The Burn Palace

by Stephen Dobyns

  “Yeah, I called Woody.”

  Batman and Robin, thought Bonaldo.

  The CSI truck arrived. Frank Montesano, Janie Forsyth, and Lou Rossetti dragged their lights and equipment into the living room. “We got to stop meeting like this,” said Montesano.

  “I’m working on it,” said Bobby. Janie Forsyth looked at him sympathetically.

  Woody arrived five minutes later, looking half awake. He’d driven fast with the window open, occasionally slapping his face to take the place of the gallon of coffee he needed. Crossing the living room, he looked down at Harriet and winced. “So this is the distraction Joe Doyle was worried about?” He was furious, but he didn’t know what to do about it. Maybe just swallow hard and find Carl.

  More people arrived. Montesano pushed everyone out of the house except for his team and the medical examiner.

  “I guess we better get busy and find him,” said Woody. “It makes me wish I’d never met Hercel. I don’t like bad stuff getting into my gut.”

  Bobby just looked at him. Personally, he felt glad he knew Hercel. He and that Baldo Bonaldo kid made him laugh. “Let’s get busy,” he said.

  • • •

  Carl squatted down behind the convenience store at the corner of Water Street and Route 1. He’d run out the whole two miles from downtown and he felt good. He’d loped out; he’d galloped. Now he wanted something to drink. Beer was sold only at the liquor stores, and they were closed. He knew he could get something else inside.

  Carl had seen who had picked up Hercel and Lucy; he recognized her yellow Beetle. He knew where she lived. He’d get out there and finish his work. He didn’t have a gun; the cops had taken his shotgun, but he had a sheath knife. A knife was like a single claw. He’d catch the brats and end it. They were little, but they’d be big someday. That’s when they got dangerous. He’d get them before that happened. Then he’d have peace in his head.

  But he wanted to drink something. He had a bad thirst, not a water thirst or a soda-pop thirst. Carl walked around the side of the building. The door buzzed when he went in. A fat woman sat behind the counter eating from a bucket of popcorn. Her chin was shiny with grease. Maybe she was thirty; maybe she was fifty. She looked like a swollen tick.

  “You heard about the accident?” she said.

  Carl thought she was talking about what he’d done to the bitch.

  “I didn’t do it,” he said.

  The fat woman laughed.

  Carl got two medium-size bottles of Listerine, all they had. He got a Coke and four little bottles of vanilla extract, all they had. He’d make a Listy Cooler. He grabbed a loaf of Wonder Bread to clean his mouth afterward. He took a drink cup. Then he went to the counter. He stood looking at the fat woman. She looked at him and looked away. He stuck his hand into the bucket, grabbed a handful of popcorn, and shoved it in his mouth.

  “Hey!” she said.

  Carl leaned toward her and slowly opened his mouth so the half-chewed popcorn dribbled across his chin. He leaned toward her and growled.

  The fat woman fell back off her stool onto the floor. She scrambled up to her hands and knees, and stared at Carl. “I can have the cops out here in two minutes flat, just see if I can’t!”

  Carl threw some bills on the counter. No more games. It was time to eat some baby cake. Once outside, he crossed the highway, walked a bit, and stopped to fix his drink. He poured a mix of Coke, Listerine, and vanilla into the paper cup. He drank, gagged, threw up, and then he drank some more. He refilled the cup with Coke, Listerine, and vanilla. This time when he drank he kept it down. He finished the cup, drank another, and tossed it aside. He dropped the empty bottles onto the road. He stuffed his mouth with soft white bread, chewed, swallowed, and stuffed his mouth again. Then he began loping along. The road was dark, with only a few outside lights from a few houses. Carl began to feel good. After several minutes, he heard the distant yapping of coyotes. But the coyotes didn’t bother him. He was a wolf. He had a claw.

  • • •

  As Bernie had driven out to the farm, she listened to Hercel describe what had happened. At first he had been unable to talk, he’d been breathing so heavily. Lucy was curled up in the backseat, weeping and weeping. Hercel was also crying a little, but he was trying to stop. He described how his mother had been talking to Carl, how she had been talking perfectly nice, but then Carl grabbed her and threw her against the fireplace. Hercel wanted to help her, but Carl had turned toward them, growled at them. It was only because he tripped over the fireplace tools that he hadn’t caught them.

  Hercel had dragged Lucy to his room and started shoving stuff against the door, like the bed and bureau. Then he opened the window. Carl tried to open the door but couldn’t. Hercel lowered Lucy and told her to sit still. Then he got up on the windowsill. At that moment Carl smashed through the door, falling over the bureau. Hercel jumped to the ground and grabbed Lucy’s hand. He pulled her up and they ran, first through the backyard, then through a hole in the fence. His ankle hurt a little from Friday night, but he ignored it. They heard the back door smash open and Carl come down the steps, his big feet clomping.

  Hercel worked his way through the backyards, pulling Lucy behind him. He was sure Carl would see the red lights blinking on her heels, but it would be worse for her to go barefoot. Carl stuck to the sidewalks, running, stopping, peering between the houses. Once, when Lucy fell and cried out, Carl heard and came running across someone’s lawn. He dropped down on all fours and growled. Then dogs started barking, and Hercel got away. He was afraid to go to someone’s house because Carl might hurt them, like he hurt his mother. Who wouldn’t be scared of Carl? And he couldn’t make Lucy run much. She wanted to lie down under a bush. She wanted to cry, and Hercel wouldn’t let her. So Hercel tried to get to Water Street. If he reached the police station, they’d be okay. Maybe it would have worked if Carl hadn’t seen them in the alley. He had dropped to all fours and loped after them. That was when Hercel had dragged Lucy out to the street and he had seen Bernie’s VW.

  Listening to Hercel’s story, Bernie began to weep as well. She wiped away her tears with closed fists and called the police station on her cell phone. She knew Harriet was bound to be hurt; she didn’t know she was dead. It seemed an unimaginable consequence.

  After passing the blinking light at Route 1, Bernie saw no more cars. Hercel scrambled into the front seat. Blessedly, Lucy was already asleep in the back.

  “Aren’t you sleepy?” asked Bernie.

  “Only a little bit.” Hercel didn’t want to say that every time he shut he eyes he saw Carl pick up his mother and throw her at the fireplace. Every time he heard the coconut sound of her head hitting the stone, then the jangling crash as she fell onto the fireplace tools. He had started to run to her, but Carl had growled at him. Hercel had even tried to use his trick, to be David like Carl was Goliath, but it was an undependable trick. He had been too scared to concentrate, and it wouldn’t work unless he thought so hard his head hurt.

  “You think my mom’s all right?” asked Hercel.

  Bernie felt a chill in her heart. “We can only hope so.”

  “But she’d be hurt, right?”

  “Probably some, but, you know, people are pretty tough.”

  “She didn’t move after she fell.”

  “She might’ve been catching her breath. You didn’t stay very long, did you?”

  “Carl said he was going to eat us.”

  Oh, you poor babies, thought Bernie.

  The VW’s headlights reflected off something shiny far ahead, which quickly turned into a pair of eyes.

  “Coyotes,” said Hercel. “They’re waiting for us.”

  • • •

  What struck Bobby Anderson was that Carl’s red Ford pickup was still in the driveway. He hadn’t taken it, and he hadn’t come back and fetched it.

  “You think he’s still in town?” he asked Woody.

  They were standing on the front porch of the bungalow. The night wa
s clear, and Woody stared up at the sky. He spotted the constellation Orion. It meant winter had almost arrived.

  “He’s wacko,” said Woody. “You don’t know what he’s going to do.”

  “You gotta dog coming?” Bobby meant the canine unit.

  “Brotman said it’s on its way. It could be here”—Woody looked at his watch—“in twenty minutes.”

  “Carl could be almost anyplace in that time.”

  “If he’s on foot, the dog will find him.”

  An ambulance eventually arrived to pick up Harriet’s body and take her to the medical examiner’s in Providence. Woody recognized Seymour Hodges, but instead of Jimmy Mooney, there was another guy. Woody had tried to talk to Seymour the other day about Iraq. He thought that since he’d been there in ’91, Seymour might open up. But he hadn’t. “Not nice,” was all Seymour had said. Woody couldn’t blame him much. Seymour had reeked of weed, but Woody let it go. He’d also smoked dope when he had got back—smoked dope, drank, and took pills—a roller coaster of artificial forgetfulness. It hadn’t helped.

  “Where’s your buddy?” he asked Seymour.

  Seymour turned and looked surprised that Jimmy wasn’t in the other seat. “Beats me. I guess he’s got business.”

  Bobby gave Woody a nudge. “Let’s drive around.”

  “You want to take the truck?”

  “With all that fur? Hey, I love Ajax, but I don’t want to wear him.”

  So Woody squeezed into the Z. It felt like climbing into a coffin after his Tundra. The black leather interior, orange-lit gauges, and blue-lit GPS screen turned the coffin into a Captain Kirk escape pod. The motor rumbled.

  Bobby drove up and down a few streets and then onto Water Street and turned right.

  “Where we going?”

  “Brantley’s, to see if any lights are on.”

  Woody saw a light in the turret and another at the rear of the mansion.

  “I guess we’ll pay a visit.” Bobby drove to the back and loudly revved the engine. Then they got out. An awning covered the back door. A light shone over the old carriage house, which had been turned into a three-vehicle garage. Bobby rang the bell and did a little hammering with the soft side of his fist. He had to repeat this a couple of times.

  A light came on above the back door, and Brantley peered through the glass. He wore a dark bathrobe. Bobby held his cop shield to the window, and Brantley opened up. He didn’t say anything; he waited for Bobby to speak.

  “You seen Carl?”

  Brantley looked surprised; it made his dark eyebrows rise up. “Why ever would he be here? It’s nearly two in the morning.”

  “We saw the lights on,” said Bobby. “I thought you might be doing some last-minute embalming.”

  “I was reading, as a matter of fact.” Brantley held up a book with his finger marking the place. It was a biography of John Adams. “It helps put me to sleep. Jenny’s seeing friends in Stonington. I stay here when she’s away. Is something wrong? Why are you looking for Carl?”

  “He just murdered his wife,” said Woody.

  Brantley put his hand over his mouth. “Why ever . . . ?”

  “He’s on foot,” said Bobby. “He’s not a guy with a lot of friends, and I thought he might have a key.”

  “None of my employees have keys, except my assistant.” Brantley still looked amazed. “Would you like to come in and look around?”

  Bobby looked at Woody, who shook his head.

  “That’s okay, we’ll let you get back to your book.”

  Brantley wrinkled his brow. He still held open the door with one hand. “But why did he murder his wife? Harriet, is that her name?”

  “He stopped taking his meds,” said Bobby. “If he stops taking his meds, his brain gets mushy. Maybe that’s what happened. Other than that, I don’t know.”

  Bobby and Woody walked back to the car. As Woody opened the door, his cell phone twittered. He answered it and listened. Then he turned to Bobby. “The dog’s here.”

  • • •

  When Bernie unhooked the gate, drove through, and then latched it again, she saw someone sitting in a chair in front of the house. Not only that, but the sheep were gone. She hoped they were in the barn. Driving to the house, she saw the person in the chair was Barton. He wore his down jacket and a knit sailor’s cap. His walker was in front of him, and to his left was one of the Bouviers, Gray, that had jumped up when he heard the car. On Barton’s knees was his bolt-action Winchester rifle.

  “What in the world are you doing?” asked Bernie, getting out of the VW. “Do you know what time it is?” Hercel had at last fallen asleep and only woke up when the door opened, turning on the overhead light.

  “I hope to shoot a coyote. Rags’s at the vet’s. He was pretty chewed up.”

  “By coyotes?” It put her mind in a whirl. Then she thought, First things first. “I’ve got to get these kids in bed. Something awful’s happened.”

  Bernie carried Lucy into the house and put her in Tig’s bed. Tig woke up, saw Lucy, smiled, and then fell back asleep all in the space of five seconds. She put Hercel in the bed in the library and covered him with a quilt. Returning to the living room, she sat down on the other end of the sofa from her husband. The rifle lay on the coffee table.

  “Now tell me,” said Bernie.

  “No, you first.”

  So Bernie described picking up Hercel and Lucy on Water Street and their terror. She said what had happened with Carl, how Hercel and Lucy had escaped from the house and that she had called the police. “I called them again just before I got here,” she added. “It’s awful. Harriet’s dead.”

  “He murdered her?”

  “Keep your voice down. The kids don’t know about it.”

  “And Carl?”

  “The police are looking for him.”

  Next Barton told his wife what had happened during the day with the coyotes. He described how they had crossed the wall and a sheep had been killed. “They had a plan. I couldn’t believe it.” He said that Tig had run into the field and described his attempt to go after her, ending up: “The vet says Rags will recover, but his back leg was chewed up. I called Tom”—he was the neighbor who lived down the road—“but he’s taken his family to Disney World. I can’t see why he’d do a silly thing like that. Anyway, I didn’t want to leave Gray out there by himself—those coyotes would eat him up if he was alone—and if I kept him inside, the coyotes would be all over the place. . . .”

  “So you were babysitting him.”

  “That’s about it.”

  “And you’re planning to stay outside all night?”

  “I don’t know. I was planning to ask your advice.”

  “Are all the animals inside? Then bring Gray in, too. You can’t sit there until morning, silly old man.” She said this affectionately.

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Of course I am.” Bernie stood up.

  Barton pushed himself up on the walker. The Winchester had a sling; he put it over his shoulder and hobbled to the door. Once he had maneuvered his way outside, he saw Gray across the field running along the wall. There were four lights above the wall, as well as lights above the front and back doors, the barn, and the gate. The wind had picked up, shaking the trees so the blowing leaves looked like bats dipping and flying. He heard coyotes yapping from someplace. Barton heard a lot better with his left ear than the right, which meant he was always turning in the wrong direction to identify a sound. He whistled for the dog. Gray stopped and looked at him. Barton had to whistle again, before the dog trotted toward the house. Both knew the coyotes were getting closer.

  • • •

  Woody, Bobby Anderson, four troopers, and two Brewster cops followed the German shepherd from the canine unit and his handler out to Hope Street, and then for ten minutes the dog led them up one street and down another till they went through the short alley onto Water Street. The dog’s name was Rainer.

  “Bernie said she saw him out
here,” said Bobby. “We should’ve come here first.”

  Woody wasn’t positive. “She said she saw a large shadow on all fours.”

  “Yeah, who else is it going to be but that nutcase?”

  “We weren’t sure,” said the handler, a trooper named Rocco Durante. “He might have doubled back.” The dog lived with Durante. Bobby had worked with them before. Dog and man were so tuned in to each other that they appeared to have a telepathic connection.

  The German shepherd turned up Water Street toward Route 1, pulling hard on his leash so Durante had to trot after him. Behind them came a slow-moving Brewster patrol car with acting chief Bonaldo and a driver. Bonaldo kept telling himself that if he was a real cop, he’d been out there running, too, but it wasn’t enough to make him do it.

  In a half-hour they reached the convenience store. The fat woman was still behind the counter. She wasn’t going to forget Carl anytime soon. “He took my popcorn. He growled at me.” She described how Carl had bought two bottles of Listerine, four bottles of vanilla, a Coke, and a loaf of Wonder Bread. “He left the receipt. I got it right here if you want to see it.”

  It seemed to Woody that Carl might have tried to hitch a ride at the blinking light, but the dog again picked up the scent and crossed the highway. The lights were fewer, but the cops had flashlights. After a hundred yards, they found the empty bottles of Listerine, vanilla, and Coke, along with the paper cup and open bag of Wonder Bread and the pool of Carl’s vomit.

  Fred Bonaldo joined them. “You going to gather those up for fingerprints?”

  “Hey, that’s a great idea,” said Bobby. “And, Fred, why don’t you mop up the puke so we can check the DNA.”

  “I know where he’s going,” said Woody, ignoring the others. “He’s on his way to Barton Wilcox’s farm.”

  “Well, there’s sure no point in walking.” Bobby turned toward the patrol car.

  • • •

  Bernie liked to eat something before she went to bed, and so Barton made her scrambled eggs. Hercel got up, saying he couldn’t sleep, so Barton made him eggs as well, along with toast, bacon, and, for Hercel and himself, a glass of warm milk. Bernie preferred a little Jack Daniel’s. It soothed her after a busy night, and Lord knows she needed it.