything about a dead baby or about Muriel Pink’s murder.

“We did some research,” Afton said, “and discovered that oxalic acid is one of the main components in pickling and tanning agents.”

“It is,” Burdick said. “And I’ve got a funny feeling about the direction this conversation is headed. Two homicide detectives show up on my doorstep?” He shook his head. “I hate like hell to think one of my customers might be some kind of damn killer.”

“Well, we already know they kill animals,” Afton said.

Burdick shot her a wary, disapproving look. A look that said, You’re clearly one of those radical, delusional people who are dead set against hunting.

Afton just fixed him with a cool smile. “Why don’t you just give us a little background information about your store and its products.” She nodded toward the interior, where glass counters glistened with bottles of degreaser, skull bleach, and tanners, and shelves held glass eyes, fleshing knives, scalpels, and modeling tools.