Beyond that were two dirt tracks retreating into the brush, and another half hour of slow going before we saw anything man-made. Remy Williams’s nearest neighbor seemed to be Lake Anna State Park to the east.

The driveway, such as it was, came up on the back of a rudimentary single-story building surrounded closely by fir trees. It looked unfinished from here, with a galvanized standing-seam roof but just warped and silvered plywood over Tyvek on the walls.

“Very nice,” Sampson muttered, or maybe growled. “Unabomber east, anyone?”

It was bigger than Ted Kaczynski’s famous shack, which I’d been to once before, but the general feeling was about the same: madman in residence.

Around front, the two small windows under a covered porch looked dark. There was a dirt yard big enough for several cars, but no sign of any vehicle. The place seemed completely deserted, and part of me hoped it was.

It wasn’t until I’d driven around nearly full circle that I saw the wood chipper at the side of the house.

“Sampson?”

“I see it.”

It was an old industrial unit, with two tires and a rusted trailer hitch balanced on a cinder block. Most of the paint was long gone, just a few impressionistic flecks of John Deere green and yellow on the frame. Next to it, a blue tarp was folded on the ground, weighted down with a two-gallon gas can.

I kept the car running as we got out, and I pulled my Glock.

“Anyone home?” I called halfheartedly.

There was no answer. All I heard was the wind, a few birds chattering in the trees, and my idling car.

Sampson and I took the porch from opposite sides to check the windows first, then the door.

When I looked in, it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. Then I saw a man, sitting in a chair against the far wall. It was too dark for details; I couldn’t even tell if he was alive or dead. Not for certain. Not yet.

“Fuck,” Sampson muttered,

Exactly right. My thoughts exactly.

Chapter 97

THE SHACK’S FRONT door had no lock, just a hammered-iron latch, and as soon as I swung it open, the smell hit us.

It was that combination of sweet and putrid that’s so distinct and so hard to take. Like fruit and meat rotting for days in the same barrel.

The place was mostly empty, with just a few pieces of furniture—a metal cot, a woodstove, a long farm table.

The only chair in the place was occupied, and Remy Williams had apparently died in it.

He looked graphic-novel-style slack jawed where part of his face had been blown off. A Remington shotgun was still half-clutched in his left hand, barrel pointed down at the soft pine floor.

The other hand hung loose at his side, and it looked like there was some kind of writing on his forearm. Writing? Was that it?

“What the hell?” Sampson covered his mouth and nose with his arm and bent down for a closer look. “Oh no, he didn’t.”