Without another word they hoisted the gurney into the back of the ambulance. Joan climbed in back but she sat on a metal fold-down stool as far away from Diviny as she could. JT climbed in with her and Don got behind the wheel. Dez ran to her unit, fired it up, and led the way through the maze of haphazardly parked vehicles. Another Bordentown unit was parked down by the road and the officer was erecting sawhorse barriers. Beyond his unit were a dozen cars and vans. The press had arrived, and once the true nature of this got out there would soon be more reporters than cops. Rubberneckers were walking along the highway and cutting through the woods, their cars parked on the shoulders of Doll Factory Road for half a mile in either direction.
As soon as they reached the blacktop Dez hit lights and sirens and kicked the pedal all the way down. The cruiser shot out onto the road and went screaming away from that place of death and mystery. The ambulance, carrying its own mysteries, followed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
HARTNUP’S TRANSITION ESTATE
Chief Goss stared down at the madness that lay sprawled in shades of red and green before him. Two officers here. Another down the slope. Not his officers, but that didn’t matter. The towns in this part of the county always shared work; their cases always overlapped. They were all a family.
Three dead.
One completely out of his mind.
The clearing was still. No one moved. Shock danced in every set of eyes; it beat wildly in their chests.
He stared at the bodies. Mike Schneider, Jeff Strauss. Not only dead but torn apart. What the hell was Andy doing to them? Eating them?
Goss felt the contents of his stomach turn to greasy sludge. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to go the hell home. He turned to Sheldon.
“Shel,” he said softly, “what happened here?”
Sheldon shook his head. Then he took a breath, licked his lips, and explained things exactly as he’d seen them. Goss was shaking his head throughout. Not to suggest that Sheldon was lying, but because it was all so weird. So wrong.
“Any sign of Doc Hartnup?”
He carefully lowered his bulk to one knee a few inches from Strauss. Goss knew him better than Schneider. Their kids were in the same grade, they played on the same Little League team. Strauss’s son was the shortstop, his own Mikey was the catcher.
This was going to have to be a closed casket. The whole lower half of Strauss’s face was gone. Pieces of it were stuck to the dead man’s uniform, to the grass, to his hair. The rest was …
He couldn’t allow himself to frame the thought.
“Ah, Jeff … damn it to hell. ”
Goss had never been beside the body of a fallen friend. Everyone he knew had died in bed or in the hospital, and accident victims were usually strangers. He wondered if he should close Strauss’s eyelids. That’s what they always did in movies. Close the eyelids. Kind of like closing a door, or pulling up a sheet. It meant something, he supposed. A show of respect. A gesture to restore some little bit of dignity.
Would it matter to the forensics guys?
He thought about that, lips pursed, heart heavy.
“Yeah,” he murmured to himself, “it’s only right. ”
He reached his hand out, his fingers trembling with adrenalin and shock. And revulsion. It was hard to look at that torn face. Goss felt the greasy sludge in his stomach bubble and churn.
His fingertips brushed the half-closed lids.
Suddenly Jeff Strauss’s lipless mouth lunged forward and those na
ked teeth clamped down around Chief Goss’s fingers.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
PENNSYLVANIA ARMY NATIONAL GUARD
COMPANY D, 1-103RD ARMOR
108 WASHINGTON AVE.
CONNELLSVILLE, PENNSYLVANIA