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“That’s a starting place. If they can get a sample, they might even be able to match your DNA.”
“Bullshit. I’m a human being, not a dog pissing on a tree.”
“Humans are as capable of territorial behavior as any other animal. Every society has laws and traditions that encode territorial behavior, manage it, civilize it. And, of course, to punish people who don’t respect those boundaries. That’s why people—and nations—fight over land that’s worthless, and it’s why we have things like the castle doctrine. That’s why people put up signs warning against trespassing, like the ones you’ve got all over your property. Territorial behavior is at the heart of most organized sports, the way we talk about competition and struggle. Of course, like most biological traits, it’s contingent on a number of factors. Most humans don’t manifest it as…strongly as you do.”
“Bullshit,” Rod said again. “Why didn’t I kill Heather then?”
“That kind of behavior, when an established neighbor is perceived as less of a threat, isn’t uncommon in the natural world. There’s even a name for it: the dear-enemy effect. It’s one thing to share a border with Heather. You knew Heather, and you knew you didn’t have anything to worry about from her. Yesenia, on the other hand, was new. And she was clearly a threat. You started with trying to scare her—the vandalism to her room, the ritualized aggression when you saw her in public. When that didn’t work, you had to take a more aggressive stance.”
Rod’s pupils were small and hard. Somewhere in the building, a soft ticking noise began.
“It’s over,” Jem said. “You might as well own up to it. The police are going to uproot your entire life. Once they start looking, they’ll find enough to put it together. They’ll check traffic cameras. They’ll interview witnesses. They’ll canvass neighborhoods and businesses. They’ll find footage of you driving a route from here to the reservoir. They’ll find people who remember your face, your truck. They’ll find somebody from the resort who remembers seeing you in the wrong hallway.”
“Like Una,” Tean said. “That’s what happened, isn’t it? She broke into Yesenia’s room, and she caught you.”
“What he means is,” Jem said, “she walked in on you literally shitting the bed.”
“And then she had to go. She was paranoid, and she was a nuisance, but if she told that story, people would start asking questions. So, you lured her out to the poultry farm. It would have been easy; a story about a government cover-up, a chance to expose them, anything that she would have believed. And then you drugged her and killed her.”
“If you hadn’t dropped trou,” Jem said, “you could have killed her right then, but she caught you in kind of a delicate situation.”
Rod bared his teeth. Not a smile. Nothing exaggerated. His lips peeled back slightly, exposing a hint of craggy yellow. He didn’t even seem to be aware he was doing it.
“You know what I keep thinking?” Jem slid one hand into his pocket, and at the same time, he leaned against the filing cabinet, propping himself up with one elbow on top of it—the movement designed to draw attention away from his other hand as he got one of his weapons. “I keep thinking about that story you told us. About your dad.”
“It’s over,” Tean said, echoing Jem.
Rod’s chest rose and fell under the Pantera tee. The cotton moved with him. The hint of definition at his hip, the blocky shape that had to be man-made—Tean couldn’t decide if it was there or not.
“I don’t think so,” Rod said.
Jem’s hand was a fist inside his pocket. “What does that mean?”
“You’re full of shit. Both of you.”
“The police—” Tean began.
“The police would be here,” Rod said, “if they thought what you were saying was worth a drop of piss. But they aren’t, are they? Let me guess: you went to that little cunt of a chief we got, and you laid it all out, and he told you to mind your own business. I went to the public forum when they introduced him, the mayor and the rest of the jack-wits. You know what they said? He had image. That’s what they wanted in their chief: image. How the fuck about that?”
Tean drew a deep breath.
“Here’s the thing,” Rod said. “You don’t have shit. You can’t prove I did anything. I’m telling you I didn’t do anything. You’ve got no evidence, which is why you’re poking around in here after hours, trespassing.”
“Someone will find something. You killed two women. They’ll make a connection back to you, and you’ll go down for them.”
“Son—” Rod’s gaze latched on to Jem. “—get your hand out of your pocket.”
Jem didn’t move, but his body communicated the coiled energy waiting to be released.
“What you two didn’t think about,” Rod’s potbelly swelled as he chuckled, “is you pissed off some powerful folk. You do that, and you can’t expect to get lucky forever. There’s always somebody needing some extra cash. Want to know what it costs, keeping an eye on the two of you? A hundred bucks. Somebody sees you, makes a phone call. There’s a hundred bucks.”
“Bingo bango bongo,” Jem said.
Rod’s expression tightened. “Try something, boy, and my friends out here will make Swiss cheese out of you. And then we’ll have some fun with your boyfriend. What do you think about that?”
Jem swallowed. It looked like he fought the movement, but his gaze cut toward Tean.
Tean gave a tiny shake of his head.
