Watchers

Walt Gaines said, “Can’t figure why the murder of a grizzled old canyon squatter would interest you feds.”
    “Good,” Lem said. “You’re not supposed to figure it, and you really don’t want to know.”
    “Anyway, I sure didn’t expect you’d come yourself. Thought you’d send some of your flunkies.”
    “NSA agents don’t like to be called flunkies,” Lem said.
    Looking at Cliff Soames, Walt said, “But that’s how he treats you fellas, isn’t it? Like flunkies?”
    “He’s a tyrant,” Cliff confirmed. He was thirty-one, with red hair and freckles. He looked more like an earnest young preacher than like an agent of the National Security Agency.
    “Well, Cliff,” Walt Gaines said, “you’ve got to understand where Lem comes from. His father was a downtrodden black businessman who never made more than two hundred thousand a year. Deprived, you see. So Lem, he figures he’s got to make you white boys jump through hoops whenever he can, to make up for all those years of brutal oppression.”
    “He makes me call him ‘Massah,’ “ Cliff said.
    “I don’t doubt it,” Walt said.
    Lem sighed and said, “You two are about as amusing as a groin injury. Where’s the body?”
    “This way, Massah,” Walt said.
    As a gust of warm afternoon wind shook the surrounding trees, as the canyon hush gave way to the whispering of leaves, the sheriff led Lem and Cliff into the first of the cabin’s two rooms
    Lem understood, at once, why Walt had been so jokey. The forced humor was a reaction to the horror inside the cabin. It was somewhat like laughing aloud in a graveyard at night to chase away the willies.
    Two armchairs were overturned, upholstery slashed. Cushions from the sofa had been ripped to expose the white foam padding. Paperbacks had been pulled off a corner bookcase, torn apart, and scattered all over the room. Glass shards from the big window sparkled gemlike in the ruins. The debris and the walls were spattered with blood, and a lot of dried blood darkened the light-pine floor.
    Like a pair of crows searching for brightly colored threads with which to dress up their nest, two lab technicians in black suits were carefully probing through the ruins. Occasionally one of them made a soft wordless cawing Sound and plucked at something with tweezers, depositing it in a plastic envelope.
    Evidently, the body had been examined and photographed, for it had been transferred into an opaque plastic mortuary bag and was lying near the door, waiting to be carried out to the meat wagon.
    Looking down at the half-visible corpse in the sack, which was only a vaguely human shape beneath the milky plastic, Lem said, “What was his name?”
    “Wes Dalberg,” Walt said. “Lived here ten years or more.”
    “Who found him?”
    “A neighbor.”
    “When was he killed?”
    “Near as we can tell, about three days ago. Maybe Tuesday night. Have to wait for lab tests to pinpoint it. Weather’s been pretty warm lately, which makes a difference in the rate of decomposition.”
    Tuesday night . . . In the predawn hours of Tuesday morning, the breakout had occurred at Banodyne. By Tuesday night, The Outsider could have traveled this far.
    Lem thought about that—and shivered.
    “Cold?” Walt asked sarcastically.
    Lem didn’t respond. They were friends, yes, and they were both officers of the law, one local and one federal, but in this case they served opposing interests. Walt’s job was to find the truth and bring it to the public, but Lem’s job was to put a lid on the case and keep it clamped down tight.
    “Sure stinks in here,” Cliff Soames said.
    “You should’ve smelled it before we got the stiff in the bag,” Walt said. “Ripe.”
    “Not just . . . decomposition,” Cliff said.
    “No,” Walt said, pointing here and there to stains that were not caused by blood. “Urine and feces, too.”
    “The victim’s?”
    “Don’t think so,” Walt said.
    “Done any preliminary tests of it?” Lem asked, trying not to sound worried. “On-site microscopic exam?”
    “Nope. We’ll take samples back to the lab. We think it belongs to whatever came crashing through that window.”
    Looking up from the body bag, Lem said, “You mean the man who killed Dalberg.”
    “Wasn’t a man,” Walt said, “and I figure you know that.”
    “Not a man?” Lem said.
    “At least not a man like you or me.”
    “Then what do you think it was?”
    “Damned if I know,” Walt said, rubbing the back of