The Invisible Hand - A crime novel

Chapter 42

"How can you tell they don't have faces? We haven't flipped them over yet," Beth says.

She and Tom huddle near the face down bodies.

"Unless one of those rocks they're face down on is actually a pillow, I'd say there's no way their heads could've sunk down halfway," Tom says.

"Their fingers are still intact, though. Whoever did this wasn't worried about preventing identification," Beth says.

"Whoever? It's Wil. I'd bet my pension on it," Tom says. Winks.

Beth crosses her arms.

"The rookie thing is old and tired. Like your jokes," she says. "You planning on dropping it anytime soon?"

Tom shrugs.

"Sure, when you start making your own old, tired jokes," he says. "Then you're ready."

Beth keeps her arms crossed. Waits for the smart ass look to fade from Tom's face.

Tom's well on his way to retirement. It's why he's known in the Bureau as a top-notch asshole. A little bitter he's hit the point in his life when he's mentoring his replacement.

"Judging from the other injuries, it's pretty obvious they were tortured," Beth says.

She reviews the spaces of missing flesh in the two male bodies. The gaps are carved out. Scooped. Chunked. Shredded. Biology clearly exited the bodies in unnatural ways.

"You're missing the larger point here," Tom says. "Wil is escalating. He's becoming more dangerous. The other bodies in Betrug, they weren't mutilated like these two. Just shot in the face with a shotgun."

Now it's Beth's turn to be a dick.

"Actually, you're the one missing something. There are no tire tracks in the wet dirt leading down here. So either they were dumped from a boat in the Souris River or they fell from the sky. Which means UFOs. Obviously," she says.

Tom coughs up a throaty chuckle.

"See? Now you're getting the hang of it," he says. "Tire tracks or not, they were still dumped in clear view. So for one, Wil wanted us to find them. Two, the exsanguinations happened somewhere else. In my professional opinion, he's fucking with us."

"Maybe that's the point. Maybe he's leading us to where the mutilations took place?" Beth says.

Tom cracks his neck. Scans the bodies a few more times. "It's fun to play Da Vinci Code with dead bodies. But a lot of times, the bad guys leave a back up, just in case the Bureau sends a couple knuckleheads who don't appreciate a well-executed rebus," he says.

"A rebus? That's a new one," Beth says.

Tom points to a folded piece of paper stuffed between two rocks a few yards from the bodies. "Just like I thought," he says. Retrieves the paper with a gloved hand.

"How'd you know?" Beth says.

"It's the oldest trick in the Bureau playbook," Tom says. Grins. "Let the local police tell you about it when you show up. Then take credit for the find."

Beth rolls her eyes. "What's it say?"

Tom unfolds the paper. It's clean of any blood or gore.

"That we need to go," he says. "Right now."

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