Habit by T. J. Brearton Read Free Book Online

them. The two men and the dog went into the gloom, and Brendan removed his sunglasses.
    The first thing Brendan noticed was the old John Deere tractor. Its hood was open, engine exposed, looking in surprisingly good shape after all. The bucket was still attached, resting on the dirt floor. On either side of the shed were stacked rows of what looked like cages. The smell of chicken shit was powerful. As his eyes adjusted, Brendan could see the dried white splatters of chicken poop dripping from the cages, and around on the floor. Chicken feed was turned to mush next to the cages. The dog pulled the K9 cop around to the back of the tractor. Its barks resounded in the dark. There was a sudden intensification of smell – the odor of decay, sour and acute. Brendan braced himself to find another body, perhaps of the killer, who’d come out and slit his own throat after perpetrating the heinous crime inside the house.
    But it wasn’t a human body that the dog had found. It was a small animal. Maybe a hedgehog, or a woodchuck.
    The farmer across the road had been after a woodchuck or some other creature, shooting through the desiccated rows of corn at it.
    The stink was even worse back here: chicken excrement, the powerful odor of a rotted animal, and something more. Maggots crawled through the tufts of fur, and flies buzzed and alighted. It looked like a raccoon.
    “Ugh.” Brendan put the ridge of his hand under his nose.
    The K9 cop said nothing, working to restrain the dog from burying his snout in the mess. “What do you think did that?” asked Brendan.
    “Have to order the autopsy,” said the K9 cop with dry humor. Then, “Dunno. Maybe a coyote. Maybe it just came in here to die.”
    There appeared to be some blood, but it was hard to tell. Against the back wall of the shed were trash barrels. Two of these had been tipped over. On the ground were piles of what appeared to be household trash; Brendan thought he could see banana peels, plastic food packaging, an empty Cascade detergent box, some kind of noodles, and more. There were also substances which didn’t resemble food. Holding his nose, Brendan bent and squinted at what appeared to be a large lump of dark plastic. It looked melted, perhaps some appliance that had somehow been superheated until it severely deformed – there was little light in the back of the shed and so it was hard to tell. Around all of this the ground was littered with the mash of feed, and strands of hay, dirt, small rocks. The cop got his dog turned around, and headed back out into the bright square of sunlight.
    Brendan stayed for a moment, looking at the lump of plastic.
     
    * * *
     
    “I need to get the young man a grief counselor,” said Brendan to Detective Delaney. “A psychologist. Someone like that. He’s having a real hard time. Who do you have around here?”
    “Call, uhm, Olivia Jane,” said Delaney. He was popping bits of something into his mouth. Sunflower seeds. “She worked with DCH, now she’s on her own. She’s come down a few times to help with grief counseling, she can help set up temporary housing for victim families, that sort of thing. Works with battered wives a lot.”
    They stood in the blistering sun. Sweat patches were visible around the armpits of Delaney’s grey suit. Brendan glanced down at his own darker apparel, wondering if it too was stained with perspiration. His skin felt prickly, the pores popping open, the tendrils of sweat starting to run from his temples.
    “Are we going to put surveillance on the house?”
    “Absolutely. What did Clark say?”
    Brendan thought back to the coroner. So much had happened in just the past hour. He thought to check his notes, but tried to remember instead. “Looks like one stab wound to the pulmonary artery was the non-survivable injury. The victim likely expired sometime between 8:20 and 8:40 this morning, but we figured that already.”
    “Anything else?”
    “He talked about petechiae.” Brendan