Gabe didn’t hear the sarcasm. “Most likely. All this stuff’s really old. Pan was a horned god, and he’s one of the oldest gods we know—god of forests and trees. When we knock on wood we’re asking for Pan’s protection. We’ve been doing that for ten thousand years, at least.”
Hartmann decided to forget the tip. He stretched out his hand. “Thanks for your hard work, Gabe. You’ve done me a world of good.”
• • •
That morning another state police detective was assigned to the case—Bobby Anderson, an African American. “Hey, I’m their token black guy,” he might say to someone he was questioning. It was disarming and made the other person—if he was white—more forthcoming just to show he was okay with black guys. White-guilt shit. “Can you say you’re the token white guy?” Bobby Anderson would ask Woody. “You ain’t token nothin’, you the fuckin’ National Trust.” And if Woody invited Bobby to go fishing on his boat, Bobby would say, “Fishin’! I’m the fried chicken and watermelon man. I don’t look at no fish unless it’s catfish. You goin’ to promise me catfish? Shit, you know colored folks can’t swim.”
“Give me a break,” Woody might say. “You spent six years in the marine unit. You’re dive certified, for crying out loud.”
Woody considered Bobby Anderson his best friend, but he didn’t know what Bobby kept hidden behind the jive mask. He knew that whoever was back there was a careful observer, but he didn’t know the reason for the jive; or rather, he could see how it worked when Bobby was on a case, but he didn’t see why he used it with friends. It created an impression of breezy fellowship, but actually it was a distancing device, letting Bobby stay hidden while the person he talked to grew more open. Maybe it was no more than a bad habit, or maybe he wanted to keep the barrier up. But why that might be the case, Woody couldn’t tell.
It was Bobby who got the call that morning from acting chief Bonaldo about the kid reporting his snake being stolen. Presumably Bonaldo could have sent his own men to the kid’s house, but he wanted to diversify the responsibility to decrease the chance of messing up and getting criticized. Bobby said he’d meet him in fifteen minutes.
Bobby drove his own car, a magnetic black Nissan 370Z coupe with a rear deck spoiler. He wore a medium gray sharkskin suit, a charcoal-gray silk shirt, and a red silk tie. He looked good; he knew he looked good. He couldn’t imagine being an undercover cop. His whole purpose in life was to be out in the open. And if a number of troopers disliked how he made a show of himself, they also knew he was better at his job than most of the rest. He was a very dark black man with a shaved head and teeth so white they seemed lit from inside.
When Bobby downshifted and drew to a stop in front of Carl Krause’s bungalow, acting chief Bonaldo wondered if he’d made a mistake. He had meant to make a casual call—no point in riling up the street. With Bobby’s rumbling muffler and slight screech of tires, Bonaldo saw curtains twitch in a few surrounding houses.
Hercel McGarty Jr., who was missing school after having reported the apparent theft of his corn snake, knew right away that somebody important had arrived, and what he wanted was a ride in that car. Even sitting in it would be cool.
Bobby was out of the coupe and standing on the walk next to Bonaldo before the acting chief had quite prepared himself. Already he felt rushed.
“Chief Bonaldo? Detective Anderson, you can call me Bobby.” He stuck out his hand. “Hey, kid, that your green mountain bike? Very nice.”
Hercel stood a little straighter and grinned.
It’s a sunny morning in late October; the leaves of the maples are falling two by two. The retired guy across the street rakes his lawn. A yellow delivery truck slowly passes as the driver seeks an address. The two yappy dogs in the house next door express their disapproval of the group on the sidewalk. They spend all day looking out the window, looking for a chance to be indignant. A neighbor drives by in a small SUV, recognizes Bonaldo, considers tooting his horn and doesn’t.
Bobby’s full of energy, taps his foot, shifts from leg to leg, moves his hands, glances around. He looks like a single guy with a full dance card who leaves behind a trail of broken hearts. In fact, he’s been married fifteen years and has two daughters. His wife, Shawna, is a radiologist at South County Hospital in Wakefield, and his daughters Rainey and Bessie are twelve and fourteen years old.
Then there’s Fred Bonaldo; we haven’t said much about him. He’s four inches taller than Bobby and almost twice the weight. If you thought his red face suggested a cholesterol problem, you’d be correct. He’s descended from Italian immigrants who moved into Washington County in the late nineteenth century to work the granite quarries. Local granite went into buildings from Boston to Washington, D.C. The grandfather worked in the quarries, the father had a grocery store, and the son, after time in the army, got into real estate, and other things, like uniforms. Fred Bonaldo loves uniforms.
He developed this taste as a Cub Scout, then it grew as a Boy Scout and fattened in high school in the Civil Air Patrol. In the army, he spent two years in the military police. Later he spent time with a volunteer ambulance squad and in a volunteer fire department, whose uniforms came out in parades—Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, because almost as much as uniforms, Fred Bonaldo loves parades. Being a Master Mason, Scottish Rite, Thirteenth degree Master of the Ninth Arch, has allowed him to participate in even more parades while wearing a wide variety of regalia, fezzes and aprons accumulated over years of service. Stated plainly, it might be hard to imagine Bonaldo’s passion for uniforms and parades, but they make his heart beat fast. He tells himself that it’s the work he likes; actually it’s what he wears to work. “You don’t wear clothes, you wear costumes,” his father said, when Freddie was seven and playing Superman with a cape made from an old blanket. And that was right.
Brewster’s former police chief, John MacDonald, died of a stroke last March, and Fred Bonaldo used his Masonic and non-Masonic connections on the town council and police department to put himself forward. His time in the military police, his training as a volunteer ambulance attendant and fireman, the two courses he’s taken in public safety at URI, even being a Mason, more than qualified him, he felt sure, to be chief. The pay was low, the applications few, and Bonaldo was named acting chief over the protests of many in the department. Fred Bonaldo’s wife, Laura, also felt sure he deserved to be chief, and she had marshaled her friends and customers—she owns a baby boutique—to lobby for his appointment. Even so, the protests have kept up, and so Fred has remained acting chief until the whole business can be sorted out—that is, until he’s made a real chief or is kicked out without offending a certain portion of the population, which means a large group who have known one another since grade school.
What’s significant at the moment is that Fred Bonaldo knows this business with the snake and missing infant will either make him or break him, and he’s terrified. His hope is that Bobby Anderson and Woody will help him in this matter, since most of the department’s officers want him to disappear like a dime down a well.
Standing with Bobby and Hercel, acting chief Bonaldo keeps putting his hands in his pockets and taking them out again; and as he turns the sun reflects off his glasses, first exaggerating his dark brown eyes and then creating gleaming silver medallions. He knows Carl Krause, knows the trouble he can cause, and he wishes he was standing outside any house but this one.
As for Hercel Jr., he’s glad not to be in school and he’s glad his snake was stolen instead of just escaping again, because what a corn snake does best is escape and what it does second-best is slither into people’s houses, and that has created a certain amount of fuss, which, considering the snake is totally harmless, is silly. But, as one woman said, when she reaches under her sink for the Clorox what she doesn’t expect to find is a big snake. His stepdad, Mr. Krause, also hates the snake, but he hates the neighbors worse, and Hercel bets his stepdad has even freed the snake in the past so it can fr
ighten people. In fact, this morning when he saw the snake was gone he suspected his stepdad of letting it go, but then he had seen the broken lock on the basement door. As to why his stepdad might want to frighten people, Hercel puts it down to meanness.
“So, Hercel,” said Bobby, “what do people call you? D’you have a nickname?”
“They call me Hercel. My dad says it’s short for Hercules, so it’s already a nickname. His name’s Hercel, too. He lives in Oklahoma. He says I’m probably the only Hercel in Washington County.”
Bobby looked at Hercel thoughtfully, feeling he had just learned quite a bit about the boy. “I expect that’s true. So you like snakes, right?”
“Not as much as I used to. They can be a nuisance.”
Bonaldo made a “hrumph” noise to indicate he could say a lot about snakes being a nuisance if asked.
Bobby told the boy to show him what he’d seen that morning, and Hercel led him up the driveway. The yapping dogs next door resumed their racket. The bungalow was set on a slight incline so the basement door opened directly onto the backyard. On the concrete step in front of the door were splinters of wood and on the area around the lock were marks indicating the door had been forced with a pry bar. It was a simple lock and wouldn’t need much forcing.
“You going to take fingerprints?” asked Hercel.
“Not right now.” Bobby hadn’t thought of it. “Show me where you keep the snake.”
“You want to go inside?” asked Hercel.
“If that’s what it takes.”
Hercel hesitated. Mr. Krause hated to have people in the house; it made him angry and suspicious. It wasn’t good when he got angry. But maybe Mr. Krause had gone out or maybe he was still up on the second floor and wouldn’t hear them.
“Come on, boy,” said Bonaldo. “We don’t have all day.”
Hercel led them into the basement.
On a table against the wall was a cage about five feet by four feet by four feet with branches, a shallow bowl of water, and cedar shavings. The top lifted up, and a latch kept it secure. The wire mesh had been patched in a few places, presumably where the snake had gotten out in the past. Also on the table were six bricks with which Hercel weighted down the top. On a nearby table, Bobby saw a smaller cage with a dozen mice.
“You feed those mice to the snake?”
“Not really.”
Bobby lifted the lid of the snake cage. “What you mean ‘not really’?”
“I raise these mice and I take them to the pet store and trade them for other mice. Stranger mice.”
“What makes you think he doesn’t give your own mice back to you?”
“It’s a woman, and I don’t think she’d do that.”
“But you’re not positive?”
“Pretty positive.”
“Aren’t you going to take pictures or anything?” asked Bonaldo.
“I’ll give the crime scene unit a call.”
A step was heard on the stairs and a voice shouted, “Put up your hands or I’ll shoot!”
Bobby saw a nervous-looking man pointing a shotgun at him. He had always felt that if he were killed as a trooper it would be in a situation like this rather than by somebody on the highway. He took a deep breath. “My name’s Robert Anderson, I’m a state police detective. This is Fred Bonaldo, Brewster police chief. Your son’s snake was stolen; he’s been showing us. I didn’t know you were home. Why don’t you put down that shotgun so I can show you my ID?” Bobby spoke calmly, but he didn’t feel calm. The man on the stairs was over six feet and heavy-set, with disheveled hair. He wore a stained T-shirt and jeans, and didn’t look sane.
“The fuck you say. You expect me to believe the police chief and a trooper detective are going to hunt for a kid’s missing snake? Keep your hands up!”
Hercel tugged on the pocket of Bobby’s sharkskin jacket. “He’s not my dad; he’s Mr. Krause. He married my mom.”
FOUR
DR. JOYCE FULLER JABBED a pencil at a yellow Post-it pad with the words Have a nice day! printed at the bottom. She jabbed till the black dots became a black blob, jabbed until the pencil broke. She was an attractive woman of the seamless variety, as if made from standardized parts, as if her hair, makeup, hands, feet, and sculpted aerodynamic figure spent the night in separate boxes rather than being joined together in bed. She was forty-three years old and had been head of Morgan Memorial for two years. Now her career was over.
Until early this morning she had done well. The hospital had an inadequate budget, and she economized where she could. Unluckily, one of her economies had been her decision not to purchase an infant protection system, the small tags attached to an infant’s ankle that gave warning if the infant was taken from the unit. Providence and Boston hospitals had them, but Brewster had a fraction of their births, about eighty a year. That seemed too few to justify the expense. Local crime was almost nonexistent, except during the summer months, and other items had seemed more necessary. But that was yesterday. Since then the unthinkable had happened. Now it was eight-thirty Thursday morning and she had just put in a call to a company that sold such devices: locking the barn door after the horse had been stolen, people would say. And they’d be right.
She would resign, of course; or perhaps she could just offer to resign. Even so, the board of trustees would want her resignation. Surely her very presence would lead people to seek out other hospitals. An expectant mother would be an idiot to have her baby in Brewster after what’d happened, though given the new protection devices and heightened security, Morgan Memorial would be the safest hospital in the state.
Joyce Fuller had spent ten years in college and graduate schools for advanced degrees in business and hospital administration. She could have earned a degree in medicine, but she had wanted to run a hospital instead of being attached to one. What could she do with those degrees now? No other hospital would hire her with this tragedy on her record. Perhaps a job in a pharmaceutical company or a medical supply company; even teaching was possible—but she wanted none of those.
Normally two nurses were in the nursery at that hour, but one called in sick late yesterday, and that left Alice Alessio. Laboratory, service, and maintenance staff came on at four, with additional medical staff arriving soon after. So Alice would have been alone for only four hours. Indeed, Tabby Roberts, the nurse supervisor, had called yesterday afternoon to alert her to this problem and ask for advice. Instead of saying that someone else must be found, Dr. Fuller had said, “I’m sure it will be all right.”
She even wondered, and she knew this was inexcusable, if she could predate her order for an infant protection system to last week so it would seem she was attempting to solve a problem before it became too late. She almost said something to the salesman on the phone—a promise to buy his device rather than another—but then she had bit her tongue. Better to be a fool than a fool and a criminal.
It was possible, according to Reggie Adams, chairman of the board of trustees, that litigation would result. It all depended on Peggy Summers. Reggie had said he would get on the phone with the hospital’s lawyers right away. So it occurred to Dr. Fuller that she would not only lose her job, she might be sued as well.
What had the state police detective asked her? Who else knew? At first she had thought only three or four people knew Alice would be alone. But those few could have told others, and those others still more. “So,” Woody Potter had said, “it could be fifty people.” Of course she doubted that, but the detective made his point.
But for a month or two her job was secure. As Reggie had explained, to let her go right now would be an admission of guilt on the hospital’s part. “But I am guilty,” Joyce answered. Yes, but to admit it would be to invite a lawsuit. “We’d just be begging for trouble,” Reggie said.
So she sat, jabbing a pencil at a pad as she waited for one more person—several had come already—to arrive with an expression ranging from disappointment to anger while she tried to placate and to some extent e
xplain. Wouldn’t putting a bullet in her head be better? Her father, an old military man, would have had no doubt about that. No hanging or car exhaust or pills for him; he’d use his service pistol, which, he had often told her, had served him well in the Pacific. But now, fortunately or not, he was gone and the pistol had been sold. So, for her, hanging, car exhaust, or pills were still options. Or she could drive to the beach and walk into the surf. She saw herself walking into the water as if in a movie and thought how cold it would be, going deeper until her head slipped under. How crudely melodramatic. Couldn’t she do something? Couldn’t she find a lesser penance than death?
First of all, she would talk to Alice and learn where she’d been during that fatal time, since she didn’t believe that nonsense about Alice’s period. What had she been up to? And didn’t her nickname of Nurse Spandex suggest a range of questionable activities? Surely following these lines of inquiry was better than doing nothing.
• • •
Jimmy Mooney and Seymour Hodges had been up twenty-eight hours straight except for catnaps in the ambulance, which, for Jimmy, meant almost no sleep at all because Seymour kept screaming in his sleep. When Jimmy asked, “What the fuck you screaming about, Seymour?” Seymour would say, “Just stuff” or “You don’t want to know.” Twice he had screamed, “Get down, get down!” and twice more he had screamed, “He’s burning!” What Jimmy knew for certain was that Seymour wasn’t screaming about anything nice. Actually, Jimmy would like to hear a nasty story or two, and so he kept asking, “What’re you screaming about, dude?” And Seymour would say, “Fucking stuff, man. Death and damnation.” It made Jimmy glad he hadn’t joined the National Guard after all.
Earlier, Jimmy had picked up a stiff at Ocean Breezes, the old folks’ home, and took it to Digger Brantley, third-generation owner of Brantley’s Funeral Home on the Hannaquit end of Water Street. Of course, his real name wasn’t Digger, but Jimmy couldn’t recall his real name, but it was Hamilton and those close to him called him Ham.
The Burn Palace Page 6