25
SUNDAY GOT UP, ZIPPED the gym bag shut. He went to the door and opened it, saw the Rottweiler lying on his side, slobber dribbling from his lips. There were two small darts hanging from the dog’s left side. Cochran was walking toward the shack carrying a dart gun.
“Took two to drop that sonofabitch,” Cochran said in awe. “That’s a bear dose, dude.”
“Get the darts, and then come in here and help me find the money I gave him yesterday,” Sunday said as he reached down and picked up the chain saw and the gas can, which was nearly full.
He carried both inside. Harrow was still on the rough plank floor, rolling his head slowly and trying unsuccessfully to speak. Sunday stepped over him and set down the chain saw and gas can.
Cochran entered the shack, shut the door, and looked around at the squalor. “Not exactly a skinhead Suzy Homemaker, is he?”
“Start with the bedroom,” Sunday said, grabbing Harrow under the armpits and dragging him six feet closer to the woodstove.
“I should have brought the gas mask,” Cochran said before pushing aside a blanket that hung in a doorway and disappearing behind it.
Sunday got one of the butcher knives from the washtub on the floor and used it to cut two long narrow strips of fabric from the busted couch. Setting those aside, he picked up the can and poured gas on the floor and splashed it on the chest and legs of the skinhead.
Harrow’s eyes widened. He managed to say, “No.”
“Coming down off the first jolt, I see,” Sunday told him in a conversational tone. “Mixed a bit of Rohypnol and a horse tranquilizer in with the blue.”
Holding the gym bag from the day before, Cochran came out of the bedroom. He glanced at Harrow without pity. “Not exactly a rocket scientist either. Put it under his bed.”
Sunday set the gas can down. “Skinheads don’t like banks. Jews in control of their destiny and all that.”
Sunday opened the woodstove door, was relieved to see that the fire was down to dully glowing coals. He took a strip of fabric and swung one end in onto the coals. He laid a small log in there to hold it. After positioning the rest of the strip down the front of the stove and onto the rough-hewn floor, Sunday took the other piece of couch fabric, soaked it in the gas, and then laid it end to end with the strip coming out of the woodstove.
“No,” the skinhead whispered.
“Don’t you fret none,” Sunday said, adopting Acadia’s accent. He tossed the knife back in the washtub. “With all that dope running in your veins, you won’t feel a thing. Or not much, anyway.”
Sunday grabbed the other gym bag off the table, went to the kitchen, and looked out the window. The dog was still lying there. The rest of the yard was empty. He nodded to Cochran. They went outside, shutting the door behind them without a glance back at Harrow.
“Torch the barn?” Cochran asked.
Sunday shook his head. “Leave it. There needs to be direct evidence of his involvement.”
They hurried into the forest. At the rock ledge, Sunday paused a second to look back and was pleased to see through the window that flames were already dancing inside the shack of Claude Harrow.
It was tough Harrow had to end up like that, and so soon, he thought. Neo-Nazi serial killers are difficult beasts to find, much less seduce, and—
His burner phone rang.
Sunday saw a number he did not recognize. But he’d given the number to only one person in the world.
He punched Answer and said coldly, “What kept you, Dr. Cross?”
CHAPTER
26
I PAUSED BEFORE ANSWERING Mulch, still debating how best to play him. Finally, affecting a sullen monotone, I said, “I got hung up. Finding a son’s body in the backyard tends to do that to a man.”
“Hmm,” Mulch said in that static-blurred voice. “And you told the police what I asked you to do?”
“No,” I replied. “Per your orders, I’ve told no one.”
“So you do understand?”