“So why’d you come here this morning?” he asked, keeping his voice monotonically metallic.
“I saw that guy’s picture in the paper—the one who was murdered. He was a complete creep.”
The gathering on the island was a sacred harvest festival in preparation for Samhain and included dancing, chanting, casting spells, and Sex Magick, which was not, as Vultura said, just getting laid, but entailed withholding the orgasm so its full power was turned inward. “It’s not about pleasure, it’s about transforming the orgasm through billions of christic atoms into a carrier of spiritual essence. But you don’t force anybody. I mean, I didn’t know the girl would get raped.”
Twenty people had met in West Kingston and were driven a few miles to a spot where they were led through the woods to a submerged bridge that took them to the island. The bridge was about twenty feet long and consisted of thick planks linked together. Torches lined the path with a large bonfire at the end. People wore cloaks and hoods; the high priest or coven leader wore a skull mask. She described a service led by the high priest based on patterns of call and response that grew increasingly impassioned with cries, fainting fits, and moments of demonic possession. Vultura denied drug or alcohol usage. “Maybe some ’shrooms,” she said. She herself disliked any stimulants to come between her and her awareness of the One. Clouston, she said, had assisted the high priest and had been called the Dark Deacon. She could tell little about the priest himself except he’d been about six feet, thin, and “athletic.” She guessed he was between thirty and forty. The cloaks and relative darkness made it difficult to see people’s faces. Some looked familiar, but Vultura could identify none for certain.
“Would you recognize any of them again if you saw them?” asked Muller.
“Maybe.”
Bonaldo didn’t think she was telling the truth, but he didn’t know what to do about it. He’d have to discuss it with Woody. The whole business was so disturbing that he found it impossible to think clearly. He felt he was in way over his head.
Up until 1980 Brewster policemen had played in a baseball league, which had started right after the Second World War. On the walls of the office were a dozen photographs of winning teams—eager, smiling, baseball-loving cops, mugging for the camera. Now all were dead or elderly, but their distant good cheer still gave a bit of warmth to the room. Glancing at those pictures with Vultura’s words in mind, Bonaldo thought how far away they were. It wasn’t a matter of wholesome versus unwholesome; it was a metaphysical distance. Many of those baseball players were the fathers and uncles of his friends. Wondering what they’d think of Vultura the Generational Demonolator, Fred Bonaldo could only sigh.
Vultura said that no bones had been thrown in the fire. Nor had she seen any wicker figures, though she had attended wicker man festivals in the past. The burning of the wicker man and the throwing of bones on a fire was part of Samhain, the end of summer harvest festival that the irresponsibly ignorant confused with All Hallows Eve. As for a big goatlike creature with cloven feet, she thought Bonaldo was pulling her leg.
“If he had been there, I’d have remembered him. The whole thing was about the girl. That was why we’d come. People were shouting and chanting; there was lots of noise. Then I realized this girl was screaming. It wasn’t just an act, she was really screaming. The Deacon, this Clouston guy, held her down and others helped. They held her arms and legs. Then the man in the skull mask fucked her. It seemed part of the festival, even the screaming, but Clouston was too rough. I mean, the girl was just a girl. Believe me, it was nothing I’d signed on for.”
Several times she mentioned that today, the 31st, was Samhain and there would be celebrations all over New England. “Tonight’s a big party night. You guys better hang on to your hats.”
• • •
Saturday morning Hercel, Lucy, and Tig were with Baldo in the Bonaldo rec room. Baldo had chores—raking leaves, washing his clothes, cleaning his room—but Laura Bonaldo knew it would be impossible to make him do chores with his friends in the house. Anyway, it had started to rain, and raking leaves would have to be postponed. A patrol car was parked in the driveway; Whole-Hog Hopper sat in the living room, twiddling his thumbs. He wanted to watch TV, but Laura wouldn’t allow it. He said it would be okay, because he was going to be suspended as a policeman and was there only as a favor to the family. After all, Laura was his cousin.
“If you don’t like it,” Laura said, “you can leave.”
Woody’s golden retriever was also in the rec room. Woody had dropped off Ajax to keep the kids company. Laura, who prided herself that her house had always been dog-free, was horrified, but she kept her mouth shut. However, she phoned the fumigator to make an appointment. Dogs, in her mind, were as bad as Satanists, but the off chance that Carl Krause was still wandering loose led her to permit it just this once.
Baldo Bonaldo was teaching Lucy how to play Ping-Pong. By doing this, he understood, he was doing everyone a favor, because Lucy had no chance of learning. She was only five. Every time she hit the ball, it sailed across the room and Baldo had to dig under the chairs to find it. Not even the dog would chase it.
Ajax was curled up on the floor with Tig and Hercel, offering the only comfort the children allowed themselves. Every time Tig thought of her grandfather she wanted to weep, yet it was impossible not to think of him. This was also how it was with Hercel thinking about his mother. In fact, if he forgot her for even a second, he became furious with himself for forgetting. Neither child could imagine getting past where they were now. Added to their grief was their lingering horror of the coyotes and what had happened in the woods. Whenever Tig heard a dog bark her muscles went stiff. She had been positive she’d be killed, and even if she had only a vague idea of death she had been positive she would be eaten. The business with the whirling stones was a complete mystery to her.
Added to Hercel’s grief and the memory of horror was an exhaustion unlike anything he had ever felt. Tracing the tip of the screwdriver around in a circle had sapped him of all strength. He wanted to sleep but couldn’t sleep. When he shut his eyes, he saw horrible things—Carl hurling Harriet at the fireplace, the coyotes. He would yank his eyes open and the exhaustion would return. All he could do was push his fingers through Ajax’s thick fur, gather it between his fingers, squeeze it together, and then do it all again.
Baldo was sorry for his friends and tried to share their grief. But his grief was of a more personal nature. Tonight was Halloween. For a trickster like himself, Halloween had a value exceeding the value that Vultura placed on Samhain. Yet his mother said he couldn’t go out. It was too dangerous. Maybe, if he were good, she would take him to the Halloween party that Father Pete was holding at St. John’s. Baldo was shocked. Halloween was the very opposite of church. And hadn’t Father Pete said if Baldo brought his fart machine to St. John’s ever again, then he, Father Pete, would crucify him? So Baldo also grieved and plotted his escape.
Several times Laura came quietly down the stairs and stood watching the children. She had offered food, videos; she offered to drive them absolutely anywhere. They had wanted nothing. She racked her brain for something she might do. Maybe a good dose of sleeping pills to keep them asleep for a week would help, though she wouldn’t dream of doing it. Seeing them with the dog, she felt guilty about wanting to put Ajax outdoors.
• • •
On his way back from Brantley’s crematorium, Woody had talked to a trooper he knew in New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement, to whom he had sent Clouston’s description. So far Clouston had been identified as visiting the poker rooms at the Borgata. The trooper couldn’t tell as yet how often Clouston had gambled in the casino, though it was often enough to be remembered; nor did the trooper know how much Clouston had won or lost. “I’m still waiting on that,” he said. However, Clouston was remembered as playing in a recent $350 and $50 No Limit Hold ’Em, and his name wasn’t among the winners. Woody hadn’t heard from the Las Vegas and Con
necticut casinos, but he had heard enough to think that Clouston had “money issues,” as he termed it.
The next day Woody drove to Clouston’s house on Ballou Street, where Detective Gazzola had arrived half an hour earlier. By that time Brewster police officers had been showing photographs to Clouston’s neighbors for a day. Gazzola stood on Clouston’s porch, chain-smoking. He told Woody about the interview with Vultura. “She’s one scary female,” said Gazzola. “Stick your prick into that bad business and you’d never get it back.”
They stood on the porch, away from the rain, but the wind blew it in their faces. The police officers going door to door in their long, reversible raincoats reminded Woody of monks. Harry Morelli slowly made his way up the walk. He never hurried, not from laziness but because he felt it was beneath his dignity. Drops of water hung from the tips of his drooping mustache.
“Nobody’s recognized Brantley so far,” he said, “though they knew who he was, all right. But two of ’em have ID’d this other guy.”
He stood on the porch, slowly leafing through a small stack of photographs while trying to shield them from the rain. Woody willed himself not to scream at him for being so slow. At last Morelli found the right picture and held it up. “Here it is.”
It was Dr. Jonathan Balfour.
“Two different people recognized him?”
“Yeah, and more then once. Like he’d been here more than once.”
Woody turned to Gazzola. “Go to the hospital and pick him up. Take some guys with you and bring him to police headquarters. Call me when you’ve got him.”
Woody then joined the other patrolmen interviewing the neighbors, but told them to concentrate on Balfour. He also called Bingo and Bobby Anderson to tell them what he had learned. Bingo was on his way to talk to Hamilton Brantley at the funeral home, and Woody said not to bother. Brantley was at the crematorium.
Bobby described Professor Vasa Korak’s coyote farm. “That guy can make them jump through hoops almost. We’re on a fuckin’ roll!”
It seemed to Woody the end was in sight. He wanted to call Jill and tell her about it; he wanted to say that soon there would be nothing to keep him from seeing her. His desire to call her was like a burning in his belly. The policemen going from door to door reminded Woody of Halloween trick-or-treaters. He called Captain Brotman instead.
• • •
Detective Beth Lajoie had tracked down Dr. Stone at Providence Hospital and asked him if he’d fucked Alice Alessio in a Morgan Memorial bathroom. She hoped to handle this over the phone, but if Dr. Stone dragged his feet she would drive up to Providence in a shot.
Who knew what sort of work Dr. Stone was doing when Lajoie’s call had interrupted him? Saving lives, most likely. Tough luck, Lajoie thought.
Dr. Stone responded to Lajoie’s question with absolute silence. Lajoie heard hospital noises in the background. Then she said, “I’m waiting.”
“How do I know you are who you say you are?”
So Detective Lajoie said Dr. Stone could call trooper headquarters, which would confirm who she was. Then he could call her back. “But if you don’t call in ten minutes I’ll have ten troopers bust up whatever you’re doing and bring you to the barracks. This is a murder investigation, Doctor, and I got priority. Do you really want people to see you being dragged kicking and screaming out of Providence Hospital? Anyway, who else knows you fucked Nurse Spandex? The only way you’ll get in trouble is if you make a fuss. I only want to know if you came on to her or she came on to you. Isn’t that simple enough? Who initiated it?”
“She did.”
Hot damn, thought Lajoie. “Tell me more.”
So Dr. Stone described their three-week relationship, which had started with oral sex in a bathroom. “She kept flirting, aggressively flirting, and at last I just stopped resisting it.” But he had remained scared, and by the time the thrill wore off, he abruptly left on vacation. Then he had taken a job in the emergency room at Providence Hospital. “I was only at Morgan Memorial another week and I managed to avoid her. She’d promised to make a scene. She even said she thought she was pregnant. I was scared half to death.”
“Thanks,” said Lajoie. It was time to see Dr. Balfour.
• • •
At about noon on Saturday, Bingo Schwartz picked up a trooper from Alton Barracks and drove to Brantley’s crematorium. He wanted to ask Brantley what he knew about body brokers, which Bingo felt was a subtle way of learning if Brantley had dealings with them. The Massachusetts state police detective Frank Schnell had explained that a person might donate his body for scientific research and the body might first be sent to a funeral home, which could hold a viewing and a service or could deliver the body directly to the body broker. If Tommy Meadows, the state health investigator, had an interest in Brewster, then Bingo thought he might have been interested in Brantley.
Bingo brought along a trooper, Rodger Legros, because he didn’t want to go alone; but, first of all, he didn’t think there would be any danger and, secondly, if there was something to be found Bingo wanted to be the one who found it.
At fifty years old and after more than twenty-five years as a trooper, Bingo had not yet made corporal. Promotion in the state police was a matter of merit, and plenty of guys retired as troopers. Bingo would like to retire in a year, no more. He was champing at the bit to get busy with future projects. That thinking he’d done earlier at the Brewster Brew about the scene in Don Giovanni when the Don is dragged to hell, Bingo meant to write it down later in his notebook. He would make drawings of possible sets; he would do watercolors. He had a drawer of such scenes from twenty different operas. But they were only practice. In any case, he understood he would never be hired as a set designer. As he told everyone, “I only want to be of use.” He would help put the sets together, and he’d work for free, if it came to that. His only wish was to be a piece of the big picture.
But if Bingo could finish his time as a trooper with a big success, it would make him feel better all around. Good words would be spoken about him at his retirement; he’d be told he would be missed. These were things he wanted his wife to hear, not that it would make her like him—there had been too much bad water under the bridge for that—but it would let her know that as a state trooper he had been appreciated.
Bingo had no expectations about what he might learn from Brantley, but he felt he had a little lead. He had a lead and he didn’t want to share it.
As for Trooper Rodger Legros, he had nothing better to do except catch speeders on 95, so he was glad to tag along, even if it meant driving. He didn’t like opera, and he hoped Bingo wouldn’t start humming, which he knew was impossible, but at least it would be harder to hear him over the sound of the cruiser, the windshield wipers, and the rain beating on the roof. Legros was thirty years old and he had been married for five years. His wife’s name was Sally; they had two children.
“What’s new in Brewster?” asked Legros. He had been on duty by the hospital when the baby was stolen, but he hadn’t been back since.
“There’re expecting a lot of activity tonight. It’s Halloween.”
“It’s supposed to snow. Will kids be trick-or-treating?”
“The mayor’s put a ban on it after six o’clock. They’re doing something in the school gym, and some churches have parties, but most parents are keeping their kids inside.”
“It’s all witchcraft, right? Or Devil worship?”
“More likely somebody’s trying to make a crooked buck.”
Two cars were parked in front of the crematorium. Legros parked beside them.
“Look at the smoke,” said Legros. “Someone’s going to meet his maker.”
Bingo didn’t comment. He found the building ugly: cinder blocks and a flat roof. But he couldn’t imagine what a “pretty” crematorium might be. Behind the crematorium stretched the forest of the Arcadia Management Area. Bingo noticed the bullet camera over the front door. He opened the door and went in.
S
ometimes a person can come upon a scene so shocking that it seems his synapses begin to shut down in self-protection. Bingo grunted. Ahead of him on a table was Ronnie McBride’s head. His mouth was smeared with lipstick. A guy was standing over the head, dolling it up, putting on eye shadow and rouge. Bingo knew the guy—Jimmy something, an ambulance tech. There was music playing, but Bingo didn’t know it was music. It was the heavy metal band War of Ages playing “All Consuming Fire.” The singer was growling, and the music was loud.
Trooper Legros was behind Bingo and bumped into him when Bingo abruptly stopped. Then he too saw the head. “Good fuckin’ grief!”
Hearing a voice, Jimmy looked up. He knew trouble was coming. “Larry!”
Bingo took a few steps forward. He was still trying to understand what Ronnie McBride’s head was doing on the table, but whatever the reason Bingo knew it wasn’t legal. Bingo carried a Sig P229 in a concealment holster over his right hip. He brushed aside his suit coat to get at it.
Then a second man appeared—Bingo registered him as a gray man—from the other side of the furnace. He held a black pistol. Bingo saw it was the Browning Hi-Power.
“Fuck you, Jimmy,” shouted the man. “You was supposed to keep an eye on the monitor! Now look what you done!”
“Watch out!” shouted Legros. He pushed Bingo aside.
At that moment the second man—it was Larry—raised the pistol and fired. Legros jerked to the left; his knees collapsed. The back of his head was splattered against the wall.
Bingo made the mistake of glancing at Legros. When he looked back, the gray man had turned toward him. Bingo didn’t even hear the gunshot.
• • •
Maud Lord was scared. This in itself was interesting to her, because she didn’t scare easily. It had started with just a flicker of fear when she had found the dead cat, and it had grown ever since, to the point where she was afraid to leave Ocean Breezes, afraid even to leave her room. On Saturday afternoon, it was bad enough for her to call Bobby.
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