“His?” Liam said.

“It’s a boy. I’d say about ten years old.”

“How long has the body been there?”

“Thirty years, give or take.”

“Jesus.”

He thought about the cave behind the cave and the limited access between them. And then he realized what must have happened. Someone had deliberately broken the bones of the body of the ten-year-old boy into pieces small enough to fit through the crack, which was so narrow no one would ever find it, or if they did, think to look for anything inside it.

Except maybe another ten-year-old kid. It was why the bones were so close to the crack, he realized. The killer couldn’t shove them in any farther because the crack was so narrow. He hadn’t been able to get his arm in past his bicep. “Brillo, can you tell if the injuries were pre- or post-mortem?”

“I’m pretty sure the fracture on the left side of the skull was the killing blow. If he wasn’t dead he would have been unconscious or comatose when the rest of his body was broken into bits and pieces. Do you know who did it, Liam?”

“Not yet.”

“Find him.”

This wasn’t professional, Brillo’s rage, it was personal. Child killings brought out the vengeful god in everyone. “What about Erik Berglund?”

He heard keys clicking. “Oddly enough, Berglund’s injuries were similar if not as extensive. There was a blow to the left side of his head, and his left elbow and clavicle are cracked. He’s also got a hell of a lot of cuts and bruises, and his hands are all torn up. Was there blood at the scene?”

“Not a lot, no.”

“Could he have fallen after he was struck?”

Liam thought of that sidewinder of a trail leading to the dig. Erik could have been struck at the signpost. “Yes.” And then fallen all the way down it, and at the bottom crawled to the tent and into the cave. And he had then tried to make a call on his dead phone.

He remembered the wear and tear on Erik’s clothes. Liam hadn’t looked closely at the trail but he had looked. It had rained on Tuesday and the body hadn’t been found until Wednesday. The rain must have washed away any blood. “Time of death?”

“How cold is it in that cave?”

“Say fifty degrees or thereabouts.”

Brillo grunted. “Then I’d say somewhere between Monday night and Tuesday morning.”

What Liam had estimated. “Okay. Thanks, Brillo.”

“Find that fucker, Campbell.”

“I will.”

Liam clicked off and thought bleakly of the new scenario laying itself out before him. If Erik had been attacked at the top of the trail and not the bottom, then anyone of any size or age could have done it without negotiating that killer trail. His pool of potential suspects had grown to include anyone in the general area of the Lower Peninsula on Monday night.

Great.

Eighteen

Friday, September 6

THE NEXT MORNING LIAM WENT STRAIGHT to the post, told his administrative aide that he wasn’t in to anyone who called, and locked himself in his office.