Still Life With Crows by Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child

seconds.
    “What are you doing here?” Pendergast asked.
    “On tour,” said the man.
    “Tour?”
    “Tool sharpening. Make two rounds of my territory in the warm months. Go south to Brownsville for the winter. You got it, I sharpen it, from chainsaws to combine rotors.”
    “How do you get around?”
    “Pickup.”
    “Where’s it parked?”
    Gasparilla gave a final savage chop, tossed the last squirrel into the pot. Then he jerked his head toward the road. “Over there, if you want to check it out.”
    “I plan to.”
    “They know me in town. I ain’t never been on the wrong side of the law, you can ask the sheriff. I work for a living, same as you. Only I don’t go sneaking around in the dark, shining lights in people’s faces and scaring them half to death.” He threw some parched lima beans into the pot.
    “If, as you say, they know you in town, why do you camp out here?”
    “I like a little elbow room.”
    “And the bare feet?”
    “Huh?”
    Pendergast shone his light at the man’s filthy toes.
    “Shoes are expensive.” He rummaged in a pocket, pulled out the chaw of tobacco, screwed off another piece, and shoved it in his cheek. “What’s an FBI man doing out here?” he asked, poking his cheek with a finger, adjusting the chaw to his satisfaction.
    “I imagine you could guess the answer to that question, Mr. Gasparilla.”
    The man gave him a sidelong glance but did not reply.
    “She was digging up in the Mounds, wasn’t she?” Pendergast asked at last.
    Gasparilla spat. “Yeah.”
    “How long?”
    “Don’t know.”
    “Did she find anything?”
    He shrugged. “It ain’t the first time there’s been digging in the Mounds. I don’t pay much attention to it. When I’m here I only go up there to hunt. I don’t mess around with the dead.”
    “Are there burials in the Mounds?”
    “So they say. There was also a massacre up there once. That’s all I know and all I want to know. The place gives me the creeps. I wouldn’t go up there except that’s where all the squirrels are.”
    “I’ve heard talk of some legend associated with the place. The ‘curse of the Forty-Fives,’ I believe.”
    Gasparilla said nothing, and for a long time the camp was quiet. He stirred the pot with a stick, occasionally darting glances at Pendergast.
    “The murder occurred three nights ago, during the new moon. Did you see or hear anything?”
    Gasparilla spat again. “Nothing.”
    “What were your movements that evening, Mr. Gasparilla?”
    Gasparilla kept stirring. “If you’re hinting that I killed that woman, then I just about figure this conversation’s over, mister.”
    “I’d say it’s just begun.”
    “Don’t get snippy with me. I never killed nobody in my life.”
    “Then you should have no objection to detailing your movements that day.”
    “That was my second day here at Medicine Creek. I hunted up at the Mounds late that afternoon. She was there, digging. I came back here at sunset, spent the night in camp.”
    “Did she see you?”
    “Did you see me?”
    “Where was she digging, exactly?”
    “All over. I gave her a wide berth. I know trouble when I see it.” Gasparilla gave the stewpot a brisk stir, brought out an enameled tin bowl and a battered spoon, ladled some stew into it. He scooped up a spoonful, blew on it, took a bite, dug the spoon in again. Then he stopped.
    “I suppose you’ll be wanting a bowl.”
    “I would not object.”
    Wordlessly, he brought out a second bowl, held it up before Pendergast.
    “Thank you.” Pendergast helped himself to the pot, took a taste of the stew. “Burgoo, I believe?”
    Gasparilla nodded and stuffed a goodly amount in his mouth, juice dribbling down into his tangled black beard. He chewed loudly, spat out a few bones, swallowed. He wiped his mouth with his hand, then wiped his hand on his beard.
    They finished their stew in silence. Gasparilla stacked the bowls, leaned back, took out the plug of tobacco. “And now, mister,