'What have we here?' Jazz murmured to himself as the videographer-about ten feet from the body-suddenly shouted out. From here, Jazz could make out the entirety of the crime scene, helpfully demarcated by the yellow tape. This part of the old Harrison farm had once been endless rows of soybean plants it was now nothing but old bent and broken stalks, weeds, cattails, and scrub. He belly-crawled the last fifteen yards through underbrush and tall grass, patiently making his way to a good vantage point. Jasper 'Jazz' Dent wasn't about to let the cops see him. William Tanner, standing off to one side, fists planted on his love handles, watching as his command scurried around at his bidding. One of the staties had a cheap little digital video camera and carefully paced the perimeter of the scene.Īnd riding herd over all of it was Sheriff G. Some of the deputies were down on all fours, heads down, and Jazz was amused to see a guy with a metal detector just outside the crime-scene tape, slowly pacing back and forth. The fact that they'd actually called in a real, live tech from two towns over-and on a Sunday morning, no less-meant they were taking this seriously. That last one really impressed Jazz the town of Lobo's Nod was too small for its own official crime-scene unit, so usually the deputies handled evidence collection at the scene. The field was thick with cops-state troopers in their khakis, a cluster of deputies in their blues, even a crime-scene tech in jeans and a Windbreaker.

By the time Jazz got to the field outside town, yellow police tape was everywhere, strung from stake to stake in a sort of drunken, off-kilter hexagon.

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga