Ground troops? Stebbins County was sparsely populated, but it covered a huge amount of ground. Fields and forests and barns. So much natural cover. In any other situation he could rely on thermal scans for target acquisition, but during the conference call with the governor, the president, and the national security advisor, he had been told something that still echoed in his head. Something that screamed in his head.
“Hostiles may display variable heat signatures,” said Blair, the national security advisor.
“Sir?” Zetter had asked.
“We have to prepare for the possibility that a fair number of the infected may not be trackable by body temperature.”
“How so? Are they using thermal suppressors or—”
“No,” said Blair, “these are civilians.”
“Then I don’t—”
“Their body temperatures are dropping. On average, one degree per hour. Faster in this cold.”
“Is … is this a symptom of the disease, sir?”
Blair said, “No, General Zetter, it is proof of the absence of life.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
MAGIC MARTI IN THE MORNING
WNOW RADIO, MARYLAND
“This is Magic Marti at the mike with an update on the storm that’s currently chowing down on our area. A hurricane warning is in effect for Stebbins and Fayette Counties. Take my advice: if you don’t have to go out, don’t. I have an updated list of school and business closings…”
PART TWO
DEATH’S OTHER KINGDOM
We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.
—Oscar Wilde, The Duchess of Padua
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
TOWN OF STEBBINS
The radio crackled while Dez was still two miles from the hospital. She snatched up the mike.
“Unit Two.”
“Dez? What the heck’s going on out there?” blurted Flower. “They’ve upgraded the storm again and they want to start moving the kids to the elementary school. All the stores in town are closing at noon, and I can’t get the chief on the radio.”
The elementary and middle schools in Stebbins were regional, pulling in busloads of kids from all over. Early closings meant long delays as parents had to scramble to get out of work and drive to pick up their kids. That meant that the kids were usually kept in the school auditoriums or lunchrooms for hours. But with a storm coming, only the elementary school was rated as an official shelter. It was on high ground at the end of Schoolhouse Lane. All of the middle school kids had to be bussed there, and all of the parents rerouted. It was a logistical nightmare under good conditions. Today it would be insane.
“I can’t help with that, Flower. Things are pretty crazy right now. You’re going to have to bring in the volunteers to handle bussing the kids over to the Little School.”
“Are you at the hospital yet?”
“Almost.”
“Well … what should I do with the lieutenant from the state police?”
“Say again?”
“Lieutenant Hardy’s on the other line. He keeps asking to talk to the chief, but—”
“Patch him through, Flower,” said Dez, “I’ll bring him up to speed.”
“Thanks! Meet him on channel eight,” Flower said, sounding greatly relieved.
Dez dialed over to eight, which was one of the secure lines. There was a burst of squelch and then a strong male voice spoke.
“With whom am I speaking?”
“This is Officer Desdemona Fox, Stebbins County PD.”
“Officer Fox, good. This is Lieutenant William Henry Hardy, State Police, Troop B. Are you with Chief Goss?”
“No, sir. He’s at a crime scene—”
“The Hartnup scene?” interrupted Hardy.
“Yes sir.”
“He isn’t answering his radio.” Hardy said in a tone that seemed to suggest that he was deeply offended that a police chief from a one stoplight town would dare to dodge his call. “I can’t seem to make contact with him.”
“He had a radio when I left him, Loot. Maybe fifteen minutes ago. Aren’t your boys on site yet?”
Just as she said that, three state police cruisers rounded the corner and shot past her, lights flashing, sirens blaring. She’d have heard them if it hadn’t been for the wail of the ambulance.
“Correction, Loot … three units just passed me en route to the scene.”
“Very well. I’ll get a full report from them,” said Hardy, sounding only slightly mollified. “In the short term, what can you tell me?”
Dez was expecting this and she made sure she phrased it as blandly as possible. She gave him straight facts without any speculation or color. Hardy listened without comment until she was finished.
“My condolences on the loss of your colleagues, Officer Fox,” he said. The comment lacked any real emotion, but Dez gave him a couple of points for good manners. “The officer who was overcome—was there any indication of erratic behavior beforehand?”
“None,” Dez said.
“Very well. I’ll be in touch.” Hardy disconnected without another word.
“Dick,” she grumbled. The hospital was four blocks away. Maybe she’d get some answers there.
The radio buzzed again and Flower was back on the line.
“Dez,” said Flower, “we have a regular police call, too, and I don’t have any other units. It’s a carjacking. Guy said a naked man rushed him when he braked for a light. Beat him up, took his pants, and drove off in the car. Can you believe that? Took his actual pants. And get this … the guy who attacked him bit him!”
Dez nearly drove into a telephone pole. “Say again?” she demanded.
“That’s what I said. The guy bit him, and it’s pretty bad, too. Hospital doesn’t have any ambulances to send. They’re all at Doc’s place. So, I need you to take his statement at the hospital.”
Christ, thought Dez, another bite?
Then she thought about the set of bare footprints that led out of Hartnup’s.
“What’s the location?”
“The victim is at the diner. Murph is going to take him to the hospital.”
“Okay, we’ll try to get his statement there.”
Half a block away the façade of the hospital loomed out of the gloom.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CONROY’S ACRES
Trout walked side by side with Selma, and neither of them spoke until they stood in the lee of the sagging barn. Crows lined the pitched roof and thirty kinds of birds flew in and out of holes in the rust-colored wood. There were no animal sounds from inside, and Trout suspected the barn had been in total disuse for at least twenty years.
“Okay,” Trout said, “we’re officially out in the sticks. Let’s talk.”
Selma fished in the pocket of her robe and produced a pack of unfiltered Camels and a lighter with the logo of a Pennsylvania casino. Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs. Selma kissed a cigarette out of the pack, lit it, and stuck out the corner of her lower lip to blow smoke up and over her face.
“Ask your questions,” she said.
“Are you Homer Gibbon’s aunt?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“How well did you know him?”
“Seen him once in a while. Mostly when he was like seventeen and older. After he ran away from foster care the last time.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
Selma puffed, shrugged.
“Could you be a bit more specific?” Trout asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe back in ninety, ninety-one.”
“That was after he had committed several murders.”
“Alleged murders,” she corrected. “He was never convicted for anything back then.”
“Alleged,” Trout conceded. No reason to argue that point. “Did you know about his … um … activities?”
She made a face. “Ever heard the expression ‘country don’t mean dumb’?”
“Sure.”
“You’re asking a question that you’d ask a stupid hayseed who didn’t know shit from Shinola. Is that how this is going to run? You going to treat me like I’m poor unedumacated white trash.” She leaned on the deliberately mispronounced word, giving it a heavy rural twist. “If I say I knew what he was up to then I’m an accessory. I look old, but do I look stupid?”
Trout grinned, unapologetically. “No, ma’am,” he said, “you don’t.”
“Show some respect.”
Trout found he suddenly liked Aunt Selma. “Sorry.”
She nodded and took a long drag.
“Did you have any contact with Homer Gibbon after he was arrested for murder?”
“No.”
“No letters? E-mails? Christmas card?”
“Homer strike you as the kind of guy who buys Christmas cards?” she asked, smiling.
“Actually,” Trout said, “he tried to send valentines to the jury during his first trial.”
“Publicity stunt. Probably cooked up by his lawyer to make him look crazy.”
Probably true, Trout thought.
“So, you had no contact with him after his first arrest?”
“No.”
“At all?”
“No.”
“Then why did you place the request to have his body brought here to Stebbins for burial?”
She shrugged. “Family.”
“Sorry, Selma,” said Trout, “but that’s thin. Not to offend, but it doesn’t look like you have two dimes to rub together. Between the fees, transportation, mortuary costs, and a crew to dig a grave, you have to be shelling out five, six grand.”
“Four and change.”
“Still a lot of money.”
“Only if I was interested in saving it.” Selma picked a fleck of tobacco from her tongue and flicked it into the wind. “You have any family?”
“A sister in Scranton,” he said. “Distant cousins somewhere in upstate New York.”