- Isn’t this a surprise.
- I’m not here for a social visit.
- What are you here for?
- I want you to give me some insight. Tell me what I don’t know.
- You know what happened.
- True. But there’s more. I want to know what’s in your head.
- My head?
- Yes.
- Have you talked to anyone else?
- Not yet. I really just want to talk to you.
[pauses]
- Okay. Where should I start?
- Anywhere you want.
[pauses]
- Then I’ll start with the first . . . the first victim.
Chapter 1
Who would have thought a routine bike ride in late June would entangle me in murder? But then, it was my own fault for getting involved. I just couldn’t help myself. Chalk it up to being in the wrong place at the right time, plus my insatiable curiosity and my inability to walk away.
I pedaled along Avenue 28 on my way toward downtown Mañana. My short legs spun round and round while my body pumped out sweat in a feeble attempt to cool me off. I had established a fifteen-mile loop that was just enough to keep my doctor from telling me to do more cardio. At the age of forty-nine, I had to work to maintain even an average physique. Fat was a genetic predisposition in my family, along with dark hair, brown eyes, and a height ceiling at five feet six. No Gay Pride–float body here.
I turned right onto a side street that would add an extra half mile to my route and allow me to make a U-turn behind the Regent School. As I zoomed along, my nose twitched. I’d caught the scent of something foul. At first, I wasn’t sure what it was—then, bam! I recognized the stench of uncooked pork sausage left out in the garbage for several days in the summer heat before sanitation came by to pick up the bins. I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye.
In the field, a flock of a half dozen buzzards had their heads buried in something. From the number of them, whatever it was must have been large. I had to investigate. I’d been like that since I was a little kid. I possessed a curious nature, and unsolved problems were magnets for my constantly snapping neurons.
Against my better instinct, I braked to a stop. I turned my bike around and pedaled back to study the scene. The flock of buzzards was about one hundred feet from the shoulder of the two-lane road. One of them lifted its crimson beak to eye me, flesh dangling so that it looked like a feathered zombie. The bird tossed its head back, gobbled its mouthful, and then went back to the task of rendering the carcass with its buddies.
I pulled my bike off the road and onto the edge of the field. The late-June sun hurled down angry heat as I gingerly sidestepped the drought-ridden grasses and scrawny wildflowers that sprung from the packed and dusty earth. The buzzards shifted from side to side and made little gurgling noises on my approach. One of them flapped its wings and took flight, aiming right at me. I screamed, not in a manly way, I admit, and ducked as it flew past my head—the fetid smell of its feast emanating from its body.
For a split second I contemplated returning to my bike, hopping on the seat, and continuing my cardio workout. I could’ve just called animal control to report something out in the field. That would have been the smart thing to do.
But damn my curiosity!
I took another step toward the flock. Then, as if some far-off signal had reached their ears, the buzzards flapped in unison and took off, leaving their meal and me in a cloud of San Joaquin Valley dust. I coughed as I continued my approach.
Then I spotted it.
A human hand.
It jutted up from the low-lying dead brush, one finger curled slightly upward, as if signaling me to come closer. I inched my way toward the hand—and then . . .
Oh shit.
I vomited.
Chapter 2
I stood by the edge of the field as the police and forensics team arrived. A fortysomething man with peppered hair and the hint of a beer belly approached me. Dressed in a dark-blue polo shirt and khakis, he gnawed on a toothpick, which he plucked from his teeth and tossed to the ground.
“You Will Christian?”
“I am.” I extended my hand and he grasped it.
“Lieutenant Joseph Reed.” He removed his sunglasses and revealed blue-gray eyes, rare among humans, almost preternatural. “Could you show us the body?”
I walked him over to the grisly scene. “You’ll excuse me,” I said as I stopped about ten feet short. “I already tossed my cookies once.” I pointed to a particular spot. “I wouldn’t step there if I were you.”
He ignored my comment and traipsed over to the body, a team of three men and one woman following him. I looked on as two guys marked off the area with stakes and then wound police tape around each one, stretching it across to signal a crime scene. Another guy set about taking pictures, while the woman squatted next to the body.
“Looks like some kind of blunt-force trauma,” she said. “See here on the side of the head?” She pointed with nitrile-gloved hands. “This section is caved in. I’m guessing the skull is completely fractured.” She stood up and moved around, then pointed to the area around the head. “The ground should be soaked with blood.”
Lieutenant Reed nodded. “He was killed somewhere else, then dumped here.” His voice was flat, and he didn’t move as he studied the body.
“Exactly,” the woman said. She sized up the remains before her. “The buzzards have done some fine work, but I think our witness over there saved us a big headache if he scared them off.”
The lieutenant looked at me and then walked over. He pulled out a pad and a pen.
“Mr. Christian, I need to get some information from you.”
“Sure.”
He took my address and phone number, then asked me what had happened. I recounted every step I took, every detail, even about the buzzard that flew at me—although I omitted the scream. He listened and I watched as his smooth hand scribbled on the pad. I noticed a gold wedding band.
“So, you didn’t touch the body or get near it?”
“I told you,” I said. “As soon as I saw that pecked face, I lost it. I walked back to my bike and called 911.”
He reflected on this. As we stood there, a red Ford F-150 pulled up and parked on the side of the road. A tall man in a classic cowboy hat stepped out and headed for us.
“Hey, Tim,” Lieutenant Reed said. The other man stopped short, about three feet from us.
“I saw the unit as I was driving,” he said. “I was headed over to The Palms for some work.”
The Palms was the local gated community, built as part of the large golf course complex some twenty years prior. I lived there, around the corner from my sister, Laura.
“What’s up?” the other man asked.
“Looks like a homicide,” Reed said. “Bash to the head.”
The man whistled. “Doesn’t sound like Mañana.”
“Right?” The lieutenant mopped his brow with the back of his hand. “We don’t see foul play like this around here.”
I stood there, waiting. When no one said anything, I stepped forward and stuck out my hand. “Hi. I’m Will Christian.”
The man looked at it, waited a beat, and then took it in his. His grip was vise-tight, offering one of those handshakes that some straight men use to signal their masculinity. I gripped as strongly as I could in return, but his hand was almost twice the size of mine.
“Tim Shakely,” he said.
“Tim is my cousin,” Reed added. “He’s a local. Lived here his whole life.”
I looked at the lieutenant, then back at Shakely. One thing I’d learned in the several years I’d lived in Mañana was how proud the natives were. If you were born and raised here, you wore it like a badge—and you reminded others that no matter how long they lived in this town, they were transplants. Smaller-town living.
“My dad was a cop,” Shakely said.
“Hired me,” Reed added. “Uh oh.” He jutted his chin toward a van that had just pulled up. “Fresno is here.”
Mañana and the nearby cities of Merced and Madera were too small to have television news, so Fresno stations covered local events of any interest. I watched as a reporter stepped out of the van along with a cameraman. They surveyed the area, apparently looking for a suitable spot to set up. Then the reporter marched over to us. She was dressed in a navy-blue pantsuit but wore Nike running shoes. Evidently, she came prepared to walk out in these fields, and then I realized that field reporters are seldom shot below the waist. Maybe she wore those shoes all the time for comfort.
“Is one of you the officer in charge?” she asked.
“I am,” Reed pulled a badge from his pocket and flashed it at her.
She proceeded to ask him questions. He answered carefully and kept some information from her.
“I can’t speak to that.”
I thought she might ask Tim or me if we knew anything, but instead, she and her cameraman moved off to set up their shot with the forensics team and the crime scene in the background. She began speaking into the camera. Within five minutes, they left.
“And Mañana gets its three minutes of TV fame tonight,” Reed said as he watched the van disappear down the road.
“I thought Harold Fennel got you that,” I said.
The two men looked at me blankly.
“He’s from here. The author of What Goes Around Comes Around. They made it a movie. You know, with Bette Davis and Olivia de Havilland.” Still no response. “Congratulations, gentlemen, you pass the straight white male test.” I smiled.
“I don’t know what all that means, but you’ll have to excuse me,” Reed said.
I turned to see that the woman who had been examining the body was calling to him. He told me to wait, as though my curiosity would let me do anything but stay. He trudged over to the taped-off area. I redirected my attention to Shakely, taking in his lanky boot-clad frame, dressed in faded Levis and a long-sleeve button-down shirt. He reminded me of a fiftysomething version of Jake Gyllenhaal’s character from Brokeback Mountain.
“What are you lookin’ at?” he asked as he spat onto the dirt.
I was caught off guard. “Oh, nothing, really. I just didn’t expect cowboys in this part of the country.”
“I’m not a cowboy.” He wrapped his words in disdain.
“That’s some belt buckle you got there,” I said, maneuvering the conversation to something else. I jutted my chin at his waist.
He kept his gaze on me. “Yeah. It was a gift.”
“I’ve never seen turquoise like that before. It’s really . . . well, it’s really blue. Makes your eyes pop.”
He stood there, thumbs anchored into jean pockets, staring at me. Just then, Lieutenant Reed returned to join us.
“Man, what a mess.” He shook his head. Off in the field, the forensics team was bagging the body.
“I gotta get back, make my report. I may call you later with additional questions,” he told me. He turned to Shakely. “Let’s have a beer later.”
“Sounds good,” Shakely said.
The lieutenant made way for his car, climbed in, and headed down Avenue 28.
“So, you and Lieutenant Reed are cousins?” I asked.
“I’m married to his cousin.” Again, I picked up a hint of contempt in his words.
I shifted from one leg to the other. “I get the feeling you don’t like me.”
“Why wouldn’t I like you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you don’t like gay people—or short, half-breed Latinos.”
Once again, he spat on the ground. “I couldn’t give a shit. I just get the sense you think you’re better than everyone else. Let me guess. Big-city guy. Highly educated. Maybe early retired. Moves here because the cost of living is lower.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes. And no. I moved here to be near my sister.”
He seemed to think on this—his turn at taking me in. I watched as his gaze went down to my running shoes and then back up.
“And I don’t think I’m better than anyone,” I added when his eyes met mine again.
He nodded slightly. “So you say.”
He turned and headed back to his pickup. I watched as he pulled out, the tires crunching on the gravel and dirt, spewing up a small windstorm of debris. I covered my mouth and nose.
“Well,” I said to no one, “he’s not getting on my list for the next dinner party.”
