by W. H. Clark
Ward called back, “You got your deal,” and he got in his car.
46
Ward drove to his motel. Jesús came striding over to him as he opened the door and Ward rubbed the dog’s head and play-fought with him. Jesús had Ward’s hand in his mouth in a mock bite but he didn’t apply any pressure. Probably didn’t have a whole lot of pressure left in his jaws anyhow. Ward went over to the kitchenette and took a box from a cupboard. A high cupboard. He tossed a biscuit to Jesús, who attempted to swallow it in one go and then coughed it back up and decided to chomp it into smaller pieces. He made contented little growling noises as he ate.
Ward thought about what Larsson had said. Cops might have been involved. That seemed unlikely. But could O’Donnell have been hinting at that? And how would he know unless he was involved too? O’Donnell’s possible involvement matched up with Newton’s train of thought. But everybody said O’Donnell was a good man. Was he that good an actor? And all the time this was going through his mind Ward couldn’t stop thinking about James Kenny. Corrupt property developer with a habit of paying people large sums of money to get out of a tight spot.
47
Ward called Newton. He had decided he wouldn’t tell him everything Larsson had said.
“I spoke to Larsson.”
“Okay.”
“He’s some shyster.”
“He tell you anything you can use?”
“Oh, you know. He went over the case. Pretty much what’s in the file.”
Newton remained silent for a few moments. Ward thought he was waiting for more. He didn’t give him anything.
“I need to work one or two angles. Off the radar.”
“Okay. You keep me updated?”
“I will.” And Ward thought if there was police involvement in the disappearance of Ryan Novak maybe he should keep that to himself for a while until he’d had time to mull it over. “Say, what’s the latest on the old guy?”
“We look for the man who left the prints. I’m getting a facial composite of the guy and I’ll send out all units with it. See if we get a hit.”
“Good. Progress.”
“We’ll call it progress. Internal Affairs is scheduled for next week. You might want to work on that too.”
“Okay. Thanks for the heads up.” And Ward hung up.
Back at the station Newton was slumped in his chair. He popped a pill, threw his head back to dry swallow it, and he closed his eyes.
Over on the other side of the office Mallory was hanging about like a bad odor. He sidled up to McNeely, who tapped away at her keyboard with one hand, the other feeding her mouth. She tried to ignore him.
“I dreamed about you last night,” he said.
“Nice,” McNeely said through her chewing.
“You gave me the sweetest blowjob.” His grin made her next swallow impossible. “Woke up in love with you.”
“Have you told your father-in-law that yet? He’s right behind you. Tell him now.”
Mallory whipped around like a rattlesnake. Newton wasn’t there. Mallory’s lips pinched the smile from his face.
“You’re cute, I’ll give you that,” he said, and he walked. McNeely spat out a mouthful of chewed raisins into her hand and tossed them into the trashcan.
48
Marcelo was to be Bill O’Donnell’s ride back into town. O’Donnell had carefully chosen a rig that looked like it was from way out of town. Marcelo had obliged by advertising his Florida credentials all over the front of his truck. ‘I heart the Sunshine State’. ‘Go Dolphins!’ O’Donnell had gotten a hit with his first thumb. Marcelo hadn’t commented on his appearance or his smell. O’Donnell had been unaware of how dead he looked and reeked and Marcelo hadn’t mentioned it.
He asks his name and O’Donnell says it’s Mike. Says he’s been fighting the fire and has missed his ride back. Says he’s grateful for Marcelo stopping. Says nothing else. Marcelo does a little talking in something of a Spanish accent, O’Donnell thinks. O’Donnell counts the crucifixes that Marcelo has in his cab and then his eyes land on the most ornate one and his gaze lingers there for the rest of the ride. The intricate silverwork, or maybe pewter or some such alloy, weaved into a cross upon which a depiction of Christ, detailed in divine pain, suffers for man’s sins. He wants to take it and plunge it into his own heart but knows he doesn’t have the strength.
Marcelo drops O’Donnell five miles from town and sounds his horn as he pulls away off the shoulder. The truck driver pulls into a truck stop a few miles further on and has a beer. He will pull into the same truck stop twenty-odd years later, where a cop who doesn’t believe in coincidences will be talking to an invertebrate journalist who drinks too much coffee.
O’Donnell walks the five miles into town. His sweat streaks the grime on his face so he looks like a soldier with face camouflage. He passes a church and he pauses. He hears muted singing inside. He carries on. He passes another church and a few yards past it he stops and turns back and goes up to the door, which is open. He pushes through the inner door and the congregation is singing a song so sweet that his heart throws a roll and he wants to fall to his knees but he stays upright. He stands at the back of the church and he stares at Jesus on the cross and he gulps in air and he gulps in the spirit of the people, which he imagines he can see swirling around above their heads as they stand and sing at the top of their voices, and it’s lovely and he feels at home and he feels like an alien at the same time.
The preacher has a microphone and he is called Reverend Adrien Baptiste and he sings the loudest.
Bill O’Donnell stands there at the back of the church and when the congregation sits he remains standing and one or two people cast looks over their shoulders to look at him and he thinks he will be judged but they just smile and he resents their gift at first.
But he stands there and, when the service is over, every person who passes him on their way out of the church smiles at him and the preacher, who stands an arm’s length away from Bill O’Donnell, shakes their hands and they leave money on a silver plate by the door - notes and coins. The preacher looks him up and down and he smiles the entire height of him and Bill O’Donnell shakes his hand but he doesn’t leave and he has no money to put on the plate but the preacher understands that he hasn’t any and he just nods at him and says something which Bill O’Donnell doesn’t hear and then the preacher turns and walks towards the altar and he disappears through a door at the side and then there is just Bill O’Donnell and God. And Jesus there on the cross. Sweet, lovely Jesus who is a stranger to him.
And then he notices the woman who’s doing something with the flowers. She doesn’t seem to have seen him and he walks to the front of the church where the altar is and he stands and stares at Jesus and he thinks he feels something but decides he doesn’t. He stands there for a hundred years and tries to pray and then he stands for a hundred years more and still he can’t pray and he can’t hear nothing coming back from Jesus neither. Then he hears the woman say something but he doesn’t hear it, he feels it, and he spins around and she’s there standing and staring at him and she seems surprised for a millionth of a moment and then she smiles like the others had. He says “I wanted to get closer,” and then he strides out of the church and doesn’t look back at Jesus but he doesn’t feel so wretchedly filthy no more. He stops outside and for a moment doesn’t know where he’s going and the woman comes to him.
She says, “You need to get washed and out of those clothes.” And she knows that if anybody asks her later, and they will, she won’t tell this fragment of history. The Lord will be all right with that. She knows that for sure.
Bill O’Donnell doesn’t put up an argument. She introduces herself as Alice White and she takes him home in her car very slowly and when they reach her house she runs him a bath.
“I got some old clothes you can wear. We’ll get rid of those filthy ones.” And Alice White smiles at him and he feels different but he can’t tell how he feels but just knows things wi
ll be okay.
After his bath and change of clothes he thanks the woman. He walks home and Alice burns the clothes that smell of hellfire when he has gone.
He lives with his daughter and son-in-law in the least salubrious side of town. The house is on one level and everything about it begs for repair. When he turns the end of the street he can see the house and there is activity he hadn’t been expecting. His labored walk becomes a frantic shuffle. His son-in-law, Eugene Novak, asks him where the hell he’s been and Bill O’Donnell asks what’s going on.
“Ryan’s gone,” Eugene Novak says.
“Gone? Where? How do you mean gone?” O’Donnell says, and in his confusion he is genuinely shocked that the little boy is missing.
“He’s up and run off.” Novak smells of booze but he seems stone cold sober.
O’Donnell’s daughter Janice had been talking to a man who looked like a cop and she runs over when she sees her father. She hugs him and her deep sobs inhale his soapy smell. She smells of booze like her husband. Both too drunk to notice the clothes O’Donnell wears are not his own.
“What’s happened, Daddy?”
“What’s this about Ryan? He up and went? When? Why?”
“He’s been taken,” Janice says.
“Noticed that he wasn’t there,” Novak says.
“Noticed when?” O’Donnell asks and Eugene Novak steps back and he snarls at O’Donnell.
“Where the hell have you been? We thought he was with you. How could we goddamn know he wasn’t?”
Bill O’Donnell says, “How long has he been gone?” And then the lanky cop is there and he eyes O’Donnell like prey.
“Detective Newton. You must be the grandfather? William?”
“Bill.”
“We’re just trying to ascertain when Ryan went missing. To help us find him and bring him on home.”
“Okay.”
“When did you last see him?”
“Yesterday.”
“What time?”
“Afternoon, I reckon. I’d seen him and then gone back to the school to take care of something.”
“Where have you been? Your folks have been looking for you.”
“I’ve been looking for my truck. It got stolen.”
Detective Newton doesn’t show any emotion and says, “What time did you report it missing?”
O’Donnell feels panic rise inside him. He hadn’t reported it. The man had said he would take care of it. That was their story. And when O’Donnell got back from burying the boy he would raise the alarm that the boy was missing. He knew Eugene and Janice Novak wouldn’t notice Ryan wasn’t there. He was mainly invisible to them. But they had noticed.
He takes a guess and trusts that the man wouldn’t let him down. “Last night sometime. I don’t know the exact time. I’m sorry. I’m in a bit of shock.”
“I understand sir. I just got to ask these questions. I’ll check our records for the exact time. You see anybody take it? Could the boy have taken it?”
Eugene Novak jumps in. “He’s seven years old, for Christ’s sake. His feet wouldn’t reach the damn pedals. Wouldn’t have gotten more than ten yards and then crash it. Damn it, what are you doing to find my son? We ain’t got all day to talk. It’s getting on dark. Get on looking for him.”
Janice says, “He doesn’t like the dark. Always sleeps with the light on. Oh, I’m a terrible mother. We should get some flyers done. Yes, we’ll get some flyers and posters done.”
O’Donnell’s heart stutters over the futility of what his daughter has said.
Newton appears calm and reassuring. “We need to collect some information. I’ve already got patrols looking out for him. Can’t have gotten far.”
“He wouldn’t have took the truck,” Bill O’Donnell says. “Got to be some youths. They been at it before.”
“You reported it before?” Newton asks.
“No, sir. They didn’t take it before. I stopped them.”
“You stopped them? You saw them? You could give me a description?”
“No. I didn’t see them properly. It was dark. I heard them and ran them off.”
“How many were they?”
O’Donnell pauses and feels rushed and he wants to run away from his answers. “They were three or four. Like I said, it was dark and they run off. Maybe they took the truck and took the boy.” He feels like he’s freefalling now and he desperately tries not to show his fear which will expose his lies.
Newton stares at the man in front of him and O’Donnell feels accused and trapped in his own nightmare. O’Donnell glances over at the small cherry tree sapling which he had helped Ryan plant days earlier and he bites hard onto his first knuckle, right hand.
“You live here also, correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You didn’t notice he wasn’t here?”
“I didn’t. I had to go to the school and then when I got back I didn’t see him. I would have thought he was in his bed.”
“Would have?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said ‘would have’ as if you’re not sure what you thought.”
“Heck, I didn’t know he was missing.”
“You reported your truck stolen at what time?”
“Like I said, I can’t remember. It was last night.”
“And you didn’t notice that the boy wasn’t at home?”
“This is difficult for me. I can’t remember about last night. I just had my truck taken, and… well, this is just… I’m upset is what I am.”
“I know and I have to ask these here questions so’s we can get to finding him.” Bill O’Donnell looks at the cop, who says, “You been gone best part of a day. Looking for your truck, that right?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“All through the night and the most part of today?”
“Had a fair few places to look. Say, are you suspecting me because if you are… it ain’t right.”
“Just asking questions, sir. We have a serious situation here and time is against us.”
“I understand.”
“Maybe we can help you find your truck. Where have you looked?”
“Oh, I looked just about everywhere in town.”
“You see many people out and about?”
“Well, it was nighttime and they weren’t many folks out.”
“What about today?”
“I saw people, yes.”
“Anyone you know? Anyone can say they saw you?”
“Not mostly.”
“Not mostly?”
“Not anybody, no. I don’t know why you’re asking that to help find my truck.”
“I’m a detective, Mr. O’Donnell. It’s my job to ask questions.”
“Okay.”
“Did you stop anywhere, maybe for something to eat?”
“No, sir. I ain’t eaten. And if I had or I hadn’t it ain’t making no difference to finding my truck.”
“Okay. You look anywhere else? Outside of town?”
“No, sir.”
A marked police car pulls up and a short cop in uniform, packing a few pounds over, steps out. Newton asks Bill O’Donnell to excuse him and walks over to the cop. He nods and speaks the cop’s name in greeting and then says quietly, “The grandfather took him.”
Officer Gammond says, “He did? Dang.”
“Sure he did. He’s lying. He’s lying about his truck being taken. Check to see if it was stolen and what time it was reported.”
Gammond’s head snaps up. “No need to check. I done took that call. He reported it around nine last night. I took a statement. He said he was going to go off and look for it and I said not to but I guess he did anyways.”
Newton feels a spasm scrunch his lower back. “Don’t change anything. I know he took him. Get me that truck.”
“Yes, sir,” Gammond says and he reaches into his car and grabs the radio.
Out front of the Novak household Eugene Novak is jabbing his finger at the b
roken man and shouting something. O’Donnell pushes him in his chest and Novak staggers back and looks like he’s going to come in swinging at his father-in-law but doesn’t. Janice Novak stands there sobbing.
Before Gammond can speak into the radio, Detective Newton says, “The boy’s probably dead already. I’m going to take the guy in. I’ll get his agreement to do some tests on his clothes. I think we’ll find blood traces and we’ll get a confession. I’ll have this case closed within days. You’ll see.”
Officer Gammond nods and clicks on the radio.
49
Newton stared at the evidence board for the O’Donnell homicide case. McNeely appeared by his side and stood there with her hands on her hips, head tilted as if trying to view the board sideways. Various photographs were attached to the whiteboard with small round magnetic holders. There were two photographs of the old man – one alive, taken a year or two ago at a church event, which Alice White had given to them, and the other deceased, on the slab in the mortuary, his chest bearing an ugly sutured autopsy scar. There was another image of just his foot, showing the point of entry of the hypodermic needle where the fatal dose of morphine had been administered. There was a copy of the photograph of the little boy which they had discovered in O’Donnell’s Bible. There was a photograph of the windowsill where the prints were found by McNeely during the crime scene investigation. There were various words, phrases written in a kind of word cloud – ‘clean scene’, ‘prints on windowsill’, ‘morphine’, ‘photograph of boy’, ‘confession?’, ‘Ryan Novak’, ‘Alice White’, ‘MONEY’ in uppercase letters. There was a photo of the newspaper that Penny Gilfoyle had been reading to Bill O’Donnell on the night the old man had flipped. And there was a photograph of Doctor Brookline, postmortem, and a circle around that with a BIG question mark by the side of it.
“More I stare at it the less it makes sense,” Newton said. McNeely placed a hand on his shoulder.
“You okay, sir?”