The Meadow 19 his adolescent arrogance or learned how to hide it. He seemed almost human as Alannah walked him toward the cemetery’s lower drive. “I had one of the deputies walk the perimeter. The padlock on your western gate has been cut.” He squatted over a thick rope of coagulated blood. In the first full light of day, the pennywort was no longer pretty candy but blighted weed. “My guess is they were carrying the victim on some sort of makeshift litter and it had a hole in it. That’s where you get the drops. But the guy in back was shorter than the guy in front, so when they went up a hill,” he gestured at the incline that led from the lower drive to the north side of the property, “the blood gushed out the back end.” Alannah nodded. He’d always been smart. Having the personality of a tarantula hadn’t kept him from the high honor roll. Being a criminal investigator for Ludlow County was the perfect career choice for someone so smart and inherently devious. “Do you still live on the property, Miss Walsh?” “Yes, with my folks. Do you need to talk to them?” “Briefly, to see if they heard or saw anything. My guess is that this has nothing to do with anyone who lives or works here. Most likely a convenient dump spot for someone with an inconvenient corpse.” His cell phone must have vibrated because he pulled it off his belt and held a brief conversation. “They’ve got the dirt off him. Looks to be a young male, Caucasian, early to mid-twenties. Are you still, I mean, would you be comfortable, I mean, you can’t be too squeamish…” Alannah let out a slow breath and stared down at her hands. She had a spider web of thin white scars on her palms and fingers from the days of broken glass. Still wispy and cobwebby in her long black dress, she easily could have been cast as Elvira, more at home with ghostly whispers than the living and breathing. She felt a rush of adolescent angst that should have evaporated a decade ago. Instead of looking at Gaelan, she busied herself brushing cobwebs out of Lyle Girard’s birth and
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