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The night air is quiet except for the corn whispering in the breeze. The stars are bright, illuminating the backyard just enough that I can make out the last remnants of the tree that Parker was cutting into firewood.
It seems like so long ago that Parker and I rushed out there to find Leo bitten by the snake. So much had happened since then.
“What do we do?” I ask, my voice quiet with a sense of defeat.
If Parker and his buddies were actually suspects according to the Texas Rangers, we could call in an APB, get every law enforcement officer in the whole state looking for them. The problem is no one believes they’re suspects but us. If we call it in, we’ll get another ass-chewing from our superiors.
“Let’s search the property again,” Carlos says. “We need to find some evidence. Some indication of where they’ve gone.”
“Talk about a needle in a haystack,” I say. “Only we don’t even know what the needle looks like.”
I take a deep breath, glancing around the property. A whole army of investigators was here yesterday and they didn’t find a damn thing. What can the two of us possibly do?
“Let’s check the barn,” Carlos says, and even though I know it’s useless, I go along with him.
We strike out through the property, our boots swishing through the deep grass.
“Did you fart?” Carlos asks.
“What?” I say, irritated and in no mood for his humor right now.
“It smells like shit out here,” he adds.
I stop in my tracks. He’s right. There is a faint odor in the air. It doesn’t smell quite like feces—not dog poop or livestock manure or the human smell left behind in a bathroom. This smell is a mixture of the rancid odor of ammonia and a sulfurous rotten-egg stench—like a porta potty that is overdue for cleaning.
I pull out my flashlight and shine it around, not knowing what I’m looking for. Carlos does the same.
“What’s that?” he says.
I look to where his light is pointing and see, about ten feet away, a small object in the grass catching the light. It’s tiny, whatever it is. A twig or a branch or a piece of straw.
We approach, both of our beams leveled on the object, and it’s not until we’re within a few feet that we realize what it is.
A toothpick.
“Harvey liked to chew on toothpicks,” I say, knowing we’re on to something but not sure what.
“Maybe this is our needle in the haystack,” Carlos says.
CHAPTER 43
THE SMELL IS worse here where the toothpick is lying, and we shine our lights around and see that some of the grass is matted down and wet with a thick, muddy liquid. I make out a square of sod in the otherwise lush lawn, the outline practically invisible unless you’re right on top of it.
I kneel down, work my fingers in the seam between the wedges of grass, and pull up. The sod square comes up easily, revealing a manhole-sized circular cap embedded in the ground.
I know what it is as soon as I see it.
I tell Carlos to go to his truck to get latex gloves and a screwdriver, and I run to the barn to find something we can stick down into the tank. I bring back a rake and a hoe. It takes a few minutes to remove the lid using the screwdriver, but once we do, a foul stench pours out into the air, a hundred times stronger than the stink that was already lingering.
I shine my light inside to find a pond of black water, floating with what looks like muddy chunks but that I know are globs of human feces. Sewage flies dance around the tank opening.
“That’s some disgusting shit,” Carlos comments. “Literally.”
I take the hoe and submerge it into the filth. I root around, trying to find something solid. I keep my breathing shallow—inhaling through my mouth instead of my nose—but no matter what, the stench seems to pour inside me. I try to keep myself from throwing up.
“I hit something,” I grunt.
I pull whatever it is—a branch, a log—toward the surface. A human hand bobs up out of the muck, connected to an arm that slants back down into the grossness.
