The Woods (Page 75)

And what better way to atone for your own worthless life than to keep a chief investigator—a female chief investigator—waiting?

“Excuse me?” she tried, her voice an octave gentler.

“You can’t enter yet,” he said.

“Why not?”

“You have to wait.”

“For?”

“Sheriff Lowell.”

“Sheriff Lobo?”

“Lowell. And he said no one gets in without his okay.”

The rent-a-cop actually hitched up his pants.

“I’m the chief investigator for Essex County,” Muse said.

He sneered. “This look like Essex County to you?”

“Those are my people in there. I need to go in.”

“Hey, don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

“Good one.”

“What?”

“The panties-in-a-bunch line. You’ve used it twice now. It is very, very funny. Can I use it sometime, you know, when I really want to put someone down? I’ll give you credit.”

He picked up a newspaper, ignored her. She considered driving straight through and snapping the gate.

“Do you carry a gun?” Muse asked him.

He put down the paper. “What?”

“A gun. Do you carry one? You know, to make up for other shortcomings.”

“Shut the hell up.”

“I carry one, you know. Tell you what. You open the gate, I’ll let you touch it.”

He said nothing. The heck with touching it. Maybe she’d just shoot him.

Rent-A-Cop glared at her. She scratched her cheek with her free hand, pointedly raising her pinkie in his direction. From the way he looked at her she could tell it was a gesture that hit painfully close to home.

“You being a wiseass with me?”

“Hey,” Muse said, putting her hands back on the wheel, “don’t get your panties in a bunch.”

This was stupid, Muse knew, but damn if it wasn’t also fun. The adrenaline was kicking in now. She was anxious to know what Andrew Barrett had found. Judging by the amount of flashing lights, it had to be something big.

Like a body.

Two minutes passed. Muse was just about to take out her gun and force him to open the gate when a man in uniform sauntered toward her vehicle. He wore a big-brimmed hat and had a sheriff’s badge. His name tag read LOWELL.

“Can I help you, miss?”

“Miss? Did he tell you who I am?”

“Uh, no, sorry, he just said—”

“I’m Loren Muse, the chief investigator for Essex County.” Muse pointed toward the guardhouse. “Small Balls in there has my ID.”

“Hey, what did you call me?”

Sheriff Lowell sighed and wiped his nose with a handkerchief. His nose was bulbous and rather huge. So were all his features—long and droopy, as if someone had drawn a caricature of him and then let it melt in the sun. He waved the hand holding the tissue at Rent-A-Cop.

“Relax, Sandy.”

“Sandy,” Muse repeated. She looked toward the guardhouse. “Isn’t that a girl’s name?”

Sheriff Lowell looked down the huge nose at her. Probably disapprovingly. She couldn’t blame him.

“Sandy, give me the lady’s ID.”

Panties, then miss, now lady. Muse was trying very hard not to get angry. Here she was, less than two hours from Newark and New York City, and she might as well have been in friggin’ Mayberry.

Sandy handed Lowell the ID. Lowell wiped his nose hard—his skin was so saggy that Muse half-feared some would come off. He examined the ID, sighed and said, “You should have told me who she was, Sandy.”

“But you said no one gets in without your approval.”

“And if you told me on the phone who she was, I would have given it.”

“But—”

“Look, fellas,” Muse interrupted, “do me a favor. Discuss your backwoods ways at the next lodge meeting, okay? I need to get in there.”

“Park to the right,” Lowell said, unruffled. “We have to hike up to the site. I’ll take you.”

Lowell nodded toward Sandy. Sandy hit a button and the gate rose. Muse pinkie-scratched her cheek again as she drove through. Sandy fumed impotently, which Muse found apropos.

She parked. Lowell met her. He carried two flashlights and handed her one. Muse’s patience was running on the thin side. She snatched it and said, “Okay, already, which way?”

“You got a real nice way with people,” he said.

“Thanks, Sheriff.”

“To the right. Come on.”

Muse lived in a crapola garden apartment of too-standard-to-be-standard brick so she wasn’t one to talk, but to her amateur eye, this gated community looked exactly the same as every other, except that the architect had aimed for something quasi-rustic and missed entirely. The aluminum exterior was faux log cabin, a look beyond ridiculous in a sprawling, three-level condo development. Lowell veered off the pavement and onto a dirt path.

“Sandy tell you not to get your panties in a bunch?” Lowell asked.

“Yes.”

“Don’t take offense. He says that to everyone. Even guys.”

“He must be the life of your hunting group.”

Muse counted seven cop cars and three other emergency vehicles of one kind or another. All had lights flashing. Why they needed their lights on she had no idea. The residents, a mix of old folks and young families, gathered, drawn by the unnecessary flashing lights, and watched nothing.

“How far is the walk?” Muse asked.

“Mile and a half maybe. You want a tour as we go along?”

“A tour of what?”

“The old murder site. We’ll be passing where they found one of the bodies twenty years ago.”

“Were you on that case?”

“Peripherally,” he said.

“Meaning?”

“Peripherally. Concerned with relatively minor or irrelevant aspects. Dealing with the edges or outskirts. Peripherally.”

Muse looked at him.

Lowell might have smiled, but it was hard to tell through the sags. “Not bad for a hunting lodge backwoods hick, eh?”

“I’m dazzled,” Muse said.

“You might want to be a tad nicer to me.”

“Why’s that?”

“First, you sent men to search for a corpse in my county without informing me. Second, this is my crime scene. You’re here as a guest and as a courtesy.”

“You’re not going to play that jurisdiction game with me, are you?”