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Bodies, Co
She didn’t have to dig six feet, thank God, only three.
Only? Ha! Her arms and shoulders ached as her shovel hit something with a CHANNNNG sound. She thought—briefly—of her dream, of finding Jazz buried here, then plunged ahead, spooning out loose dirt and digging around the edges of the thing to find its dimensions. With a few more minutes’ hard digging, she’d managed to clear away its top.
It was a lockbox of some sort, measuring maybe twelve inches by five inches. Co
Once it was on the ground next to her, she stared at it for long moments. Gray and dull, with a hinged top and a stout combination lock hanging from a steel loop. She picked it up and tilted it gently from one side to the other. Something inside shifted. Something light, but relatively solid. It didn’t feel fragile. She put the box back down on the ground and stared at it.
Jazz had told her once how to foil a combination lock. She didn’t remember all of the details—something about sensitive fingertips and listening to the tumblers—so she just raised the pickax with the last of her strength, aimed carefully at the lock, and brought it crashing down.
And missed, gouging another new trough into what was left of Billy Dent’s backyard.
Oops. Crunching up the ground with a pickax was one thing, but hitting the small target of a lock was another al-together. Especially since she couldn’t afford to hit the box itself—she didn’t want to damage whatever was inside it.
She took a few deep breaths, yoga breaths, clearing her mind. Then, hearkening back to her acting training to center and relax herself, she swung again with the pickax and thought, Hey, wait, what if Billy left something explosive in that box? But it was too late—she couldn’t halt the momentum of her swing and the sharp, hard blade of the pickax smashed into the combination lock.
Which didn’t break.
Oh, come on! Her shoulders and arms felt like slabs of meat ready for the grill. The lock was dented and twisted, but a few tugs told her that it wasn’t going anywhere.
Could be something explosive in there. Could be anthrax. If Billy Dent left this, it could be just about anything. You should go get Sheriff Ta
Made sense.
But, she countered her own internal logic, if you get the cops, then they’ll be all like, “Why didn’t you call us as soon as you got that first text message?” And you’ll have to put up with all that nonsense. And you might never get to see what’s inside.
Curiosity fueled her muscles as she swung the pickax again, trying not to imagine a choking cloud of something noxious and lethal erupting from the open box.
This time, the lock broke.
Co
The box did not contain anthrax or a bomb or anything else exotic. A few inches shallow, it contained exactly three things: two clear plastic bags with envelopes zipped into them, and…
A toy.
She plucked it from the box gingerly, as if it were dangerous. But it was just a small plastic bird. Black. A raven, or maybe a crow. Something like that. Weren’t they part of the same family? Or genus? Co
A crow… the Crow King…
This was a cheap plastic bird, the kind of thing you bought at a gift shop somewhere. It was hollow—when squeezed, it made a halfhearted wheezing sound. Co
She unzipped one of the plastic bags and withdrew a manila envelope that measured something like six inches by five inches. Even as she did it, she thought, Maybe I should actually measure it and take notes for the cops, before realizing that she had already touched and moved the evidence. Oh, well. So much for preserving the crime scene.
What crime? So far, all you’ve found is some junk buried in the backyard.
The envelope was only partly full, still crisp and nearly flat, fastened with a metal clasp, then sealed. She opened it as gingerly as she could, thinking of old cop shows where “the guys in the lab” managed to pull DNA samples from envelope flaps and identify the killer that way. Her hands shook.
What are you doing, Co
But she was powerless to stop herself as she peeled back the flap, then shook the contents out into her hand.
Anthrax! screamed some primitive part of her, but all that fell into her palm was a set of photographs.
There were half a dozen of them, all of them with three people. The man Co
The woman, she knew, was Jazz’s mother. It was a shock seeing her—Co
Holding a baby, in the top picture.
Co
The other pictures progressed from Jazz at seven months to fifteen months. Co
Jazz’s mom looked… unhappy. In most of the pictures, she seemed off-kilter, as if dissatisfied or distracted. Co
How many had Billy killed at this point? Did she think it would get better, that he would stop? Was she in denial?
And who, she wondered suddenly, took these pictures?
Probably Gramma. Who else would it be?
She scrutinized the pictures for long minutes, looking for some clue, some detail that would illuminate her current quest. Or maybe something that would mean something to Jazz when he saw these photos. But there was nothing. The clothing and the decor—the photos having been taken, no doubt, in the house that once stood mere yards from her—were typical of the late nineties. Nothing special.
At least Jazz would now have more pictures of his mother. That was something, right?
She tucked the photos back into the envelope, then rezipped it into the bag and set it next to the crow.