Prayer for the Dead jb-1

by David Wiltse

  “I like to brush your hair, grandfather.”

  “Do you, boy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Grandfather’s voice was oddly strained. “Why is that?”

  Dyce lay his cheek against grandfather’s hair and closed his eyes. “I love you,” he whispered.

  Grandfather didn’t answer and when Dyce looked in the mirror he saw the old man’s face twisted into the strangest mask. He looked as though he might cry. but there was something else there, something that Dyce had seen a few times before, but could not identify.

  “We must prepare,” grandfather said again, in a voice that was cracked. He moved to the window and looked out. “The sun is down,” he said. “It’s time.”

  When the candles were lighted and all was ready, grandfather fetched Dyce from the bedroom, leading him into the darkened parlor by the hand. The candles provided the only light in the room and shadows danced on the walls and ceiling and floor. His father lay in the coffin grandfather had made that day, his head resting on a pillow. A black tarpaulin covered the legs of the sawhorse on which the casket rested, making it appear to float in the air.

  “We will watch him for three days,” grandfather said. “We will pray and ask the Lord to return him to us. If the Lord chooses not to do so, then we will bury him.”

  His father’s features loomed in the semidarkness of the room, as sharp as if chiseled from New England rock.

  “Come.” said grandfather, pulling at Dyce’s hand as he moved closer to the coffin. Dyce pulled back, drawing away.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “He cannot hurt you now.”

  “I don’t want to.”

  Grandfather stopped tugging at his hand. He walked to the casket alone and stood above the corpse, looking down.

  “Lars Dysen, you took my only child, my beloved daughter, away from me and killed her with your abuse and neglect. You drank and whored and blasphemed and wasted the life the Lord gave you. You mistreated my beloved grandson and beat him and deprived him of the joy of his youth. You have been a canker in my life since the day I first saw you and I have hated you, and the Lord has turned His face from you and brought you to this end… I forgive you now for all you have done to me and mine and I pray that the Lord will forgive you also. I pray for your return to us, and if the Lord sees fit to take you unto himself, I pray for your redemption. “

  Nate Cohen leaned into the coffin and kissed his son-in-law, then stood aside and regarded his grandson.

  Dyce shook his head violently.

  “You must,” said grandfather. His voice was calm and understanding.

  In the flickering of candlelight, Dyce thought he saw his father move. He began to cry.

  Grandfather was nodding his head slowly now. “You must,” he repeated. “The Lord wants you to.”

  Dyce whimpered. Please don’t make me, he thought. Please, grandfather, I’ll do anything for you, but please not this, don’t make me do this.

  Grandfather stood waiting. With his eyes on grandfather, not looking at his father, Dyce approached the coffin, little bursts of fear shaking his chest with sound.

  Grandfather lifted the boy and held him over his father’s face. Dysen’s face moved, seemed to rise, to come forward toward Dyce’s face. The boy could see his eyes through the pale lids, the pupils wide with anger, red streaks shooting off’ into the whites like furious fire. Dyce squeezed his own eyes closed, but he could still see his father’s face, drunken, dangerous. Deadly. I do not want him back, Dyce thought. I want him dead, dead, dead.

  “Kiss him,” said grandfather.

  The old man’s hands trembled with the effort of holding the boy up. He put his knee against Dyce’s buttocks to help support him. Dyce felt the pressure in his bottom and groin.

  He opened his eyes and Dysen was even closer, pale, so ghastly pale, but all the blemishes were gone. The broken blood vessels, the veins burst in the nose, the red flushes on the cheeks that seemed to burn when he drank-all had vanished into a smooth, snowy white.

  “Kiss him, “grandfather said. “You must.” His knee pressed harder into Dyce’s bottom as he urged him forward a bit more so that the boy’s face was nearly touching his father’s.

  Again the corpse seemed to move. Dyce squeezed his eyes closed and pursed his lips, then touched them to his father’s skin. It was so cold. Grandfather had shaven the corpse in the morning, but the beard had continued to grow and a slight stubble pricked against the boy’s lips.

  Grandfather sat in his chair and Dyce stood beside him, holding the old man’s hand.

  “Now we will watch,” said grandfather. “When I am gone, you must do this for me.”

  Dyce stared dutifully at the corpse for a while, watching it seem to sway and lift in the candlelight, choking down his terror. After several minutes he became aware of grandfather’s hand clutching his own. The hand seemed so warm and the warmth just kept increasing. Dyce glanced at grandfather to see if he felt it, too. Grandfather did not return his look, but pulled slightly on Dyce’s hand, drawing him around to the front of the chair.

  “See how peaceful he looks,” said grandfather. “How serene. Nothing troubles him now.”

  Dyce climbed onto grandfather’s lap and lay his head back against the softness of the old man’s silver beard. Grandfather put one arm around the boy’s waist and with the other continued to hold his hand in his gentle fiery grip. When he spoke, his breath tickled Dyce’s ear, making it tingle.

  The two of them continued to watch the corpse in silence. Dyce felt grandfather growing hard against his bottom. He shifted his weight and grandfather imperceptibly tightened his grip on Dyce’s waist, pulling him more firmly into his lap. Dyce loved the warmth of grandfather, the safety and comfort of him. He would do anything for him. After a time the feel of the firmness pressing against his bottom no longer confused him.

  “How serene,” grandfather said. They watched until the candles guttered out and the room was in darkness.

  “We’ve got Special Agent Hoban coming down from Boston; he’s actually the closest. He should be in Waverly already. We can fly in to an airstrip in Minnot and from there it’s a half-hour drive to Waverly. The plane’s ready for us now at McNeil airport. Allowing for traffic, we’ll be at the insurance agent’s office within an hour. It’s a Cessna eight seater, a little bumpy, but we can’t get a jet into the Minnot field. You can handle a little airsickness, can’t you, Becker?”

  Becker studied the traffic in front of them as they raced toward the airport. The driver was good; he made high speed seem almost safe.

  “I’m not going,” said Becker.

  “What do you mean? We’ve got the guy.”

  “So far you’ve got a computer terminal, but I’m not going with you anyway. I told you, I’m not going down any more holes for you. You go down this one.”

  “Hole, what hole? He’s trapped in plain sight.”

  “A lot of people are using the word trapped, but I haven’t seen anyone actually caught yet.”

  “We know where he is, we know who he is, he doesn’t know we’re coming. What do you want? You expect him to come out with his hands up before we even get there? We even know his family.”

  “When?”

  “Records and Statistics came up with it last night.”

  “Everybody’s taking his time about telling me things.”

  “I am in charge, you know,” said Hatcher. “You want to know how we found the family?”

  Becker shook his head. People asked the stupidest questions. The driver was passing on the inside lane, weaving like a fish through the rapids. He hated driving in cars with broken seat belts and the belts in the backseats of federal cars seemed never to work.

  “He worked for a pharmacist once, apparently while he was still in college. Delivering prescriptions. The DEA had his prints on file for the standard security procedures because he was handling prescription drugs and controlled substances. What do you want to bet that’s
where he learned about PMBL? Probably stole some from the supply room. A gallon jug would last him for life. So we got his real name, his family background, and his source of supply all from the same search. Talk about serendipity.”

  “We didn’t find any gallon jug of PMBL in his house. Where is his supply?”

  “I mean we found out where he probably got it.”

  “If he got it ten years ago, does that mean he’s been killing men for that long? Or did he take a sample of PMBL just in case he might someday want to start drugging his victims?”

  “When we find him, you can ask him. We might be digging up kitchen floors for a week just to keep up with him.”

  “You find him. I’ll ask him when he’s behind bars in a straitjacket.”

  “What are you afraid of, Becker?”

  Hatcher regretted the remark immediately. Becker turned slowly away from the traffic and looked into Hatcher’s eyes. He didn’t appear to be angry, Hatcher thought. His gaze was pitying, murderous, maybe, but not angry.

  “Sorry,” said Hatcher.

  “Who’s his family?”

  “Well, as you know, his real name isn’t Dyce, it’s Dysen. Norwegian, right? The kind he’s looking for, but his mother wasn’t Norwegian; that’s the strange thing. Her maiden name was Cohen. Jewish.”

  Becker nodded. “Jewish.”

  “Your theory on the stones and the grave markers? Okay, you may be right about that, but not in the cemetery in Clamden. He has no family there. You’re wrong on that one. If he went there to commune when he picked up the stones, he wasn’t communing with family. We went back to his great grandparents on both sides and none of them is in the Clamden graveyard.”

  Becker shrugged. “The stones were just gravel, they could have been from anywhere.”

  “What’s wrong, Becker? You don’t like your own theories anymore?”

  “I guess I don’t like them when they become yours. Hatcher.”

  “Have you lost your touch all of a sudden? Have you lost the legendary Becker feel of a case?”

  “I wish,” said Becker.

  “Well, we didn’t need it anyway, did we? We cracked this one with ordinary detective work. The kind the less gifted among us can still perform.”

  “More power to you.” Becker leaned forward slightly and caught the driver’s eye in the mirror. “Reynolds, after you drop Hatcher at the airport, you can swing me back toward Clamden.”

  Reynolds, reduced now to just eyes and brows in the mirror, sought out Hatcher for confirmation.

  Hatcher said, “You can still be useful up there, Becker. You’re the only one who knows what Dyce looks like.”

  “Tee saw him in the hospital, too.”

  “Who, the local sheriff? Come on.”

  “He’s a good man and he knows as much about this case as anybody.”

  The car nosed in front of traffic and came to a halt at the terminal amid the honking of horns.

  Hatcher got out and leaned toward Reynolds.

  “Get a hold of Sheriff Terhune. I want him in Waverly as fast as you can arrange it.” Hatcher slammed the door closed. “And take Becker wherever he wants to go.”

  They watched Hatcher stride quickly into the terminal. He was thick through the hips and his toes splayed out to either side like a dancer’s. In a hurry, he looked like a duck. Behind his back the men called him Donald.

  As the car backed into traffic then spun away from the curb, Reynolds was already on the radio.

  Chapter 14

  Special Agent Ty Hoban’s full name was Tyree Zorro Hoban after the legendary masked swordsman and a character in an old John Ford Western. Being a black in Boston and somewhat beleaguered by life, Hoban’s father usually sided with the Indians, but something about the character of Tyree caught his fancy as he watched the late movie on the TV in the hospital waiting room while his son was being born. Hoban was only grateful that his father hadn’t been watching Tammy at the time-or Gidget Goes Hawaiian. His mother was Hispanic, so Hoban’s father threw in the Zorro as a nod to the only Spanish hero he could think of. By the time Hoban’s mother came out of the recovery room, the deed was done.

  If anyone in the FBI other than the clerk in personnel who handled birth certificates knew Ty Hoban’s full name, they had been smart enough not to let on. People generally did not tell Ty Hoban things that might annoy him, since he had inherited his father’s huge, muscular frame to go with a name that was asking for trouble. Hoban was not terribly well-coordinated-a bit on the clumsy side, in fact-and had never played football or basketball, despite his height and heft, but if other people wanted to think he was an ex-linebacker and gave him the commensurate respect, he was not one to disabuse them.

  The disadvantage to being a six-foot-four black man in a business suit was that it made being inconspicuous extremely difficult, not to say ludicrous, particularly in a small Connecticut town like Waverly. Keeping a low profile was not within Ty Hoban’s range of abilities, although he had many others. Selecting an agent on the basis of his race or appearance was strictly forbidden within the Bureau’s code of bureaucratic behavior, however, and so Hoban, the closest man at the time, was sent to the insurance agency in Waverly as the advance scout of the larger troop of agents that would be there later in the day.

  A brown-haired man with a full beard looked up questioningly from his desk as Ty Hoban entered the office, temporarily filling the doorway.

  “May I help you?”

  “Ty Hoban,” said the agent, extending his huge hand.

  The man half rose to shake hands. “Roger Cohen,” he said. “Pleased to meet you. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, Mr. Cohen, I hope someone can sell me some insurance. I just bought a house in Waverly and the bank tells me I have to have homeowner’s insurance before they give me the mortgage.”

  “I can certainly help you with that. It will take about ten minutes.”

  “Everyone else gone to lunch?” asked Hoban. “It seems awfully quiet.”

  “It’s a quiet town,” said Cohen. The owner and I are the only ones who work here and you’re right, he’s at lunch. Did you want to wait for him?”

  “That would be Mr. Rice?”

  “Rice? No, his name is Hogg. Charles Hogg.”

  “Really? The people at the bank told me I should see Mr. Rice. Maybe I have the name wrong? Rice? Tice? Something like that.”

  Hoban watched the man closely. His eyes looked vacant as he slowly shook his head.

  “No, no one like that here. As I said, there’s just the two of us.”

  “Was it Dice, maybe? I’m sure they said there was somebody around like that.”

  Cohen continued to shake his head.

  “I guess I just misunderstood,” said Ty. He leaned back in his chair, relaxed and casual, but his eyes never left Cohen’s face. He fit the description only in hair color and age, but it wouldn’t be the first description that was wrong. Ty had been told to A amp;D. Ascertain the suspect’s whereabouts and deploy forces until the order to apprehend. Deploying would be a little tough since Ty was the only force at his command at the moment, but as for ascertaining, it looked to him as if someone had screwed up again. If this puny little thing was the man who collected bones under his kitchen floor, then his appetites were one hell of a lot fiercer than his appearance. Ty knew better than to judge by looks alone-how often was he himself misjudged? — but still, instinct played a part in these things, and this guy looked as if he’d have trouble dissecting a frog in biology class.

  “There is another insurance agency in town,” said Cohen. “I don’t think they can do anything for you we can’t do, but…”

  “No, this is fine,” said Ty. “I don’t want to cause anybody any trouble.” He’d check out Mr. Charles Hogg, too, of course, but his guess was that his man was probably at the other insurance agency, or in another town, or nowhere at all. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d been given the wrong address.

  “No trouble,” sai
d Cohen. He looked on his desk for something he couldn’t find. “Should we look at the homeowner’s policy, then?”

  “You bet.”

  “I’ll need some information before I can give you a quote, but I promise you I’ll find the best deal that’s around. That’s the advantage of coming to an independent agent; we’re not locked into any one company.”

  Ty put his hand atop the computer terminal. “That’s what this is for?”

  “That’s it, that’s our access to just about any company in the country.” Cohen rummaged in his desk for a moment. “I’m out of forms, I’ll just get one.”

  He was on his feet and walking toward a door in the back of the office before Ty could think of a way to stop him short of tackling the man.

  “Won’t be a minute,” said Cohen, smiling, as he stepped through the door.

  The speed of the man’s withdrawal surprised Ty and set off an internal warning. Ty still didn’t think he was the bone man, but there was no real assurance that he wasn’t, either. After all, he was in the right place, he was the right age and general size-along with forty percent of the male population in the country. No one had said anything about a beard, but then no one had seen him for several weeks, either, and it definitely made Ty uncomfortable to have him disappear like that. A amp;D meant keeping the suspect under surveillance until some larger cheese like Hatcher could come waddling in, quack a few times, and get credit for the arrest-it did not mean sitting on his ass and watching him slip away into a rat hole.

  By its location, Ty could tell that the storeroom did not have a door leading to the outside but he couldn’t be sure there wasn’t a window. Ty decided to give “Cohen” three minutes. If he didn’t return by then, Ty would go help him search for the right form himself If he did come right back, it was a pretty good bet he wasn’t the suspect.

  Ty left the office and walked around the corner of the building. He spotted a window that probably led into the storeroom, but it was closed and the shade was drawn. If “Cohen” was going to flee that way, he would already have made his move and he couldn’t have done so through a closed window. Ty turned and went back inside.