“Why? Did you finally watch all of the porn on the Net?”
“Don’t I wish, but no. I was editing film all night. The frigging mayor’s speech and the soccer game. If it wasn’t for soccer moms I’d kill myself. Anyway, I’m beat, I’m out of here, man. ”
“This is important—”
“What? The storm? If you think I’m going to stand out in a frigging hurricane while Gino reads the weather, then you need better drugs. ”
“Screw the storm. I have a lead on something that might actually be something. ”
“Something by whose scale? Town or county?”
Trout grinned. “Figure somewhere between Pulitzer and Oscar. ”
Goat blinked. “You shitting me?”
“I shit thee not. ” Trout dropped the story on Goat.
“Oh hell yes,” said Goat. “That’s huge. ”
“I know, right?”
“This is going to give the whole Gibbon story some new legs. Let me tweet something. ”
Trout nodded. Like anyone who still planned to have a future as a paid reporter, he understood the value of social networking. Twitter and Facebook moved mountains in terms of PR and buzz. Goat managed the online accounts for their division of Regional Satellite News, and he’d goosed the buzz to the point where RSN had over eighty thousand followers. Ten times the number of people who lived in the county.
“How’s this?” Goat typed in a short message: “Coming soon—RSN exclusive—Untold secrets of Homer Gibbon!”
“Perfect,” said Trout. “Short, though. I thought Twitter let you write a hundred and forty words. ”
“A hundred forty characters,” corrected Goat. “Brevity is God to the ADD crowd. This is fifty-seven. Makes it easier for people to retweet it while keeping their user names. Helps with spreading it out even more. ” He paused. “When we get back, I think I’ll edit a Homer Gibbon “best of” reel. News headlines, footage of the FBI pulling that body from the Dumpster in Akron, stand-ups from the trial, the perp walk, all that, then upload it to YouTube. We can post the link on Twitter, see if we can goose it to go viral. Prime the pump for when we drop the real bomb. ”
“Works for me,” said Trout.
Goat shut off the computer and began stuffing equipment into a reinforced duffle. When he stood, he loomed over Trout like a giant stick bug. “Let’s roll. ”
Three minutes later they were in Trout’s Ford Explorer, bucketing along Doll Factory Road toward Transition Estate.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
HARTNUP’S TRANSITION ESTATE
Officer Andrew Diviny was twenty-three years old. He had graduated from the police academy one year and four days ago and planned to log another year on Nesbitt PD to establish a solid record and maybe a commendation or two, and then he was going to put in an application to the FBI and blow Small Town America so fast his résumé would have skid marks. That had been the plan since high school. No way was he going to loiter in a dead-end former coal town like Nesbitt, a town whose only claim to fame was that it was not as much of a shithole as Stebbins.
He knew he fit the FBI profile to a tee. Good GPA from school and college, with a degree in criminal justice and a minor in accounting. That had been a deliberate choice. He knew that the FBI was all about accounting. Follow the money, even now with the Bureau under the auspices of Homeland. Everything was money, and Diviny knew numbers. He even liked accounting. His dad and uncles were CPAs and his mother had a degree in economics from Pitt.
As he ran softly through the grass toward the woods, he cut covert glances at the officer sent to accompany him. Natalie Shanahan. She was north of thirty, carrying ten pounds more weight than her uniform had been cut for, and she ran with her face pointed forward as if this was a game of catch-up rather than an exercise in tracking. She wouldn’t find anything, Diviny was sure of it. He would. He’d pick up the trail once they were in the woods, and he’d find the missing victim. He would make the save, so to speak. It would go in his jacket.
He pulled a little ahead as they reached the edge of the lawn, wanting to be the first one into the Grove.
“Slow down, kid,” puffed Shanahan, but Diviny pretended not to hear her.
The forest was thick with tall, dense pines whose shaggy coats of needles meshed together so tightly they turned bright morning into dim twilight. Diviny made sure that he had his flashlight out and on before Shanahan. He’d find a way to mention that in his report, always being careful to appear to be praising his fellow officer while slanting the details in his favor.
In the poor light the grass thinned and faded to bare earth and moss. Diviny spotted the erratic line of shoe impressions almost at once, but he crossed over them and edged toward the right, knowing that Shanahan would follow. She did, and he steered her twenty yards away from the trail.
“Shit,” she said, slowing to a walk, breathing hard under the Kevlar vest. “Lost it. ”
“I know,” Diviny lied. He chewed his lip as if in thought. “Look, he’s hurt, right? He’s not going to want to climb any hills. There are two trails. ” He indicated two natural paths between the tree trunks. “That one goes downslope. Path of least resistance. Why don’t you take that and I’ll go uphill just in case?”