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we came to a mostly overgrown track on the right.
The side road was partitioned with two police sawhorses, one of them thrown
over on its side. I wondered how effective these had been against the likes of
CNN and God only knew who else had wanted to visit.
High wheatgrass brushed against the sides of the car as we drove back several
hundred yards, then onto a cleared acre or more of land.
Tyler Bell s cabin certainly wasn t deluxe, but it was no Unabomber shack
either. He had sided it with natural red cedar that blended nicely into the
landscape. It was small and nestled in the crook of a west-flowing river, with
a gorgeous view of the mountains in the distance.
I could certainly see why someone would choose this place to settle so long
as they had no need for human contact, and maybe murdered people for a living.
Chapter 109
THE FRONT DOOR to the cabin had no lock. Deputy Mills waited for us outside,
and once we entered, we smelled why. Some combination of food and garbage had
been rotting in here, possibly for months. It was beyond putrid.
So much for this being a little slice of heaven on earth, Bree said,
putting a handkerchief over her nose as if this were a homicide scene.Maybe it
was .
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The main room was a kitchen/dining/living area a picture window at the back
looked onto the river. All along the sidewall, Bell had a workbench littered
with tools and several dozen fishing flies in various stages of completion. A
small collection of rods hung on the wall.
Other than two leather easy chairs, the furniture seemed to have been made by
Tyler Bell himself, including a pair of pine bookcases.
You can tell a lot about a man by his books, Mills said, finally deciding
to join us. He stood in front of them, scanning the lot. Biography,
biography. Cosmology. All nonfiction. That say anything to you?
Whose biographies? That would be my first question, I said, and came over
to look for myself.
There were several volumes on American presidents Truman, Lincoln, Clinton,
Reagan, and Bushes forty-one and forty-three. Other world leaders too: Emperor
Hirohito, Margaret Thatcher, bin Laden, Ho Chi Minh, Churchill.
Delusions of grandeur, maybe? I said. Fits the bill for DCAK. At least,
what we think we know about him.
You don t sound too confident about your intel, huffed Mills, who was a
huffy sort.
I m not. He s been messing with us from the start. He s a game player.
Bell s bedroom was smaller and darker dank, actually. He had a toilet and
sink right in the room, partitioned off with another bookcase. I didn t see a
tub or shower, unless you counted the river. In fact it reminded me of a
prison cell and that made me think of Kyle Craig again.What the hell did Kyle
have to do with all this ?
The only decorations were three framed photos on the wall, in a vertical
stack that reminded me of the new Web site. The top one was an old
black-and-white wedding portrait, presumably Mom and Dad. The middle was a
picture of two golden retrievers.
And then a shot of five adults standing in front of the same red pickup that
now sat abandoned outside.
I recognized three of them right away, and that gave me a start: Tyler Bell,
Michael Bell, and Marti Lowenstein-Bell, who would eventually be killed by her
husband. The other two, a man and a woman, weren t familiar to me. One woman
held two fingers up in aV behind Tyler s head. So,she thought he was the devil
?
It s strange, isn t it? Bree said. They actually look happy. Don t you
think so?
Maybe they were. Hell, maybe he still is.
Finally, after hours of poring over every inch of the bedroom, we went back
out to the main room to tackle the kitchen area, which we had saved for last.
There was no sense opening that fridge any sooner than we had to. It was a
propane appliance and had obviously run down a long time ago. The shelves were
half stocked. Most of the food looked like bulk purchases grains and beans in
plastic bags alongside other unrecognizable produce mush.
He sure likes mustard, Bree said. There were several kinds in the door.
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And milk. He had two half gallons, one of them unopened. I leaned in closer
to look.
Milk doesn t keep, I said.
Milk s not alone. Bree had the handkerchief up over her mouth and nose
again.
No, I mean one of these is dated one day after anyone saw him around here.
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