by Tim Waggoner
“You can’t be serious! I can’t leave you alone with a body. Not only are you no relation to the boy, I’ve already started my autopsy. If you don’t leave right now, I’m going to call Joanne and have her come here and throw you out.”
Marshall smiled tightly as he took a final step forward. Now he stood only inches from Terry.
“Hiding behind your woman like a coward? I’m not surprised. Joanne is twice the man you’ll ever be.”
Terry raised the scalpel, and for an instant Marshall thought he’d goaded the man too far and that he was going to attack. Marshall almost hoped he would. But the coroner lowered his hand to his side and in a low, dangerous voice said, “Get the hell out of here.”
Marshall considered his options. He could try pushing Terry further, but the man had a strong will. It would take a significant effort to make him give in, and Terry’s mind might well suffer damage in the process. If this was the only time Marshall could get access to Ray Porter’s body, he’d have gone ahead and risked damaging the coroner’s mind. But there would be other opportunities. Perhaps he could make use of Ronnie again.
“Very well. I understand your position and accept it. Take good care of the boy. He’s suffered a great deal.”
Before Terry could respond, Marshall turned and headed for the door. He’d be back and he’d find a way to get some time alone with the corpse. And then he could do what he needed to do to take care of the boy.
Once out in the hall, Marshall considered going to speak with Ronnie, but his cell phone rang. He took the call, and when the short communication was over, he forgot about Ronnie. He walked out of the building, got into his Hummer, and drove out of the lot.
• • •
Ray Porter’s parents lived on the north side of Rhine. When Joanne was a child, this had been one of the nicer, if somewhat generic, neighborhoods in town. Ranch homes, spacious well-landscaped yards, new sidewalks and freshly blacktopped roads. But in the decades since Rhine’s economic health had declined, property values began to fall, and people moved out in droves. Before long, what had once been an upper middle-class neighborhood became only a step or two above poverty level. Houses in need of repair, yards overgrown or dotted with bare patches of earth, streets and sidewalks cracked and uneven. Dented, rust-nibbled cars were parked in driveways or in yards, usually several vehicles per property, and groups of people who were either malnutrition-thin or swaddled in multiple rolls of fat gathered on porches. The men wore jeans and nothing else as long as the weather was halfway warm, the women dressed in too-tight T-shirts and shorts. Alcohol, substance abuse, and domestic violence were daily occurrences on the Northside, and the Sheriff’s Department spent a lot of its working hours here. Sometimes Joanne thought she spent more time on the Northside than she did in her own home.
Joanne should’ve been surprised to see Marshall Cross’s Hummer parked on the street in front of Isaac and Georgia Porter’s home, but she wasn’t. She was, however, royally pissed. It was one thing for Marshall to show up at the Caffeine Café this morning, but to intrude now, when she had come to inform the Porters about their son’s death … It was inexcusable.
She pulled her cruiser in behind Marshall’s vehicle, resisting the urge to bang his back bumper only through a supreme act of will. She parked, turned off the engine, and got out of the car, mind filled with images of what she intended to do to Mr. Cross when she got hold of him.
She had settled on either a punch to the windpipe or the classic kneecap to the testicles by the time she reached Marshall’s driver’s side door. The glass was tinted and she couldn’t see inside, but she knew the sonofabitch was in there, getting off on seeing how worked up she was. She reached out, intending to rap her knuckles on the window, but before she could make contact, the glass lowered with an electronic hum.
“Is there a problem, Officer?” Marshall held up a hand before Joanne could start yelling. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
“I don’t give a damn why you’re here, and I don’t give a damn how you learned Ray Porter’s name. All I want you to do is leave. Now.”
“Don’t worry. I have no plans to speak directly with the boy’s parents. I would never do anything so crass. But I wanted to speak with you before you went inside. First, I want to warn you. I received a phone call from an acquaintance of mine who works for a Cincinnati television station. He told me reporters have finally gotten word of last night’s murder, and they’re on their way to town even as we speak. They will undoubtedly be at the county building before you get there with the Porters. I imagine identifying their son’s remains will be hard enough on them without a mob of idiots shoving microphones and cameras in their faces. So if there’s anything you can do to spare them that indignity, I urge you to do it.”
Intellectually, Joanne understood what he’d said, but her anger still roiled inside her, and it took a moment before she could trust herself to reply.
“Thanks, but you could’ve just called to tell me that.”
Marshall smiled. “What makes you think I have your cell phone number?”
“You seem to know everything else that goes on around here.” She took a deep breath and released it. Her anger had subsided for the most part, but traces yet remained. “You said first. That implies there’s something else you want to say.”
“The Porters are going to have much to deal with over the next few days, and I don’t want them to worry about money. If you get the chance — whenever it seems most appropriate — would you let them know that my family intends to pay their son’s funeral expenses?”
Joanne looked at Marshall for a long moment. His expression grew harder the longer she scrutinized him.
“Do you doubt my sincerity?”
“Not at all. But I do wonder about your motives. Your family’s known for many things, but selfless generosity isn’t one of them.”
“You find it difficult to believe that we simply wish to help out another family in a time of tragedy?”
“It’s the simply that’s giving me trouble. I do believe you want to help the boy’s parents, and it’s not like you don’t have the money to spare. But I can’t believe that’s all you want.”
Marshall looked at her, his ice-blue eyes giving no hint to what he was feeling.
“Think whatever you wish. Just please deliver the message.”
He turned forward and his window hummed as it closed. A second later the Hummer’s engine came to life, and Marshall pulled away from the curb and drove off down the road, scrupulously adhering to the speed limit. Joanne watched him go. She’d struck a nerve, she was sure of that, but she couldn’t figure out what the Crosses’ angle was in offering to pay for Ray Porter’s funeral. She decided not to worry about it right now. She had an unpleasant duty to perform, and the sooner she got it done, the sooner she could get back to trying to find out who killed Ray Porter.
Sometimes she really hated her job.
She started walking up the Porters’ driveway.
CHAPTER NINE
It was midafternoon by the time Dale reached Lake Hush. It had been some time since he’d been here, and he was tempted to drive all the way around the lake. It was something he used to do when he first moved to Cross County. No matter the season, a drive around the lake had always lightened his mood. He supposed it reminded him of Lake Michigan back home Chicago. Sweet Home, Chicago, as the song went.
Lake Hush was hardly on a par with one of the Great Lakes, but circling it had made him think about driving down Lakeshore Drive with his wife and daughter. He wasn’t sure when it had happened or even exactly why, but eventually he’d stopped coming out here. It wasn’t because he’d forgotten about Marianne and Alice. He’d spoken to other people who’d lost loved ones, and they told of memories blurred by the passage of years, faces only half-recalled, voices and laughs lost forever. But that hadn’t happened to him. For the last twenty years, he’d worked everyday to maintain the clarity and sharpness of his memories. He was sure man
y would’ve thought him morbidly obsessed, unable to follow the well-intentioned but patronizing advice so many of his friends in Chicago had given him in the weeks after the funerals.
You have to start letting go, Dale. You have to get on with your life.
Dale’s response was always simple and direct. Screw that.
Maybe he couldn’t bring his wife and daughter back to life, but he’d be damned if he’d allow what remnants of them that lived in his heart and mind to perish.
And yet … he didn’t drive around the lake anymore, did he? And could he say for certain that the images in his mind were true memories, or were they rather memories of memories? Distorted and degraded, like a picture that’s been photocopied one time too many. And their voices … he could close his eyes, concentrate, and hear them speak, hear them laugh. Marianne’s delighted giggle, Alice’s hearty guffaw. Were those their actual voices or were they merely imperfect recreations, like a mediocre comedian mimicking the voice of a famous celebrity? You knew who it was, even though the comic didn’t really sound all that much like the person.
Maybe that was the true reason he’d stopped taking leisurely drives around Lake Hush. Not because he was starting to forget about Marianne and Alice, but because despite his best efforts to delude himself otherwise, he already had, and seeing Lake Hush — which, like Lake Michigan, never changed — only made him aware of his fading memory.
The western shore of Lake Hush bordered the edge of Mare’s Nest Woods. Towering oak and pine trees formed a solid wall of green. Autumn browns, yellow, and reds were still a few weeks away. Summer may have been on its way out the door, but it was determined to linger at the threshold a bit longer.
Dale pulled onto Limberlost Road and headed east. He’d tried calling Sadie Muir from the Echo office several times, but he’d only gotten her machine. He’d tried e-mailing her because he knew she spent a lot of time online. She did most of the genealogical work for her clients via computer, and it was also how she bought groceries. He hadn’t expected her to reply, but he wanted to make sure she knew he was coming. Sadie wasn’t completely antisocial, but she didn’t like surprise visitors. And since he’d never heard of her inviting anyone to her place, all her visitors were surprises.
He was halfway around the lake — well past the dock and beach area — and almost to Barrow Hill Park before he spotted Sadie’s houseboat. He pulled over to the side of the road, parked his Jeep, and walked down to the edge of the water to get a closer look.
Dale had no idea how Lake Hush had gotten its name, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if it was due to the water’s stillness. Regardless of the weather conditions of the time of year, the surface of the lake remained calm and smooth as glass. Even when the prow of a motorboat cut through the water, the wakes were never very large, and they died away quickly. And if you stood on the shore looking out across the water, you could almost feel the lake pulling sound toward it, stifling it, as if it were determined to draw all noise into its depths and drown it. The whisper of the wind, the trill of birdsong, footfalls on grass, your own breath and heartbeat, all were muffled at the water’s edge. While he found it soothing to drive past, he didn’t like being outside his Jeep and close to the water. He found the silence eerie and isolating.
Sadie’s boat sat in the middle of the lake, and it showed no sign of coming toward shore. She was likely anchored there and determined not to budge. She wasn’t going to make this easy for him, but then he didn’t expect her to.
He headed back to his Jeep and removed a heavy block of wadded-up plastic and an aluminum oar from the back. As he carried the self-inflating raft back toward the water, he felt a crawly sensation on the back of his neck, as if he were being watched. At first he thought that Sadie must’ve been watching him from his boat through a pair of binoculars. But the farther he walked, the more he realized it felt as if someone was watching him from behind. He stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. He saw nothing but his Jeep, the road, and beyond it a gently sloping grass-covered hill dotted with a few medium-sized elm trees. He faced forward and continued walking, but the feeling of being watched remained.
When he reached the water once more, he laid the raft and the oar on the ground, and then he turned to look across the road again. Still nothing there. He saw no hint of movement, heard no noise … not that he could hear much of anything this close to the lake. He pulled the ring to activate the raft’s self-inflation device and stepped back as the orange block unfolded and expanded, the hiss of air — which normally would’ve been loud — muted near the water.
He kept his gaze fastened on the elms across the road the entire time.
When the raft was fully inflated, he grabbed the oar, put the raft into the water, and boarded with as much grace as he could muster, which meant he succeeded in not capsizing the damned thing. He used the oar to push away from the shore and then began paddling, trying to go as fast as he could without tipping over. He wasn’t the most experienced mariner in the world, and his strokes were awkward and used too much energy. He splashed a great deal, not that it made much noise, and soon his suit was wet. Some lakes smelled of dead fish and decaying plant matter, but the water in Lake Hush had a coppery scent with a hint of something that like ammonia. Dale wondered if some sort of industrial waste was being piped into the lake, but there were no factories within miles of here.
By the time he was halfway to Sadie’s boat, he was sweaty, breathing hard, and his right shoulder felt as if it were on fire. He heard the muffled growl of the houseboat’s engine starting up, and the craft began heading toward him at a leisurely pace. Grateful that Sadie had decided to take pity on him, Dale stopped paddling and waited for her to reach him. She cut the engine when she was within a dozen yards and drifted the rest of the way to him.
She appeared on deck and hooked a metal ladder over the rail. She was a reed-thin woman in her early seventies, with short white hair and wire-frame glasses. She wore a flannel shirt that was too large for her, unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, over a white blouse. Dale knew the shirt had belonged to her husband. As far as he knew, she always wore his clothes.
“Permission to come aboard?” Dale asked. He tried to sound cheerful, but his voice came out as a near gasp. Getting old, he thought. It was a thought that occurred to him more often than he liked these days.
Sadie didn’t answer at first. She stood near the ladder, hands gripping the railing, gaze trained on the shore. After several moments she said, “It’s out there, you know. It’s always out there.” She turned and walked away from the rail.
Dale decided that was the closest thing to an invitation to board he was going to get. He tied his raft to the ladder’s bottom rung, then began climbing, still feeling as if something was watching him from shore.
• • •
“Hope you like your coffee strong.”
Sadie hadn’t offered him coffee and Dale hadn’t asked for any, but she nevertheless set a steaming mug down in front of him. He tended to avoid caffeine on general principle since he figured he was naturally wired enough. But he didn’t want to be an ungracious guest, so he nodded his thanks.
Sadie put a mug for herself down on the table opposite Dale then took a seat. Her kitchen — or galley, since they were on a boat — was small, he supposed, but the one in his apartment wasn’t much larger. It had all the basic necessities: stove, sink, countertop, full-sized refrigerator, and a dining table with four chairs. It was the masses of lopsidedly stacked notebooks and tottering towers of print-outs that made the kitchen seem smaller than it really was. They were everywhere — piled on top of the fridge, the counter, on the chairs they weren’t using, on the floor. This much paper, a great deal of it yellowed and curling at the edges, had to be a fire hazard this close the stove. Dale found his gaze wandering about the kitchen, searching for a fire extinguisher. Sadie had been a long-time member of the Cross County History Society, and genealogy had been her hobby. Perhaps, Dale had always thought, because
she’d never had children of her own. But after her husband’s disappearance fifteen years ago, what was once merely a pastime had become her life. She did genealogical research not only for clients in the county, but — thanks to the Internet — from all over America, and even other countries.
Sadie gave him a smile. “Probably should get me a filing system, huh?”
“This is nothing. You should see the mess I have at the paper.”
She took a long sip of her coffee, though from the furious way it was steaming, it had to be near boiling. She swallowed, put down her mug, and said, “What can I do for you, Dale?”
Dale eyed his coffee considering whether to risk taking a sip. If his mouth had been insulated with asbestos, there’d be no problem. As it was …
“I need some information.”
Sadie burst out laughing. “No shit. You’re a reporter, Dale. Why the hell else would you come see me? The last time you were here was … six years ago last May. When the graves of the O’Brien family were dug up and the coffins switched from one plot to another.”
“I remember.” It wasn’t exactly the sort of thing one forgot. When the switch had first been discovered, everyone assumed it was some sort of sick joke. But it turned out the sole surviving O’Brien — a spinster cousin — suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder and had paid a handyman to, as she later phrased it, “Put everyone in their proper places.” Dale had been the one to discover the existence of the cousin, whose last name was Morris, with Sadie’s help. Dale had tracked down the woman to interview her, only to have the handyman attempt to kill him to prevent Dale from exposing what he’d done. It had been a near thing, but in the end Dale survived, and the handyman went to jail for attempted murder. The O’Brien cousin avoided being charged with grave descrecation, mostly due to her age, and since she was the only living relative, it was decided that she could arrange her kin any way she liked. The O’Briens had remained in their new resting places ever since.