The Burn Palace

by Stephen Dobyns

  He carried Lucy all the way back to Barton’s farm. She wasn’t hurt, but she was cold. Tig tried to tell him some kind of story about how the wind, a wind like a tornado, had roared and roared and scared the coyotes, driving them away. It made no sense, and Woody figured she’d been dreaming. Hercel walked by his side and didn’t speak.

  Woody didn’t let the kids inside the house because the hallway was smeared with Barton’s blood and the house was filled with wreckage from Carl’s assault. It seemed everything that could break had been broken. The big question was what to do with Hercel and the girls. Bernie was at the hospital with Barton, and the kids couldn’t be left alone. Then it was decided to take them to Fred Bonaldo’s. Hercel and Baldo were friends, and Bonaldo’s wife, Laura, said of course they’d be welcome. She had started weeping when Woody described what had happened. It seemed to Woody that the whole town should be weeping, like it was their duty.

  So Woody went back into the house to pack a bag. Tig had to tell him where everything was. It was odd collecting little girls’ underthings. A neighbor came to take care of the sheep, and tomorrow Bernie would decide what to do with them.

  Police were called in from neighboring towns to assist in the search for Carl who had taken Barton’s 1992 dark blue Volvo 240 wagon. An APB was broadcast across three states with warnings that Carl was armed and dangerous. Woody joined the search, which meant monitoring the radio and driving to places where he imagined Carl might go, the first stop being the craftsman bungalow on the corner of Hope and Newport. He parked at the curb and got out. The yellow police tape was still around the yard and across the front and back doors. No-body home.

  Next he drove to Brantley’s Funeral Home. On the way, he saw two coyotes loping along the sidewalk. He honked at them, and they darted off between the houses. Lights burned in the funeral home’s front windows and another in the turret. Woody pulled into the drive and then cut across the lawn to the front steps. Sixteen ridged columns supported the wraparound porch. Woody knocked and rang the bell. It was eleven o’clock.

  Brantley wasn’t pleased. “Why do you always assume that you’ll find Carl here?”

  “He’s armed and homicidal. I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Well, he’s not here. Perhaps you’d like to come in and look around.”

  Woody started to get angry. He wanted to say that Carl had just tried to kill three children, but he stopped himself. “That’s okay. Give us a call if you see anything.”

  Woody returned to the truck. Brantley was the kind of guy, he thought, who would call the colonel if he got pissed at a trooper.

  Next Woody decided to check on Howard Phelps, who had fired Carl from his plumbing and heating company. But as he was pulling out of Brantley’s driveway, he got an unexpected call.

  “Woody, this is Todd Chmielnicki. Chief Bonaldo gave me your number after I convinced him it was important.”

  “Do you plan to read my mind again?” He was pissed that Bonaldo had given out his number.

  Chmielnicki’s laughter was like dry hands chafing together. “Nothing like that, and perhaps you already know this. October thirty-first is Samhain; it’s the Celtic celebration for the end of summer, which begins the dark half of the year. It’s the most important of the Sabbats not only for Wiccans, but for all neopagans, as well as Satanists.”

  “D’you mean Halloween? What’s the trouble?”

  “Samhain is the origin of Halloween. It’s the festival of the dead, when bones are thrown into a bonfire. Originally it involved animal and human sacrifice. For the Wiccans it’s a harvest celebration. Answers are sought about future events through methods ranging from casting spells to apple bobbing. For the Satanists it’s something darker; they ask a brazen head questions about the future.”

  “What do you mean, ‘brazen head’?”

  “Usually it’s a skull covered with a thin layer of brass.”

  Woody was silent a moment trying to imagine such a crazy thing. Then he asked: “Is this going to be a problem in Brewster?”

  “The Wiccans might be in danger. The Satanists, I don’t know. Much of what’s been happening could be blamed on Satanists or on people pretending to be Satanists. If so, they could take advantage of Samhain to create an even bigger distraction.”

  “And what’s their real purpose?”

  “Woody, you’re the police officer; I’m the student. But if they are trying to create distractions—as the snakes were distractions—we both know there’s a purpose behind it. Also, Clouston’s murder suggests their fear. Wasn’t he killed to keep him quiet?”

  Woody wondered if this was more than a lucky guess. “We’re still working on that.”

  “Then I wish you luck. Just don’t forget Samhain. It’s almost upon us.”

  “Wait a second, what if nothing happens?”

  “Local Wiccans and other groups celebrate it each year, so if nothing happens, that too will be significant.” The phone went dead.

  “Arrogant fuck,” said Woody, so loudly that Ajax stood up and looked at him.

  A few minutes later, when Woody had just arrived at Howard Phelps’s house, he got another call, this time from Bobby Anderson. “We found Barton’s wagon down at the beach stuck in the sand. Looks like Carl meant to drive it into the water. There’re tracks from the car to the water. The tide’s going to turn pretty soon. Guess who else I called?”

  “The CIU.”

  “You got it.”

  • • •

  The Volvo was slewed to the right and buried up to its fenders. The area around it was blocked off by yellow tape. The headlights from the police cruisers reflected off the waves breaking thirty feet offshore, creating a display of rushing white water. The sound of the cresting waves rose and fell.

  “There’s blood all over the front seat,” said Bobby. “It’s got to be Carl’s. The tracks leading into the water are pretty clear on the packed sand, but we’ll lose them when the tide comes up. Montesano better get his ass here pretty quick.”

  Perhaps Carl had walked into the ocean. It seemed possible, but that is only what Woody would have done in a similar fix. Yet what else was Carl going to do? The man, however, was nuts. You couldn’t calculate how he’d behave with any certainty.

  Woody and Bobby stood by the Tundra as Woody described the phone call he’d received from Chmielnicki.

  “So what’s your plan?” asked Bobby.

  “Bring in more cops, I guess. Watch the roads to Great Swamp. Can you think of anything else? Maybe Lajoie will turn up that third girl or we’ll get a lead on who killed Clouston. I only wish we could solve this mess before Halloween. We’d better talk to those Wiccans again.”

  Next Woody described finding Hercel and the girls in the woods, what he felt when he heard Hercel’s voice. “I was so fucking relieved, I almost started bawling. How’s that for being a tough cop? I choked up and got tears in my eyes.”

  “Shit,” said Bobby, “I do it at least once a month. So what else is new?”

  The two men were leaning against the hood of the Tundra, which was still warm from the engine. “D’you think Carl can be blamed for the rest of the stuff—stealing the baby and killing Hartmann? It seems a lot for one guy.”

  “Clouston could have helped him, but I doubt Carl can be blamed for any of it. He’s mean enough, but he’s not clearheaded enough. He couldn’t do any serious planning. He’s purely an impulse guy. But he’s connected some way, I just don’t know how.”

  Montesano and others of his team arrived around midnight and dragged their lights out to the beach. The tide had turned, but four or five of the footprints were still visible. Whether they would find bloodstains was another matter. Woody walked forward to meet them. The wind had picked up, and it was colder.

  “I got some complicated news for you,” said Montesano, turning his back to the wind and pulling up his collar.

  “So tell me,” said Woody.

  “You know those ashes we dug up on the isla
nd, like from a fire pit, and those bone fragments? We heard back from the eggheads at URI. Some of the bones were human.”

  • • •

  Snow flurries blew across Brewster late Thursday night. A man walking his dog or someone looking out a window toward the streetlight might see them blowing in from the west and think it was too early for winter. As harbingers of winter storms, they were unwelcome to some, exciting to others, though mostly to kids. Baldo Bonaldo, up late because of the presence of Hercel and the girls, looked out the window and rubbed his hands. There were a lot of tricks you could play with snow.

  Only the most tenacious leaves were left. The wind and rain of the past few days had done their work and all day there had been the sound of leaf blowers. In the old days, of course, people raked their leaves to the curb and then burned them. Quite a few in Brewster wished that was still possible. They missed standing at the edge of the fire with a rake and thoughtfully nudging the leaves toward the smoldering center. They missed the smell of leaf smoke. There was nothing romantic about leaf blowers, which was true of a lot of stuff these days—computers, cell phones, video games. It was a long list.

  But tonight few dog walkers were in evidence, and those who happened to see a dog walker from the window thought them foolhardy. Weren’t they just asking for trouble? The murders of Hartmann, Clouston, even Harriet Krause, led many to worry they might be next. What residue of guilt did these deaths activate? Perfectly innocent and God-fearing men and women locked their doors and windows, and pulled down their shades in fear. Maud Lord worried someone might shoot her because she had found the hanged cat. Jean Sawyer of the Brewster Brew lay in bed next to her husband, trying to read her romance novel, but all she could think about was how the wind was making her house creak. But maybe it wasn’t the wind.

  Sister Asherah and Sister Isis in their farmhouse at the far end of Whipple Street heard the noises and knew trouble was coming, even though a Brewster patrol car was parked out front. Both worried the policeman might be asleep until at last Sister Asherah took him a cup of coffee and a piece of chocolate cake. But do you think he ate it? No way! He had read about witches and what could happen if you ate their food. He meant to turn the whole nasty business over to the state crime lab at URI.

  Once again playing gin rummy late into the night, Ginger and Howard Phelps spent an inordinate amount of time staring at their cards. Their glasses of warm milk grew cold. The telephone was in easy reach. Were they thinking of their cards? Of course not. Ginger listened to the house’s snaps and pops each time the furnace clicked on—noises that had never bothered her until now. Howard thought, for the thousandth time, that he should never have hired Carl Krause, and, if he had to hire him, he should never have fired him. Maybe he could have paid Carl to leave, but he shouldn’t have made him mad. It was probably one of the things that made Carl go nuts. In fact, maybe it was the only thing. And wouldn’t Carl want revenge?

  It was then they heard a loud crack from the parlor. Ginger screamed. Howard saw a shadow. The window shattered; broken glass jangled and crashed to the floor. Ginger grabbed for the phone; Howard tried to snatch it away. Both struggled over who would dial 911. A glass of milk was knocked over; their cards scattered to the linoleum. At last the number was dialed. Almost immediately patrol cars were on their way.

  Whole-Hog Hopper lived in a small house on Periwinkle Street at the edge of town with his wife and four sons. All were plump or heavy—they avoided the word fat. They had lingered too long with their heads in the fridge, one might say. Whole-Hog liked to watch late-night television and have a few beers. Jay Leno made him chuckle. And some of the pretty female guests in their low-cut gowns made his whole midsection throb.

  But tonight Whole-Hog hardly noticed the pretty girls. On one hand, he had a fierce resentment against Freddie for suspending him. Sure, maybe he had mentioned the dead guy on the island and those funny circus goat tracks to a couple of pals he had known all his life. And hadn’t they sworn up and down not to tell a soul? So it wasn’t Whole-Hog left with egg on his face, or at least that’s how he saw it.

  On the other hand, Whole-Hog was bothered by the wind in the trees. Tonight it made a real racket. When Whole-Hog was young, maybe five or six, his dad told him the wind wasn’t really wind but the ghosts of the newly dead, the really bad guys, being rushed down to hell. Whole-Hog never forgot it. In fact, he was thinking about it right now, instead of staring intently at celebrity titties. Wasn’t that Clouston fellow a bad guy? That could be him fussing around outside. Not that Whole-Hog believed that shit anymore.

  At that moment, he too heard a loud crack and a breaking noise from the dining room window, which he could just see through the double doors into the hall. He had absolutely known something like this would happen. So is it any surprise that his Glock was within arm’s reach on the small TV table to his right next to his Budweiser?

  Whole-Hog snatched up the Glock and, in the language of the subsequent police report, “he discharged his weapon seven times.” More simply, he blasted the wall of his neighbor’s house. His neighbor’s name was Charlie Mitzorelli. And it’s a good thing that old Charlie, like the smart pig in the kid’s story, had built his house out of brick, or the seven .45 slugs would have ripped through the wall like shit through a goose.

  • • •

  It was one-thirty when Woody at last went home. He had meant to go home earlier, and then the Brewster police station started getting 911 calls. It had been a nightmare. The first four had been actual break-ins; that is, someone had forced a downstairs window with a wrecking bar and the window had broken.

  Next came a flood of calls from people who thought someone was breaking in, people who presumably had received calls from the original four. Brewster patrol cars and state police cruisers dashed around town with their sirens blaring. People who had been lucky enough to be asleep now weren’t. This led to a third wave of calls, and acting chief Bonaldo asked for additional help from Charlestown and South Kingstown.

  Once again Woody called the CIU, which, in any case, was still down at the beach vacuuming up a ton of sand to be analyzed by the URI lab for traces of blood. The lab had been so busy that the governor had brought in forensics guys from Massachusetts. That was a plus of living in a pissant state. These problems went straight to the top in no time flat.

  Then Woody had helped chase down some of the second and third wave of 911 calls, crisscrossing Brewster until he decided it was all bullshit. It was all “his-teria and her-steria,” as Bobby liked to say. The reason this was happening was because something else was happening, something that this window-breaking was designed to conceal. He called the hospital to make sure it had sufficient security, and he saw to it that police were watching the Wiccans and any others who might be in danger. Then he drove around for a bit more, but the only vehicles on the road were police cars and an ambulance. Woody thought, Let Fred Bonaldo take care of it. I’m going home.

  But he didn’t go home; that is, he drove halfway to Carolina and then made a right turn and headed for Wakefield. He felt too lonely to go home; he felt too confused by the business in Brewster. It was like a science fiction movie when the saucers start landing: absolute panic.

  Woody had only a slight idea where Jill lived, but he knew he’d find it; or, as he told himself: Tonight I’m a fucking bird dog.

  She opened the door, tugging a white terry cloth robe around her. She didn’t seem surprised. Tilting her head to one side, she said, “Coffee?”

  “No coffee.”

  He reached behind her head, grabbed a fistful of hair—not too rough—and kissed her neck, as he pushed her into the hall and kicked the door shut with his heel. Her neck smelled of sleep and sweet things. He tried to put the whole thing into his mouth; then he stepped back. “Should I stop?”

  “Don’t stop.”

  They didn’t make it to the bedroom, but stripped off each other’s clothes in the living room. He tore her nightgown. She fell to her knees,
undid his belt, unzipped the zipper, and slipped his cock into her mouth. His pants slid down his legs, and his pistol and its little holster clunked on the rug. He fell on top of her, catching himself with his hands. Briefly, he tried to kick off his shoes and then gave up. They fed on each other, putting their mouths to whatever they could find till they grew slick with each other’s spit. Rolling on the floor, they upset the coffee table. Then she grabbed him and slipped him inside her, first sitting on top of him and then rolling over; next he took her from behind like a dog; then they rolled over again as one unsettled creature, until at last he positioned himself on top of her and they got to work. When they had finished, they lay on the rug, trying to catch their breath. Woody’s elbows felt chafed, his knees ditto. Sharp rug, he almost said, but he said nothing. Now that he had a chance to speak, he didn’t know what to say.

  Jill stood up and reached out her hand to help him to his feet. In the dim light, Woody stared at her eyes staring at him. The whites of her eyes encircled pools of darkness, and staring into them was like staring down from a high place. For a second, he was afraid of falling, but then she embraced him and led him into the bedroom with his pants bunched around his ankles. She pushed him, and he flopped down on the bed. She took off his shoes and socks, and then she crawled on top of him and they did it all again, but more slowly. He raised his hands to her breasts. The headboard banged against the wall.

  Afterward, they lay side by side with their hands touching, but neither spoke. Each considered speaking; they ran though possible sentences in their minds, but each sentence seemed so banal after what had happened that neither could break the silence. And Jill considered that they might never speak, that years would go by, perhaps their entire lives, with only making hand signals and grunts. And thinking this, she laughed.

  “What are you laughing at?” asked Woody.

  She told him.

  “Well, I guess I broke the ice,” he said.

  She laughed again and climbed astride him and began kissing his face—his nose, his eyes, his forehead, and then his mouth—as he held her breasts in his hands, catching each nipple between two fingers and stroking it with a thumb. Then he pulled her down and rolled on top of her, again burying his face in the side of her neck and biting gently.