But it was my job. “I need to read twenty feet left and then twenty feet to the right of this spot.”
“Okay.” He took my elbow. Softly he asked, “Any roots?”
“No.” I swallowed the disgusting, sour, pizza-based nausea back down. “Just death. Gimme roots in my belly any day.” Which told him how bad the energies were.
“I want you to stop if you feel leafy or if you get any sensations you might have felt today before you went into the null room.”
“Okay.” I didn’t tell him that I wasn’t sure that I’d know if I got the working on me. He’d just worry. And I would be back at HQ and the null room there by midday tomorrow, so I was good. I hoped.
I felt nothing to the right. But there was a strong sensation to the left. Carrying the blanket and the pot, I rechecked two other spots and decided that the death and decay had entered on a direct line from the barn. We ducked between the white railings of the four-board fence and approached the white-painted barn. Thirty or so feet out, a spotlight blinked on, blinding us.
The metallic sound of a lever-action shotgun working cut through the night.
Occam shoved me to the side, out of the spotlight. Drew his weapon.
SIX
A man’s voice called out. “You cops or reporters dressed to look like ’em?”
“They’re the real deal,” Deputy Stanhope called.
We heard the sound of the shotgun being unloaded. “Give a man a heart attack, why don’t you.” The light went off and I felt Occam at my side again as he holstered his weapon.
“Cat reflexes?” I asked quietly. “And shoving the little woman out of the line of fire?”
“Your hands were full, your weapon in the car. I had to protect both of us.”
“I wasn’t complaining. I might have a bruise, but I’m not complaining.”
Occam called, “Mind us looking around?”
“Maybe ask a few questions,” the voice in the dark said. “I know the drill. Some reason you folks can’t do this tomorrow? It’s after midnight.”
“We could,” Occam agreed, moving slightly toward the voice in the darkness. “But you’re awake enough to aim a weapon at us. Now seems convenient.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t going to fire. Obviously I’m not sleeping tonight, since I’m here instead of home, so you may as well ask your questions.” The voice was Tennessee, but there was something in the inflection that suggested other influences.
I stepped off the grass to the paddock. Without laying the blanket or sitting down, I bent and touched the earth to feel the fine dust of a well-used paddock. No death and decay. “That was easy,” I said.
“What was?”
“Now that I know exactly what I’m looking for, I can do a surface scan without sitting. Interesting.” If I could do this with other surface reads, and save the deep reads for truly difficult scans, that might also keep me from becoming a tree again so fast, and it surely would keep the land from sending roots into my flesh. I pressed my middle with the back of a hand and didn’t feel an increase in the hard, rooty stuff in my belly. This could be useful.
Occam said, “Good to know. Let’s go talk with the shotgun holder.”
We entered from a side door directly into a small L-shaped office. I couldn’t see into the barn, but I smelled horse, warm and earthy, hay, the sweetness of apples and feed, manure. Hooves thumped in one of the stalls in the dark.
According to Credence Pacillo’s social media presence, he was half Italian, half Tennessean, his photos showing a dark-haired, blue-eyed man with a narrow beard and a well-sculpted mustache. I hadn’t seen him today, and so far as I could tell, no one had interviewed him yet, which was interesting for someone with such an important job on the farm. Pacillo was fully dressed in unwrinkled clothes and shoes that were clean of the paddock dust covering our field boots. Odd.
After introductions, Occam pulled out two chairs and we sat across a small table from Pacillo. He looked at the potted plant and the blanket, as if asking why they were with me. I didn’t volunteer an answer and he shook his head slightly as if at the vagaries of womenfolk or cops. Or both.
“I’m Melody Horse Farm’s breeder and trainer. Or I was. None of us are sure what will happen to the stock or the farm now that Stella’s gone. Coffee? Tea? Beer?” He flipped a hand at