Burn It Up(103)

“This is so f*cking messed up,” Casey muttered, feeling frustrated and hot.

“We need to get you in there,” Vince said. “How soon can that happen?”

“Depends. They’ll be digging through it all soon enough. If they find . . .” He trailed off. He’d nearly said “a body,” but it felt far too cold. “If they find him,” he said carefully, “everything will grind to a halt for a few hours. They’ll investigate before they move the body,” he said, flinching inside, “but then they’ll take it away to be autopsied. They’ll mill around documenting everything for a long time, but eventually they’ll clear out.”

“Will anybody be left to guard the scene?”

Casey shook his head. “Unlikely. They’ll probably just put up tape, once the forensic people have made their sweep.”

“Then you go in.”

“Sure.”

“But don’t be a dumb-ass about it,” Vince warned through a cloud of Camel. “Don’t go leaving your shoe prints or a load of red hairs all over the place.”

“You say that like this hasn’t been my job for three years.”

Vince nodded, gaze on the horizon.

“I got no clue what I’ll find,” Casey said. “This guy could be a pro or a total hack. But I’ll do my best.” He didn’t hold out much hope, however. Fires spoke volumes about the way they started but didn’t tell you jack about who struck the match. Not unless the person in question happened to drop a business card on their way out. “I can tell you if it was started on purpose, but if anybody stands a chance at saying who by, it’s Miah.”

“I can’t ask him now . . . But it’ll have to be soon. I’ll see if he can’t find out who answered that ad about the John Deere.”

“Good a lead as any.” Better than some dark-colored truck, some tallish, vaguish description of a white guy in a ski mask and jeans.

“Not much, though,” Vince said grimly. “It’d take an idiot to reply to the ad with their actual e-mail address or leave a real phone number.”

Casey stole the final smoke from behind Vince’s ear and lit it for himself. It tasted like a thousand ancient memories. It tasted like ass, in all honesty, but the nicotine wasn’t unwelcome. He blew out a long jet of smoke and told his brother, “We better hope we’re dealing with a world-class f*ckwit, then.”

? ? ?

The news everyone had been dreading came around dinnertime.

Casey heard it from Vince, who’d been in the kitchen with Miah and Christine when the mayor, of all people, had come by to break it to them, with Fortuity’s acting sheriff in tow, who also served as the county coroner.

Casey had gone into town to fill in Kim and Nita, then Raina and Duncan, and had pulled in just behind the sheriff’s cruiser. Freeman, he thought the new sheriff was called—Wes or Les Freeman. He was tanned and tall and lanky, far younger than Tremblay had been—may that motherf*cker rot in hell. He wore the uniform’s matching khaki hat that Tremblay never had, and it made him look like a cartoon. Especially when Mayor Dooley joined the tableau, the squat little Napoleon in seersucker climbing out of the sheriff’s car, ivory bolo swinging. The mismatched men headed for the house, and Casey hung back, knowing it couldn’t be good. The mayor didn’t show up at the home of the most prominent family in town to hand out happy news.

Casey sat on his own hood for nearly half an hour before the men emerged. He nodded at Freeman, who’d come by the bar a couple times as a patron. Dooley he didn’t know aside from seeing his pompous face in the papers, and he didn’t offer him jack. That dick had brought the casino to town, after all. And the casino had gotten Alex killed. He couldn’t say he was much of a fan of the mayor, no.

Sheriff Freeman tipped his hat but didn’t smile, and then both men disappeared inside the cruiser. Casey waited until they’d hit the road, then headed to the farmhouse on legs made of lead.

The scene he found in the kitchen about tore him to shreds.

Miah was holding his mother. Her face was buried against his neck, her shoulders hitching uncontrollably. Miah was crying as well, his voice breaking as he spoke to her. Vince was standing by the sink with his arms crossed, and he motioned for Casey to follow him and strode for the door.

“They need space,” he said, heading for the den.

“They found the body?” Casey whispered, sitting on the coffee table when Vince took the couch.

He nodded. “Beside the tractor he’d been working on. One of the investigators said it started from diesel, and maybe Don had got caught up in it, if he’d spilled some on his clothes, or had grease on him or something. Nothing conclusive. That’s all they said about it.”

Spilled? Doused, more like. “Autopsy?”

“Still going on. They only came to say he’d passed.”

“Does anybody need to go downtown to ID him?”

“Thank f*ck, no. I guess they had enough to go on.”

Casey nodded, and in a breath, the heft of the news came down on him. “Fucking shit. This can’t actually be happening, can it?”

Vince didn’t say anything, just stared ahead and exhaled slowly. A deep and cutting pang of guilt sank between Casey’s ribs, as he tried to imagine having been here when the news about Alex had broken. Fortuity had always been quiet. If somebody died, it was of old age or maybe cancer, or drunk driving, or some freak hunting accident. This place was no stranger to fights and domestic violence, but murder? Alex had been the first—or rather, technically the second, though the undocumented worker whose bones had caused so much trouble last year hadn’t been uncovered until a few months later. Sheriff Tremblay had been killed in his cell after his involvement in Alex’s death had come to light—number three. Now Don made four. Though Casey supposed this latest one couldn’t be blamed on the casino.