Free Over Tumbled Graves by Jess Walter Page B

delicate way to talk about Laird’s generally acknowledged incompetence. “This might end up being everyone’s case,” he finally said.
    “Okay.” Dupree hung up and walked over the roadside into thethick brush, branches and twigs cracking beneath his feet, until he reached the clearing where the Explorer had found Rebecca Bennett’s body yesterday.
    Today was even hotter, almost eighty, ridiculous for the Pacific Northwest in April. Bloated spring runoff bulged the riverbank and flushed the channel behind him, the current tugging at trees that had been fooled into believing they were safely on shore.
    More police tape marked the perimeter of the clearing, inside which detectives and evidence techs pored over every stick and piece of bark, taking photographs from every angle, sifting through sand and dirt. The clearing had been gridded with string, laid out like a checkerboard so that each piece of evidence could be graphed and traced to the exact place where it had been found. Since it was a transient camp, there was garbage everywhere, empty bottles and food containers. Each piece was photographed, catalogued, and then lifted with gloved hands into separate bags, sealed and stapled with a brief explanation and location. The garbage would prove to be a logistic tangle of its own, Dupree knew. Each piece would be fingerprinted and traced and they’d come up with seeming leads on all kinds of bums, none of whom had the courage or resources to replace a body after the police took one away. No, this was someone else, someone with a car and access to hookers, someone who’d seen the discovery on the TV news and had simply gotten another victim, killed her, and dumped her.
    The killer had access to hookers. He had mobility and knew that the police were no longer guarding the crime scene. Could be a resident of Peaceful Valley, just upstream, who saw the police leave. Could be a cabdriver. Could be a cop.
    Laird loped across the clearing, angular and unsteady, weighted to his hips, a six-foot bowling pin. He stepped carefully over the stringed gridwork toward Dupree.
    “How many times have I told you,” Dupree said, “you don’t get the roots, these damn bodies just grow back.”
    Dupree slid under the police tape into the edge of the grid, the strings laid three feet apart at knee level across the clearing, the entire crime scene photographed from above, each quadrant photographed, each square yard dissected, garbage removed, twigs and branches checked for fresh breaks, ground cover checked forimpressions and footprints, the very dirt itself sifted. The local FBI guys, a couple of former military types whom Dupree called Gomer and Pyle, were arrogantly and casually offering lasers and computer databases, like rich cousins at a family reunion.
    Laird pulled Dupree away from the FBI agents. “This is bad,” he said. For the first time, Dupree looked at the body. She was blond; the other girl had been dark-haired. And it was clear by the clusters of maggots that she’d been killed more recently. Other than that, it was eerily similar to Rebecca Bennett’s murder. The body was nestled in the same dugout, covered by the same branches. Dupree felt a twitch along his right arm and turned to the river, pretending to look for the direction the killer might have come. He let his breath out in little skips, then cleared his throat and felt the familiar urge to sweep up Debbie and the kids, protect and hide them in the same motion.
    His voice came out raspy and light. “Where was patrol?”
    “A car came by once an hour,” Laird said. “He must’ve snuck her in.”
    Dupree nodded and looked around the clearing again, trying to avoid eye contact with the FBI assholes, who were walking around giving orders to the evidence techs and looking every bit like guys trying to take over an investigation. But there was something else going on with the federales, something even more irritating than usual.
    “FeeBIes giving you any