Page 125 of Homecoming

“I won’t bring it up again, since you so obviously don’t want to talk about it. But thereisconcern, at least for my part. If something’s bothering you, you can come to me. I wanted you to know that.” He shrugged. “That was all.”

He turned around and headed back out of the barn before Tenny could respond – positively or otherwise. Probably otherwise. He glanced back, though, before he returned to the house, and caught his silhouette again, edged with soft chandelier light; stroking the horse’s nose again, his head bent, his shoulders trembling.

Thirty-One

In his tenure as president, Ghost had learned to loathe early morning phone calls. If his cell chirped before sunup, it never meant anything good.

His eyes snapped open that Sunday and he was on instant, tense alert the moment he heard the chime. Maggie murmured something groggily beside him, sleepy fingers trailing down his arm.

He rolled over and snatched his phone off the nightstand, registering the faint bluish glow of just-before-dawn. “What?” he asked when he answered; he’d thumbed the screen without bothering to read the caller ID.

Walsh’s voice greeted him, heavy and serious. “There’s a scene at Bell Bar.”

~*~

The locks had been picked, and not busted, and secured afterward so that their lead contractor, Todd, hadn’t noticed anything amiss when he let himself in at ten ‘til seven. He was an early bird, didn’t mind working on Sundays, and trying to make up for lost time while supplies had to be reordered. He’d headed upstairs to retrieve a forgotten tool, and that was when he’d found it.

Or, rather,him.

“No obvious signs of struggle,” Walsh said, “at least not here. The blood fell straight down the sides of his throat and gathered there. It spread out to here, and here.”

Mercy toed one of the shiny bits of metal screwed down to the floor, the ones his bonds had been tied to. “Boat cleats,” he said. “Guess he thought that was clever.”

The pounding of boots on the stairs preceded Fielding, who burst into the room already winded and red-faced, in civilian clothes. His eyes bugged when he caught sight of the body. “Jesus Christ.”

Ghost took another drag off the second cigarette he’d lit since walking in here ten minutes before. “You can see why I didn’t want a forensics team out here yet.”

Vince looked at him wildly, eyes glazed with shock. “No. No I do not see that. This is a kid, Ghost! His parents need to – and the fucking –shit.”

“Yeah.”

Jimmy Connors had been tied by both wrists and both ankles, the bonds secured to the aforementioned boat cleats, which had been screwed down into the new plywood subfloor. He’d had his throat cut, on site, it would seem, and left to bleed out, most likely sometime in the wee hours of the morning, according the blood coagulation, and Walsh’s educated guess. His body had been laid out with his feet together, and both arms jutting straight out from his body.

“It’s just like in Texas,” Walsh said, standing, face twisted up uncharacteristically. “Staked out, throat cut. He must have been drugged, and I can guarantee the same paralytic is in his system the feds found in the Texas victims.”

“It isn’t just like Texas,” Fox observed. “They were spread-eagle, with their legs out, too.” He motioned with a negligent finger toward Jimmy. “This one’s in a T.”

“A T for Tennessee?” Mercy asked.

Albie murmured, “Jesus.”

Michael stared at the scene with arms folded, face set in harsh lines. He had no problem killing, not even unlikely targets. But there could be no approval or joy in this, not in a teenager who’d been displayed like this, as a message.

“Who did this?” Vince asked, voice faint. He sank down on his haunches beside the body; he didn’t seem able to take his eyes from it.

“Someone who’s trying to make us look bad. And who wants to send us a message,” Ghost said. He wasn’t giving Luis’s name up, not yet. Not until it was confirmed, and maybe not even then. Given what had happened in Amarillo, he thought it better to keep law enforcement out of it if at all possible. “There’s another thing.” When he motioned, Vince stood and followed him to the front wall: to the place where an upside-down yellow triangle had been spray-painted. The paint was still faintly wet to the touch.

“A tag?” Vince asked.

“Our best guess, with the color and shape, is that whoever it is is telling us to yield. You ever seen it before?”

Vince shook his head, both hands lacing together at the back of his neck – like he was holding on for dear life. He cut a sideways glance toward Ghost. “I have to call this in.” He said it desperately, more of a request than a statement; like he was afraid Ghost would say no, and that, given their record, he would have to go along with it. Showing that kind of weakness floored Ghost, though he didn’t show it. “I have to get people in here. Connors has to get the call from me, and not from you – it’s only right, Kenny.”

Ghost nodded. “Yeah.” They couldn’t start jumping too many normal channels in town without the rumor mill getting worse. “I hear you. But. You’ve got to handle it the right way.”

“The right…?”

“Suspicion can’t blow back on us. We didn’t do this. The guys who did are sending us a message, yeah, but Jimmy stuck his nose in where it didn’t belong, and he lied to us from the get-go.”

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