" I'm speaking to you over your optic contact," Christel said. " It is not just that his skin has been... flensed. Every muscle in his back has been... stripped off from the bone, as well. The only point of attachment remaining is the spine..."

He sounded unwell.

" It's with textbook, medical precision."

Not a hack job at all.

Which of the Perlmutters had done it?

They came up on the ranch. A stout, matronly older woman was outside, hanging up linen. Several small children around her. When she looked up and saw them, she scowled.

" No Careys on our ranch, Father says," she said, straightening out a sheet. " You must go."

" Ma'am, this is not about the ranch," Officer Carey said. " Where are all the menfolk at? We got an important situation to discuss..."

" It does not matter, you go," she said, waving him off.

" Ma'am, I'm tellin' you, I'm not stepping a foot off this land til you get Edvard and Conradt out here to talk wit' me," Officer Carey reiterated.

" Now, Officer Carey, don't be so cross with the lady," Allen stated carefully. " She might know something that can help us."

" Help you with what, harassing good tax-paying people?" the woman sniped, hanging up another sheet.

" Well, it's concerning your lodger, Theodore Ricksley," Allen said. " There's been... an incident. Do you know anything that could be of help?"

" He's no good, can't even help with cows," she said, still scowling. " Just sits around drawing bugs. But he has a college education, so Conradt and Enid are always fawning over him. Disgusting! What kind of degree can you get for bugs, anyway? Only things you need to know is how to kill them."

" ...So I take it you weren't all that fond of him?" Officer Carey asked, at length.

" Is that all you need to hear? Then leave. I will not have my father bail him out of jail!" she said, forceful.

" Well, ma'am, that's not quite..."

One of the children came back around the corner of the house with a tall, gangly older man. He looked like he had been working.

" What's going on here?" he asked.

" Oh, Conradt, there you are," Officer Carey said, looking a bit relieved.

His eyes narrowed.

" Why are you here, Marcus?" he asked.

" That antologist fella that's been stayin' out here turned up dead," Officer Carey said. " Real awful sight. We need to, ah... Talk to folks about it. Look around a little bit."

Conradt's face grew pale, and he plainly cycled through several different emotions, none of them good.

" What do you mean, dead?" he asked.

" I mean deader than a door nail, dead, hung out to dry, and every other way you can put it," Carey said. " I ain't seen a feller deader'n that in all my years."

Conradt leaned against the side of the house; the woman, who Allen took to be his sister, also looked quite shaken, and began to hustle all the children in to the house.

" Lieda! Lieda!" she stalked over to the fence and yelled out, bellowing. There was no reply.

" Who's she calling for?" Allen asked.

" My oldest daughter," Conradt said. " She... goes out into the field to draw, catch samples for Mr. Ricksley. She has been out all morning."

" I see," Allen said.

He slipped into the house.

Return......Next