He was wearing boots, as he had been the day before. She said, just in case he was thinking about telling her to stay behind, “I wasn’t wearing boots yesterday when we walked into the woods. I’ll take the risk.”
He grumbled a bit under his breath, but he didn’t argue. She was an adult and she was a cop, the same as he was. If necessary, he’d have walked barefoot through the woods, and they both knew it.
They got out of the car, and Knox locked it before they plunged across the ditch and into the woods. Bushes and thorns pulled at their jeans until they were beneath the canopy, where the undergrowth thinned considerably. The scent of rich earth and the perfume of hundreds of different plants filled her lungs. Birds flew among the tree branches, their liquid calls filtering down. An occasional rustle revealed the presence of a squirrel or perhaps a mouse burrowing for safety or an insect going about its business. The rustle might even be that of a snake slithering away, its daily hunt disturbed by the encroaching humans.
Knox had a good sense of direction, leading them on an upward slant without pausing to take his bearings. His head was constantly moving back and forth as he searched his surroundings in all directions. Nikita was a city girl, more at home on pavement than dirt, but she enjoyed the difference between this and her more usual surroundings. She herself had a good sense of direction, but since she had no idea where they were going, her internal compass was of no use. She simply followed him, though she mentally marked their path.
“Here,” he said. He pointed at a patch of earth where the leaves looked as if they had been disturbed.
“Someone could have buried his links here,” she said, trying not to sound as excited as she felt. All she needed was a full set of links, and she’d be able to go home. She had three of Luttrell’s, but she needed a fourth.
Her personal concerns would come after the DNA scans, though, because she didn’t want to disturb any samples. She took out the scanner and flipped it open, and took a reading. Numerous locations of DNA glowed faintly on the screen.
“Mine will probably be here,” Knox said. “And Jesse’s. If your analysis says the subject is a short, nasty-tempered little bastard, that’s Jesse.”
“The scanner doesn’t indicate temperament,” she said with a straight face.
“I know. That was a joke.”
“I know,” she returned, and gave him a sweet smile. “Gotcha.”
He grinned, not at all perturbed that she’d turned the tables on him for once. She settled down to work, carefully locating the various samples and securing them for analysis. Some of the samples were duplicates, of course; humans scattered DNA like seed. She recognized Knox’s description four times, and another unknown subject had twice that many samples; she assumed that was the “nasty-tempered little bastard.” McElroy’s DNA was present, which she would have expected, and a large amount of Houseman’s. Houseman must have died here, she thought sadly. This was definitely the point of initial transition. She couldn’t see any signs of blood, but laser weapons produced bloodless wounds. The disturbed patch of leaves might be where Houseman had fallen.
She knelt in the humus to scan another sample, and remained there on her knees, staring at the little screen.
Knox crouched beside her. “What is it?”
“Another agent. Hugh Byron. He’s McElroy’s best friend.”
21
Knox hunkered beside her, read the information off the screen. “Could he have come through since Luttrell did?”
“I don’t think so. This was the faintest sample the scanner has been able to read, meaning it’s probably the oldest.”
He made a noise deep in his throat. “If it’s the oldest, then he was the first one through. He’s your UT.”
She stared across the small clearing, not seeing anything except the scenario unfolding in her mind. “That’s why McElroy didn’t make any progress: he knew it was Hugh Byron, and he wasn’t trying.”
“Or they’re in it together.”
She nodded, depressed by the likelihood. “Or they’re in it together,” she said in agreement. She shuddered in horror. This meant Hugh was the one who had killed Houseman, one of his fellow agents, and McElroy was likely a coconspirator. The betrayal was staggering. If agents couldn’t depend on each other, then the integrity of every mission was at stake, because if you didn’t trust the agent who had your back, you couldn’t do your job.
Identifying Hugh as the UT also explained why the security at the Transit Laboratory had been so easily breached, why McElroy, who was more than competent, hadn’t been able to make any progress in the case. That must have been the plan, for him to return so he could keep an eye on things from that end. And heaven only knew what information and aid he had given Hugh when he was here.
Their only advantage, that Nikita could see, was that McElroy couldn’t be in contact with Hugh unless he physically transited here himself. So if a superior had sent someone in to move the time capsule for safekeeping, McElroy had no way to let Hugh know it was no longer there. Hugh would still be searching for it, and for the person who had placed the critical item in the time capsule.
This also tilted her perception of other occurrences. “He couldn’t have known, when he was here, that I’d be the next agent sent,” she murmured. “McElroy, that is. Or what the coordinates would be. So he couldn’t have warned Hugh, but Hugh would have known that another agent would be coming through and he must have been watching Taylor Allen’s house. That’s the most logical place I would go, that any agent would go, even though your people had already essentially sanitized it so thoroughly I likely wouldn’t be able to get any information from the scene. I had to try, at least. He knows me,” she added. “He would recognize anyone in the Transit Investigative Unit, because there aren’t that many of us. But why use a rifle? Why not the laser?”
“What’s the effective distance on the laser? Might have been too far.”
“A laser is light,” she said drily. “It goes until something stops it or the earth curves away from it, whichever comes first.”
“Holy shit, you mean if you miss, it just keeps going and burns whatever gets in its path?”
“Okay, so I exaggerated, but in tests it’s been proven effective at over a mile. That’s earthbound tests, because obviously you wouldn’t want a handheld weapon that had no distance limitations. In space—”
“Wait, don’t start telling me that stuff now. I have a bunch of questions I want to ask, and I don’t want to get sidetracked. Let’s go back to something you said. What do you mean, my people had ‘sanitized’ the scene?”
“I mean your forensics people had gone through it, chemicals had been used, plus so many other people had been there that—”
“It wasn’t sanitized—it was contaminated.”
“Let’s say it was a combination of both.” She frowned. “But McElroy could have gone in when he first discovered the body and used his DNA scanner to learn the identity of the UT. He must have made some excuse for why he didn’t, maybe that he could already hear the sirens of the emergency vehicles.”
“Tell me something else: why didn’t you come in two or three days earlier, wait for the killer, and prevent him from killing Taylor Allen?”
“Because he had already killed Mr. Allen when we learned of it. Mr. Allen was dead. That’s one of the laws: you don’t interfere and bring people back to life. I explained that. You don’t know what will happen. We’ve learned that the small things, the peripheral things, don’t seem to be that important, but something like life and death can completely change history.”
“Theoretically.”
She gave him a long look. “Do
you
want to be the one to find out for certain?”
“No, thanks.” He scratched his jaw. “I see what you mean. Your Council erred on the side of caution.”
“And even then the decision to begin time travel was so controversial there were riots in almost every developed country. A lot of people think no one should be doing this, that we’re courting disaster.”
“And you may well be.”
“I know. That’s why we’re so careful. What we’re doing now is the equivalent of dipping our toes in the water.”
“In a big way. By my count, six of you have come through. You’re bound to be making huge cosmic ripples, or something.”
“Or something. Two are dead: Houseman and Luttrell.” Luttrell’s body wasn’t very far away, either, she remembered with a shiver. “McElroy went back. I’m here, and Hugh Byron is here. I think we should probably expect McElroy to transit here again, if he can think of a reasonable excuse for doing so. But he doesn’t know I’ve lost my links, so he must assume I haven’t accomplished my mission or made any progress, or I would already have returned.”
“He knows you have a DNA scanner with you, though, so shouldn’t he allow for the possibility that you picked up something? Shouldn’t he
expect
it?”
“For all he knows, I’m dead. That was the plan. After all, that shot missed by very little. Until and if I go back, or he comes here, he doesn’t know any differently. Hugh knows, but not McElroy. And I still think it was someone local who shot at me, because Hugh wouldn’t be proficient with that type of weapon, even if he had been able to procure one. What laws do you have governing the sale of weapons?”
“Laws don’t mean shit to someone willing to break them. You can always get a weapon on the street somewhere, or buy one from an individual, without going through an identity check. I can’t think why Hugh wouldn’t have used the laser, why he’d need to recruit someone local.”
She shrugged. “Because he hasn’t found the time capsule and he’s busy looking for that? I don’t know. When we find him, we’ll ask. The thing is,
I
know what
he
looks like, too, so we aren’t working blind.”
He stood, looking around the little sun-dappled clearing. “We need to build a case board, so we’re looking at all the pieces at the same time. This is so convoluted I’m afraid we’ll overlook something crucial. A time line like you drew in my office would help, too.”
“I can do that when we go back to your house. Can you send out a BOLO with Hugh’s description, or would you have to make explanations that you don’t want to make?”
“I have to justify actions I take or don’t take. Sheriff Cutler runs a tight ship when it comes to spending the county’s budget. So I could send out a BOLO, but there would be an accounting for it by this afternoon. The previous sheriff let things get a little out of hand with things being investigated for personal reasons.”
No help there, then. He couldn’t use the department’s resources without explaining why, and there was no reasonable explanation he could give; unfortunately, the truth wasn’t always reasonable.
Just to check, she briefly dug in the area where the leaves were disturbed, hoping Hugh had also buried his links, but she found nothing. They were taught that burial was the safest hiding place, but circumstance might dictate a more accessible location, so where an agent put the links was left to individual discretion. Hugh might prefer his links close at hand.
As they walked down the wooded hill to his car, Knox said thoughtfully, “I’m surprised Jesse didn’t come nosing around to see what we were doing, but he might have been working in his garden and didn’t see us. I wonder if he’s noticed anything since Monday morning when I was here. Let’s go ask.”
They got into the car and Knox pulled straight across the highway into Jesse’s driveway. A pickup truck was sitting in front of the house, and off to the right was the barn. Knox grunted when he saw the tractor sitting on its flat tires. “You’d think Jesse would’ve gotten those tires fixed before now.” Abruptly his expression changed and he hit the brakes, stopping the car well short of the house.
“Get your weapon out of the glove box,” he said quietly to Nikita.
Without asking questions, she did as he said, her instincts going on high alert to match his. Something didn’t look right to him, and that was good enough for her.
Nothing was moving on the farm except the tree leaves, waving in a slight breeze.
“Jesse keeps chickens,” he said. “The pen’s out back, but usually you can see one or two around in the yard.”
Nikita had never seen a live chicken before, but she knew what they looked like. Slowly, they each opened their car doors and half got out, heightened senses reaching out in all directions, but there was nothing out of the ordinary to see or hear.
“Jesse!” Knox called. “Jesse Bingham! Sheriff’s department!”
Silence.
“What does he look like?” she asked.
“Like a short Santa Claus with an evil disposition.” He paused. “You know Santa Claus, right?”
“Not personally.”
“Har har. Very funny.” He indicated she should go right, while he took the left.
She nodded and they split up, each holding their weapon in a two-fisted grip. Her head swiveled back and forth as she took in everything. A farm wasn’t in her experience, but if she saw someone who didn’t look like a short, evil Santa, she knew what to do.
Cautiously, she worked her way around the barn, checking both behind it and inside, but it was empty and silent. She had never been in a barn before; it had an interesting smell, seemingly composed of dust, straw, and machinery, with perhaps some more earthy scents mixed in. But overall it wasn’t unpleasant, and at any other time she would have liked to explore.
She and Knox met in back of the house. A small chicken pen was nestled against the hedges, some white birds inside it pecking at the ground. The fencing was also used on top of the pen, keeping the birds from flying off, or so she assumed.
“Six of his chickens were killed Sunday night,” Knox said. “He always opens the pen during the day so they can range around the yard, then closes them up at night so they’re protected from owls and other predators.”
It was well into the afternoon, and the chickens were still in their pen.
They went around to the front door. In passing, Knox laid his hand on the hood of the pickup truck. “Cold,” he said.
Standing on the porch, Knox rapped hard on the door. “Jesse! Sheriff’s department!” They listened, but there wasn’t an answer.
“The tractor’s sitting there with flat tires, and his truck is here, so he should be here. It isn’t like Jesse not to get those flat tires fixed right away.”
“Does he have any friends he might have visited?”
Knox snorted. “Jesse doesn’t have friends, just adversaries.” He put his hand on the doorknob, swearing under his breath when it turned easily. “And no way in hell would Jesse go off and leave his door unlocked.”
They stepped inside, Knox first, then Nikita, covering each other. A window air-conditioning unit rattled away and the inside of the house was cool, which is what kept the smell from being worse. It was unmistakable, though, and Knox reached for his radio. He hesitated, meeting Nikita’s gaze. She didn’t need to be here, and first they needed to check the identity of whoever was making that smell, and ascertain how the person had died. The victim was almost certainly Jesse Bingham, but they needed to know for certain.
The farmhouse was two stories. Nikita took the stairs, carefully touching nothing, and checked all the upstairs rooms. The house was amazingly neat, and there was no one upstairs, or any signs of violence.
The body was in the kitchen, sprawled just inside the kitchen door. Anyone trying to come in that way wouldn’t have been able to open the door. There wasn’t any blood, because the long furrow in Jesse’s body had been cauterized by the intense heat of a laser.
“Shit,” Knox said. “Shit!”
“How can you call it in?” Nikita asked quietly. “How can you justify being here?”
“I was here Monday morning when he reported the vandalism. It wouldn’t be unusual for me to follow up on it, though I really should be working on Taylor Allen’s case. Except I know who killed Taylor Allen; I just don’t know where the son of a bitch is and I don’t have the usual means of tracking him down, plus I can’t prove he did it anyway. I just love this fucking case.” His frustration rang in his tone, and he looked as if he wanted to punch something.
Before she thought, she reached out and touched his arm, offering what comfort she could. “I’d like to point out that this illustrates why I need a separate vehicle, but it’s too late to do anything about that right now. Where should I go, that I won’t be seen?”
“There isn’t anyplace,” he said savagely. “I have to take you back to my house; then I have to radio in that I’m coming out here; then I’ll have to call it in once I’m back.”
She couldn’t come up with a reasonable alternative, other than not calling it in at all, but she knew that was further than Knox could go. Not calling in Luttrell’s death had eaten at him. So instead of arguing, she merely said, “Wipe your prints off the doorknob, just in case someone else finds him before you can get back.”
Swearing, he did so as they stepped out onto the porch. “This is a time bomb, just ready to explode on us. How many cars have driven past and seen my car parked on the side of the road? It’s a quiet road, but it isn’t deserted. How many have gone by since we’ve been here at the house?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “A few. Would your car be recognized?”
“It’s a county car. Everyone knows what they look like.”
They just had to hope no one would find out the exact time Jesse’s death had been called in. If someone saw the county car sitting there, and then for some reason drove back by and noticed that the county car was gone, that would be a problem. The situation was getting so perilous for Knox that Nikita was tempted to tell him to call it in right then, that she would begin walking back to town. It was a long walk on a hot afternoon, but it wouldn’t kill her.