As she worked, I said, “In all the photos from the online commune site and the marriage, her face was missing or blurred or partially hidden.” I flipped the loose photos front and back. Some had names. Most didn’t.
Tandy said, “We have Racine Alcock’s face in focus...” He flipped back through the album. “Once.” He tapped a photo. “With age-progression software we can get an idea what she might look like. Change her hair color, hair length, style, weight gain or loss. We can get several versions of what she might look like now.”
FireWind said, “Go through all of these with a fine-toothed comb.”
“Wait,” I said. I flipped an old photo back and forth. It was aschool photo, like ones used for middle school yearbooks, with a name on back. “Her name was Elizabeth Racine Alcock.”
“Gimme,” JoJo demanded. I slid the photo to her and she went to work, keys clacking.
“One thing I find curious,” I said, “though I think you all already know it.”
FireWind looked mildly interested.
“No one on this unit believes in coincidences. But you used the termliquid gooto describe the victims here at the house and in Cale’s car. We’ve been using the wordmelted. There was melted wax in the barn loft. And the kettles contained liquefied—melted or gooey—human remains. And we have the graveyards.”
T. Laine said, “Some of my contacts have speculated thatdeath and decaymight use liquefied bodies and graveyard dirt as part of the curse, energies, whatever it really is. I’ll contact them and get an update.”
Occam said, “Nell hasn’t updated her files yet, but she made a good speculation yesterday.”
I blinked.I made a good speculation? What was it?I looked the question at Occam, but it popped into my consciousness. “Oh. Right. We have at least one man who was driving a car when he was likely already dead or so close to dead his body was falling apart before he started driving. There may be no records of such creatures as necromancers, but this practitioner has some skill sets that fall into that category.”
FireWind made a sound that might have been a Cherokee grunt of interest. Jo’s eyes gleamed. T. Laine’s face pulled into a hard frown. “That would be bad,” she said.
JoJo said, “To make that speculation something stronger, I have traffic cam footage of Cale Nowell’s car running a red light and nearly hitting another vehicle. The other car’s headlights gave us a good view inside Cale’s car.” A photo appeared on a screen, showing blurry Cale Nowell behind the wheel of a car. His eyes were already starting to whiten out, which was a symptom we had noted only after adeath and decaybody was dead.
“Necromancer,” FireWind said, as if testing the word on his tongue, his eyes going unfocused in thought.
The meeting broke up soon after and Occam pressed my hand as he left the room. It left me with a warm feeling andhelped to settle the worries I had about the future and the living arrangements over the next few weeks.
***
My workday was office stuff: updating files, rereading Clementine’s dictation and making corrections, calling to schedule witness and suspect interviews, which would be conducted by T. Laine and Tandy in Cookeville, not me. I did a lot of sitting at my desk or in the conference room, and not a lot of moving around, which left me tired and a little achy, after all the exposure to death, so at three p.m. in the warmest part of the day, I told JoJo I was taking a break. She grunted that she heard.
With a thunderstorm blowing along the horizon, I pulled running shoes, running clothes, and a thin hoodie out of my locker, decided they didn’t smell too sweaty-stinky, and dressed for exercise. My weapon covered, ID and badge in a pocket, I grabbed my cell, hooked it to my comms headset, and left the building. I had learned the hard way to check the parking lot really carefully, to watch for cars pulling out when I left, to spot a tail. Or an attacker. Which was why after two blocks, I noticed the blue short-bed truck pull out of a parking spot and follow my route. It turned to the left when I turned right, but I kept an eye out for it.
Five minutes later, I spotted it again one block over. I was being tailed.
It could be the church, but it wasn’t likely. The truck was an older Chevy, but it was tricked out, to use Occam’s term for a vehicle that had been restored with lots of aftermarket parts. It could be related to the case. Someone wanting to share information off the record? Or a drive-by. I wasn’t taking chances.
FIFTEEN
I pressed my cell to autocall HQ.
JoJo answered with my last name, telling me that FireWind was close by. “Ingram.”
“Yeah. I’m possibly being tailed. A blue short-bed Chevy pickup, older model, the kind with the wheel wells outside the bed. It’s been restored or well cared for. High shine, new paint. Fancy chrome wheels. Nothing too splashy, and in this town, not particularly noticeable.” I gave her the street names of the crossroads I was approaching.
FireWind said, “Keep your pace slow. Save energy for a sprint.”
“Right.” I slowed, not letting panic push me, realizing only then that I was breathing too fast. I slowed my breathing, deeper, the cadence steady. “The truck’s been traveling to my left. Aaaaaand yep, there it is, crossing one street over and just behind me.”
A wry note in his voice, FireWind asked, “Jones. Can you follow her real-time?”
He was asking Jo if she could hack into security and traffic cams. She hesitated only a moment before she said, “I have programs for some camera systems. Others not so much. Are you authorizing their use?”
“Yes.”
“Accessing traffic cameras,” JoJo said, her voice toneless.
