Prayer for the Dead jb-1

by David Wiltse

  “He made a deal with my dad when his grandfather died.”

  “Who made the deal?”

  “Mr. Dysen, Roger Dysen. His grandfather died and the house burned down and he was going to college to study math or something. That’s what my dad says. I don’t know, I was too young, but there’s no way to make a living in math around here, so he knew he wasn’t going to be staying, he sure wasn’t a farmer…”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Have you seen him?”

  There was a note of annoyance in the voice. “No.”

  “He’s soft, he’s very soft, he couldn’t farm a garden. My dad offered to buy the land, but he didn’t want to sell; he didn’t want to work the place but he didn’t want to give it up, either. Like he expected to come back and fix up the house someday, you know? So he worked out a deal with my dad; he gives us permission to farm the land and all we have to do is pay the taxes on the place.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “Mr. Dysen?”

  “He calls himself Dyce now. Or Cohen.”

  “I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “Have you seen anyone around here in the last three days? Anyone at all?” The original voice was back in charge again.

  “No. Nobody.”

  “Have you noticed any sign that anyone has been here? Anything out of the ordinary at all?”

  “No.”

  “How often do you come here?”

  “Here? To the house? Every day.” Someone snapped off the radio as if it had just been noticed.

  “Why?”

  “I eat my lunch here. I like it.”

  “What’s to like?”

  “I–I just like it.”

  Dyce heard the clink of glass against stone, then the voice of another man.

  “You keep your hooch stashed here, son? Come here to drink where your parents don’t know about it?”

  “I’m twenty-five.”

  “Didn’t say it was illegal. Is that why you come here?”

  “I like a drink once in a while,” Nordholm said defensively.

  “You know the place well, do you? Would you know where someone might hide if he had to?”

  “The old well house, maybe. Or the cellar. But I would know if anyone was around.”

  A fourth voice spoke. “You can see right through what’s left of the floor into the cellar from here. There’s no place to hide.”

  “There’s an old root cellar down there, dug into the ground. I don’t think you’d want to hide there very long, but you could.”

  “Marquand, check out the root cellar. Mr. Nordholm, I want you to show me the old well house. Lieutenant, if you and your men would examine the barn, please?”

  Dyce heard voices scattering, then calling to each other from the distance, moving around. They stayed for a long time, searching, until finally the doors of the cars slammed again, then the tractor engine roared to life.

  I’ve lost him, Dyce thought. He was perfect and I lost him, the police took him away from me. Just thinking about the young man made him terribly excited again. It was safe now; the FBI visit had just proven that. It was safe, but they had taken the young man away from him.

  Dyce turned his head and studied the cop. The man’s eyelids were beginning to flutter. He needed another dose… and while he had his sleeve pushed up and access to the vein… The cop was a poor substitute, but Dyce was so excited.

  Becker caught her as she walked in the door and lifted her off her feet, kissing her deeply, then standing her against the wall. He held her up with his body as he peeled off her clothes, then entered her while she was still off the floor, lowering her slowly as she wrapped her legs around his waist. His passion was overwhelming and contagious and Cindi was ready when he entered her, then ready when he was and they both cried out in completion as he was carrying her toward the bedroom. Becker stood on the stairway, shuddering like a man freezing while Cindi clung to the banister to support them.

  After he laid her on the bed he kissed her lips and face with a tender urgency for several minutes. When he embraced her it was so firmly she gasped involuntarily and only then did the intensity of his passion subside.

  “Not that I’m complaining,” Cindi said after a few moments, “but what was that all about?”

  “Lust?” said Becker.

  “No,” she said. “I mean, maybe partly. But it felt more like-need.” Becker was quiet.

  “You felt wide open, John. I thought I could have reached right inside you and touched your heart-if I hadn’t been so preoccupied.”

  Becker murmured something against her neck.

  “What?”

  “You already have,” he said.

  “Have what?” She pulled away from him far enough to look him in the eye. “If you’re going to break down and say something good, I want to be sure I hear it right.”

  “You’ve already touched my heart,” Becker said.

  “Really?” She shook her head vigorously. “I’m sorry. That’s all I can think of to say. You haven’t whispered many sweet-nothings, you know.”

  “I know,” said Becker. “I was afraid to start, didn’t think I could stop.”

  “You don’t have to stop now.”

  “I’m a frightened man, Cindi.”

  “You, John?”

  “A frightened man.”

  She realized the seriousness of his tone. “I know you are,” she said. “I’ve just never been sure of what.”

  “That’s some of what Gold and I have been looking at,” he said.

  “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” she said, hoping very hard that he would. “I know that’s private.”

  “Part of the cure is making it unprivate. Admitting it. Aloud. To myself. To my loved ones.”

  He faced away from her, pulling his knees to his chest.

  Cindi could see she would have to help him with this.

  “And I’m a loved one?”

  Becker nodded. She put her hand on his back and felt him trembling. For a moment she thought he was truly frightened-or crying, but when he turned to her again, he was grinning ear to ear.

  “Isn’t that stupid? I don’t mean loving you; I mean that it’s so damned hard to say. It’s stupid, it’s stupid.”

  “So is that what you’re actually saying, John? You love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you care to say it directly? I hate to be a stickler about this, but everything is sounding rather oblique.”

  “I love you,” he said.

  She touched his cheek. “I’m glad you told me,” she said. “I’ve been reading so many tea leaves, trying to figure it out… I’m sorry. I’m not really taking it lightly. Maybe it isn’t that much easier for me to say.”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Becker said. “I’m not asking for a response. It’s just something I had to face up to and deal with.”

  “Why now?”

  Becker eased back down on the bed. “That’s the other thing that frightens me,” he said and the joy was gone from his voice.

  “What?” She rose up on one elbow to look down at him. He was staring at the ceiling.

  “What else frightens you, John?”

  “Me,” he said. “I scare the shit out of myself.”

  The room fell silent as Cindi sank back to the bed. A neighbor slammed a car door and yelled at a child.

  “Can you tell me why?” she said finally.

  “When I come back,” he said. “I’ll try then.”

  “Come back from where?”

  Becker paused a long time. “I’m not quite sure. Wherever I need to go.” He rolled over and put his hand on her hip and ran it slowly along her thigh.

  “And I’m not quite sure who I’ll be when I come back,” he said.

  “What does that mean?”

  He didn’t answer but ran his fingers the length of her leg, then feathered them across the skin on the back of her knee.

/>   He’s the sexiest man in the world, she thought. I have no idea what’s in his mind-I’m not sure he does-but I want him so.

  “Can you promise at least that you will come back?”

  “Yes. That much I can promise. I don’t want to go, I don’t want to leave you… I don’t want to find out what’s going to happen-but I seem to have a talent for coming back.”

  That will have to do for now, Cindi thought. He moved his hand to the very top of her inner thigh and just held it there where it burned a hole in her skin.

  “You have a lot of talents,” she said as she leaned forward to kiss him.

  As they made love she thought of saying, “Thank you, Mr. Gold,” but didn’t for fear she would be misinterpreted under the circumstances.

  Chapter 15

  Becker found Nate Cohen’s grave and stood before it like a mendicant before a shrine, his hands folded at his waist. Agent Reynolds, watching Becker through binoculars, wondered if he was praying. His head was bowed and he had the look of a man who had come to stay for a while.

  Hatcher had told Reynolds that Becker would be there, if not today then the next, and the Duck had been right. “Donald” was usually right, Reynolds had to admit that. It was not a job in which a man could make decisions and hope to do better than be right most of the time. The problem with Hatcher was that when he was wrong he could never admit it; there was always someone else to blame. That someone else was invariably one of the agents under his command. What Hatcher didn’t seem to grasp was that his men would hold his mistakes against him far less if he didn’t shirk the responsibility for them. Apparently, Hatcher’s superiors viewed things differently because the man held on to his job while the agents under him got transferred or held back from promotion. Hatcher was not a hard leader to follow; he made no extraordinary demands-but he was impossible to forgive. That was one of the things Reynolds most admired about Becker. He had never forgiven the Duck and was as vocal about it as Pavarotti with a paying audience. The man told Hatcher to his face what he thought of him while the other agents could only choke back their laughter and sit on their hands to keep from applauding.

  Which made Reynolds feel a bit dishonest about what he had to do next, but then Becker wasn’t really even a member of the Bureau now. just some sort of quasi for-the-case temporary agent, and Hatcher was still the man who made out the performance evaluations. Reynolds glanced at his watch and started walking briskly down the hill toward Becker’s car. It had taken Becker three minutes to walk from his car to Nate Cohen’s grave, which meant that Reynolds had at least that much time and probably considerably more, judging by Becker’s leisurely demeanor.

  The beeper attached itself by magnet so all Reynolds had to do was make sure the device was turned on, then kneel beside Becker’s car as if he were tying his shoelace in case any of the locals were watching, slap the device under the inside of the frame of the wheel housing, straighten up, and walk back to his own car atop the hill. The entire procedure took one minute and forty-five seconds.

  Becker was still at the grave, praying or meditating or thinking, whatever. He was a strange man, Reynolds thought. Good enough company, a regular guy most of the time, but moody. And his thought processes never seemed to be the same as everyone else’s. Not weird, exactly, but as if he jumped steps in logic. Maybe his mind was just faster, Reynolds thought. Or it was always working on things from an angle instead of straight on. Whatever it was, if even half the stories they told about him were true, Becker would be the last man on earth Reynolds would want to have chasing him.

  Reynolds radioed to the communications van and confirmed that the beeper’s signal was being received loud and clear, then settled back to work on the day’s crossword puzzle. He wished he had the Sunday Times puzzle; local papers published things for beginners. Reynolds did them in minutes, contemptuously using a pen and never once having to resort to the crossword dictionary in the glove compartment.

  When he checked again, Becker was still there. What the hell was he doing, grieving or something? Nate Cohen wasn’t his grandfather, was he?

  Becker lifted the piece of gravel from atop Cohen’s headstone and tossed it in his palm. Dyce had been to visit, he was certain of that. There was no way to know just when, but Becker didn’t need evidence. It was recently, since he’d been in Waverly, sometime within the last two weeks.

  A spider lowered itself from the plastic flowers in the funerary urn, laying down the second strand of a brand new web. Becker lifted the flowers and saw the empty space in the bottom of the urn where something had once sat amid a circle of moss and dirt.

  Raised letters on the bottom of the receptacle had left slight impressions in the dust. Glass bottles were stamped on the base with the manufacturer’s name; the size of the circle would yield the volume of the container. Becker would leave the details for the technicians; they were no longer vital to him. He replaced the flowers and looked up for the first time since finding the grave. The sky was dark and lowering and ever more massive banks of gray clouds were piling up and roiling overhead. It was thunderstorm weather; the electricity in the air could almost be smelled. Whether the storm broke or not, it would be very dark tonight.

  Becker glanced up the hill toward the car parked at the top, facing the graveyard. It had been there when Becker arrived and sat there still. He could make out a figure sitting behind the window Hatcher’s idea of inconspicuous, he thought. Not that it mattered now; they had already missed their shot at Dyce in the cemetery.

  He had started to leave the cemetery before he realized he still carried Dyce’s marker in his hand. He returned to the grave and replaced the gravel gently atop Nate Cohen’s grave, then picked up another stone from the walk and placed it next to the first. One for himself.

  Reynolds saw Becker’s car make a U-tum and head up the hill. For a second he thought of ducking below the seat, but realized it was already too late. Becker pulled up alongside Reynolds and the agent leaned across the seat and rolled down the passenger window.

  “How’s it going?” asked Reynolds. “You get some communing done down there?”

  “You might want to get some of the snails to look inside the urn at Cohen’s grave,” Becker said.

  “I’ll get right on it.”

  “Where do I find Hatcher?”

  “Does he know you’re in town?”

  “Only if your radio works,” said Becker. “Tell him I’m on my way.”

  Hatcher preferred to brief Becker while sitting in his car so that the other agents would not overhear the insubordination in Becker’s tone-or the promises Hatcher would have to make. At times like this he wished he smoked so he would have something to cover the nervousness of his hands.

  “We searched the house and barn thoroughly,” said Hatcher. “We went into the root cellar, we checked the well house. I’m not saying he’s not lying in the cornfield somewhere, but he’s nowhere in the house or the outbuildings, unless he’s a spider hanging in a corner. There’s enough cobwebs around to…”

  “Did you look everywhere?” Becker asked. His tone was flat, almost bored.

  “I just said…”

  “Did you look in the chimney?”

  “The chimney? Did we look in the chimney?… I’d have to ask. Someone probably… The chimney, Becker? Come on.”

  “You told me it was a stone house over a hundred years old. It must have a big chimney. Where else didn’t you look?”

  “We looked everywhere… except maybe the chimney.”

  “In the basement? You checked the foundation there; there aren’t any hidden rooms?”

  “We checked. I know you don’t mean to sound insulting, but…”

  “The attic?”

  “There isn’t an attic, just a few rafters with some boards that didn’t burn completely-you don’t understand, the place looks like it was bombed.”

  “So you checked the attic or you didn’t?”

  “It’s thirty feet in the air, there is no s
econd floor at all, there is no stairway leading up. There is no attic. What makes you so sure he’s at the farm?”

  “I’m not sure, I’m just making sure you checked. He’s still around here, I feel certain of that. The farm is the logical place for him to go. He knows it, he knows where to hide.”

  “We saw no sign of him. None. He’s not there.”

  “Unless he’s in the chimney.”

  “Or maybe he buried himself underground and is breathing through a straw.”

  Becker shrugged. “You’re probably right.”

  “We’ve already started the house to house; it should take two more days…” Becker was no longer listening. He thinks he knows better than I do, Hatcher thought angrily. He’s convinced I’ve made some mistake but he’s not going to tell me. He’s just going to do things by himself. As usual.

  “Can you get a chopper in here in the morning?” Becker asked, gazing straight ahead.

  “Do you know how expensive that is?”

  “No. How expensive is it?”

  “What do you need it for?”

  “Where did he put the cars? He’s ditched two of them, his and Tee’s.”

  “If he has Tee,” Hatcher said. “We don’t know…”

  “There are acres and acres of corn around here; you’ll never find the cars from the ground unless you stumble over them.”

  “I’ll see if we can afford a chopper.”

  “And I want to be left alone, you understand that.”

  “This is my operation,” said Hatcher.

  “I won’t interfere with your operation. Don’t you get in the way of mine.”

  Hatcher noticed Becker’s clothes for the first time. He was wearing black chinos and a navy blue turtle-neck. The sweater would be black by night, too, and the long neck would roll up to cover most of Becker’s face. Hatcher remembered seeing it the day Becker went after the assassin, Bahoud, in New York. It was his killing outfit.

  Hatcher crossed his arms over his chest, tucking his hands under his armpits.

  “Have it your way, since you will anyway. I won’t interfere.”

  Becker turned to face Hatcher. Hatcher felt he was uncomfortably close in the little car.