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“Miz Hope’s past ninety and she still scares me,” Sampson said, allowing a sad grin. “We get her home and safe, and I’ll be scared all over again.”
Aaliyah laughed quietly and felt better because Sampson’s attitude was that the Crosses were going to be saved. In her opinion, that kind of hope was still the best attitude for any detective to have. As her father had pointed out over and over again, cynical cops might be the stereotypical crime solvers, but they burned out fast. The detectives who stayed positive, who carried hope in their hearts, were the ones most likely to have stamina. She was glad that Cross’s oldest friend was coming from that place.
“Miz Hope introduced the two of you?”
“Sort of,” Sampson said, then gestured ahead. “It’s coming up on this next turn.”
They found a two-track drive that led down into the sopping forest toward a creek and Claude Harrow’s property. A padlocked quarter-inch steel cable blocked the way. They parked and got out.
It had obviously rained hard sometime in the past several hours. There were puddles, and the tree limbs and leaves hung heavy and dripped. The air should have been full of ozone and fresh as spring. But it smelled like a doused campfire.
They went around the cable and walked down the soggy road, the smoke smell getting stronger. Sampson pulled his service pistol.
“You want to start from that position?” Aaliyah asked.
“When I’m dealing with possibly murderous skinheads, this is always my starting position,” Sampson replied.
Aaliyah saw the practical wisdom in that and drew her weapon as well. They walked down the two-track lane, hearing the engorged creek, and then rounded a tight corner that revealed a clearing, a ramshackle barn, and a 1988 faded blue Chevy pickup. She guessed the pile of smoking ruins had been Harrow’s home.
“This happened today,” she said.
“Past eight or nine hours,” Sampson agreed.
“No fire department?”
He shrugged. “We’re in the middle of nowhere.”
They stopped just shy of the clearing. Sampson yelled, “Claude Harrow!”
The two detectives stood there for several moments waiting for a response but got none. They eased out into the yard, a mud patch, really, with sparse and thorny weeds. Sampson called out again. The breeze shifted and for a moment Aaliyah smelled stale urine. Over the gurgling of the stream, she thought she caught a low moan but couldn’t tell where it came from.
“You hear that?” she asked softly.
CHAPTER
39
“NO,” SAMPSON SAID. “WHAT?”
Aaliyah stood there listening, and then shook her head. “Nothing.”
She scanned the mud for footprints, seeing the vague impressions of several going back and forth between the burned building and the barn, and others crossing over toward the woods and a steep little hillside. She could already tell that the rain had marred the tracks, made them useless.
They went closer to what was left of the burned building: smoking posts and charred beams. A twisted black stovepipe jutted up out of the wreckage. Aaliyah walked around one way and Sampson the other. Moving closer to the black pipe, she spotted the woodstove. Its door was wide open.
Aaliyah took another two steps, smelled something like burned meat, and saw a chain saw—or what was left of it, anyway—a scorched toolbox, a charred gas can, and something else, partially buried in the blackened debris.
“I got a body,” she called out.
“Sonofabitch,” Sampson said.
When someone is burned alive, the corpse is often found curled up in a fetal position. This was the case here as well. The body was rolled onto its left side facing Aaliyah, knees drawn to the chest and hands wrapped around them. More often than not in these kinds of deaths, the victim is found with his chin tucked down to his chest and his arms wrapped around his head, as if his last instinct was to shield his face from the flames.
But this burned corpse wasn’t positioned like that at all. The head was twisted upward, and the black, empty eye sockets seemed to be looking right at the detective. The victim’s mouth was frozen open, as if his last utterance had been a scream.
“Stupid Nazi,” Sampson said. “Fueling up the chain saw with the woodstove open. Rocket scientist of the year. How much you want to bet he was a meth head?”
Aaliyah saw how it could be interpreted like that but reserved judgment.
