More digging. More and more and more digging. Major couldn't believe by this point that they hadn't put a shovel in every inch of this field. It certainly felt like they had. And why couldn't they have done this in the spring? Well, then there would be rain. And in summer, bugs. And in the fall … well, they had started in the fall, to be fair. It was only because they hadn't had any luck, none at all, whatsoever, that they had ended up doing this in winter.

He kept at it, however. So far, there had been no sign of either him or Blaine turning back into a zombie … and he wanted to keep it that way. So, digging.

Attacking the ground with the shovel, he felt something wonky. He tapped at it gingerly with the tip of the shovel. Still wonky. Not a license plate—he knew what those felt like the moment the blade hit them by now. Or a can. No, this was something else. Getting down on his knees, he moved the dirt with his gloved hands to avoid damaging whatever it was. Pulling it out, he saw that it was a flashlight—and that flashlight had come from a hand. He'd found it! He'd found the body.

It took him four tries to get Ravi's attention. He did not want to know what kind of intensely geeky podcast his roommate was listening to. But at last Ravi turned and saw Major's frantically waving arm and came over to inspect the hole.

Major kept digging, stopping only when a dirt-encrusted face was staring back up at him. So weird that this was what he had wanted to find, because even so, it was damned creepy.

Still … no more digging. A cure on the way. He turned to Ravi, who was hunkered down next to him. "We did it! There he is, huh?"

Ravi hung his head, which felt like a bit of an anticlimax, so Major tried again.

"Zombie cure, here we come!"

But Ravi was shaking his head. "That isn't one of our guys." As Major stared at him in confusion, Ravi got to his feet. "Ours have been dead for nearly two years. This one's only a couple of months gone."

Major stared down at the body. Damn it all. The wrong body? What were the freaking odds? "Then who is this?" he asked.

Ravi already had his phone in his hand. "I don't know, but we're going to have to find out. We're also going to have to come up with a good reason why we were digging up the field." To the phone, he said, "Clive, it's Ravi. I've … found a body. … In a field. … It's a long story. Just get Liv and get out here. … You're welcome." Putting the phone back in his pocket, he shrugged at Major. "He doesn't think digging up bodies for him to investigate is doing him any favors. Wait till next Christmas, see if I get him anything."

When Clive came out, he looked over the body, then left Liv to direct her team on how to get it out safely while he spoke to Major and Ravi. "What were you guys doing out here again?"

"Geocaching," Ravi said readily.

"Geo-whating?"

"Geocaching. It's a real world outdoor treasure hunting game. Strangers leave caches, post the GPS coordinates, and then people like us go out and find them, that's what we're doing."

Clive eyed them both skeptically. "What sort of treasures?"

Damn. This part they hadn't practiced. They hadn't figured he would be interested enough to ask. Major blamed Ravi, who was supposed to load Clive down with geocaching jargon until he threw up his hands and walked away. Well, Ravi could get them out of this one.

"Matchbox cars," he said at last. "Box of crayons …"

"I found a wheat penny once," Major offered, seeing that his roommate was flailing.

"So … treasures for children."

Yeah, that hadn't helped their cause.

"It's more about the joy of discovery," Ravi explained. "Why do men climb mountains, Clive?"

"Because it tests their endurance, their courage, their sense of themselves as men?"

It was a surprisingly poetic response—but then, Major had always suspected Clive had a hidden poetic streak in him. He had to, buying Liv's psychic story all this time.

Ravi fell silent, and Clive looked smug. "Oh, I'm sorry, were you drawing a comparison?"

Liv approached them at that point, thankfully, before Ravi lost any more dignity. "Clive? The victim appears to be in his thirties. Gunshot wound in his chest, one in his back. No ID, but a coaster with a phone number." She handed it to him.

"Maybe whoever answers this number can ID our vic."

Just when Major thought they were off the hook, Clive's gaze flicked away from the coaster in his hand in his direction. "Major. Can I have a word?"

Oh, this was not going to be good. As if the Chaos Killer didn't have enough trouble without Clive's continued obsession with the Meat Cute murders. He followed Clive a ways away from Liv and Ravi, waiting to hear what gem was going to ruin his day this time.

"What can I do for you, Detective?"

"Some new evidence came to light in the Meat Cute case, and I wanted to ask you a couple more questions."

Major let himself sigh in exasperation, since the alternative would have been to weep with frustration.

Clive ignored him and went on with his questions. "You were arrested for breaking into a man's car. You said this man, Julian Dupont, was in possession of a … human brain."

There was no good response to that, so Major didn't give one.

"This was the same man you later claimed broke into your house."

"Look, I said a lot of things. And was urged to seek medical treatment. By you, if I recall." Clive glanced away, clearly having forgotten that bit in his zeal to connect Major with whatever new evidence had come up. "Well, good news, the doctors at the mental institution were able to cure me. So, I realized it was all just in my head."

Clive nodded, but appeared unconvinced. "You don't have any plans to leave town?"

"Well, there is a geocache in Walla Walla I was thinking about checking out."

"Right."

"You know where I live, Detective. If that's all for now?"

Reluctantly, Clive waved him away, and Major tried to walk toward the car rather than run … but it wasn't easy. Clive wasn't letting this go, and someday he was going to find the wrong piece of evidence and put the right interpretation on it, and then Major would have much greater things to worry about than the fact that he still had to keep digging up this damned field.