His hand was nailed through the palm to a nearby tree. Whoever removed his heart had taken it with them.

  Marty lowered the plastic sheet over the body. Flies and ants, more circumspect than the crows, made their pilgrimages with slow, steady effort. The photographers had finished, and the forensics team. It was unlikely he would notice anything they had missed, but he had wanted to take one last look. Now he motioned for the paramedics to come and take the body away.

  Ethan came down the hill with them. He was dressed casually, in the jeans and the Badger T-shirt he’d grabbed following Marty’s call. “Holy shit” was all he could say.

  “That’s accurate,” Marty agreed.

  Ethan nodded toward Luis, seated in an open police car, his head on his knees. “You’re not arresting him, are you?”

  “No, but he’s a wreck. His priest is on the way.”

  Two paramedics loaded the covered body onto a stretcher. A third one began the delicate task of removing the impaled hand from the tree trunk. “What the hell was Bloom doing here in the middle of the night?” Ethan said.

  “I have no idea,” Marty said. “I’ve got to inform his wife, so maybe that will give me a lead.”

  “I don’t envy you that.”

  Marty shrugged. He used to dread those confrontations, but experience taught him that when one spouse died, the other was usually involved. He now saw the task of delivering the bad news as just another step in the investigation.

  Ethan stared at the blocked-off area. A small finch tried to land on the yellow tape, found it too unsteady, and flitted away. “So what does this mean for me?”

  “What were you planning to do today?”

  “Getting the last stuff out of the interior so we can knock down the walls of the old building.”

  “Trucks going in and out over there, on the far side?”

  “Yeah.”

  Marty nodded. “Go ahead, then. We’ve looked around inside, and there’s no sign anyone got through the fence. If you do find anything unusual, though, let me know.”

  ETHAN CLIMBED BACK up the hill. His crew huddled in a group, smoking and gossiping. No doubt they’d solved the murder a dozen different ways by now. They wore hard hats and steel-toed boots, but their eyes betrayed their worry. They dreaded what Ethan was about to tell them; they got paid only when they worked, and it seemed likely they’d be sent home.

  “Good news, guys,” Ethan said. “They’re not going to shut us down. If you see anything out of place or unusual, stop immediately and call me, then the cops. Otherwise, let’s get back to work.”

  The relief on their faces was almost religious. Ethan felt a small surge of pride as they quickly gathered their individual tools from their vehicles. In this economy, he was glad to be able to provide jobs to hardworking people.

  He stopped one of the men and held him back while the others got to work. “Marcus,” he said quietly, “Luis is a little shaken up, so I’m sending him home. I want you to be acting foreman today, okay?”

  Marcus’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Is that union?”

  “No. But I’m still going to pay Luis as if he was here, so officially he’s still the foreman. I just want people to have someone to come to if they find anything.”

  He nodded. “Okay, then. But I accept no real responsibility, you understand?”

  “I’m all for doing that whenever you can get away with it,” Ethan agreed.

  “Hey, Ethan!” someone shouted from the back of the building. “There’s something weird here.”

  RACHEL BLINKED AND shook her head a little. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

  The man at the counter scowled. He was a new customer, possibly a first-timer, and she was not making a good impression. “I said I’d like a Texas omelet with an order of hash browns cooked extra-crispy.” He over enunciated each word as if talking to an idiot.

  “Got it,” Rachel said, and turned to go.

  “Can I get a drink?” the man snapped.

  “Of course,” she said, forcing a smile. The man had every right to be annoyed.

  “Orange juice. Without the pulp, if you’ve got it.”

  “We do.”

  “Thanks,” he said with no sincerity.

  She put the ticket on the carousel and spun it for Jimmy. She knew Helena watched her with concern, but she deliberately avoided any eye contact. Then she did something she seldom did: She left the diner and went upstairs to her apartment, leaving Helena alone with the end of the breakfast rush.

  When the door closed, she did not open any blinds or turn on the lights. She sank onto her couch and took several deep breaths. She could not put into words how she felt, except to say that it was somehow, fundamentally, wrong.

  It had begun with her dreams during the fitful couple of hours she managed to sleep after returning from the lake. In them she was being sexually taken multiple times, in ways similar to the spirits’ approach to their trysts. Only she wasn’t in the water, and while she couldn’t quite make out the faces of the men, she sensed that they were all somehow Kyle Stillwater.

  And then they all stopped just when she was about to reach climax. They would withdraw from her, laugh cruelly, and pass her to the next one. She seemed to be unable to resist them, caught in that insidious dream weakness that kept her immobilized except for involuntary grunts and thrusts.

  She had showered repeatedly that morning, unable to feel completely clean. Her skin still felt damp and clammy, as if the mud from her encounter with Kyle Stillwater still clung to it. What had she been thinking? She wasn’t some drunken sorority girl at a frat party.

  And that didn’t even begin to cover the strange near-death experience with the old woman. Had it really happened? Or was it just her brain firing randomly from lack of oxygen?

  It felt real. Unlike conversations in real dreams, this one hadn’t faded with wakefulness. If anything, it was even more vivid.

  Tainter jumped on the cushion beside her and snuggled down against her thigh. She idly scratched the base of his skull and murmured, “Kitty, your mama made a bad decision last night.”

  A soft knock came from the door. “Come in,” Rachel called, expecting Helena or Jimmy.

  Instead Becky opened it, peered into the gloom, and said, “Rachel?”

  “Light switch is by the door,” Rachel said, getting to her feet wearily.

  Becky turned on the light, then closed the door behind her. Rachel stood uncertainly, never knowing what the correct greeting was. She waited as Becky looked at the ceiling, the floor, the furniture—anywhere but at her sister.

  “I think I did something terrible last night,” Becky said at last as she ran a finger idly around the framed Frida Kahlo print beside the door.

  Rachel said nothing.

  “You know I’ve been working for Garrett Bloom, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well … I’m also … um … I’m in love with him.”

  “With Garrett Bloom?” Rachel asked dubiously.

  Becky’s head snapped around. “What, you don’t think a man like that could find me attractive?”

  “That’s not what I meant. I thought he was married.”

  “His wife is a dried-up old harpy who he won’t divorce because he loves his kids too much. If that’s any of your business.”

  “It isn’t,” Rachel agreed.

  “And for your information, he’s wonderful. He’s kind and gentle.”

  “Does he know how you feel?”

  “He does now. I called him last night and left a voice mail telling him all about it. I was a bit tipsy.”

  Rachel shook her head. She had no patience for this. “Becky, you’re a goddamned idiot.”

  Becky’s eyebrows rose. She started to speak, then turned and walked out, slamming the door behind her. Her footsteps echoed on the stairs.

  Rachel knew better than to follow. A scene with Becky in the parking lot or, worse, in the diner would do no one any good. Besides, she was really in no position to claim the moral high ground.

  And dammit! There it was again, that sense that she had done something wrong. Becky was in love with a married man, not her.

  She went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. She wished she had time for another shower, although she doubted what she wanted to wash away was susceptible to soap and water. Instead, she returned to the diner and worked very hard to keep her mind on her job.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  LATER THAT MORNING, a battered white Jeep parked at the curb behind the two police cruisers. The door opened, and a petite woman with straight black hair tied in a haphazard bun climbed out. She put on sunglasses and looked around the area.

  Then she raised the yellow police tape at the perimeter and ducked under it. She called out to one of the workers. “Hi! I’m supposed to ask for a Mr. Walker, or a Detective Walker. Is it the same guy?”

  The nearest man removed his hard hat and shook his head. “No, ma’am. They’re brothers.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  He gestured with the hat. “That’s Marty. He’s the cop.”

  She turned as Marty Walker emerged from a door in one of the standing walls, then extended her hand to him and smiled. “Hi. I’m Amy Vannoy from the State Archaeological Commission. Lannie Boyd got called away at the last minute and asked me to come down in his place. Something about some artifacts discovered here?”

  “Yes. Let’s find my brother, and he’ll show you what we found.”

  “Wait, you found something?”

  “Just a little while ago. Aren’t you here because of that?”

  “No, I’m here to confirm there was nothing to find.”

  As they crossed the grass toward the remains of the building, Amy nodded toward the picnic table, where technicians continued to look for clues. “What happened there?”

  “A homicide,” Marty said simply. “A man was killed.”

  “How?”

  “Unpleasantly.”

  “I’m sure. But I’m a scientist, not a squeamish housewife. You can share the gory details.”

  “The victim was tied to that picnic table, his chest was cut open, and somebody cut out his heart. They also cut off his right hand.”

  Before Amy could inquire further, Ethan emerged from the building. He held out his hand and said, “I’m Ethan Walker, the contractor doing the renovation. And you are … ?”

  “Amy Vannoy,” she said to Ethan as they shook hands. “Lannie Boyd sent me down here to check out your site. But I think I can also help you. Pinning the right hand of a sacrifice to a tree is a very specific bit of ritual from the stories of the Lo-Stahzi.”

  “Really?” Marty was suddenly interested. “Can you tell me more?”

  “May I take a closer look at the crime scene?”

  Marty raised the yellow tape around the table so Amy could duck under it. She looked at the table, then at the tree, and said, “Was he cut here, just under his ribs?”

  “Yes.”

  “And his heart was removed that way?”

  “So it appears.”

  She looked at the table again. “Which end was his head on?”

  “This one.”

  “Ah. That’s wrong.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The Lo-Stahzi always sacrificed their victims with the heads toward the water, so the souls could run downhill into the lake. They believed the water was a conduit to the afterlife.”

  “Is that a fairly obscure bit of trivia?” Marty asked.

  “That’s what you get with the Lo-Stahzi,” Amy said. “They’re an extinct tribe, so there’s no one to ask. There’s lots of bits and pieces, but many of them contradict each other. I’m probably the leading expert, and what I know with certainty wouldn’t fill one sheet of a legal pad. There’s only one real book on the subject, and most of it is nonsense. But my guesses are more educated than anyone else’s.” She turned to Ethan. “Lannie said you hadn’t found anything, but when I got here they said you had.”

  “Yes, just this morning,” Ethan said. “It’s a little suspicious, since no one remembers it being there before, but I want to make sure it’s okay before we keep working.”

  “Show me.”

  Ethan led her to one end of the excavated foundation. Four workers stood in a circle around a shallow hole. They stepped aside for Amy, and when she crouched to examine the hole, they stared at the top of the pink thong that showed above the waistband of her slacks.

  She picked up some dirt and filtered it through her fingers. “Why were you digging here?”

  “Looking for an old sewer line,” Ethan said.

  “Have you been digging here today?”

  “No, not since yesterday. We were about to start again when we found those.” He pointed to two small stone arrowheads and pieces of what appeared to be broken pottery protruding from the soil.

  She stood, wiped her hands on her pants, and said, “Fail.”

  Ethan and Marty looked at each other, then at her. “What do you mean?” Marty said.

  “This dirt isn’t native. Somebody dumped it here, along with these beauties.” She picked up one of the arrowheads, spit on it, and rubbed it clean. “I have no doubt this is a genuine artifact, but it’s not a rare one, and it sure as hell wasn’t originally buried here.”

  Marty looked at her skeptically. “You can tell that without any lab testing or microscopic analysis or anything?”

  “Dirt is a huge part of archaeology, and I can tell that this dirt did not come from this sediment. Besides, look at the fence. You can see some of the dirt stuck to the razor wire where they dumped it over.”

  “So whoever did this was in a hurry,” Marty said.

  “Probably. If it was the same person that killed the guy, I could see why he wouldn’t want to dally.”

  Marty nodded thoughtfully. “Thank you, Ms. Vannoy. If you’ll excuse me, I need to call our forensics people about this.” He went outside the gate and down the hill for privacy.

  “So is there any reason we can’t continue working?” Ethan asked her.

  “Nah. I’ll take these pieces with me and see if I can figure out where they came from. Do you have a card? I’ll let you know what I find.” And she walked back up the hill toward her waiting Jeep.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  KYLE STILLWATER STAGGERED out of his apartment into the sun, leaving the patio door open behind him. He squinted into the light and stumbled over his rusted hibachi grill. He wore a T-shirt with a motorcycle on it and jeans that were split at the knee.

  “Hey, bro,” his neighbor Darius said. The middle-aged black man sipped coffee in his bathrobe and slippers. “You all right?”

  “Huh?” Kyle turned and saw his friend. “Oh, hi, Darius. Just a little out of it.”

  Darius shook his head. “On a weeknight, even. You kids have no sense of responsibility, do you?”

  “No, it’s not like that. I’m just … I feel like crap. I think I’m getting sick, you know?”

  “Yeah, I know. Eighty-proof sick. You know, if you ever need to talk instead of sitting in that apartment by yourself, you come on over. I’ll grill us some burgers, and we can hash out the world’s problems.”

  Kyle smiled. Darius was on disability from his diabetes and always reached out to his troubled neighbors. If only everyone in the world was so kind. “Thanks, man. I may take you up on that.”

  Kyle’s truck started after he raised the hood and wiggled the ignition wire. He always promised himself that after he got his big break, he would send that truck off the nearest cliff. He headed north out of Madison, toward the little farm owned by Henry Hawes.

  He stopped at a convenience store and left the engine running while he gassed up. The news on TV that morning had rattled him. Garrett Bloom had been murdered in the same park where everyone said he, Kyle, had shown up on Saturday. Yet he hadn’t. He had been hired to, but he’d somehow slept through it. Hadn’t he? No one had any pictures, and the guy they described was older, with white hair. Was it just some coincidence that he called himself “Kyle Stillwater”?

  His dreams this past night were just as troubling. He was making love to a beautiful white woman on the grass in the dark, and he could smell the water nearby. His memories of touching her were as vivid as any real sexual experience, yet the words he heard himself say came only partly from his own head. Someone else seemed to be speaking through him—someone whose personality was filled with hate and anger, and who delighted in causing pain.

  The final straw had been finding the policewoman’s business card on his refrigerator. He had no memory of talking to the cops, but surely they wouldn’t have burst in while he was sleeping, only to leave a card where he could find it. He knew he needed help—the kind only Henry could provide.

  He tried Henry on the store’s pay phone. He’d lost his own cellphone sometime in the last couple of days. Once again neither Henry nor his wife answered, but the old man seldom left the farm. Kyle would find him there.

  He had to.

  PATTY PATILIA THREW open the diner’s door so hard it almost knocked the little bell from its mount. “Have you heard?”

  Rachel looked up from filling ketchup bottles. She realized she had no idea how long she’d been doing that; her thoughts were thin and scattershot. “Heard what?”

  Patty’s face shone with sweat and eagerness, and she was so out of breath she could barely enunciate. “Someone was killed over at Olbrich Park. Murdered. Where they’re building that new community center.”

  The few post-lunch diners all turned to listen. Even Jimmy poked his head out of the kitchen.

  “Who?” Helena asked as she stood beside Rachel.

  “Garrett Bloom,” Patty said. “You know, the guy who hired me to sing? We went to the ground-breaking on Saturday.”

  A girl with tattoos on both arms said, “Was that the hottie in the loincloth? I saw him. That’d be a real shame.”

  “No, it wasn’t him. Mr. Bloom personally sought me out for the show. He said he wanted a local artist of my caliber to set the tone for the day.” This seemed to affect her anew, and she paused. “Wow. He was alive then. Now he’s dead.”