Levi stepped from the car and examined the landscape. No vehicles were parked nearby, and except for the snuffle and grunt of the hogs locked away in the confine, the place appeared to be deserted.
Levi made his way around the house. The gray paint had faded, bleached by the sun and scoured by the elements. It was uninhabitable, the windows and doors covered with plywood, the guts shucked down to the studs. Levi remembered hearing something about a farm auction after the death of Leland Richter, the eighty-six-year-old man who insisted on staying in his home until his death a few months ago. Randy Cutter must have had the winning bid, though it didn’t look like he won much of anything.
A flash of movement caught his attention, and Levi eyed the long metal building that held the pigs. Something or someone had moved around the corner and out of sight.
Jesus, now he’d have to go check out the confine. Hogs gave him the willies. They could be mean sons of bitches with their tiny black eyes and flat, snuffling snouts. They ate just about anything you put in front of them, including flesh.
Levi strode toward the confine and when he turned the corner Brock Cutter was sitting in the bed of his truck, taking a swig from a bottle in a brown paper bag.
“Hey, Brock,” Levi called out. “I’ve been looking for you.” In surprise, Cutter fumbled the bottle and it fell to the ground, the dry soil quickly sucking up the liquid.
“Jesus, you scared me,” Cutter said, scrambling from the back of the truck.
“I scared you, huh?” Levi asked as he approached Cutter. “Let me tell you who is probably scared out of her mind right now—Becky Allen.”
“I don’t know anything about that,” Cutter said, kicking at a clod of dirt.
“You sure about that, Brock?” Levi asked, inching closer, forcing Cutter to move backward. “Didn’t your truck have a cover on it the last time I saw you? When was that? Oh, yeah, the night William and Lynne Doyle were murdered and Ethan Doyle and Becky Allen disappeared.”
“I wasn’t there. I don’t know what happened,” Cutter said, cocking his chin defiantly.
“But you were nearby,” Levi said, poking a finger at Cutter’s chest. “I pulled you over, remember? You were driving like a madman and sweating like a pig when I stopped you.” Levi gave a little chuckle at his own joke. “You told me some bullshit about being at a movie with your cousin. And you had a cover over the bed of your truck. Why’d you take it off?”
“I just did,” Cutter said. “And it’s none of your business. I can do whatever I want. It’s my truck.”
“Looks pretty clean,” Levi said, eyeing the truck up and down. “Looks like it’s been recently scrubbed out. What’d you do that for, Brock?” he asked. “Trying to get rid of some evidence, maybe?”
“No!” Cutter protested. “I keep my truck clean. I like it clean.”
“And the cover?” Levi pushed.
“My dad wants me to move some of these barn boards.” Cutter gestured toward a pile of lumber. “People pay money for crap like that. I needed to take the cover off so I could load the truck.”
“What do you think we’d find if we got a forensics team out here to check things out?” Levi asked.
“Nothing! You won’t find anything,” Cutter said, his face red with heat and indignation. He tried to move past Levi, who sidestepped right along with him.
“You’re probably right.” Levi sighed. “If I wanted to get rid of evidence, I’d probably toss it in with the hogs.” Levi reached over Cutter’s shoulder and pounded on the confinement building. Startled by the sound, inside the pigs squealed and snorted and jostled for position. “Let’s go take a look.” Levi grabbed Cutter by the elbow and frog-marched him to the doors of the hog house.
“Hey, hey!” Cutter cried. “You can’t do this—let me go.”
“I tried to be nice to you, Brock. You were speeding, probably drunk or high, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt the other night because I grew up with your cousin, who happens to be a nice guy. You, on the other hand, are a little shit.
“Then the next time I see you, you lie to me and say you hadn’t seen Ethan or Josie or Becky at all the day of the murders. Come to find out that you had seen them and proceeded to feel up a thirteen-year-old girl.”
“I nev…” Cutter began, but Levi shook him into silence.
“Are you calling Josie Doyle a liar, Brock?” Levi asked. He knew he was on the edge of losing control, but he was so tired and time was running out. They had search dogs and roadblocks and hundreds of people looking for Ethan Doyle and Becky Allen and had come up with nothing.