Hope to Die (Alex Cross 22)

By the time Sampson came out with the pig farmer ten minutes later, however, the rain had cooled me down. My stomach was feeling better, and the ringing in my head had softened to a distant pealing.

“That smell takes some getting used to, even with a cigar to mask it,” Pritchard allowed, looking sympathetic. “No doubt ’bout that. But I don’t mind, you know? That’s the smell a’ money in there, sure as I’m standing right here.”

“Pork futures are up, huh?” Sampson asked.

“It’s the new white meat, ain’t you heard?” Pritchard replied. “Price a’ fatted shoats has doubled past three years.”

“You found the skull and a bone?” I asked.

The farmer nodded. “I showed your partner where. Wasn’t too far from where you was standing when you got to feeling kind of, well, piggish, what I call it.”

“Tell him how you found the skull,” Sampson said.

Pritchard shrugged. “One of them things. The hopper jammed out in the middle, and the corn was just pouring there, and every pig in the place wanted to be at the center. Anyway, I opened up the sides enough I could see the skull and bone there, plain as day, in the dung. Fished the skull out with a hook duct-taped to a pole. Sheriff’s deputies used a claw thing to get the bone.”

“Nothing else? No other bones?”

Pritchard’s cheek twitched. “Not that I seen, but hell, there’s three, maybe four inches of shit in there front to back. You’re welcome to come rake through it after the gold on the hoof’s up to weight and off.”

“How long will that be?” I asked.

“Twenty days.”

I have never been the sort of man who flies off the handle, but for some reason, I thought about the possibility there were other bones in that pigsty, and I just lost it.

“We’re not waiting fucking twenty days,” I shouted at him. “The fucker who dumped the body in there killed my goddamned wife! I’m getting a warrant and I’m getting those goddamned pigs out of there today.”

“Christ, Detective,” Pritchard said, looking offended. “I’m sorry about your wife, Jesus knows I am. But you’re acting like I tossed a body in there.”

“Did you?” I demanded.

Pritchard said, “Hell no. What the—”

I had seven inches and fifty pounds on the farmer. When I popped him in the chest with my right hand, he staggered backward and sat down hard in the gravel, shocked.

“You know a guy named Mulch?” I demanded. “He related to you?”

“Alex!” Sampson said.

I ignored him. “Is he?”

The farmer acted scared as he complained, “I don’t know no one named Mulch, no, sir, and that’s a fact.”

“Mulch was raised on a pig farm,” I replied angrily. “He came here specifically to get rid of that body. Mulch has to know you.”

“No, sir,” Pritchard repeated flatly. “Never even heard of that name. Go down and ask my wife. Ellie and I been together since high school, and she’ll tell you the same.”

He looked at Sampson. “I called the sheriff second I fished out that skull. I could’ve just left it and it’d be fragments in the pig shit by now. Think on that.”

It all went out of me then, and I realized what I’d done.

My shoulders sank and I squatted down next to him, shaking my head before I said softly, “Mr. Pritchard, I was way out of line there. I apologize. My wife …”

There was a moment of silence before he said quietly, “I understand, Detective. When my mom died, I wandered around in a haze for days.”

I reached out my hand and helped him up. “Again, I’m sorry. I honestly don’t know what came over me.”

Sampson put his hand on my shoulder, said, “Think we better leave Mr. Pritchard to his chores.”