gave him a minute before approaching. Juan was on his hands and knees, fighting for breath. He looked up at Taylor with wide, mournful eyes. Behind his own calm expression, Taylor was burning with rage. He was pissed with himself for letting Juan catch him off-guard as he had, for not protecting him from the sight inside, and for not protecting Anna Wagner from Juan’s morbid curiosity.
“Feeling better?” Taylor asked, without showing a trace of his pity for the kid and the harsh lesson he had just learned.
Juan looked up, wiping his mouth. His face was pale. He looked now to be only ten years old.
“Want another peek?” Taylor asked.
Juan shook his head as he climbed to his feet.
“I tried to tell you. But now you know. So get to a phone. Call 911. Get the police here. Don’t talk to anyone else on the way to the phone.”
Taylor patted his shoulder. “Do it now, Juan.”
Juan nodded and turned away. He began to run.
“Save your legs. Stop. Save your legs. Take the tractor.”
Juan stumbled back and tried to start the tractor.
“Give it some fuel.”
The boy nodded absently and opened the fuel line. The Kubota fired up and hitched as he popped the clutch, steering it around in a tight circle, before bouncing off in high gear between the rows of grapevines and the early blossoming apple trees towards the main warehouse. The right tire hit a deep rut on the side of the laneway, and several tools bounced and fell from the wagon.
Taylor looked at his watch. It was a few minutes after nine. It might take at least a half hour for the police to arrive. As he turned back towards the shed, he recognized in himself the warning signs of shock.
This isn’t the same. Isn’t the same at all, the echo of a detached voice said to him. Don’t go numb. Compose yourself.
He let his legs take him towards the water. The dams downstream had not been opened enough for the rain that had come down in the last several days. The river was full, brown and slow. A large branch, still clad in green maple leaves, floated near the shore, barely moving in the swell, looking to Taylor like another body face down in the water. He closed his eyes and for a moment was only aware of the sun, now too hot on the back of his flannel shirt, and the feel of his wet shoes and the wet cuffs of his jeans from the dew on the tall weeds. He opened his eyes and took another step towards the river, but the tranquil scene was marred by the knowledge of what lay behind him. A loud buzzing insect released a steady high-pitched tone from the trees. Fifteen years ago, Taylor would have known its name. An early cicada, perhaps, he thought vaguely.
He rubbed his eyes and walked back to the pump-house, looking at every detail, from the sprinkles of broken glass mixed in with the gravel, to the scorched bricks and mortar around the window and door. There were no discernable footsteps in the dry mud surrounding the doorway. The rain would have washed them away several times over by now. No matches visible, no cigarette butts or weapons. No monogrammed handkerchiefs left behind by a masked villain.
Taylor rolled his eyes at his ridiculous thoughts and circled around the shed before approaching the doorway.
Careful not to touch anything, he stepped inside. Flies buzzed and swarmed around his face, and Taylor became conscious again that he was breathing death into his lungs. He took light, shallow breaths, feeling particles of her corpse entering his body with every breath. He swallowed hard several times as the reflex to retch came over him. A ruptured metal gas tank, visible beneath the fallen shingles and plywood, lay on the floor near the far wall. The red and yellow lettering was still legible on its side, but the metal was torn and blackened where the burning fuel had kicked its way out.
In the corner, he could see a pile of clothes. There were the remnants of a yellow dress with a pattern of blue wildflowers, singed from the fire and wet from the rain. Two white canvas tennis shoes, one singed and melted, the other untouched, lay lopsided on the dress. Protruding from the bottom of the pile of clothing was the edge of a cotton bra that had once been white but was now brown from the fire.
Against the wall were more six-inch irrigation pipes, each about ten feet long, stacked horizontally on metal shelves. Next to the pipe were several wooden pop bottle crates containing several dozen steel and aluminum connectors; shorter pipes with clamps, each about ten inches long. A rusty red toolbox sat unopened beside the crates.
Only when Taylor was certain he had taken in every other detail in the shed did he finally turn his focus towards Anna’s body. He took another breath. She was naked, black, grey and white, her burned face staring up from the metal cot. The cot, he imagined, had been used over the years by workers while they waited to move irrigation pipes or just needed to hide from the boss. Her hands were above her head, held by heavy handcuffs now blue and black from the heat of the fire. Her legs were spread open, nylon rope melted into the flesh of her ankles. He could smell the residue of gasoline most strongly from her body now. Several flies still swarmed her mouth and nose, lighting on her open eyes, but there were no maggots visible. Taylor had no desire to look more closely. She had not been dead for much more than two days. Her torso was burned badly, but her face and limbs still recognizable. Her neck had been cut ruthlessly. Most of her hair had been charred. Her mouth was open.
She must have died screaming, he thought as he took another step forward. No, something was in her mouth. A cloth had been pressed deep in her mouth. He pulled his utility knife from his back pocket and prodded lightly at the cloth. White cotton panties with pink flowers, singed by the flames.
Taylor put his knife back in his pocket, careful now to keep his eyes away from her face. The human mind cannot accept chaos. It will play tricks on you, trying to rearrange the details it is seeing into something it can make sense of. Lifeless open eyes seem to blink. Lifeless lips seem to smile then to sneer. It was hard enough when it was a stranger’s body you were looking at, when you could detach yourself from the knowledge that the body before you was once a living, animated person. It was nearly impossible, however, when it was someone you knew. Taylor blinked his eyes, again and again, trying to keep his mind focused, and looked around the shed once more.
It was shoddy work, he decided. He looked at the hole in the roof, at the broken glass of the window. More flies, buzzing loudly, lighted on his shoulders, his face and his ears. As he stepped back towards the door, he noticed an old hammer on the floor in the corner, rusted, the wooden handle scorched and split down the centre. Beside it was a small sickle about six inches long with a foot long handle. Taylor crouched down and looked for blood on the hammer and on the rusty serrated blade. There was none. He surveyed the room again, memorizing every aspect of her body and the items surrounding her.
Finally, he let his eyes pass over her face one last time: the mouth open in a silent scream; the disfigured bulging eyes staring at him; and the flies, the endless flies climbing over the once beautiful face. He turned his head away before his feet could move again. Once outside, he leaned against one of the apple trees until his head cleared. He let himself fall against the tree, sitting with his back against the rough trunk, and closed his eyes to the leaves and the blue sky above.
Taylor opened his eyes and looked down the orchard for any sign of Juan. How long, he wondered, would it take the boy to find a phone to call the police. How long before this crime scene became a circus of police, reporters and farm workers? He thought of heading towards the warehouse himself, just to be sure Juan had made the call he was supposed to make, but he fought that reaction. It was best to let the urges come and go as his mind tried to fight the memories of Anna as she had been, of Anna as her body was now. Memories of her blonde hair
