The Burn Palace

by Stephen Dobyns

“Yes, that right.”

  “Any bills or paperwork?”

  “Carl takes care of all that himself.”

  “So how’s he been lately?”

  Harriet opened her mouth to speak and then shook her head. “Not so good, actually. I was going to call Dr. Maddox this week.” Her eyes began to well up, and Bobby hoped she wouldn’t cry.

  “What do you mean ‘not so good’?”

  “He’s been moody. Yelling at the kids. Me too, for that matter. I’m sure it’s nothing. And he’s been sleeping upstairs. I . . . I’m not sure what to do. He won’t talk to me. He was wonderful earlier in the summer. Then, I don’t know . . .”

  “Did he ever say anything about the cat?”

  “He said he’d nothing to do with it.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  “I can’t just go questioning everything he says. I mean, he’s my husband.”

  So Bobby drove over to the funeral home. He didn’t see Carl’s truck.

  “No, I haven’t seen Carl this morning,” said Brantley. He again wore his three-piece suit. As if he slept in it, thought Bobby. They stood in the front hall of the funeral home.

  “He was here on Sunday,” Brantley continued. “That’s the last I’ve seen him. He’s supposed to be here tomorrow morning. Can I give him a message?”

  “I hope to see him before then. How’s he been behaving?”

  “Fine, as fine as ever. Anything wrong?”

  “Nah, it’s just some routine stuff. Could he be over at your crematorium?”

  “I very much doubt it. He’s never done any work over there.”

  Bobby drove down to Hannaquit to see if Carl was at the house on stilts where he had been painting the previous week. There was no sign of him. So Bobby drove around for a while, hoping to see Carl’s truck. But he didn’t. As he drove back to Brewster, he considered putting out an APB, but Carl hadn’t done anything. Not yet, at least. Maybe he’d mention it to acting chief Bonaldo when he got to the police station. But then Bobby learned about Peggy Summers.

  • • •

  Early Wednesday morning Barton Wilcox heard the barking of the two Bouviers, Gray and Rags—a frantic, angry bark. Barton knew it meant coyotes.

  Bernie was at the hospital and he was in his bathrobe. Even so, he pushed himself up from his chair with his walker and slowly made his way to the door. Outside he saw two coyotes running for the wall with the two dogs behind them. The coyotes had only once before crossed the wall in daylight and never crossed when the dogs were on guard, which was pretty much always. What surprised him most was something at the other end of the field. A third coyote was dragging a sheep toward the wall. That meant the two coyotes were acting as decoys. They had a plan. A shiver of fear ran through him.

  “Hey, stop that!” Barton shouted, and tried to hurry forward. The other sheep were milling around in their foolish way, terrified but not knowing what to do. The legs of the walker caught in the grass and Barton fell forward, landing hard so the wind was knocked out of him.

  “Granddad!” Tig came bursting out of the house.

  Barton waved her back. “Get the shotgun and some shells! Be careful with it.”

  The two dogs were now tangling with the coyotes. They were big coyotes, fifty or sixty pounds, but they wouldn’t be a match for the Bouviers. The third coyote tugged and dragged the sheep, one of the ones born in April. The ground was wet from the rain and cold. Barton repositioned the walker and began to drag himself up.

  The shotgun was a twelve-gauge Remington pump. By the time Barton was standing upright, Tig was running back from the house. He took the gun, loaded it with two shells, and put a third in the chamber. He aimed at the coyote dragging the sheep. He didn’t expect to hit it—it was too far away—but he hoped to put a scare into it. He had to take his hands off the walker to shoot, and when he fired he lost his balance and fell to the ground. He pulled himself into a sitting position. The coyote had stopped dragging the sheep and was looking doubtful. Barton aimed high and fired again. The coyote fled over the wall.

  He looked the other way and turned cold. “Tig!”

  His granddaughter was running toward the dogs. One of them, Rags, was limping. One of the coyotes lay dead on the ground. Three others were now circling Gray. “Tig!” he shouted.

  Barton again pulled himself onto the walker and began to hobble after her. He had one last shell in the shotgun. The coyote that had attacked the sheep had come back and was tugging at it, but Barton couldn’t be bothered with that now.

  “Tig, stop!”

  If she got too close, a coyote might attack her. Barton hobbled forward, furious with the walker, furious with his knee. Gray was able to hurl himself at the remaining coyotes and grabbed one by the neck. The others fled toward the swamp. The coyote dragging the sheep had made it to the wall, but Barton didn’t want to fire his last shell.

  Tig had reached Rags and was hugging him. There was blood on his back leg, shiny dark in the thick dark fur. Tig’s yellow sweatshirt became smeared with it. Gray stood nearby, barking. A burst of coyote yapping came from the other side of the field. Barton saw the coyote and sheep had disappeared. Coyotes weren’t dumb. They knew they’d gotten away with something. That meant they would be back. Next time, thought Barton, I’ll have the rifle and I’ll be wearing a revolver as well. He had a Colt Python locked in the hall table, a .357 magnum with an eight-inch barrel. In his study, locked in the gun case, were his rifle and a side-by-side.

  But wouldn’t it be better, he asked himself, just to sell out and move to town? I’m getting too old for this nonsense.

  Tig was leading Rags back to the house. Barton met her in the middle of the field. “Never do that. Those coyotes would eat you just as quickly as a darn sheep.”

  “Rags’s hurt,” she said, as if this answered everything.

  “You’re more important than the dog.”

  Tig seemed to doubt this but didn’t answer. The coyotes were still yapping. Barton wanted to call the vet and a neighbor down the road who sometimes did work for him, but he had left his cell phone inside. He felt like an old fool tottering across the grass with the walker and wearing a bathrobe. Tig was talking to the dog in a soothing voice, almost baby talk. Gray stayed at their side but kept looking around.

  I’ll get more dogs, Barton thought. I’ll get an army of dogs.

  When he’d nearly reached the house, he aimed at the spot where the coyote had dragged the sheep across the wall, aimed at the yapping. He fired his last shot. This time he managed to keep his balance. The coyotes were quiet for a moment, but then returned to their yapping and snarling as they tore apart the dead sheep.

  • • •

  Wednesday morning Woody was again late to the briefing, which had started at eleven, but it didn’t seem to matter. In any case, he felt his time had been better spent with Jill. Even so, he had been unable to get Brewster out of his mind. He had an unsettled feeling, as if he were catching a cold, that he realized was fear. This was a new emotion for Woody. He’d felt terror in Iraq when the missile had struck, but never fear. He didn’t like how it clung to him, how it fucked with his thinking.

  The interviews with men and women connected to You-You were continuing, as were interviews with the neopagans and Neo-Heathens. Several had mentioned the possibility of Satanists but knew nothing specific. Just rumors. By now fifteen Wiccans were receiving some sort of protection from the authorities.

  The search of Great Swamp had been hindered by the rain but still moved forward. However, an inspector from the Office of Criminal Investigation of the DEM said that Hancock Pond, half a mile from the swamp, had a small island that could be reached by stringing together ten or so boards. This would give the effect of slightly bouncing while walking through water. Captain Brotman assigned a group to check it out.

  There was still no idea as to who, if anyone, had picked up Nina on Water Street Saturday night. More people were interviewed. The Massachusetts state police and
Boston police were still trying to discover the man that Hartmann had talked to ten days earlier, though they had learned he was someone with whom Hartmann had had lunch.

  Acting chief Bonaldo spoke of Peggy’s disappearance, which everyone already knew about, and what was being done to find her. The fear, though no one voiced it, was that she would be found hanging in the woods. Bonaldo also described the window-breaking and the search for the two cars—a Ford sedan and a Chevrolet Malibu. He was optimistic they’d find the Malibu relatively soon.

  “What do you mean ‘relatively soon’?” asked Brotman.

  “Today. We’ve got some leads.”

  “I should hope so.”

  Others, such as the FBI and the Brewster sergeant in charge of interviewing people in and around the hospital, knew nothing further. Alice Alessio was hiding out in her apartment. At first they had had the hope that discoveries would come quickly; now they were settling down to basic police work: collecting little bits and pieces of information to see if anything added up. Set against that process was the increased fear in town, which had led to the smashing of the windows. If any of the women had been near the windows when they had been broken, they could have been hurt. And might such a misfortune lie ahead?

  “Not a misfortune,” said Captain Brotman, “a disaster.”

  Bobby spoke about Carl Krause and the fact that his doctor had moved from Brewster in May. So Carl was presumably off his meds. He had looked for Carl for much of the morning but hadn’t found him.

  “What’s this guy Krause got to do with anything?” asked Joe Doyle, the South Kingstown lieutenant.

  Bobby scratched his head. “I really don’t know. I just think they’re linked in some way. Anyway, this guy flies out of control and it seems smart to watch him. I’m positive he hung the gray cat.”

  “You’re still fucking with that cat? We got abductions and murders and you’re fucking with a cat?” Doyle made a sarcastic, throat-clearing noise and shook his head.

  Bobby started to get to his feet and Bingo Schwartz grabbed his arm.

  Bobby sank back to his chair. When he spoke it was in a metallic whisper, as if anything louder would lead to fury and insult. “Krause is increasingly violent and mentally unstable. He threatened me and Bonaldo with a shotgun. The snake belonged to his stepson, and he had access to it. I think he’s mixed up with something bigger.”

  “So it’s a hunch, right?” said Doyle. “What’s this, African intuition?”

  In a nanosecond, Bobby leapt across the table. Only Bingo grabbing his ankles kept him from going further. Doyle threw himself backward; his chair tipped over, and he fell to the floor. Everyone else was standing.

  “Out, out!” shouted Captain Brotman. “Everybody out! Not you, Doyle.”

  Twenty men and women filed out of the room and into the hall. Woody and Bingo stood on either side of Bobby, not holding him but ready to. The last one out shut the door. Some of the officers went for coffee; some went to the Coke machine; some stayed in the hallway far enough from the door so they wouldn’t seem to be listening. Bobby, Woody, and Bingo belonged to this third group.

  What they heard was a lot of muted shouting, all from Brotman. Certain words could be made out, ranging from “inexcusable” to “shit for brains.” After five minutes Brotman came to the door and told everyone to come back in. The officers filed silently into the room. Nobody looked at anybody else. Woody snuck a look at Joe Doyle. His face was scarlet, and he stared at the table.

  Soon everyone was seated, and Captain Brotman again stood in front of them. “Doyle,” he said.

  Joe Doyle got to his feet. “I’m sorry I said that, Bobby. I guess I’ve been under a lot of pressure, like all of us most likely.”

  Bobby gave Doyle a cool stare. “Apology accepted.”

  Woody knew that Bobby would prefer to black Doyle’s eye. He wondered what would happen to the investigation if they all started fighting with one another. Well, even Ajax knew the answer to that one.

  Brotman turned to Bobby. “Find Carl Krause and ask him about his meds.”

  Bingo Schwartz spoke next. He said he hadn’t been able to locate Ronnie McBride. Nobody had seen him since Friday. He mentioned searching Ronnie’s house and the ten teddy bears sitting in a row across the bed’s pillows.

  “Who’s this guy, anyway?” asked Joe Doyle. Behind his question was the boast that even though he’d been slapped down, he wasn’t broken.

  “This is a small town,” said Captain Brotman, “and we’re dealing with a number of highly unusual events. There seems a chance they’re in some way connected. We’ll continue exploring that possibility until we discover evidence to the contrary.”

  When the meeting ended a half-hour later, Woody asked, “You really think Carl’s connected to the missing baby?”

  “You going to insult me, too?” asked Bobby, half seriously. “Yeah, it’s a hunch. African intuition, straight from the witch doctor. Carl’s connected in some way. And I want to make sure nothing happens to Hercel. I like him. I’ve also got bad feelings about those coyotes, and I don’t like how they chewed up that girl’s feet, and I don’t like how they run through town as if they own the place. It’s not coyote-like.”

  • • •

  Mackie McNamara lived in a world with no gray areas. He saw things in black or white and that was it. But he wasn’t a bad guy. He just couldn’t see what the trouble was; he couldn’t see why everyone was fussing like a bunch of old hens. If you had a problem, you fixed it. Simple as that.

  He drove a bulldozer for a demolition company in Warwick, but he lived in Brewster, and his family had lived in Brewster for a hundred years. Now it was all fucked. He had a wife and two kids in a relatively new ranch house at the edge of town. He liked to listen to talk radio going to and from work, and a lot of stuff pissed him off. He liked to say that if you read the Bible fifteen minutes a day, you could finish it in a year. He was on his fifth go-round through the Bible, though it’s hard to know what he had learned from it. He was forty years old.

  When the baby had been stolen from Morgan Memorial, Mackie had been as upset as anybody else. He had known Ralph Summers—Peggy’s father—nearly all his life, and he knew Mabel, too. And he’d known Harold Lefebvre, not well, but he’d known him. Then there was the scalping and other shit. Mackie knew for a fact it all came out of the You-You place. He didn’t like lesbians, didn’t like queers, didn’t like coloreds, didn’t like liberals, and he didn’t like anyone who disrespected the flag. But this is exaggeration, because Mackie knew specific lesbians, gays, and blacks who he didn’t mind at all. What he had were bad feelings, and You-You was at the bottom of it.

  If he had been by himself, these feelings might be chalked up to social peevishness of the “there’s a lot of assholes out there” variety, but Mackie had a bunch of friends who felt as he did, some more, some less. If they were downing beers at Tony’s just off Water Street, they might think it a lot. If they were at work, they’d think it less. But, basically, they thought the whole town was going to hell in a handbasket. They weren’t dumb guys, but they weren’t long on education. It was as if each had part of an idea, put them together, and it became a complete thought. Each had a dislike, a feeling that stuff wasn’t working as it was supposed to. Put them together and it became a certainty. But they weren’t bad guys; they just felt sure the cops weren’t dealing with stuff, like the cops weren’t doing their job.

  So when it came out on Saturday that witches were involved with what had been happening, they were appalled. No, that’s not quite right. Singly it upset them; together they were appalled. And since, like Mackie McNamara, they tended to see a world with no gray areas, their anger increased. No, that’s not quite right, either. Singly some might see gray areas; together they didn’t.

  There were six of them, but their names don’t matter except that they tended to be diminutives: Dickie and Jackie and Chucky. They were pissed off on Sunday and really pissed off on Monday. They we
re pissed off that the cops weren’t doing anything. They were pissed off that witches lived right here in town. They were pissed that stuff was getting worse.

  So doesn’t it make sense they would want to toss bricks through windows? They weren’t going to shoot anyone, for shit’s sake. They were going to put a scare into them. So they drove to the house at the end of Whipple Street, the old farmhouse where Sister Asherah and Sister Isis lived—even their names were awful—and they did what they did.

  The next day three of the men were upset by what had happened. The bricks caused more damage than they had expected. A single stone is one thing, but eight bricks is something else. The other three felt pretty good about it. They’d taken a stand; they’d done what the cops wouldn’t do, were too scared or lazy to do. Mackie McNamara was one of those three, and he owned the blue Chevy Malibu. The bumper sticker said STOP GLOBAL WHINING.

  None of the three had had Helen Greene as a teacher in grade school, though they knew she was a teacher. They also knew she wore long colorful skirts, peasant blouses, and lots of silver jewelry that looked silly on an old woman. In fact, she dressed just like Sister Asherah and Sister Isis, like it was a witch uniform or something. So it stood to reason she was one of them. That nurse, Bernie Something, also wore the witch uniform, and they meant to give her a scare as well, once they learned her last name and figured how to do it, maybe smash her car windows.

  So on Tuesday night, after lubricating themselves with a little beer, Mackie, Chucky, and Dickie had driven over to Bucklin Street and threw stones through Helen’s windows. It was as simple as that.

  Then, late Wednesday, when Mackie was sitting at home in the den with his friend Chucky after work, they had visitors. Acting chief Fred Bonaldo, Detective Gazzola, and eight patrolmen came down on them like gangbusters, busting through the door with their weapons drawn and shouting obscenities. That’s what Fred said a dozen times afterward: “We fuckin’ came down on them like gangbusters.” The only regret was that Mackie and Chucky hadn’t offered resistance but let themselves be dragged out to the cruisers like bad pups to the pound.