The Garbage Man

by Candace Irving

  Unfortunately, that solid source of unlimited hugs was at least a half hour away.

  Kate reached for the roll of toilet paper, grateful it was full. An inch shy, she caught the swish of the bathroom's outer door and paused. The subdued scuff of rubber soles on tile followed. It wasn't until she heard the gentle pull of air through someone else's lungs that she realized she hadn't closed the stall door.

  Whoever had entered the bathroom stood directly behind her.

  Kate grabbed the paper's tail and wadded off enough to dry her mouth. Flushing the evidence of her latest weakness, she stood and turned to face her audience.

  Elizabeth Vogel stared back. From the compassion suffusing her old friend's face, Liz had caught her frantic dash in here and extrapolated the rest.

  Her humiliation was complete.

  "Are you okay?"

  Aside from a damp uniform and clammy skin, she was fine now. Mostly. "Yeah." Kate thought about adding an excuse, then decided on a radical change of subject. Anything to kill that oozing pity. "Didn't know you worked weekends."

  Liz glanced down at her worn UAMS sweatshirt and faded jeans. "Normally I don't, especially dressed like this. I just stopped in to check on a patient who's become so overwhelmed, he's now suicidal."

  Kate ignored any and all questions that statement begged. She had a suspicion the answers would only lead directly to where she was desperate not to be.

  Instead, she stepped out of the stall. Liz followed her to the row of sinks.

  Thankfully, the hospital hadn't gone completely green. Paper towels were plentiful, as was the gush of water that filled the basin in front of her. She rinsed out her mouth, then nudged the left cuff of her jacket aside to remove her watch before scrubbing away the vestiges of her disgrace.

  Her fingers bumped the watch as she finished, knocking the dial face down into the sink. The engraving on the reverse flashed briefly as it settled.

  * * *

  To Max

  Happy 18th

  May all your dives

  be in calm waters.

  Love, Dad

  * * *

  She snatched the watch from the basin as Liz joined her, carefully securing the band to her still-dripping wet—and raw—wrist. The pity had returned. At least this time it was tempered due to its reflection in the mirror.

  "Do you want to talk about it?"

  The offer was gentle, and dangerously seductive. It tugged Kate back through the years to when she and Liz had been the best of friends. Liz had been the one she'd leaned on then. The one who'd listened as she'd grieved for her mom and what might've been. The one who'd ferreted out all her secrets and had still loved her. The one who'd sworn that nothing was too much.

  Unfortunately, they weren't kids anymore.

  "Kate?"

  She closed her eyes, desperate to block out that sharpening stare before it chiseled off another piece of her soul.

  Even if she'd wanted to succumb, where was she supposed to start? With the return of those night terrors? With that pottery? With the rapes she didn't remember enduring, and the nine terrorists she couldn't recall slaughtering? With the two she did remember killing? With that fourteen-year-old kid? Or how about her baffling reaction to that flag just now? Or those coldly mutilated bodies strung out along the backroads of her own town...and her growing suspicion that her lover was the monster she was seeking?

  "I'm fine, Liz. Lunch just didn't agree with me."

  For a moment, she was sure her friend was going to call her out—until Kate's phone rang.

  She turned away as she grabbed her phone, more grateful for the interruption than she'd been in that cafeteria with Sergeant Fremont. And that was saying something.

  "Deputy Holland."

  "It's Seth. We got another set of bags linin' yet another goddamned road to nowhere. This set's near the end of Fox Run, just past Carriage Hill Drive."

  Her gratitude evaporated.

  A curse slipped out as she braced herself against the wall. Seth couldn't have been more wrong. Like the first two dump sites, Fox Run was not some road to nowhere. Not to her. It was the one road she'd been actively avoiding since her return to Arkansas damned near three and a half years earlier.

  "Kato?"

  "I'm here. Where's Lou?"

  "On his way back from a face to face with the state police. He'll be here in roughly twenty."

  "Let him know I'll be another ten behind him." Kate severed the call as she swung around to face Liz.

  The pity had vanished. Terror replaced it. Her friend's arms were locked across her chest as though she was desperately trying to hold it in. "You have another body, don't you?"

  "Yes. But I'd appreciate you keeping that to yourself for now." At least until the press caught on. "I hate to do this to you twice in two days, but—"

  "You have to go." Her friend's chin wobbled as she attempted a nod. "I understand. Please be careful."

  "You too."

  Kate meant it more than Liz could know. The woman might not be a vet, but she worked here. If this third victim followed the employment pattern of the first two, there was an excellent chance Liz had already come into contact with the killer...and would again.

  Especially if her suspicions about Grant panned out.

  Seth's apology was in his eyes and tumbling off his lips as Kate bailed out of her Durango. "I am so sorry. I'm a bloody moron. I swear to Christ, I wasn't thinkin'. I'm—"

  "Forgiven. So, stop. Please. Seth, you've had a bit more on your mind this past hour than my dad's death."

  He swallowed hard. "You sure?"

  Kate pushed yet another painful chapter of her past aside as she patted her fellow deputy's barrel chest, directly over his wildly thumping heart. "Absolutely. Now, what've we got?"

  He sucked in a huge gulp of air, then pushed it out on a sigh. "Fifteen bags, just like the others. I had the tape strung, but I haven't let anyone past the perimeter, includin' the crime scene boys. Figured I'd wait for you or Lou to give that order. Still waitin' on Tonga to show. He was due half an hour ago."

  "What about Lou?"

  "Dunno. He shoulda been here by now, too."

  Probably traffic. Roads across the state had already begun to clog due to the Razorback-Longhorn game scheduled for that evening.

  "Not to worry. There's a lot we can do while we're waiting for Tonga." She waved her fellow deputy toward the barrier he'd established. "We'd best get started."

  Kate accepted gloves and booties from Seth as they made their way up the line of police vehicles. The former occupants were clustered near the yellow tape, quietly chatting as they waited for instructions. Kate nodded to a pair of techs as she donned her protective gear.

  Seth's assessment of the scene was spot on. The dump site's layout appeared identical to the others, down to the precise alignment and spacing of the neatly stapled bags.

  Kate dipped beneath the perimeter and waited for Seth to join her. "Who found them?"

  "Man named Alan McLee. He and his wife live near Jonesboro. They were supposed to pick up his in-laws for an early dinner before headin' home to watch the football game. He got turned 'round tryin' to find their house and found the sacks. He'd seen the paper so he called it in without peekin'. Course his reticence might've been at his wife's urgin'. She was still hysterical when I got here."

  Excellent.

  Not the wife's emotional state. The potential for a virgin scene. Kate had to give the reporters credit. Due to their loose lips, the entire set of bags had remained untouched by anyone but the killer. Though with the bastard's meticulous handling of the others, she doubted the edge would amount to anything.

  But there was always hope.

  Gravel crunched beneath their boots as she and Seth made their way toward the line of bags, carefully checking the stones for anything that appeared out of place.

  Nothing did.

  Kate retrieved her phone as they drew level with the first sack, intent on snapping a photo, only to
have her concentration hijacked by the simple stone cross several yards off the road. God help her; she could make out the engraving.

  The name.

  From the set of Seth's head and shoulders, he was staring as well. Regretting.

  There was no need. In light of his faux pas on the phone, this was likely his first time confronting the marker too, at least this closely. Seth had been hired two months before her and a full year after an unidentified motorist had killed her father during what—until then—had been a routine traffic stop. A pair of high-school seniors had gotten buzzed that night off a six pack stolen from their folks and challenged each other to a drag race down this very road.

  Her dad had been struck while writing the ticket and died before the older boy finished dialing 911. Neither kid had been able to ID the vehicle that hit him. All they'd known was that it had been a dark sport utility vehicle—a description vague enough to encompass half the SUVs in the state, including the one she'd confronted behind her house the night before.

  Kate broke free from the past in time to catch Seth's wave and realized he was motioning one of the crime scene techs forward, silently ordering the guy to bring a suitable cover to conceal the cross.

  "Wait." She drew an invisible line from the stone marker to the leading sack. "Look at how the two are lined up perfectly."

  Seth frowned. "You think it means something?"

  Other than that the killer was an even sicker son-of-a-bitch than they'd already determined? "I doubt it. But have the cross dusted for prints and tell Nester and his team to note any depressions or debris surrounding it."

  "Roger."

  Kate headed for the dormant grass buffering the road as Seth departed. She reached the edge of the gravel, her chest tightening painfully as she stopped. Much as she wanted to chalk up the sensation to staring at an accident marker with her own rank and surname, she had a feeling the ache was born more of those four letters carved in the center.

  Jack.

  Kate stiffened as a hand settled on her right shoulder.

  Tonga. Despite the gravel, she hadn't heard his approach.

  "He was a good man." The ME's grip was as warm and soothing as the lilt in his voice. "I still miss him. We all do."

  "Thanks." Kate pulled herself together enough to manage a stiff smile as she faced him. It faded as she spotted the first bag less than three yards away. "You ready to do this?"

  He shook his head. "But we must."

  Tonga was right. They'd be racing against the coming dusk for the next few hours. Kate retrieved her phone and forced herself to snap a photo of her father's cross before following the ME to the middle of the road. She accepted the stack of evidence markers he'd brought and tented the first into place.

  Tonga waited as she shot the exteriors, then popped the bag's staples and reached inside, leaving Kate to flatten it. Surprise thickened the air as he laid a right hand on top. As expected, it was severed at the wrist and shrink-wrapped with food-grade plastic. But this hand was different.

  It was smaller than her own. Slender. And while the nails were unvarnished and trimmed to the quick, they appeared neatly buffed as though they'd had a recent manicure.

  "Doc, our latest victim may be a woman."

  "Agreed."

  But if so, who was she? Had she worked at Fort Leaves? And had she been a vet? The answers would have to wait. As with Jason Dunne, the victim's fingerprints were sealed to the textured side of the plastic—and, hence, distorted.

  Curiosity carried Kate to her feet. She assisted the ME to his and retrieved the evidence markers as they headed for the second sack. There, they resumed their grisly roles, with her placing the next numbered marker and snapping the exterior photos while Tonga broke the seal.

  Moments later, a slender left hand—sans wedding ring—lay atop its now-flattened sack. This palm was sealed to the textured side of the plastic too. There would be no immediate ID—and no easy answers to the questions brimming within.

  Resigned, they forged a path to the remaining sacks to continue the rhythm they'd fallen into all too easily. By the time they'd unbagged the flayed torso and noted the rude display of size C breasts, they'd confirmed gender. But the lack of tattoos, old shrapnel wounds and other scarring didn't solve the vet mystery. The woman could've been non-combat arms, or just plain lucky.

  Kate braced herself as they reached the final sack. The unbagging went smoothly enough. But, again, the sight of that clean line of severed flesh at the base of the head unnerved her more than the previous fourteen unbaggings combined.

  "Are you okay?"

  She nodded. "Still just...affected."

  The ME nodded.

  Kate concentrated on the features above that scarlet line. Despite the plastic's distortion, short brown curls, a heart-shaped chin and elfin features were obvious. She couldn't quite nail down the woman's age, not without removing the plastic. Something Tonga and the state ME assigned to assist would do after the parts had reached the lab in Little Rock.

  As for Tonga, he appeared deep in thought.

  "What is it?"

  The ME tipped the head to get a better look at the circle of slightly seeping flesh beneath the neck. "I can't be certain until we get this woman to the lab. But based on the condition of her parts, I believe she may have been killed within hours of the previous victims."

  Damn. If he was correct, it was more important than ever that she discover the connection between Ian Kusić, Jason Dunne and this woman. In fact, it was critical. If all three bodies had been dumped during the same trip, the killer might've already called it quits—at least in their neck of the woods. If so, the bastard might be fleeing the state, and soon. If he hadn't already.

  Lord only knew if they'd be able to track him down then.

  Before Kate could question the ME further, her phone pinged. The text was from Seth. "Lou's here."

  And he had company in tow.

  Tonga nodded. "You brief him regarding our discovery and my initial impressions. I'll get the woman ready for transport once the official photographer has finished with her."

  "Okay." Kate took advantage of her return trek to scan the dirt and packed clay just off the gravel for signs of fresh tire treads. Once again, she came up empty.

  At least with evidence.

  Her thoughts were another matter. Something had begun to niggle deep in the recesses of her brain as she closed in on that cross for the second time. She ignored it. Whatever it was, was too dark and twisted to pull into the light.

  Not here. Not now.

  Not with a fresh batch of stomach acid beginning to froth and churn.

  Kate reached the tape and ducked beneath, catching sight of Lou as she straightened. He stood near the front bumper of her SUV with two other men. One was roughly six feet tall and light-haired, the other an inch shorter and dark. Both had their backs to her, but the blond turned as Kate moved down the row of vehicles. She didn't recognize him, but she could discern the cut of a federal agent's suit anywhere.

  The cavalry had arrived.

  Even better, there was something wonderfully familiar about the second man's posture. It was in the set of his shoulders and in the tilt of his dark head.

  "Joe?"

  He turned and smiled.

  Despite the fresh collection of parts and that simple stone cross, Kate smiled back. "My God, it is you." Joe Cordoba. They'd worked so many cases together she'd lost count, but at least a third had been during her final tour in Afghanistan. "Are you still with CID?"

  Or had Joe joined the FBI as he'd tended to threaten whenever things had gotten really bad over there?

  "Yeah, I'm still cleaning up messes for the Army." Her old friend hauled her in for a crushing hug as she reached his side. "How the hell've you been, Holland?"

  She pulled away to absorb those familiar, dusky features. "I'm getting better by the second. Who'd you piss off to pull this case?"

  "Not a soul, I swear. Heck, I dragged the knee pads on all by
myself and hunkered down for some very selective ass-kissing. You know how fast news travels, especially when it's rotten. That your first two victims were vets came down the pike late last night. I knew if the pattern held, we'd get involved eventually, so I copped to knowing you and offered to liaise on behalf of the Army."

  Kate included Lou in her stare. "Well, you can't screw up worse than the last liaison."

  Lou flushed.

  Joe frowned. "Yeah, heard about that prick. How bad's the fallout from the article?"

  "So far, so good." Hopefully, their luck would hold.

  Or not.

  She'd spoken too soon. Kate matched her former fellow agent's frown as she drew Lou's attention to the distinctive antenna and dish array of the TV van half a mile down the road and closing quickly. Lou shifted to catch Seth's eye as the deputy approached. Seth didn't even break stride as he continued past them while calling out an order to extend the crime scene perimeter far enough to keep the press in that van and any others from recording their conversations.

  Lou turned toward the blond. "Kate, this is Special Agent Ed Walker, FBI; he's a psychologist with the BAU. Ed, this is Deputy Kate Holland. As I'm sure you've realized, she's also a former Army CID investigator, who apparently knows Agent Cordoba."

  Knew him? She'd been at the man's wedding. Which was a small miracle, since she'd had a hand in organizing Joe's joint CID/MP bachelor send-off the night before.

  Kate kept that to herself as she turned more fully into the FBI agent's personal space to shake hands and genuinely welcome him to the state and the case. She didn't have a problem with shrinks-turned-profilers, so long as they kept their mental voodoo focused on the investigation and off her.

  Joe must have prepped Walker, because the BAU agent didn't bat an eye as he took in the far side of her face.

  Lou caught her gaze. "You and Tonga get anything new?"

  "Yeah. This victim's a woman. We won't be able to get an ID until the body reaches the lab. Same issue as with Dunne." She included the newcomers in her explanation. "The plastic this guy uses to vacuum-pack the parts is textured on one side. Since the first victim had the clear side fused to his fingers and palms, we were able to get an ID at the scene. Not so with victims two and three."