After the courthouse came a series of bars, where men shook their head, or told aimless stories that never got to a point.
Ruby had found that investigations were like playing a game of Whack-A-Mole. You kept hitting the pop-ups until somehow, something worked and you hit the right one.
Or the game ended.
Her last stop was the local library, where she first spent some time ruling out any local investigators named David Morgan. Then shespread the missing women reports from the police station and the archives across a table.
There was a pattern—she could see it right away. The disappearances had started decades ago when a handful of women went missing from local bars. Then the pattern abruptly stopped. The few missing women of the next fifteen years could be explained by other causes, like hikers getting lost on the Appalachian trail. Then suddenly the pattern resumed—and increased. Most of the women had disappeared after visiting a tavern or bar, but never the same one. Others had simply vanished. There were no witnesses. No leads. But on the other hand, there was little police work, either.
Ruby ran the women’s names on the library computer. She wasn’t surprised when nothing came up for most of them. As usual, most had not been reported as missing in the papers. Ruby didn’t blame people for not knowing there were so many missing women. How could they? Even if the families made a stink, it was hard to get attention. This was doubly so for women of color, trebly if they had difficult histories or were known to drink.
She stopped, feeling headachy. Getting up, she packed her bag and strolled over to where the librarian was getting ready to close up for the day. If truck drivers were her eyes and ears on the road, librarians were the bartenders of the community, often tapped into every local issue and political plot. The woman smiled at her, skeptical but eager to help, as she approached.
Ruby leaned against the desk.
“I’m new in town.”
She was leaving the building—the librarian locking the doors behind her—when her phone rang, jangling her from her thoughts.
The sticky air hit her like a wet towel to the face. The sunset was a rusty banner.
It was Delaney.
“I’m still working on the bone,” Delaney said right away. “DNA breaks down over time, and with exposure, so this has been a tough one. I had another reason to call you.”
“What is it?”
“It happened when I entered your client’s DNA into our system.”
“Yeah?”
There was a long pause.
“There was a match. To someone we already have in the database.”
Ruby was puzzled.
“What do you mean?”
She could hear Delaney take a deep breath.
“He’s related to a woman living in Georgia. She sent in her DNA in case anyone ever found remains of her missing relative. You’re not going to believe this.”
The sky was now the color of blood.
“Her last name is Dubois.”
37.
The sheriff had never liked killing pigs. When he was a little sprat, he had been raised in a place with pigs, and he had vowed to never own pigs himself, because pigs, fattened before they even reached two, screamed like toddlers being murdered when it came time. They knew, too. Somehow, even before someone had boiled the water and readied the winch, or sharpened the blades, those smart-ass pigs knew they were going to die.
And they screamed about it. They screamed in rebellion; they screamed in fury and fear.
The farm where he had grown up had a large pen, and the pigs were like little mean old men, always staring at you with those beady eyes, their tusks having to be sawed down. The pigs had sharp teeth and could give you a very nasty bite. He had hated the pigs, it went without saying.
All that afternoon, the hunt went on. Sometimes the pigs escaped the circle of men, running with loud squeals through the forest, and the men sweated, taking more nips from their flasks. They were getting tired and frustrated. The fun was going out of the hunt: It was work now.
But now the trap was finally closing. The river was ahead, showing through the tight green trees. The water looked like glass along the edges, and the middle was nothing but deep rapids.
