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old bodies that were found have the same saw marks as the new bodies,” the chief deputy said. “Same with the bag of cut-up bones. Forensics said it appeared to be consistent with a standard wood saw.”
    “The bag of bones—did you handle that?” Beth asked.
    “Yeah, I had the pleasure of dealing with it,” Whissell said.
    “Where were those found?” I asked.
    “Upper part of the county. Northwest of here, near the Kentucky border. A road crew went to pick up the bag, which ripped, and the bones spilled out.”
    “I saw the photos. How would anyone know that they were from a human?” I asked.
    “The road crew that found them didn’t. But a bag with sawed up pieces of bones found along the side of the road is going to raise some flags around here. The guys that picked it up called us and the coroner went to view the contents of the bag. He ID’d them as human. It probably would have been dismissed if it wasn’t for the lore of The Butcher around these parts.”
    “Do you think this guy lives locally around here or is from the Nashville area?” I asked.
    Whissell shrugged. “No way to know.”

CHAPTER SEVEN
    Richard sat in the living room of his small house—he’d built it himself when he purchased the family land twenty years prior with the lump-sum payment from his mother’s life-insurance policy. Richard had reclaimed the furniture that hadn’t been pilfered from the old house. What he could use, he used—what he couldn’t rehab, he burned. There were only a few bed frames, some miscellaneous tables, random knickknacks, and the ripped-up antique Chesterfield-style couch he sat upon.
    Richard stared at an old television playing some fuzzy program from one of the three channels the antenna could pick up—it appeared to be a word-puzzle game show. During the couple seconds of clear picture it showed, Richard had shouted a few wrong answers at the television.
    The smell from the kitchen filled his nose—his dessert was about ready. Richard rose from the couch and walked through to the kitchen. He reached down and opened the oven door. The heat and smell rose up and hit him.
    “Smells like candied peaches,” he said. Richard chuckled to himself, amused with his selection of a dessert to accompany his meal.
    He crouched down and took the pan from the oven. The two halved peaches had been filled with brown sugar and butter where the pit had once resided. He set them on the top of the stove next to the resting meat—two two-inch-thick slices of bone-in thigh, one from Candy and one from Peaches. Richard would sample each to see who he preferred. The more flavorful of the two would find the refrigerator and be eaten as steaks or roasts while the other would end up being used for soup.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    We’d spent another half hour at the sheriff’s station chatting with the chief deputy and Agent Clifford prior to leaving. We managed to get the chief deputy to enlist the help of more deputies to patrol the outlying areas of the county for the next few nights. We planned to touch base with him later in the night after he e-mailed Beth the file on the latest found remains.
    Beth and I headed toward the medical examiner’s office. Chief Deputy Whissell had called Chip Nehls, the lead medical examiner, to let him know we were on our way—Nehls said he could stay late to meet us personally. Agent Clifford drove ahead of us in his car, leading the way. Our ride had been mostly quiet. I’d been tossing around a few thoughts in my head but needed Beth’s take on them.
    “So, did the chief deputy seem awfully dismissive of someone in his county dismembering bodies, to you?” I asked.
    “Yup,” Beth said. “No wonder no one has ever been found.”
    “I mean but why? Could he actually not give a shit or what?” I asked.
    “To me, he seemed like he just kind of wanted to wash his hands of the whole thing. If I had to guess, it’s because he has two FBI agents in his stomping grounds working an