Parallel Lies by Ridley Pearson Page B

something since we showed up here.”
    “I’m cold is all.”
    “I don’t think that’s all,” he contradicted her. “You’re agitated. Restless. What gives?”
    “I’m cold,” she repeated. “I didn’t dress right for this.” She indicated her pair of city slacks, wool, but thin.
    He nodded, though he didn’t believe her. Her body languageindicated an impatience. She wanted to be rid of him but didn’t want to make a scene. He felt this most of all: she was worried about something. “Officer!” Tyler called out, stopping the state trooper. “The location of this break-in? Anywhere near here? Anywhere near the railroad tracks?” He was thinking that the killer would have jumped the next time the train slowed enough. He might have made a few miles before daylight but not much farther. Not in this cold, not looking the way Tyler imagined he must look. They might pick up a trail. How far could he have gotten?
    “Town of Jewett,” the state trooper shouted back. “Ten, twelve miles west of here.”
    They were outside a small town called Casey.
    “Near the tracks?” Tyler shouted.
    “Forty and I-seventy both parallel the tracks from Terre Haute to St. Louis. Jewett’s right on the rail line.”
    The big man waited for another question but then turned and went on.
    “You want me to visit Jewett?” Priest inquired.
    “I
have
to stay with this body. If you feel like it, why don’t you call this Commander Marshall. Interview the individual who reported the theft. Check the place out. Protect the scene and ask for a forensics unit.” He nodded toward the crowd around the corpse. “Probably these guys will handle it. You know what we’re looking for. Tracks in the snow. Blood. Discarded clothing.
Do not
follow those tracks, if and when you find them. Keep me posted. Are we in agreement here?”
    “I don’t work for you,” she clarified. “If I want to follow the tracks, I’ll follow the tracks.”
    “Not alone you won’t,” he corrected. “A uniform or detective accompanies you at every step. If not, we can lose the chain of custody for any evidence you find, and that’ll make it useless.”
    “Understood.” She didn’t sound convinced.
    “We need every scrap of evidence if we’re going to have any hope of finding whoever did this.”
    “Understood.”
    “Something’s still bothering you,” he said.
    “You are,” she answered. “Who put you in charge?”
    “I did,” he answered. “The feds did,” he added.
    Priest didn’t say a thing, but her eyes hardened. Then she glanced over at the frozen body, and that same, penetrating sadness he’d felt before seemed to overcome her again.
    “We need to do this by the book,” Tyler encouraged her. “We don’t need any more bodies.”
    Priest shook her head. She seemed ready to cry.

    Tyler informed Priest, “They’ve moved him to Paris—Illinois, not France.” He smirked, thinking himself funny. “The victim remains unidentified, but that may change. Currently he’s thawing out in a morgue there. Paris lays claim to the nearest pathologist.”
    “Change how?” Priest inquired.
    The two stood on a plowed road outside a gray farmhouse, a mile from the tiny town of Jewett. This was where the break-in had been reported. Tyler had caught up to Priest following his phone discussion with the pathologist, who had no intention of touching the frozen victim until he had thawed. Tyler drank a lukewarm coffee bought from a vending machine at a gas station down the road. Two state police cruisers were parked with their engines running, their tailpipes belching plumes of gray exhaust. One was occupied by a uniform behind the wheel; one was not, the engine left running to keep the car warm.
    Jewett was deep in Midwestern farm country—stark and barren in winter’s grip.
    Tyler answered, “What we
do
know about the dead guyis that he was a smoker—he carried a pack of Marlboros—he was a former Marine, judging by the mock tag he wore