Chapter 7
They were six miles from the Princeton PD headquarters. Farmland. A narrow, secluded, one lane access road.
Seven Princeton PD cruisers were already on the scene—no, make that eight. A blacked-out Crime Scene Unit cargo van was also parked off to the right.
Darnell hadn’t told Vaughn anything about the crime other than his eloquent description. Vaughn preferred it this way. A clear head, no bias.
Beyond the cars, a red barn. Not ancient, but definitely not a new build.
Vaughn and Darnell got out. A couple of the uniforms recognized them, nodded.
Vaughn nodded back.
Only one came over.
“Detective Ryan.” A smile. “Detective Darnell.” No smile.
“Officer Delaney.”
Vaughn and Darnell continued toward the barn and Delaney followed.
“Got here about an hour ago,” Delaney offered. “Anonymous call came in the middle of the night.”
“Who owns the building?”
“An old LLC. Hasn’t been used in at least a year. Probably longer.”
“Anybody notice anything? Cars coming and going?”
“No. There are a couple of farms around here. Plants, fruit. Early to bed, early to rise, that sort of thing. I have my men asking around, but so far nobody reported noticing anything unusual. There’s also the Cedar Ridge Preserve not too far from here—”
“The Preserve has security,” Darnell interrupted.
“Coupla rent-a-cops who were probably sleeping or jerking off in the woods last night.”
“Delaney, get someone to head over to the Preserve, talk to them.”
Darnell made no effort to hide his dislike of the cop. Spoke quickly. Exerted his authority.
“Right.”
“Now, Delaney.”
“Right.”
Delaney bound off.
“Don’t know why you put up with that guy,” Darnell said.
I put up with you.
Harsh and maybe unwarranted after what his partner had been through. Didn’t make it any less true, however.
The massive front doors to the barn were in decent shape. Firmly closed. Locked via chain and padlock. Vaughn tried to peer through the wooden slats, but couldn’t make anything out. Strange, given that there were gaps in the old wood.
How the hell do you get in?
A man wearing some sort of gas mask appeared from the right side of the barn through a much smaller door.
There, I guess.
Clad in a black windbreaker, with “CSU” in yellow lettering on the sleeve, the man was holding a strange-looking device in one hand.
He removed his mask, propped it on the top of his head. Red lines marked his face from where the rubber seal had pressed into his skin.
The machine in his hand beeped. He looked up, noticed them.
“You must be Detectives Ryan and Sacker.”
“Sacker.” Darnell pointed at his chest then at Vaughn. “Ryan.”
A nod.
“CSU tech Landon. You’re cleared to enter—don’t need a mask. It still smells a little, but it’s no longer dangerous.”
Now Vaughn wished that Darnell had given him a little more background.
Gas masks? Smell? No longer dangerous to enter?
What the hell was going on here?
“Follow me.”
Landon opened the door and Vaughn waited for his eyes to adjust before entering. It wasn’t dark inside the barn, not really. It was just . . . different. The lighting was harsher, less natural.
Landon went first, then Vaughn, then Darnell.
The smell was bad. Rotten eggs. Just shy of strong enough to make Vaughn’s eyes water.
Bodies at crime scenes tended to be on the floor, so he, not wanting to be distracted by death and thus miss a potentially vital piece of evidence, made sure to keep his gaze confined to the upper third of the room.
And a room, it was.
This wasn’t a barn in any traditional sense. There was drywall, and a ceiling that looked much lower than the exterior of the building would have suggested. Not peaked. No exposed beams. No stalls or stables for livestock.
It was as if someone had built a modern room inside the barn. Retrofitted it. Tube lights ran along the ceiling. The construction wasn’t perfect—no one had bothered mudding or taping the drywall seams. No paint, either. A rough job.
An amateur job?
There was some sort of portable speaker mounted on a cheap shelf on the back wall, the power cable exiting through a hole behind it. An air vent—new—directly above.
Vaughn took two steps. He didn’t want to look down yet, but his shoes kicked up dirt, drawing his eyes. Whoever had made this room had stopped short of constructing a floor.
He saw the bodies now—two of them. Both face down, their arms and limbs posed awkwardly, but not unnaturally so. Both were male.
The face of the closest victim was aimed toward the door. His skin was pale—no, it had a bluish tinge to it—and his wide eyes were cloudy. A white substance had accumulated in the corners of his lips.
Vaughn craned his head around, looked at the door they’d just walked through. The knob was warped, the circular shape dented out of true. There were scratch or pry marks near the frame.
“The exterior door—” Darnell began.
“Locked,” Landon said, predicting the detective’s question.
“Like the padlock out front?” Vaughn asked absently.
“No. Digital. Fancy, expensive. Had to use a crowbar to get it open.”
Vaughn took a moment, a breath—regretted it.
Goddamn eggs. What the fuck is that smell?
“Darnell? I thought you said ten bodies?”
Landon was the one who answered.
“Yeeeeah, we’re not done yet.” He made a wide berth around the corpses to a door on the other side of the room. Vaughn noted the digital lock. Landon gave the door a small push, and it slowly swung inward. “Had to pry this one open, too.”