An Ice cold Grave Page 0,30

everywhere. I looked up into Tolliver's face, which seemed as pale as the snow.

"What do you need?" I asked, which was probably stupid.

"It's possible there are more," she said.

WE had to renegotiate. The consortium hadn't written me a check for the first successful episode, and I didn't work for free. And the reporters were everywhere. I don't work in front of cameras, not if I can help it.

Since the parking lot at the back of the police station was protected by a high fence topped with razor wire, we got in the back door of the police station without anyone the wiser - anyone among the media, that is. Everyone on duty that wasn't out at the burial site made an opportunity to walk past Sheriff Rockwell's office to have a peek at me. With my arm in a cast and a little bandage on my head, I was something to look at, all right. Tolliver sat at my good side so he could hold my right hand.

"You need to be in bed," he said. "I don't know what we're going to do about housing if we stay. I gave up our motel room, and I'm sure it's gone by now."

I shook my head silently. I was trying to decide if I was up to any more bodies or not. There was always the fact that it was the way I made our living; but there was also the fact that I felt like hell.

"Who do you think the bodies are?" I asked the sheriff. "I found all the locals that were missing."

"We went over the missing persons reports for the past five years," Rockwell said. "We found two more, somewhat over the age range of the boys in the Davey homesite."

"The what?"

"That house and garage and yard used to belong to Don Davey and his family. Don was a widower in his eighties. I barely remember him. He died about twelve years ago, and the house has been empty since. The relative who inherited lives in Oregon. She's never come back over here to look at the property. She hasn't made any move at all to dispose of it. She's about eighty herself and very indifferent to the idea of doing anything at all with the land."

"Did anyone offer to buy it before?"

Rockwell looked surprised. "No, she didn't mention anything like that."

"So where is this other place?"

"Inside an old barn. Dirt floor. Hasn't been used in ten years or more, but the owners just left it to fall down."

"Why do you think there might be more bodies there, specifically?"

"It's actually on the property of a mental health counselor named Tom Almand, who never comes this far back on the property. With all the to-do at the Davey place, the next-door neighbor, a deputy named Rob Tidmarsh, thought he'd check it out because it meets the same criteria as the Davey place: secluded, not in use, easy to dig. The barn floor's mostly dirt. Lo and behold, Rob found some disturbed spots on the floor."

"Have you checked it out yourself?"

"Not yet. We thought you could point us in the right direction."

"I don't think so. If the spots are that easy to make out, just sink a rod in and see if smell comes up. Or go for broke and dig a little. The bones won't be that deep, if the surface disturbance is so easy to see. It'll be a lot cheaper, and I can get out of Doraville."

"They want you. Twyla Cotton said they had money left, since you found the boys in one day." Sheriff Rockwell gave me a look I couldn't read. "You don't want the publicity? The press is all over this, as you found last night."

"I don't want any more to do with this."

"That's not my call," she said, with some apparently genuine regret.

I looked down at my lap. I was so sleepy, I was worried I'd drift off while I sat there in the sheriff's office. "No," I said. "I won't do it."

Tolliver rose right along with me, his face expressionless. The sheriff was staring at us as if she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You have to," she said.

"Why?"

"Because we're telling you to. It's what you can do."

"I've given you alternatives. I want to leave."

"Then I'll arrest you."

"On what grounds?"

"Obstructing an investigation. Something. It won't be hard."

"So you're trying to blackmail me into staying? What kind of law enforcement officer are you?"

"One who wants these murders solved."

"Then arrest me," I said recklessly.