The Dead of Night

by Jean Rabe

  “Mark.”

  “Mark.”

  “Mark the Shark.”

  “They’re not going to think anything about you because all they’re interested in right now are the old bones and some gun that I don’t know a damn thing about.” That was all she was interested in, too. She should have gone back to the office rather than coming here.

  “I ‘spose.” He stood again, holding his canes rather than using them. “Let’s go outside. Got something to show you. In private.”

  She asked for Sylvia D’s contact information then followed him to the library parking lot, and Zeke the Geek followed her.

  “Hey, Sheriff. Got a minute?” Zeke wasn’t just broad-shouldered, he was muscular, and the NOSOCIALLIFE t-shirt was tight across his chest. He had dark brown hair that was cut military short and a soul patch under his lip. “I’m—”

  “Zeke,” Piper said, nodding at his nametag.

  “Ezekiel, actually. Ezekiel Whitman.”

  She waited for him to go on.

  “I’m a senior, graduate in less than two weeks, and I don’t want to go to college. I’m eighteen. Well, eighteen the day after tomorrow. I put in an application for that deputy position you have open. I’ve been to the Law Enforcement Adventure Camp in Raleigh—twice. I can shoot. I’m good with computers, self-taught. Real good with computers. President of the computer club, and I set up these sessions for the genealogy club two years ago, got school approval for our last hour of the day to be here once a week—except when there are pep rallies. I thought maybe you might overlook my application because of my age. Or because I don’t have a college degree.” He stuck his hands in his pockets. “I don’t want you to overlook me. I’d make a great deputy.”

  “I don’t have a college degree,” Piper admitted. But she did have four years of MP military experience. “I don’t discriminate based on age.”

  “Great. So…” Ezekiel tapped the toe of his tennis shoe against the pavement. “Okay. I just wanted to put my face to my application. That’s all.” He turned and jogged back into the building.

  Mark shook his head. “Good kid. He’s worked with our club a lot. Smart and patient. Set up my home computer for me, handled the wireless connection. Said he’d give me his old laptop when he gets a new one for graduation. But I don’t need his charity. Just don’t want to hurt his feelings by turning down his gift. Good kid, I say.”

  “Seems like it.”

  “Isn’t he too young for your department? I thought deputies had to be twenty-one.”

  “They do. But I might have an opening for something else.” Piper stared across the lot and saw a Chevy—a glossy black model that looked seriously old and beautiful. After seeing the vintage car in his garage, she knew this was his. But she asked for confirmation. “That yours?”

  “My baby, a 1935 three-window coup. Belonged to my dad, and he let it go to hell. Gave it to me when I retired from the Navy. Restoring it was a hobby—when I wasn’t in the field plowing. It’s mint. I keep it up.”

  Piper figured the old man would like Nang. They could talk about fixing cars.

  “Got me another old one at home, too. Old men like old cars. The new ones are pieces of shit designed to be disposable.”

  “Did you mention to anyone that I was looking into the bank money thing?”

  He shook his head. “I keep my business to myself. I talk to Marmalade about it, though.”

  “Marma—”

  “My cat. Camaro, too. My dog. The dog’s a better listener. I’ve named all my dogs through the years after classy cars. In fact, I had one big terrier I named after my favorite car, a—”

  Piper feared he would start into a rambling story about vintage autos. “You said you had something to show me.”

  “I printed off my bank statement.” He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out several sheets of paper that had been folded over and over. It was heavy paper, linen, like someone would use for resumes and correspondence, rather than for printouts. He glanced around. “Gotta make sure no one’s watching. Printed them this morning, figuring you’d be over then.”

  “No one’s watching,” Piper said. Except the small-eyed librarian who was looking out the front window.

  “See? Look at it. This line and this line and this one. And here. Here. Those are transactions from the past three weeks. Look at it. I only noticed a couple of days ago ‘cause I wasn’t checking my finances all that often. Hadn’t thought I’d needed to. I called you right away ‘cause the damn bank wasn’t helpful. I didn’t think you quite believed me last night in the park. I think God was scolding you for doubting me. That was God’s scolding finger—that bone—poking up through the ground and tripping you. God was telling you to pay attention to me.”

  “I do believe you. God didn’t need to get my attention. You did that.” Piper studied the printouts. The pages detailed checks he’d written, deposits, and withdrawals for the past sixty days. There was a string of fifty dollar checks to the kennel club, garden club, American Legion, Friends of Lincoln, Lion’s Club, Kiwanis, Optimists Club, Masons, Hazardous Waste Taskforce, Hatfield Recreational Committee, and the First Baptist Church.

  “I belong to all of those,” Mark said, pointing at the fifty dollar string. “Hard for me to keep up with all the meetings, though.”

  There were five sizeable withdrawals and they totaled—she quickly did the math—$174,950. Nearly fifteen thousand higher than Mark had mentioned yesterday, but she noted that the latest withdrawal was for $14,950, and it was from early this morning.

  “See? I didn’t make those withdrawals.”

  “According to this printout, you made the withdrawals.”

  “I didn’t make any of them. Well, all those fifty dollar checks, I wrote those. Like I said, I belong to them clubs and like to give ‘em a little money now and then. All the same amount so I don’t show favoritism. And the electric bill—I pay that online, phone bill, too. But those big ones. I didn’t make those withdrawals. So see why I don’t trust the bank? The bank’s in on it. I tried to do my own sleuthing, but I came up with crap. Some damn Democrat at the bank. So that’s why I called you, met you last night. So I gotta go to the bank. I’m gonna get my money out this afternoon—what’s left of it—all the rest of the money this afternoon. I just want you to go with me and—”

  “It’s nearly four, Mr. Thresher.” And Piper doubted the bank was prepared to fork over all his money with no advance notice.

  “Mark.”

  “Don’t have much time left this afternoon, Mark the Shark. And the bank—”

  “Then we better hurry.”

  “I’ll follow you over there, and we’ll clear this up.”

  He frowned, all the wrinkles on his face deepening so his skin looked like a piece of bark from an ancient oak.

  “I’ll follow you,” she repeated. “Let’s take care of this now.”

  Let’s get this over with so I can get a look at the gun and where it was found at the park.

  “Yeah, all right. I want you to get my missing money back, too, like you promised. And I hope nobody follows the both of us over there.” Softer, “Some damn Democrat spy. I just know it. A damn Democrat in cahoots with a Democrat at my bank is spying on me, probably getting a cut of my money. You trail after me a bit, make sure no one is shadowing.”

  11

  Eleven

  The gun was a Hubley Texan Jr., nickel-plated cast iron. “From 1940-something,” JJ had printed a note in the detested Comic Sans font. “They pulled up the trees and found the gun, badge, and rope. Those were canoe birch, or white birch, planted forty-two years ago according to old parks department records. The gun was tangled in the roots. No hits yet on a missing boy from Arizona or Kentucky or Ohio—I tried there, too. Nothing from Indiana either. But it’s early. And now for me it’s late. See you in the morning.”

  The toy gun was a little more than eight inches long and weighed about a pound. The cracked plastic inset in the handle was of
a horse in a circle. There was a coat of rust on it, but thin enough the details showed. Iron needed oxygen to rust, and being buried in the dirt had helped protect it.

  The badge was shield shaped, made of tin and bent, but Piper made out “Lone Ranger Deputy” and a seven-digit number stamped under it. JJ’s note said the badge also dated to the 1940s, but she hadn’t pinned down the exact year.

  A toy badge. A toy gun.

  The coil of rotting rope was partly nylon, filthy and stinky and knotted to form a loop. A lasso, likely made from clothesline. The murdered boy was playing sheriff, Piper thought. That curl of leather with two punched holes she’d looked at this morning? She realized that was a hatband. The hat had likely disintegrated with the flesh and clothes. Maybe it had been straw. But shoes? Wouldn’t there have been some trace of shoes? Or cowboy boots? They wouldn’t have disintegrated, not entirely. Maybe he’d been barefoot. Maybe it had been summer. And what did the piece of barbed wire have to do with it?

  She shuffled into her office, typed up another job description, and posted it to the local paper, the department Facebook page, and a Spencer County website. She noticed there were already some email applications for the detective job she’d posted this morning. There was also an email with the message WARNING in the header. She clicked it:

  BACK OFF AND KEEP BREATHING.

  The sender’s email address was a string of numbers, different than the address of the previous note, and ended with two letters—FU.

  She glanced at some of the other email messages, confirming that all applicants were for the detective opening—plus one page of coupons for laundry detergent. Nothing yet from any genealogy club members. She deleted the coupon page, and nearly did the WARNING note. But she decided to keep it, see if someone in the department could track the sender. She tried, but her attempt bounced, as if the sender’s address did not exist.

  “Mañana,” Piper decided. She’d look through the applications tomorrow and see if there was anyone worth bringing in for an interview. Or maybe she’d ask Oren to pare the list down. She had four interviews scheduled after lunch for the open deputy slot—two to mollify the local politicians, and two she’d selected from candidates living outside the county and looked promising. She wanted to fill the position soon. Probably should have had Oren look through that stack and do the initial weeding. He might have found a more promising soul that she’d passed over.

  A call to Sylvia D who’d she met at the genealogy club. Then quick calls to Nang and her father to tell them she might be late for dinner.

  It was 5:30 and she should be on her way home. Piper was hungry, having skipped lunch because she’d been so busy, but eating a handful of chocolate-covered raisins before she stopped here. She couldn’t pronounce what Nang was going to fix, but she knew it would be delicious. She loved everything on the menu at his quick mart in Fulda.

  Should be on her way home, but instead she was walking the bluff park again, making a circle of the ground staked out by her deputies and partially covered by Teegan’s tent. She kept glancing over her shoulder. It felt like someone was watching her. Several times she’d looked in her rearview mirror on the drive here, the sensation of being followed niggling at her.

  “Pay attention to those impressions,” a drill sergeant once told her. They’d served her well during downrange assignments in Iraq. Here? There were two teenage girls sitting on a bench near the sidewalk. One had a big cup of coffee and was reading something on a small tablet; the other had a stack of books on her lap and was texting on a cell phone. People and electronic devices. Why didn’t they just sit and talk to each other?

  The girls weren’t watching her, didn’t appear to notice her walk by. Piper didn’t see anyone sitting in the few cars along the curb, but the sensation of being watched persisted. It being the dinner hour, most folks were home eating, and so she had the bluff to herself. Maybe someone in a house at the far edge of the park was watching. The feeling would not go away and sent shivers down her arms.

  Stop letting Mark the Shark get to me. Have I caught his paranoia bug?

  Back off and keep breathing. She shook the email loose from her memory.

  The bones. Focus on the bones.

  Piper remembered picnicking under those clump birches—once with a sophomore classmate named Thomas, never Tommy, Breck. He’d had his driver’s license and use of his father’s car, and after lunch one sunny day they’d driven to the waterpark in Santa Claus where he kissed her in the deep end of the wave pool. She thought she was in love. Had they eaten on the boy’s grave? How many children had played atop it? The bluff was popular in the summer. The bluff and the landing below because there wasn’t a lot to do in Rockport. Or at least she hadn’t thought there was when she was growing up.

  The boy didn’t get a chance to grow up. Someone had stolen all the summers he might have enjoyed. Had he been from Arizona? Had he been visiting here? Had he been discarded along some killer’s cross-country drive?

  Piper made a slow circle of the park, smelling the river, looking up to see the sky full of birds and high tissue paper clouds. The air tasted clean and was laced with early wildflowers. She held the scent deep. Spring could be beautiful in Spencer County. But such an ugly thing had happened in this picturesque place.

  What if I hadn’t come out here last night to meet Mark the Shark? What if it hadn’t rained so damn much the past few weeks? Record rains. What if I hadn’t slipped?

  Would the bones have ever been found? Would continued rains have washed them over the edge and into the river? Would animals have carried them all away?

  What if she’d never run for sheriff?

  What if she had stayed in the Army?

  Peering in the hole left from pulling the trees, it was an empty grave she stared into. Who would strangle a nine-year-old and bury him in the park? What sort of soul could have done such a thing? Nine years—dogs lived longer than that. Fourth grade likely.

  Despite Piper’s determination to work this case, she knew there’d be no real justice for the boy—all these decades gone, his killer gone with them. No one to pay for a horrible crime. But maybe the boy’s spirit would find a measure of peace if she could solve the mystery. Put a name to him. Get him buried in a proper place.

  Had he been playing sheriff?

  Was she merely playing sheriff herself?

  Piper’s chief deputy had decades more experience. Everyone in her department had more experience. Not that she didn’t have any. Four years as an MP; that counted for something. But Spencer County was a world away from Iraq. And her sheriff’s department was far removed from the cruisers she patrolled in at Fort Campbell.

  Four months on this job.

  Could she really tackle a cold case?

  “Who were you, boy?” she asked, staring at the hole. “And why were you killed? And how did you end up buried on the bluff?”

  “I’ll try to help you with the ‘who.’ The why and the how—that’s for you to answer.” The speaker had come up to her side so silently Piper jumped. No wonder she thought someone had been watching her. “Maybe the ‘why’ can’t be answered. Ever. A lot of years have passed.” He waited a beat and extended a hand. “Dr. Ulysses Abernathy. I’m a forensic anthropologist with USI. I specialize in bones. Osteology. Your coroner asked me to consult.”

  Piper shook his hand, finding his fingers lightly calloused and the grip firm. He had a youthful aspect, but a serious expression. He quickly recounted the report he’d given to Oren.

  “Sixty years,” Abernathy said. “The coins and the buckle are the real tell. The cement to my bone analysis. Sixty to sixty-five years. That’s how long the boy was in the ground. It’s a firm range, though it will be weeks before some test results come back. They’ll just back up that range, maybe pin it down a little tighter. I’ve never given an incorrect estimate. That’s why I’m brought in to consult on cold cases. I’m always right.”

  Piper thought his tone coupled with his posture made h
im come across like a pompous ass. Still, Oren had radioed her that he’d been impressed with Dr. Abernathy’s work.

  “Your coroner has dentals, uppers only, emailed them to various agencies. But no test results to report yet. Tests always take longer than you’d like,” he continued. “The results will let me create a more detailed biological profile for you. They will reveal any diseases that might have compromised the bone. Nutritional disorders, vitamin deficiencies that might have impacted bone mineralogy, lesions. It is possible something like tuberculosis had been in the history, polio, measles—diseases prevalent in children in those years.” He came up for air and then went on. “I detected a healed fracture in his ulna. From an injury three or four years before his death. My biological profile will be useful in helping to find an identity.”

  “Can you tell if he died in the summer?” Piper was still thinking about the lack of shoes.

  “Possibly,” he returned. He pointed at a dark red sports car at the edge of the park. “I have a testing kit. I want to take my own samples of the soil, plants in the immediate area, gather some roots and insect husks. Possibly I can give you a season. The likely cause of death, like I told your chief deputy, I’m listing as strangulation.”

  Piper shuddered. The serial killer who’d plagued the county during the holidays had strangled his victims.

  “Thank you for assisting, Dr. Abernathy.” Piper wondered if her department or the coroner would be paying his bill. Her budget was pretty tight, and would have to include repairs to her Ford, though insurance might cover most of that. The forensic anthropologist wasn’t going to be cheap.

  “I’m staying tonight,” he announced. “I’ve a room at the hotel near the bridge. I don’t have classes tomorrow, so I’m going to take a close look at the birch roots that were pulled. Take some cuttings, maybe a wedge from the trunk. Stop at Monkey Hollow Winery since it is so enticingly close, get a case of something semi-sweet.” He gave a half smile. “But that’s for my indulgence. As for the bones, I’ll finish my write-up and pass it along to your coroner. I can copy you if you’d like.”