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  “He wouldn’t want to go through it again,” Cash said.

  “This Sinclair woman, how does she feel about Kilraven?”

  Cash gave her a friendly smile. “I am not a gossip.”

  “Bull.”

  He laughed. “She’s crazy about him. But she’s very young.”

  “Age doesn’t matter, in the long run,” Alice said with a faraway look in her eyes. “At least, sometimes.” She opened the door. “See you around, Grier.”

  “You, too, Jones.”

  She walked into the hardware store. There at the counter was Harley, pale and out of sorts. He glared at her.

  She held up both hands. “I wasn’t even graphic,” she said defensively. “And God only knows how you manage to help with branding, with that stomach.”

  “I ate something that didn’t agree with me,” he said icily.

  “In that case, you must not have a lot of friends….”

  The clerk doubled over laughing.

  “I do not eat people!” Harley muttered.

  “I should hope not,” she replied. “I mean, being a cannibal is much worse than being a gardener.”

  “I am not a gardener!”

  Alice gave the clerk a sweet smile. “Do you have chalk and colored string?” she asked. “I also need double-A batteries for my digital camera and some antibacterial hand cleaner.”

  The clerk looked blank.

  Harley grinned. He knew this clerk very well. Sadly, Alice didn’t. “Hey, John, this is a real, honest-to-goodness crime scene investigator,” he told the young man. “She works out of the medical examiner’s office in San Antonio!”

  Alice felt her stomach drop as she noted the bright fascination in the clerk’s eyes. The clerk’s whole face became animated. “You do, really? Hey, I watch all those CSI shows,” he exclaimed. “I know about DNA profiles. I even know how to tell how long a body’s been dead just by identifying the insects on it…!”

  “You have a great day, Ms. Jones,” Harley told Alice, over the clerk’s exuberant monologue.

  She glared at him. “Oh, thanks very much.”

  He tipped his bibbed cap at her. “See you, John,” he told the clerk. Harley picked up his purchases, smiling with pure delight, and headed right out the front door.

  The clerk waved an absent hand in his general direction, never taking his eyes off Alice. “Anyway, about those insects,” he began enthusiastically.

  Alice followed him around the store for her supplies, groaning inwardly as he kept talking. She never ran out of people who could tell her how to do her job these days, thanks to the proliferation of television shows on forensics. She tried to explain that most labs were understaffed, under-budgeted, and that lab results didn’t come back in an hour, even for a department like hers, on the University of Texas campus, which had a national reputation for excellence. But the bug expert here was on a roll and he wasn’t listening. She resigned herself to the lecture and forced a smile. Wouldn’t do to make enemies here, not when she might be doing more business with him later. She was going to get even with that smug cowboy the next time she saw him, though.

  The riverbank was spitting out law enforcement people. Alice groaned as she bent to the poor body and began to take measurements. She’d already had an accommodating young officer from the Jacobsville Police Department run yellow police tape all around the crime scene. That didn’t stop people from stepping over it, however.

  “You stop that,” Alice muttered at two men wearing deputy sheriff uniforms. They both stopped with one foot in the air at the tone of her voice. “No tramping around on my crime scene! That yellow tape is to keep people out.”

  “Sorry,” one murmured sheepishly, and they both went back on their side of the line. Alice pushed away a strand of sweaty hair with the back of a latex-gloved hand and muttered to herself. It was almost Christmas, but the weather had gone nuts and it was hot. She’d already taken off her wool jacket and replaced it with a lab coat, but her slacks were wool and she was burning up. Not to mention that this guy had been lying on the riverbank for at least a day and he was ripe. She had Vicks Salve under her nose, but it wasn’t helping a lot.

  For the hundredth time, she wondered why she’d ever chosen such a messy profession. But it was very satisfying when she could help catch a murderer, which she had many times over the years. Not that it substituted for a family. But most men she met were repelled by her profession. Sometimes she tried to keep it to herself. But inevitably there would be a movie or a TV show that would mention some forensic detail and Alice would hold forth on the misinformation she noted. Sometimes it was rather graphic, like with the vengeful cowboy in the hardware store.

  Then there would be the forced smiles. The excuses. And so it went. Usually that happened before the end of the first date. Or at least the second.

  “I’ll bet I’m the only twenty-six-year-old virgin in the whole damned state of Texas,” she muttered to herself.

  “Excuse me?” one of the deputies, a woman, exclaimed with wide, shocked eyes.

  “That’s right, you just look at me as if I sprouted horns and a tail,” she murmured as she worked. “I know I’m an anachronism.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” the deputy said, chuckling. “Listen, there are a lot of women our ages with that attitude. I don’t want some unspeakable condition that I catch from a man who passes himself around like a dish of peanuts at a bar. And do you think they’re going to tell you they’ve got something?”

  Alice beamed. “I like you.”

  She chuckled. “Thanks. I think of it as being sensible.” She lowered her voice. “See Kilraven over there?” she asked, drawing Alice’s eyes to the arrival of another local cop—even if he really was a fed pretending to be one. “They say his brother, Jon Black-hawk, has never had a woman in his life. And we think we’re prudes!”

  Alice chuckled. “That’s what I heard, too. Sensible man!”

  “Very.” The deputy was picking up every piece of paper, every cigarette butt she could find with latex gloves on, bagging them for Alice for evidence. “What about that old rag, Jones, think I should put it in a bag, too? Look at this little rusty spot.”

  Alice glanced at it, frowning. It was old, but there was a trace of something on it, something newer than the rag. “Yes,” she said. “I think it’s been here for a while, but that’s new trace evidence on it. Careful not to touch the rusty-looking spot.”

  “Blood, isn’t it?” She nodded.

  “You’re good,” Alice said.

  “I came down from Dallas PD,” she said. “I got tired of big-city crime. Things are a little less hectic here. In fact, this is my first DB since I joined Sheriff Carson’s department.”

  “That’s a real change, I know,” Alice said. “I work out of San Antonio. Not the quietest place in the world, especially on weekends.”

  Kilraven had walked right over the police tape and came up near the body.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Alice exclaimed. “Kilraven…!”

  “Look,” he said, his keen silver eyes on the grass just under the dead man’s right hand, which was clenched and depressed into the mud. “There’s something white.”

  Alice followed his gaze. She didn’t even see it at first. She’d moved so that it was in shadow. But when she shifted, the sunlight caught it. Paper. A tiny sliver of paper, just peeping out from under the dead man’s thumb. She reached down with her gloved hand and brushed away the grass. There was a deep indentation in the soft, mushy soil, next to his hand; maybe a footprint. “I need my camera before I move it,” she said, holding out her hand. The deputy retrieved the big digital camera from its bag and handed it to Alice, who documented the find and recorded it on a graph of the crime scene. Then, returning the camera, she slid a pencil gently under the hand, moving it until she was able to see the paper. She reached into her kit for a pair of tweezers and tugged it carefully from his grasp.

  “It’s a tiny, folded piece of p
aper,” she said, frowning. “And thank God it hasn’t rained.”

  “Amen,” Kilraven agreed, peering at the paper in her hand.

  “Good eyes,” she added with a grin.

  He grinned back. “Lakota blood.” He chuckled. “Tracking is in my genes. My great-great-grandfather was at Little Big Horn.”

  “I won’t ask on which side,” she said in a loud whisper.

  “No need to be coy. He rode with Crazy Horse’s band.”

  “Hey, I read about that,” the deputy said. “Custer’s guys were routed, they say.”

  “One of the Cheyenne people said later that a white officer was killed down at the river in the first charge,” he said. “He said the officer was carried up to the last stand by his men, and after that the soldiers seemed to lose heart and didn’t fight so hard. They found Custer’s brother, Tom, and a couple of ranking officers from other units, including Custer’s brother-in-law, with Custer. It could indicate that the chain of command changed several times. Makes sense, if you think about it. If there was a charge, Custer would have led it. Several historians think that Custer’s unit made it into the river before the Cheyenne came flying into it after them. If Custer was killed early, he’d have been carried up to the last stand ridge—an enlisted guy, they’d have left there in the river.”

  “I never read that Custer got killed early in the fight,” the deputy exclaimed.

  “I’ve only ever seen the theory in one book—a warrior was interviewed who was on the Indian side of the fight, and he said he thought Custer was killed in the first charge,” he mused. “The Indians’ side of the story didn’t get much attention until recent years. They said there were no surviving eyewitnesses. Bull! There were several tribes of eyewitnesses. It was just that nobody thought their stories were worth hearing just after the battle. Not the massacre,” he added before the deputy could speak. “Massacres are when you kill unarmed people. Custer’s men all had guns.”

  The deputy grinned. “Ever think of teaching history?”

  “Teaching’s too dangerous a profession. That’s why I joined the police force instead.” Kilraven chuckled.

  “Great news for law enforcement,” Alice said. “You have good eyes.”

  “You’d have seen it for yourself, Jones, eventually,” he replied. “You’re the best.”

  “Wow! Did you hear that? Take notes,” Alice told the deputy. “The next time I get yelled at for not doing my job right, I’m quoting Kilraven.”

  “Would it help?” he asked.

  She laughed. “They’re still scared of you up in San Antonio,” she said. “One of the old patrolmen, Jacobs, turns white when they mention your name. I understand the two of you had a little dustup?”

  “I threw him into a fruit display at the local supermarket. Messy business. Did you know that blackberries leave purple stains on skin?” he added conversationally.

  “I’m a forensic specialist,” Alice reminded him. “Can I ask why you threw him into a fruit display?”

  “We were working a robbery and he started making these remarks about fruit with one of the gay officers standing right beside me. The officer in question couldn’t do anything without getting in trouble.” He grinned. “Amazing, how attitudes change with a little gentle adjustment.”

  “Hey, Kilraven, what are you doing walking around on the crime scene?” Cash Grier called from the sidelines.

  “Don’t fuss at him,” Alice called back. “He just spotted a crucial piece of evidence. You should give him an award!”

  There were catcalls from all the officers present.

  “I should get an award!” he muttered as he went to join his boss. “I never take days off or vacations!”

  “That’s because you don’t have a social life, Kilraven,” one of the officers joked.

  Alice stood up, staring at the local law enforcement uniforms surrounding the crime scene tape. She recognized at least two cars from other jurisdictions. There was even a federal car out there! It wasn’t unusual in a sleepy county like Jacobs for all officers who weren’t busy to congregate around an event like this. It wasn’t every day that you found a murder victim in your area. But a federal car for a local murder?

  As she watched, Garon Grier and Jon Blackhawk of the San Antonio district FBI office climbed out of the BuCar—the FBI’s term for a bureau car—and walked over the tape to join Alice.

  “What have you found?” Grier asked.

  She pursed her lips, glancing from the assistant director of the regional FBI office, Grier, to Special Agent Jon Blackhawk. What a contrast! Grier was blond and Blackhawk had long, jet-black hair tied in a ponytail. They were both tall and well-built without being flashy about it. Garon Grier, like his brother Cash, was married. Jon Blackhawk was unattached and available. Alice wished she was his type. He was every bit as good-looking as his half brother Kilraven.

  “I found some bits and pieces of evidence, with the deputy’s help. Your brother,” she told Jon, “found this.” She held up the piece of paper in an evidence bag. “Don’t touch,” she cautioned as both men peered in. “I’m not unfolding it until I can get it into my lab. I won’t risk losing any trace evidence out here.”

  Blackhawk pulled out a pad and started taking notes. “Where was it?” he asked.

  “Gripped in the dead man’s fingers, out of sight. Why are you here?” she asked. “This is a local matter.”

  Blackhawk was cautious. “Not entirely,” he said.

  Kilraven joined them. He and Blackhawk exchanged uneasy glances.

  “Okay. Something’s going on that I can’t be told about. It’s okay.” She held up a hand. “I’m used to being a mushroom. Kept in the dark and fed with…”

  “Never mind,” Garon told her. He softened it with a smile. “We’ve had a tip. Nothing substantial. Just something that interests us about this case.”

  “And you can’t tell me what the tip was?”

  “We found a car in the river, farther down,” Cash said quietly. “San Antonio plates.”

  “Maybe his?” Alice indicated the body.

  “Maybe. We’re running the plates now,” Cash said.

  “So, do you think he came down here on his own, or did somebody bring him in a trunk?” Alice mused.

  The men chuckled. “You’re good, Alice,” Garon murmured.

  “Of course I am!” she agreed. “Could you,” she called to the female deputy, “get me some plaster of Paris out of my van, in the back? This may be a footprint where we found the piece of paper! Thanks.”

  She went back to work with a vengeance while two sets of brothers looked on with intent interest.

  Two

  Alice fell into her bed at the local Jacobsville motel after a satisfying soak in the luxurious whirlpool bathtub. Amazing, she thought, to find such a high-ticket item in a motel in a small Texas town. She was told that film crews from Hollywood frequently chose Jacobs County as a location and that the owner of the motel wanted to keep them happy. It was certainly great news for Alice.

  She’d never been so tired. The crime scene, they found, extended for a quarter of a mile down the river. The victim had fought for his life. There were scuff marks and blood trails all over the place. So much for her theory that he’d traveled to Jacobsville in the trunk of the car they’d found.

  The question was, why had somebody brought a man down to Jacobsville to kill him? It made no sense.

  She closed her eyes, trying to put herself in the shoes of the murderer. People usually killed for a handful of reasons. They killed deliberately out of jealousy, anger or greed. Sometimes they killed accidentally. Often, it was an impulse that led to a death, or a series of acts that pushed a person over the edge. All too often, it was drugs or alcohol that robbed someone of impulse control, and that led inexorably to murder.

  Few people went into an argument or a fight intending to kill someone. But it wasn’t as if you could take it back even seconds after a human life expired. There were thousands of youn
g people in prison who would have given anything to relive a single incident where they’d made a bad choice. Families suffered for those choices, along with their children. So often, it was easy to overlook the fact that even murderers had families, often decent, law-abiding families that agonized over what their loved one had done and paid the price along with them.

  Alice rolled over, restlessly. Her job haunted her from time to time. Along with the coroner, and the investigating officers, she was the last voice of the deceased. She spoke for them, by gathering enough evidence to bring the killer to trial. It was a holy grail. She took her duties seriously. But she also had to live with the results of the murderer’s lack of control. It was never pleasant to see a dead body. Some were in far worse conditions than others. She carried those memories as certainly as the family of the deceased carried them.

  Early on, she’d learned that she couldn’t let herself become emotionally involved with the victims. If she started crying, she’d never stop, and she wouldn’t be effective in her line of work.

  She found a happy medium in being the life of the party at crime scenes. It diverted her from the misery of her surroundings and, on occasion, helped the crime scene detectives cope as well. One reporter, a rookie, had given her a hard time because of her attitude. She’d invited him to her office for a close-up look at the world of a real forensic investigator.

  The reporter had arrived expecting the corpse, always tastefully displayed, to be situated in the tidy, high-tech surroundings that television crime shows had accustomed him to seeing.

  Instead, Alice pulled the sheet from a drowning victim who’d been in the water three days.

  She never saw the reporter again. Local cops who recounted the story, always with choked-back laughter, told her that he’d turned in his camera the same day and voiced an ambition to go into real estate.

  Just as well, she thought. The real thing was pretty unpleasant. Television didn’t give you the true picture, because there was no such thing as smell-o-vision. She could recall times when she’d gone through a whole jar of Vicks Salve trying to work on a drowning victim like the one she’d shown the critical member of the Fourth Estate.