As he was moving past the perfect eight-foot-long stack, however, his eye was caught by an irregular shadow at its opposite end. He stopped, aimed his beam of light across that end of the stack, and saw that one stud was sticking out about a quarter of an inch, noticeable only because of the faultless alignment of the others.
It seemed unlikely that a factory-cut stud could have emerged from the process a quarter inch longer than others in the same batch. He laid his phone-flashlight on a stair tread, the beam aimed at the stack. He began to disassemble the stack, one row at a time.
When he reached the level of the protruding stud, he felt, for the second time since he’d become involved in the case, an unmistakable frisson.
The center sections of four studs in the middle of the stack had been cut away, leaving only about two feet at each end. The result was a concealed compartment two studs wide, two studs deep, and four feet long. The ends of the cut studs had been lined up with the ends of the intact studs—with the exception of that one stud end that stuck out.
He saw the reason for it. The end was kept from being aligned with its neighbors by the contents of the hidden compartment: a classic Winchester Model 70 bolt-action rifle, emitting the distinctive odor of a recently fired weapon; a red-dot laser scope; a muzzle-blast suppressor; and a box of 30-06 full-metal-jacket cartridges.
Gurney gingerly made his way back up the stairs. As he stepped up through the open trapdoor into the main room of the cabin, Hardwick came in the front door. In the pale light Gurney could see that he’d removed the sunglasses, hat, and scarf that were supposed to be hiding his identity from possible security cameras.
“No need for that ski mask,” he said to Gurney. “We’ve got what we need to go public.”
“You found something?”
“A used branding iron.” He inserted a small dramatic pause. “How do I know it was used? Because there appears to be burned skin stuck to the letters on the end of it. The letters, by the way, are KRS.”
“Jesus.”
“That’s not all. There’s also a red motocross bike. Like the one that was seen zipping away from Poulter Street. You find anything in here?”
“A rifle. Probably
“Is it possible we’ve got these evil bastards by the balls?” Hardwick’s innate skepticism appeared to be battling with the satisfaction of a successful hunt. He looked around suspiciously, his flashlight beam stopping at the loft. “What’s up there?”
“Let’s find out.” Gurney led the way up the ladder and stepped into an open-ended room above the kitchen. The underside of the steeply pitched roof was paneled with pine boards, and their distinctive scent was strong. There were two beds, one on each side of the space, made up in crisp military style. There was a low bench at the foot of each and a rectangular rug on the floor between them. The loft reflected the obsessive orderliness apparent everywhere in the cabin—all straight lines, right angles, and not a speck of dirt.
Gurney began checking one of the beds and Hardwick the other. Feeling under the mattress, he soon came upon something cold, smooth, and metallic. He lifted the mattress out of the way, revealing a slim notebook-style computer. Almost simultaneously Hardwick pointed to a cell phone taped to the bottom of the footboard of the other bed.
“Leave everything where it is,” said Gurney. “We need to call this in, get an evidence team out here.”
“Who are you going to call it in to?”
“The DA. Kline can get Torres reassigned to him on a temporary basis, along with the evidence techs, but that’ll be his call. The key thing going forward will be for the investigation and the personnel working on it to be controlled by an agency outside the WRPD.”
“Another option would be the sheriff’s department.”
The thought of Goodson Cloutz gave Gurney a touch of nausea. “I’d vote for Kline.”
Hardwick’s icy grin appeared. “Sheridan will have a hard time with this—having been such a huge fan of Beckert. Going to be tough for him to see the big shit getting sucked down the drain. How you think he’s going to deal with that?”
“We’ll find out.”
Hardwick’s eyes narrowed. “You think the little creep’ll try to pull off an end run around the branding iron and rifle to keep from admitting he was wrong?”
“We’ll find out.” Gurney switched his phone from Flashlight to Call mode.
In the middle of entering Kline’s number, he was stopped cold by a burst of canine howling and snarling. It sounded like a crazed pack of—of what? Wolves? Coyotes? Whatever they were, there were a lot of them, they were in full attack mode, and they were coming closer.
In a matter of seconds the chilling sound had reached a wild intensity—and it seemed to be concentrated directly in front of the cabin.
The frenzy of the sound was raising gooseflesh on Gurney’s arms.
