CHAPTER SEVEN

Ella squinted against the harsh glare of the sun as she took in the scene before her. A dead farm field stretched out in all directions, the grass brown and brittle underfoot. It looked like it hadn"t seen a drop of rain in months, maybe years. The land was cracked and parched, with only a few withered stalks poking up like skeletal fingers grasping at the sky.

Welcome home, indeed.

‘Charming spot,' Luca said. ‘Very Steinbeck chic. All we're missing is the Dust Bowl and some starving migrants.'

Up ahead, the ‘POLICE LINE – DO NOT CROSS' tape fluttered in the anemic breeze. Ella led the way across the sun-baked field with Luca in tow. A few officers milled about like black ants on a carcass, snapping photos and bagging evidence. Numbered markers dotted the ground where Ricky Toledo had been sprawled not two hours before. A macabre game of connect-the-dots.

A man detached himself from the swarm of uniforms and ambled over when the agents arrived. He had a face like a catcher's mitt; tanned skin, leathery wrinkles, squint lines. A bushy mustache bristled above his upper lip, more salt than pepper, and his polyester uniform shirt strained across a paunch that spoke to a few too many roadside diner breakfasts.

‘Agents? Feds?' His voice was a Texas drawl slowly stewed in Virginia twang, the vowels as flat as his feet. ‘I"m Sheriff Clem Tucker. Glad ya"ll could make it down here on such short notice.'

Ella shook his proffered hand, the skin rough and callused against her own. ‘Good to meet you, Sheriff. Wish it were under better circumstances.'

Clem grunted something that sounded like a rusty hinge. ‘Ain"t that always the way. Quiet town like this, we don"t see a whole lotta excitement. "Specially not of the homicide variety.'

‘I can imagine.' Ella scanned the horizon, the empty fields and dilapidated outbuildings. ‘I'm from Abingdon, a few miles away. If it's anything like there, everybody probably knows everybody.'

‘Abingdon girl, you say?' Tucker smoothed his moustache. ‘Well, welcome back. This place probably looks a ton different than when you last saw it.'

‘Sure does.' Ella hadn't seen this town in damn near twenty years, and even to her fool-proof memory, the place looked like alien terrain.

"Most folks have been here longer than God. S"why this whole thing"s got us more balled up than a beaver in a drainpipe." Clem spat a brown stream of tobacco juice that narrowly missed Ella"s boot.

‘So walk us through it,' she said, steering them back on track. ‘What do we know so far?'

Clem scratched his raspy stubble. ‘Not a whole lot, truth be told. Got the call around six this mornin" from Carl Jessup over yonder.' He jerked his chin at a decrepit farmhouse slumping tiredly against the gray sky. ‘Says he was doin" his usual rounds when he stumbled across the body. Damn near soiled himself.'

‘I bet,' Luca said. ‘And the vic? What"s his story?'

‘Ricky Toledo, hotshot politician outta Bristol.' Clem shook his head, something like grudging respect in the set of his jaw. ‘Big name, even around here.'

The details snagging in Ella's brain like a fish hook. ‘Bristol? Toledo didn"t live in Liberty Grove?'

‘Like hell he was. ‘Toledo was a city boy. Wouldn"t know which end of a tractor was up. Didn"t have no business bein" in these parts, far as I can figure.'

Curiouser and curiouser. Ella gnawed her lip, the unanswered questions piling up like cordwood. If Toledo wasn"t a local, then how the hell did he end up in the middle of Farmer Bob"s back forty? And more importantly, who"d wanted him dead badly enough to dump him here?

She glanced at Luca, saw the same dark speculation reflected on his chewed lip. ‘Alright, first things first. We need to pin down Toledo"s last known whereabouts. Retrace his steps, figure out if he came here willingly or if somebody brought him.'

‘Yeah,' said Luca. ‘He might have been here schmoozing voters, pretending he was a man of the people.'

Tucker said, ‘Unlikely. If someone like him was in town, everyone'd know.'

Ella took the info on board. ‘You mentioned a farmer found him?'

‘Yup. Carl Jessup. He's just back there.'

‘We need to talk to him, see if he remembers anything unusual.'

‘You got it. C"mon, I"ll take ya over. He's white as a ghost, so go easy on him.' Clem set off across the field, his shoulders bowed like he was walking into a stiff wind. Ella fell into step beside him, Luca bringing up the rear.

As they trudged through the dead grass, Ella couldn"t help but notice the sheer lifelessness of the land. It was like all the moisture had been sucked out of the earth, leaving behind nothing but dust and tumbleweeds. Even the air felt stale, like it hadn"t been breathed in years.

Carl Jessup was sitting on an overturned milk crate amid a patch of particularly crispy vegetation. He had the wizened, sunbaked look of a man who"d spent his whole life with his hands in the dirt, skin as tough and grooved as old leather. Faded denim overalls hung off his spare frame and a sweat-stained John Deere cap was pulled low over his creased forehead.

Ella moved in. "Mr. Jessup? I"m Agent Dark, and this is Agent Hawkins. We"re with the FBI. Mind if we ask you a few questions?"

Carl"s watery blue eyes flicked up to meet hers, then darted away just as quickly. ‘Y-yeah. I mean, no. I don"t mind. Anything I can do to help.'

Ella crouched down to his level, ignoring the protestations of her knees. Luca hovered at her shoulder. ‘We understand you"re the one who found Mr. Toledo this morning. Can you walk us through what happened?'

Carl"s hands twisted together and his knuckles turned bloodless. ‘I was just doing my rounds, y"know? Checking the crops, making sure the irrigation lines were clear. Not that it matters much these days. Ain"t hardly anything left to water.'

Ella noted the tangent but filed it away for later. One mystery at a time. ‘And that"s when you found the body?'

‘Ayuh.' Carl shuddered. ‘Nearly stumbled right over him. He was just lying there, all twisted up like a pretzel.'

‘Did you recognize him?' Luca asked gently. ‘Realize who he was?'

‘Maybe not at first, what with him being all...' He made a vague gesture. ‘But yeah. Didn"t take more than a second or two to click. Hard not to know Ricky Toledo "round these parts. Man"s face was plastered on every billboard and bus bench from here to Richmond.'

‘He was a popular guy then?' Ella kept her tone carefully neutral, not wanting to lead the witness. Let Carl fill in the blanks himself.

The old farmer barked another laugh, this one edged with something sharper. Angrier. ‘Popular. Yeah, you could say that. Boy could charm the stripes off a zebra. Always showing up at town meetings, shaking hands and kissing babies. Making big promises about how he was gonna put Liberty Grove back on the map.'

There was a wealth of bitterness packed into those words. Ella made a mental note to dig into that particular vein later. See what kind of grudges Slick Rick had been nursing in his rise to power.

‘What did you do after you found him?' she asked, steering them back on track. ‘After you realized who he was?'

Carl seemed to deflate, all the righteous anger draining out of him like pus from a lanced boil. ‘I hightailed it back to the house and called the sheriff. Didn"t know what else to do. I mean, it ain"t every day you find a dead body in your lot.'

Ella couldn't find anything to latch onto. It was all by-the-books body-discovery. She needed more. Needed to understand what made a man like Toledo tick, what kind of enemies he"d made on his rocket ride to the top.

But before that, she needed to know why Carl"s land looked like something out of Blade Runner.

‘Mr. Jessup,' she began, picking each word with care. ‘You mentioned earlier that your crops were struggling. That there wasn"t much left to water these days.'

Carl's expression went hard as slate. ‘Ain"t hardly anything left to water, period. Whole damn county"s drying up like a raisin in the sun.'

‘Why?'

The old farmer"s throat worked as he swallowed, his eyes darting away to stare out over the desiccated fields. For a long moment, Ella thought he might not answer, might clam up tighter than a virgin"s knees in church.

But then he sighed and said, ‘It's the dam. The one they built upriver.'

Well now. A dam upriver, cutting off the lifeblood of the land. Ella"s mind spun, the threads of possibility weaving together in a tapestry of motive and opportunity.

She glanced at Luca, saw the same dawning realization kindling in his eyes. The dam, the body, the beleaguered farmers left high and dry while fat cats like Toledo played politics. It was like a set-up to a bad joke.

Or a murder.

‘This dam,' Luca said. ‘When did it go up?'

Carl scratched his stubbled chin. "Bout a year ago, give or take. Told us it was for the greater good, that we"d all benefit in the long run. Buncha nonsense. Ain"t nothin" benefited ‘round here except the weeds.'

‘Did Toledo have anything to do with it?'

A shadow passed over Carl"s face, and his mouth thinned to a grim slash. "Damn right he did. Boy was the one leadin" the charge, promisin" the moon and stars to anybody who"d listen. Had folks downright hypnotized with his fancy words and big city dreams."

‘But not you,' Ella guessed.

Carl harrumphed. ‘I"ve lived too long to fall for that kind of crap. Knew Toledo was trouble the minute he rolled into town, smilin" with those fake teeth. But folks "round here, they was desperate. Woulda believed anythin' if it meant a little hope.'

Ella digested it. A slick politician making promises he couldn"t keep, a town withering on the vine, a convenient corpse left to rot in a dead man"s field.

‘This dam. What's it done, exactly?'

‘Brought a drought, and a damn curse. Blocked off our main water supply, so we're parching down here while guys in Bristol are drowning in it. And it hasn't rained in God knows how long.'

Ella glanced over the field at the spot where Toledo"s body had been found.

Drowning.

‘Surely it can't be legal to cut off water to a whole town?' she asked.

‘Like hell is it legal. Legislation says that in times of a drought, the higher-paying towns get priority. That'll be Bristol.'

Ella was about to press further when the chirp of a radio cut through the thick air. Tucker unclipped the device from his belt and barked into it. There was a burst of static, then a follow voice filed the frequency.

‘Sheriff, coroner is ready with the body.'

'Ten-four,' Tucker said, then turned to Ella and Luca. ‘Body's ready for viewing, if you folks are interested in seeing what a dead politician looks like.'

Ella felt a familiar itch kindle under her skin. The thrill of a lead begging to be chased. A dam. A body. A drenched victim with no obvious cause of death.

It was an explosive mix, one that could give her answers before this whole thing spiraled out of control.

She needed to see the body. Needed to look into the face of Ricky Toledo and try to divine what secrets he"d taken to his watery grave.

‘You ready?' She nudged Luca.

‘Just try and stop me.'

‘Thank you, Mr. Jessup. You've been a great help.'

The game was officially afoot now. And Ella had never been one to back down from a challenge.