Titan Song Dan Stout (top 20 books to read txt) 📖

populated by a number of bulky box trucks. Vandie Cedrow’s work fleet, I assumed. Unlike the professional touring buses and semitrailers belonging to the bands playing the festival, most of the box trucks had clearly been bought used, with overly clean outlines of recently removed business logos.

From there we flagged down a worker and pressed him into being our guide. Following his lead, we entered through a cleverly disguised tent flap intended only for staff use. I filed the entrance away in my head, thinking it might be of future use, as our new guide led us through the mazes of tent corridors. But it was a lost cause. The simple map in my head didn’t come close to capturing the labyrinthine chaos, and I was lost long before our guide delivered us to the room that held Kearn’s body. Ajax and Harris were holding a hushed conversation by the closed door. Jax waved a hello, and Harris beamed at us.

I chewed my lip and mentally reviewed what we had to work with. A body transformed in death, making it useless for forensic purposes. A crime scene stripped of its physical objects of interest, with only a carbon copy of the tech report listing what had been sent back to town. We had two divination officers, two Homicide detectives, and one patrol cop, all at a potential madhouse if the dancers, builders, and associated hangers-on got wind of the state of Bobby Kearn’s corpse. A murder was bad enough—word of what had happened afterward would push tensions even higher. Of course, there was no reason not to start canvassing potential witnesses, assuming we could find them.

I glanced over my shoulder, down the tented corridor. “This place is a warren of tunnels, wrapping through the existing rig buildings. I can’t even get my head around the layout.”

“I know.” Jax tapped my shoulder with a thickly folded stack of papers. “That’s why—”

“We need to know where the physical buildings are, as well.” I pointed at the closed door to the murder scene. “What’s on the other side of that far wall? Could something have been moved between rooms? What if there’s something messing with the DOs’ magic from over there? We have to assume that we’re looking for a sorcerer as much as we’re looking for a killer.”

“Carter . . .”

“We need to talk to the contractors. Whoever’s building the stage and setting up the tents. They’d have to know where everything was in order to build the series of tents, and they’d never have thrown it away—even if it’s trashed, there’s a blueprint around here somewhere.”

Jax let out a series of exasperated whistles and clicks. He waved the paper he was holding and said, “We got it.”

“We went and talked to the construction crew.” Harris patted Ajax on the back. “Turns out this guy is a bigger hero around here than I thought.”

Although my partner’s jaw was rigid and expressionless, his eyes crinkled with amusement. “Apparently I had my photo in the paper often enough that they recognized me.”

“Good for you, kid.” I twirled my fingers, hurrying him along. “Now let’s see that map.”

Not willing to reenter the crime scene, we crouched down where we were. Jax spread the blueprints over the floor, flattening the folds the best we could and ignoring the mystery stains that ringed the edges.

“We came through this entrance.” Jax drew the nub of his pencil eraser across the main entry hall and the winding tented tunnels we’d traversed, ending at one of the oil rig outbuildings that had been consumed by the tents. “And we’re here.”

“So the double lines are the preexisting structure,” I said, “and the singles are the tents . . .”

Guyer reached past us both and traced a well-manicured nail along a particularly serpentine path.

“If someone was panicked, and wanted to get out as fast as possible, this is the most direct route and takes them past the fewest doors.” She tapped the other outbuilding.

“That’s not the only connection,” said Jax.

“But it is the only one that doesn’t traverse an open, public space.” Guyer indicated the larger areas off the route she’d indicated. “Whoever killed Kearn wouldn’t have wanted to cross though a potential crowd, especially if they were marked with blood or carrying a weapon.”

Harris grinned at Guyer. “There was no weapon recovered on the scene.”

I pulled the techs’ report out and riffled through the carbon paper once more. “That’s right. There was almost nothing in the victim’s pockets. Only unusual items on the floor were some Black Gold candy bar wrappers.”

“Killer with a sweet tooth?” asked Jax.

“Or a litterbug,” I said.

Worthington flagged us down as we approached the end of the hallway. He nodded at the pair of rooms where the security guards had been sequestered. “These guys are getting antsy. When are you gonna cut them loose?”

We didn’t have any reason to hold them, other than the fact that we wanted to keep them from panicking others and Vandie Cedrow had grudgingly given her assent to having them sit for a time.

Guyer sighed. “I’ll go talk to them. It’ll be useful to know what they thought they saw, and I’ll point out they’re getting paid to sit around for a few hours.”

Harris started to protest, but she waved him off. “I need a break from you boys, anyway. I’ll catch up with you when I’m done.”

She slipped past Worthington and into the first of the rooms. Ajax, Harris, and I made our way back through the maze of corridors, following the lights and billowing tent fabric until we came to the spot Guyer had indicated. Here the tents expanded into an area large enough to cover another of the rig’s outbuildings. We headed toward the door of the buildings, but I slowed as I spotted a human flipping through a call sheet and munching on a candy bar as he meandered down the hall. The wrapper was rolled back, but the -OLD of the logo was enough to draw my attention.

“Hey buddy,” I called. It took