Shadows Reel (Joe Pickett #22)(4)

“Maybe it’s an accident of some kind,” Tibbs said. “Or a suicide.”

Joe didn’t respond.

Tibbs craned around to look into the bed of the Ranger.

“I just wanted to make sure I brought the evidence bag,” he said. “I’m kind of out of practice, you know. You’d think after the number of bodies we found a while back up in the mountains, I’d be more on my game. Do you leave a pile of dead men everywhere you go?”

“I do not,” Joe said defensively.

“Could have fooled me,” Tibbs said.

Joe wheeled through the opening in the willows and braked to a stop in the place he’d parked before. The body was still where he’d spotted it and it appeared to be in the same position. The biggest difference was that two bald eagles had scared away the ravens from the torso and they looked up and stared at the arrival of Joe and the sheriff with cool disdain in their unblinking eyes.

Tibbs swung out and fired his service handgun twice into the air.

“Now git, you birds!” he shouted.

The eagles rose with ungainly flaps of their huge wings and they struggled above the height of the willows. One of them had a long red strip of flesh in its hooked beak. The other issued a piercing Skree.



* * *



—

The sheriff’s radio squawked to life and Deputy Steck’s voice came through clearly. “Boss, is everything all right out there? We heard the shots.”

“Everything’s fine,” Tibbs reported back. “I was just chasing off some birds.” Then Tibbs reconsidered. He said, “No, it’s not all fine. We’ve got a situation.”

Tibbs holstered his weapon while shaking his head. “Good thing you didn’t find it tomorrow,” he told Joe. “There wouldn’t be much of a body left.”

Joe agreed, although he was still unsettled by the possibility—however remote—that the person could have still been breathing when he’d left.

“Can we get across that swamp?” Tibbs asked.

“We can try.”

The sheriff started to lumber back to the four-wheeler, but stopped short and stared down at something near his feet.

“There’s something strange here in the grass,” he said. “Like chunks of food.”

Joe flushed. “That’s where I threw up.”

“Oh.”



* * *



—

“Hold on,” Joe said as he clicked the four-wheel-drive toggle on the dashboard and jammed his boot on the accelerator. The ATV jerked forward and plumes of muddy water shot up from the tires on both sides. Tibbs clutched the handhold over his head on the frame of the Ranger and turned toward Joe so he wouldn’t get splashed in the face.

Joe felt the four-wheeler slip to the side until the treads gripped, and he kept it floored as they bucked through the swamp. He hoped his momentum would carry them across before he got bogged down. Dirty water covered the plastic windshield and the wipers couldn’t keep up to clear it, so Joe leaned out of the cab to make sure they were headed in the right direction. Not until they were twenty feet from the victim did the treads really dig in, and they lurched up onto dry ground.

The burned-meat smell was much stronger now and Joe could see that the eagles had done some real damage to the victim’s face and underbelly. He felt like getting sick again, but he swallowed hard and clamped his jaws together to try to stave it off.

“Damn, you were right,” Tibbs said with awe as he took in the scene. He surveyed the brush and grass beneath them. “Nothing else looks like it caught on fire around here. Just this poor thing. What in the hell happened?”

“Don’t know,” Joe said as he removed his Stetson and slid a fly-fishing buff over his nose and mouth.

“Maybe lightning?” Tibbs speculated.

“In November?” Joe asked.

“Good point.”

Tibbs pulled on a pair of black nitrile gloves and approached the body. He held his breath and reached down to touch the victim’s throat.

“Dead for sure,” he said. He looked up at Joe. “Been dead for a while, I’d say. At least a few hours, like you thought. The body is cooling off, but rigor mortis hasn’t yet set in.”

Joe closed his eyes and sighed with relief. He hadn’t left a person to die.

“Our victim is definitely a man,” Tibbs said while turning the head to its other side. The victim’s face was not completely burned and he wore an inch of gray beard that had not caught fire. A single light blue eye was open and filmed over. Joe noted that the stripped finger bones of the man’s outstretched hand were broken, but not detached. That seemed incongruous to the state of the body.

Although Joe couldn’t yet place him, there was something familiar about the victim.

“Know him?” Tibbs asked.

“I think so. It’ll come to me.”

“When it does, please notify your local sheriff,” Tibbs said. Then: “What was he doing out here that got him burned up? I don’t see any signs of an accelerant. Who knows—maybe he was welding somewhere, and he had an accident?”

They were rhetorical questions Joe couldn’t answer.

“How did he break his fingers?” Joe asked.

“Maybe he fell after he climbed the fence,” Tibbs offered.