She slid down the sand and came over, slipping on nitrile gloves. He handed it to her. She looked at it for a moment. “Um, I believe that’s a sheep’s tibia.”

Huckey stared at her for a moment. Unbelievable, this FBI agent. He leaned back and let out a belly laugh. “A sheep’s tibia? Are you shitting me? I’ve been identifying bones my entire life and, trust me, I know a human humerus when I see one.” He turned. “Alfieri, bag that as evidence.” He flipped it to Alfieri, who caught it and put it in a Ziploc bag, labeling it with a Sharpie.

Huckey turned back to the FBI girl with a grin. “Sheep’s tibia, my ass.”

She looked like she was about to talk back, but she managed to button it up—and good for her. It was her own damn fault she’d made herself look like an idiot.

“Okay, we’re going to keep going. If you don’t mind, we need some elbow room down here.”

The agent stalked out, positioning herself once again in the doorway to watch them work.

In an hour they had finished with the sand, finding nothing else of interest. Huckey cast his eye around for places where something might have been hidden. Most of his work on the ERT involved bashing down walls, ripping out ceilings, and tearing apart furniture and cars, looking for drugs or money. But be the setting new or old, he had a sixth sense for where stuff was hidden—and it never failed him.

“Let’s have a look in that.” He pointed to a big coal stove in the corner, once used to heat the place. He tried to open the metal door, but it was rusted shut.

“Bring over the sledgehammer.”

Ketterman came over, his sleeves rolled up, carrying the implement.

“Bust that open.”

Ketterman loved bashing in stuff, and a few well-timed blows smashed the cast-iron top. Huckey knelt and, pulling out the iron pieces, sorted through the interior, finding nothing. He looked around. Where else might someone have hidden things in 1945?

“Something got walled up here,” he said, pointing to an area where the adobe bricks had covered an opening.

Ketterman ditched the sledgehammer for a Pulaski and swung the spike side of it into the wall. A few blows busted through the adobe, revealing a space.

Huckey shined the light in, but there was nothing there but an old root cellar with broken mason jars.

A voice came down. “Excuse me?”

Huckey turned to see Swanson peering down through the open door.

“Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? We’re searching.”

“Is it necessary to break things up like that?”

Huckey stared at her. “What do you mean?”

“This is a historic site.”

“Jesus Christ,” he said. “We’re feds; we’re searching a crime scene. This is how it’s done.”

The face vanished. Huckey shook his head, wondering why the hell she was so concerned about a ruined whorehouse. He couldn’t believe what kind of agents they were minting these days.

They next chopped into a small closet, finding nothing.

“Let’s go to the first floor.”

Crawling out of the basement, they ducked through the ruined doorway into the ground floor. The ceiling had partially caved in, but there was still quite a lot to search.

“Watch out for the rotten floor,” Huckey warned.

It was a pretty lame whorehouse, he felt, with a single sitting room, a bar, some busted chairs and tables, a lot of broken whiskey bottles and glasses, and an ancient upright piano. A staircase went up to the sky, the second floor having completely fallen in.

The piano was an obvious place to hide something. He nodded at it. “Hey, Don, make some music, will you?”

Ketterman, still wielding the Pulaski, walked over and, taking aim, gave it a tremendous blow in the side, at the joint. It made a huge jangling noise. He hit it again and again, the side piece finally breaking loose. He looked in with a flashlight.

“Wait a damn minute,” said Watts, the sheriff, standing in the door, that FBI girl behind him. “What the hell are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Huckey was now thoroughly annoyed at this kibitzing.

“This isn’t some meth kitchen,” said Watts. “Have a little respect.”

“Yeah, we could unscrew and take apart that piano and be here all week, but that isn’t how we operate. We do this all the time, and nobody’s going to play ‘Chopsticks’ on this shit piano again.”

“This is a remarkably well-preserved ghost town, and it shouldn’t be damaged any more than necessary. Just because it’s federal land and you’re feds doesn’t mean you can do whatever you please.”

“Let me explain something to you, Homer,” said Huckey. “You’ve got your jurisdiction. I’ve got mine. I’m head of this FBI Evidence Response Team, and this is how we do things. You aren’t the first to complain, okay? Nobody likes to see their shit smashed up. But this is how it’s done. Why don’t you go play with your six-shooters?” He scoffed. “Shit, the double-stack magazines in my Sig hold more rounds than your whole rig.”

“If you shoot it right, it only takes one,” the kid copper replied.

They stared at each other a moment in silence.

“But given your concern,” Huckey said, suddenly going easy on the guy, “We’ll be gentle with the piano. Right, Don? Go easy on the piano. What’s left of it, anyway.”