Cut to the Bone (Body Farm 8)

Moving fluidly and noiselessly, he rolled onto his side and curled his legs to his chest — coiling — then pivoted into a crouch and eased over the tailgate. By the light of the flashlight, still propped against the wheel well, he sorted his gear, tucking the razor and the pruning shears into his right hip pocket, the coil of baling twine into his right front pocket, the zip ties into his left front pocket, and the fat, flattened roll of duct tape into his left hip pocket.

Once the items were stowed within easy reach, he picked up the flashlight and started around the end of the truck, heading for the front of the garage. Then, on an impulse, he leaned into the bed of the truck once more to retrieve the Domino’s cap and the empty insulated bag. Tucking the bag under his left arm, he donned the cap, twisting and tilting it slightly—a jaunty angle, he thought.

Metal edges and handles glinted as he played the flashlight across the garage’s back wall, where tools were neatly arrayed on pegboards, one on either side of the door that led into the basement. Household tools occupied the pegboard to the left of the door: a Dustbuster, three sizes of pipe wrenches, an assortment of pliers, a set of screwdrivers, rolls of electrical tape, coils of insulated wire. Woodworking tools and lawn-care implements filled the other side: saws, hammers, clamps, planes, chisels, pruning shears, a hatchet, an ax, a sledgehammer, splitting wedges. Christ, Satterfield thought, the fucker’s a one-man Home Depot. He played the flashlight along the knee-high shelf beneath the workbench lining the wall, the beam lingering on a belt sander, a circular saw, and a chain saw. Hell, if he’d known there’d be such a wealth of implements to choose from, he’d have brought fewer things with him. His hands were already full, and he didn’t want to deviate from his initial plan, but he made a mental note to return to the garage in a few hours and pick a few choice items to liven things up, to stave off boredom.

He checked the wall beside the door that led into the house. There was a switch plate with three light switches, plus a doorbell-style button beneath it — the garage-door opener, probably. No keypad, so no security alarm, which he already knew from his scouting trip a few days before, when he’d “fixed” the telephone line.

The basement door was metal, with a dead bolt as well as a lock in the knob. Switching off the flashlight, Satterfield tried the knob. It turned, and when he pushed lightly, the door opened a crack. Idiots.

The large room inside the door — a basement den — was faintly lit by the blue clock of a VCR. Beyond, a hallway bisected the far half of the basement, leading, he recalled, to a bathroom, the kid’s bedroom, and a spare bedroom jammed with junk. Easing down the dark hall, he found all three doors ajar, all three rooms empty. Retracing his steps, he returned to the stairwell and started up, testing each step for any hint of a squeak before committing his full weight to it.

A line of golden light showed beneath the door at the top of the stairs, the sound of voices mingling with the clink of cutlery on ceramic. “Jeff, mind your manners,” he heard the woman say. “Leave a little for the rest of us.”

“Sorry, Mom.”

He conjured up his mental picture of the layout. The door from the basement opened directly across from an exterior door — a sliding-glass door — that led to a patio and a garden in back of the house. To the right of the stairwell was the dining room; to his left, the kitchen. Judging by the direction of the sounds, they were eating in the kitchen.

Satterfield slipped the Mag-Lite into the pizza bag and pulled the pistol from his waistband. Hanging the pizza bag from his left wrist by the nylon strap, he took tender hold of the doorknob and twisted, his thumb moving as slowly as the second hand on a clock. The door opened inward, into the stairwell — much better for him than if it swung outward, into view. He eased it open an inch, then waited and listened. “Bill, have some more salad,” the woman said.

Another careful inch.

“Thanks, hon, but I’m not really hungry.”

A foot this time.

“I’ll take some more,” the boy said.

Satterfield swung the door fully open.

“Please?” prompted Brockton.

“It’s okay, Dad — you don’t have to beg me.” A half second later: “Hey, come on. That was funny.”

“No, not really,” Satterfield said, taking two quick steps — through the doorway and then around the corner, into the kitchen. “Who wants pizza?” Their faces, startled and stupid with surprise, swiveled toward him. Four startled faces, not three. A girl. Who the hell’s the girl? Brockton, seated at the near end of the table, started to his feet, the look of surprise on his face giving way to anger and fear as his gaze shifted from the Domino’s shirt and pizza bag to the face of the man. The face of Satterfield.

Satterfield swung the pizza bag sideways by its strap, the heavy rectangle slicing through the air and smashing into Brockton’s face, the weight of the heavy flashlight inside adding to the force. Brockton toppled backward, knocking over his chair as he fell, and then struggled to rise from the floor. Satterfield kicked him to put him back down, then took a step back and waved the pistol. “I’m sorry to have to break it to you,” he said, “but I lied — I don’t really have pizza for you.”

CHAPTER 46

Decker

Decker knew that the detective and the forensic techs didn’t want him there — he was lurking and watching, radiating anguish and rage — but nobody wanted to get in his face about it; nobody wanted to be the jerk that told a guy whose brother had just died to get the hell out of the way. The detective, Kittredge, was squatting beside Bohanan, the senior forensic tech, who was kneeling near the feet of the headless corpse, using tweezers to pluck filaments of wire from the floor.

“Detective?” The voice came from behind Decker — from the direction of the kitchen, where one of the junior forensic techs was taking photos — and floated past him, into the living room, to Kittredge.

“Yeah?” Kittredge looked up, past Decker, toward the kitchen doorway.

“You just want pictures of the garbage? Or do you want me to bag it up and bring it back to the lab?”

“What’s in it?”

“A bunch of pizza, mostly.”

“How much pizza?”

“A lot. Looks like a whole pie.”

“Uneaten?” Decker sa

w Kittredge frown, furrow his brow, reach up and rub the stubble on his chin. Bohanan glanced up, too, his tweezers poised in midair.

“If it were eaten, it wouldn’t be here. You hungry, detective?”

“Hang on. I’m coming to take a look.” Kittredge didn’t head straight to the kitchen, though; Decker watched as the detective detoured to the near side of the den and squatted beside a battered Domino’s box. Using the tip of a pen, Kittredge lifted the lid. Decker leaned in far enough to see what Kittredge saw: that the box contained three ragged pieces of pizza crust. Kittredge picked up one with a gloved hand. On his way into the kitchen, the detective edged passed Decker, avoiding eye contact.

The tech was right, Decker saw when he followed Kittredge into the kitchen — there was a lot of pizza in the trash. Enough to feed everybody working the scene, and then some. The detective plucked one of the slices from the can — a slice that had no crust — and held the fragment from the box alongside it. The edges fit together perfectly, like pieces of a puzzle. “What the hell?” he heard Kittredge mutter, and then: “Oh shit. No, no, no. Please no.” Drawn by the stir of activity, Bohanan joined Decker in the doorway.

As Decker and the two techs watched, Kittredge reached into the trash can and fished out a navy-blue magic marker, along with a thin piece of cardboard stained with ink. The cardboard had been delicately and precisely incised with two stencil patterns. One was a bird — an eagle — its wings spread, its talons clutching an anchor and a three-pronged spear. The other stencil was a snake with a broad triangular head.

“We’ve got a problem here,” said Kittredge.

“A big problem,” said Bohanan.

Decker didn’t say anything. He was already gone, sprinting for the front door.

* * *

“Lieutenant!” Decker heard Cody’s voice from the direction of the SWAT truck. “Hey, Lieutenant! Everything okay? What’s going on in there?” Decker didn’t stop to talk; he didn’t even turn to look; he just lifted a hand and kept running.