49 FIND HER, GRILL HER, KILL HER

49

FIND HER, GRILL HER, KILL HER

The night air smells of raw earth. Four flashlight beams travel the site of the excavation, where the infill has been compacted. The tread patterns of the backhoe tires have not yet weathered away.

"What the holy hell am I lookin' at?" Frank Trott asks. "You tellin' me she done buried Nash Deacon and his Trans Am?"

"Come daylight," says Galen Vector, "we might find where Belden Bead has wasted away to nothing but hair and bones in his Plymouth Superbird Hemi."

In the backwash of beams, Trott's face marshals itself from astonishment to indignation, to something that might be admiration for the woman's boldly executed solution to an urgent problem.

In Vector's experience, the heavy facial features of Monger and Rackman are never configured in other than one of two arrangements. The first is a deadpan, cementitious aspect that conveys no emotion or attitude whatsoever, their dark eyes as depthless as ceramic discs. The second is a vague, dreamy smile reminiscent of those on certain carved-stone gods that wait to be worshipped in crumbling vine-entangled temples, deep in the jungles of the South Pacific. Of the two expressions, the second is more disturbing because it always seems unrelated to present circumstances, as if what amuses Monger and Rackman is nothing that has amusement value for other people. In this instance, as never before, the smiles are accompanied by brief spates of tittering that cause the fine hairs to prickle on the nape of Vector's neck.

Trott says, "So where is the bitch? Where'd she go? She ain't taken her pickup. Buried Deacon's Trans Am, for Chrissake. She got no wheels."

"We're dealing with a mountain girl. She went to hide in the mountains."

"Can't hide for long."

"Maybe longer than you think," Vector says.

"This ain't no Jamaica. Winter in a few months."

"She knows that."

"She gonna hibernate up there with the bears?"

"Maybe she means to go through the mountains and come out somewhere we can't guess. Maybe she has a plan."

"What plan? Can't be no plan. She's wanted for murder."

"She won't be wanted for anything," Vector disagrees. "We can't take a chance of her in a courtroom. What the hell Bead and Deacon were doing here, what she might have learned about José Nochelobo's death—none of that can come out in front of a jury."

"So we got to go after her?"

"Find her, grill her, kill her," Vector says.

"What about this here drive-in graveyard of hers?"

"We'll bury her here. Baby makes three. Then the county takes the land for unpaid taxes. Boschvark buys the land from the county and donates it to Conserve to Survive."

"To what?"

"It's this nonprofit he set up. Conserve to Survive—CTS. He buys up land and donates it to CTS so no one can ever build on it and pollute the environment."

"Why, he's a genuine saint, ain't he?"

"He gets a nice tax deduction and lots of good publicity. CTS will come in, tear down the buildings, post no trespassing signs, and let nature take it all back to herself."

"Damn convenient. Got himself little cemeteries everywhere, people can be disappeared into them."

Vector says, "Oh, I imagine there might be a few unmarked graves on other tracts of CTS land, but that's not the great man's primary purpose with the nonprofit. He's got bigger things on his mind."

"Such as."

"History and his place in it."

Shaking his head with admiration, Trott says, "When I was young, I thought myself pretty slick. I see now I exaggerated my potential. I ain't never got what it takes to be as slick as him."

"He sets a high standard for slickness," Vector agrees.

"Now what?"

"I call Duroc-Jersey to get us geared up. Call Sam Crockett to bring his dogs. While we wait for them, we catch a couple hours of sleep if we can, then be on Vida's trail at first light."