Page 42 of The Overnight Guest

As they approached the cornfield, Santos’s pulse quickened. She had been in meth houses and down dark alleys, but as they stepped into the corn, the tall stalks towered over her. At the top of each, a spiky tassel poked the sky. In the space of a few steps, the field had swallowed her whole. Santos felt a wave of apprehension.

As they pushed through the corn, Santos could imagine the terror that Josie Doyle must have felt as she hid from her attacker. No matter which direction you looked—left or right—there was another identical stalk in front of you.

Santos lifted her neck and squinted upward. The sky was as vast and endless as the field seemed to be. Insects buzzed past her ears, the sweet smell of corn filled her nose.

Soon the murmur of the breeze through the stalks was replaced with a dry cough. A few steps farther and Sheriff Butler’s khaki uniform came into view.

“Sheriff,” Agent Santos said by way of greeting. Butler turned toward her and then stepped aside to reveal what had been discovered by the volunteers.

A camo-colored shotgun, muzzle up, leaned against a thick stalk. “Looks like someone just set it there,” the deputy observed.

Agent Santos lowered herself into a crouch and examined the butt of the gun that rested atop the dry dirt. “Maybe. Any footprints?”

“Not a one. The ground is too hard-packed,” Sheriff Butler said. “But there’s a lot of trampled stalks. Squares up with what Josie said about being chased through the field.”

Agent Santos lifted a pinch of soil from the ground and rubbed it between her fingers. “Why would he leave the weapon behind.”

“Trying to ditch it?” Levi suggested. “He was trying to hide it in a hurry.”

“Who ishe?” Butler asked. “A stranger? Then where are Ethan Doyle and the Allen girl? If he took the two of them with him, wouldn’t he need the weapon to help control them? Same case if you think Ethan is the suspect. Wouldn’t he need the gun to make Becky comply?”

Agent Santos lithely got to her feet. “We need to get organized. Figure out what we know and need to know. Get a command post. How far is the sheriff’s office from here?”

Sheriff Butler shook his head. “It’s about thirty miles away. Too far. The department has a remote command post, but it’s being used on the far end of the county for a train derailment. I was thinking, how about the old church off Highway 11? It’s only a few miles from here.”

“Fine,” Santos said. “We need to talk to the survivor and the parents of the missing girl.”

“We got the basics from Josie Doyle,” Butler said. “She mentioned a strange truck hanging around earlier in the day.”

“Any names come up?” Randolph asked.

“Nothing that seemed too suspicious—just a few people that the girls came into contact with yesterday,” the sheriff said. “Brock Cutter, a local kid. And the Henleys—they live about two miles from here on Oxeye Road.”

“Okay,” Santos said. “Agent Randolph can help get the command center set up. Sheriff, have someone go talk to the Henleys and this Cutter kid. I’ll go meet with the Allens. Once Josie Doyle is given the green light by the docs, we need to interview her more thoroughly. Let’s plan on meeting at the church at—” Santos looked at her watch “—4:00 p.m.”

Everyone nodded.

“Bag the shotgun and enter it into evidence and go talk to Brock Cutter,” Butler ordered Levi, handing him the department’s evidence camera.

“Yes, sir,” Levi said as Sheriff Butler and the agents disappeared into the stalks.

Levi stayed behind, took several photos of the shotgun and drew a diagram of its position in his small notebook. He slipped on a pair of gloves and carefully picked up the shotgun. He opened the breach, exposing the barrel. The chamber was empty. It wasn’t loaded.

Maybe Brock Cutter was a witness to what happened at the Doyle house. Levi remembered the sour smell of sweat emanating off the teenager when he pulled him over. Was it just the heat? Maybe it was fear. And he had let the kid go with barely a second thought.

A current of anger slid through Levi. Had the little fucker lied to him? Maybe he knew something that could break this case wide-open. Holding the weapon off to the side, careful not to smudge any possible fingerprints, Levi began to walk back toward the farm. He needed to find Brock Cutter.

Agent Santos needed to see the bodies. “We okay to go in?” she asked the deputy stationed at the back door of the farmhouse.

The deputy nodded and handed the agents a set of paper booties to place over their shoes. The first thing Santos noticed when she stepped from the mudroom into the kitchen was the oppressive heat. All the windows were shut tight, no fans were running, and the window air conditioners were switched off.

“It has to be a hundred and ten degrees in here,” Randolph said, loosening his tie.

“We have to make a note to ask Josie Doyle if the house was shut up this tight last night,” Santos said as she moved to the living room. “For how hot it’s been all week, I can’t imagine they wouldn’t have been running the air conditioner or at least had the windows open.”

“Maybe the killer was trying to alter the scene,” Randolph suggested. “Made sure the windows were shut, turned off the air conditioner so that the bodies decomposed more quickly. That would make it harder for the ME to determine what time they died.”

“Could be,” Santos said. “Doesn’t look like there was forced entry. We’ll have to find out if the Doyles kept their doors locked at night.” They continued through the house. It looked like a typical, neatly kept home.

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