Free Hunting Eve by Iris Johansen Page B

transport it to the FBI garage in Atlanta.”
    Kendra pulled on the gloves. “FBI? I’m surprised you’re letting them take possession of such a key piece of evidence.”
    “They have the facilities to handle it here. The CIA doesn’t.” Venable shrugged. “We’re not above a little interagency cooperation.”
    Kendra moved toward the car, watching as the body bag holding the corpse of Hallet was carried up the embankment to the waiting van. “I hoped I’d be looking at this in daylight, but these work lights should do.”
    Venable handed her his brighter-than-bright tactical flashlight. “This should help, too.”
    Kendra turned it on and stood over the trunk again. She glanced over the entire compartment, trying to catch anything that had escaped her attention when the farmer’s body was inside.
    “Two days underwater doesn’t make it easy,” Venable said.
    “Definitely not. But it did wash enough grime to see that the driver of this recently transported something.”
    “Something other than a dead body, you mean?”
    “Yes.” Kendra pointed to several indentations in the metal bottom and side panels of the trunk. “These are fresh. Probably made in the past couple weeks. See how shiny and reflective the marks are.” She gestured up to the trunk lid’s interior. “It was big enough that the owner had to drive with the trunk open.”
    Venable pointed to a frayed piece of nylon rope attached to the truck latch. “And tied down.”
    “Exactly. And you see fresh marks on the inside trunk lid that matched the ones on the bottom. Two symmetrical rails, maybe chair arms or some other furniture piece. Hard to say.” She pulled out her phone and clicked off several photos of the trunk.
    She glanced at the last shot on her photo screen. A shallow indentation of the trunk was filled with sediment and lake water, but something else was throwing back a reflection from her phone’s camera flash.
    She leaned inside, trying to ignore the still-pungent odor stinging her nasal passages. She slowly waved her flashlight back and forth over the bottom of the trunk.
    There!
    A metallic glint punched through the sediment.
    Venable leaned over her shoulder. “What is it?”
    “I don’t know. It looks like…” She used the end of her sleeve to scrape up a tiny bit of the sediment, then turned her wrist against the large work light.
    “Gold?” Venable said.
    Kendra nodded. “Maybe. It’s a little more granular than gold dust and a bit dull, almost unprocessed. Do you have an evidence bag?”
    “Actually, no. Not my department.” Venable stepped over to one of the FBI forensic techs and came back with a small envelope. He scraped the sediment from Kendra’s sleeve into it. “I’ll also make sure they take a close look at this stuff left in the truck.”
    “Good.” Kendra moved around to the driver’s side door and pulled it open. She’d noticed when she’d watched the forensic team at work that the interior was empty of ATM or cash-register receipts that would help point the way home. Damn, that would have been too lucky. Oh well, the water might have destroyed them anyway.
    She shined her flashlight beam onto the dashboard. The vehicle ID number had been crudely removed, as if pried off by a screwdriver.
    “The VIN has also been removed from the inner wheel arch and the radiator support bracket,” Venable said. “They knew right where to go. It’ll slow us down, but if the car has ever been serviced in a garage, there’s still a good chance we’ll be able to track it down.”
    “There isn’t much of anything here.” Kendra pointed to the backseat. “Except that those rear seatbacks were folded forward to transport whatever it was in the trunk. The fabric was split by something heavy, something that also crossed the rear passenger compartment and pressed against the back of these front seats.” She bit her lip. “I wish I knew what the hell it was. Not a bicycle. Not bookshelves. Not shipping