A Maidens Grave

the sulky landscape took on a familiar tone—déjà vu from a recurring nightmare. A moment later the slaughterhouse loomed ahead of them. The battlefield was littered with coffee cups and tread marks—from squad cars, not the swales of covered wagons. The field was deserted. Potter folded up the phone and handed it back to Budd. He cut the engine and coasted silently the last fifty feet.
    “What about Melanie?” Budd whispered.
    There was no time to think about her. The agent lifted his finger to his lips and gestured toward the door. The two men stepped outside into the fierce wind.
     
    They were walking through the gully down which Stevie Oates had carried Shannon and Kielle like bags of wheat.
    “Through the front door?” Budd whispered.
    Potter nodded yes. It was wide open; they could enter without having to risk squeaky hinges. Besides, the windows were five feet off the ground. Budd might make the climb but Potter, already exhausted and breathing heavily, knew that he wouldn’t be able to.
    They remained motionless for some minutes but therewas no sign of Handy. No cars in sight, no headlights approaching, no flashlights. And no sound except that of the extraordinary wind.
    Potter nodded toward the front door.
    They crouched and hurried between hillocks up to the front of the slaughterhouse, the red-and-white brick, blood and bone. They paused beside the spot where the body of Tremain’s trooper had been dumped.
    The pipe by the window, Potter remembered. Filled with half a million dollars, the bait drawing Handy back to us.
    They paused on either side of the door.
    This isn’t me, Potter thought suddenly. This isn’t what I was meant to do. I’m a man of words, not a soldier. It’s not that I’m afraid. But I’m out of my depth.
    Not afraid, not afraid . . .
    Though he was.
    Why? Because, he supposes, for the first time in years, there is someone else in his life. Somehow, existence has become somewhat more precious to him in the past twelve hours. Yes, I want to talk to her, to Melanie. I want to tell her things, I want to hear how her day went. And, yes, yes, I want to take her hand and climb the stairs after dinner, feel the heat of her breath on my ear, feel the motion of her body beneath me. I want that! I . . .
    Budd tapped his shoulder. Potter nodded and, guns before them, they stepped inside the slaughterhouse.
    Like a cave.
    Darkness everywhere. The wind roared through the holes and ill-fitting joints of the old place so loudly that the men could hear virtually nothing else. They stepped instinctively behind a large metal structure, some kind of housing. And waited. Gradually Potter’s eyes became accustomed to the inky darkness. He could just make out two slightly lighter squares of the windows on the other side of the door. Beside the closest one was a stubby pipe about two feet in diameter, rising in an L shape from the floor like a vent on a ship. Potter pointed to it and Budd squinted, nodding.
    As they made their way forward, like blind men, Potter understood what Melanie had gone through here. Thewind stole his hearing, the darkness his vision. And the cold was dulling his sense of touch and smell.
    They paused, Potter feeling panic stream down his spine like ice water. Once he gasped as Budd lifted his hand alarmingly and dropped into a crouch. Potter too had seen the leveraging shadow but it turned out to be merely a piece of sheet metal bending in the breeze.
    Then they were five yards from the pipe. Potter stopped, looked around slowly. Heard nothing other than the wind. Turned back.
    They started forward but Budd was tapping his shoulder. The captain whispered, “Don’t slip. Something’s spilled there. Oil, looks like.”
    Potter too looked underfoot. There were large dots of silvery liquid—more like mercury than water or oil—at the base of the pipe. He bent down, reached forward with a finger.
    He touched cold metal.
    Not oil.
    Steel nuts.
    The end plate was off the pipe.
    Handy had been here al—
    The gunshot came from no more than ten feet away. An ear-shattering bang, ringing painfully off the tile and metal and exposed wet brick.
    Potter and Budd spun around.
    Nothing, blackness. The faint motion of shadow as clouds obscured the moon.
    Then the choked sound of Charlie Budd whispering, “I’m sorry, Arthur.”
    “What?”
    “I’m . . . I’m sorry. I’m hit.”
    The shot had been fired into his back. He fell to his knees and Potter saw the