An End to a Silence: A mystery novel (The Montana Trilogy Book 1)

by W. H. Clark

  “And I think he’s connected to the death of Ryan Novak.”

  Gammond backed away and sat down and the color seeped from his face. “How… you… you have something?”

  Ward said, “I have something.”

  Gammond said, “What?” And his voice was in another room.

  “I’d rather not say at this point because I’m still gathering things together.”

  “Tell me,” Gammond said.

  “Sir, I can’t betray my source.”

  “To me, yes, you can. Tell me.”

  “Lieutenant, sir, no, I can’t. Way I do things is I always protect my sources.”

  Gammond said in a tiger’s growl, “Son, you going to tell me or I’m pulling you off this case.”

  “Well, that makes things difficult, then. I’ll go see the captain.” Ward made to leave Gammond’s office.

  “Hold on,” Gammond said. “Hold on. Evidence from a source you can’t name isn’t admissible. You know that, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You’re not bringing in Kenny. Get me something else.”

  Ward’s blue eyes fixed on Gammond. Then he walked out of the office.

  Ward was at his desk going through the interviews and statements of people at the nursing home again. McNeely was making Jesús feel special over at her desk. When he got to the young girl Penny Gilfoyle’s statement he read it and then paused. He knew Kenny had been there that night. The girl hadn’t mentioned him and Ward hadn’t known to ask. He hadn’t been aware at the time he’d gone to see her that Kenny had been there on the night of O’Donnell’s death. He’d go and see her again. No, he’d call.

  He spoke to the girl’s exasperated father first and then the girl came onto the phone. She sounded excited to hear from him but at the same time disappointed that he hadn’t been in touch earlier. She spoke first.

  “Detective Ward. It’s Penny. So nice to—”

  “Penny, this is urgent and you could help me clear something up. Something very important to my case.” He could hear the click of her smile.

  “I’ll try my best.”

  Ward said, “On the night of Mr. O’Donnell’s death did you speak to anyone before you left Sunny Glade? Any of the staff there?”

  “I spoke to the lady on the front desk.”

  “Anybody else?”

  She went quiet.

  “Did you tell anybody else what Mr. O’Donnell had said to you?”

  “I can’t remember. I can’t…” She went quiet again, and then, “Yes. This old guy… I think he owns the place… he was there.”

  “Okay,” Ward said. He twirled a pencil in his fingers.

  And then Penny said, “He spoke to me.”

  Ward sat up. “What did he say? This is important, Penny.” He could almost hear her thinking. It took a while for her to speak again.

  “He… he asked me what the old man had said.”

  Ward said, “Good, Penny, good. And what did you tell him?”

  Penny said, “I told him what he said. About a confession.”

  Ward was on his feet. “Was there anything else?”

  “I don’t think so. I told him he’d shouted ‘Doctor Brookline,’ that’s all.”

  Ward said, “Well, thank you, Penny. Thank you so much. That’s really useful.”

  “Cool. Do you need me to come down the station to make a statement?”

  Ward was staring across at the evidence board. “I’ll be in touch, Penny.”

  His eyes darted across the board. Looked at the photo of John White. Looked at the various scrawled words and phrases. Tried to put them together to make something. He was sure that Kenny was somehow involved in the old man’s death. Ryan’s too, almost certainly. But he didn’t know exactly why. Couldn’t work out his connection to Ryan. O’Donnell must have died because he’d known about the boy’s death. He’d taken him and buried him in the forest. He hadn’t killed him so someone else had and O’Donnell knew who and had kept quiet about it. There had been a cover up. Someone else knew and had been paid off, Ward was sure of that. Kenny’s bank withdrawals, from the FBI corruption investigation, which his friend Jake had faxed over to him, suggested that. But not O’Donnell, despite his regular payments to Alice White. That money was his own hard-earned cash. To pay for the upbringing of John White. And then there was the suggestion of police involvement from what O’Donnell had said to the journalist, Larsson. Ward didn’t like where his thoughts were taking him and he pushed that aside for now. Knew it would be answered soon. All the pieces were coming together now.

  He fidgeted in his seat and kept the questions coming and one above all begged for an answer. Why kill O’Donnell now? Why after all these years of keeping the secret of Ryan’s death had Kenny decided to kill him or have him killed? What was it that had spooked him? What was it that had almost certainly made him get rid of Doctor Brookline too? Was it just the fact that O’Donnell had mentioned the doctor’s name? What did the old man mean by the word ‘confession’? Was that what had spooked Kenny? But why would the old man just come out and say it? Why would he all of a sudden get agitated and come out with that? What was his confession and why didn’t Kenny want him to make it?

  And then it hit Ward full on smack in the face. He went over to McNeely, who had been watching him but rubbing Jesús at the same time.

  “I need the newspaper. I put it in evidence.”

  “I’ll get it.”

  He reread the story Penny had been reading to Bill O’Donnell when he had had his outburst. Nothing there. He slammed the newspaper onto his desk and as it landed he saw on the opposite page Principal Leon Taylor of Meriwether Elementary School. The school where Kenny’s construction company was building a new science wing. The school where Bill O’Donnell had been janitor. “Time Capsule Makes Way in the Name of Science,” read the headline. That’s the page that O’Donnell would have seen while Penny was reading the one on the opposite side. Ward read the news article. The time capsule had been buried in 1986. Probably by O’Donnell himself. To be dug up in fifty years’ time and reveal the secrets of a few dozen children. And the secrets of an old janitor, Ward thought. O’Donnell had buried something of his own in the capsule. That’s why the story had spooked him. If they opened the capsule whatever secrets he had left in it would be revealed. Secrets about what happened to Ryan is what Ward thought. The time capsule was to be moved and reburied away from the new development, according to the article. He checked the details. The capsule was due to be moved next Monday. It couldn’t wait.

  He went over to McNeely and took Jesús’s leash from her desk and the little dog struggled free of her petting hands and skittered after Ward, who was already striding out of the station. When Jesús caught up with him he bent and attached the dog’s leash and then let it fall. He grabbed one of the pickaxes and one of the spades that had been used in digging up Ryan’s body. Before he was out Gammond called out from the doorway of his office.

  “Where you going?”

  Ward stopped and looked over at Gammond, who stood there waiting, with his head tilted in curiosity, for Ward’s answer.

  “To the school,” Ward said without further pause. “To dig up O’Donnell’s secret. Maybe Kenny’s too.”

  73

  It was almost dark. Midwinter dark. The moon lit up big gray clouds that looked like huge misshapen beasts migrating south. These shape-shifting behemoths chased across the sky as if pursued by something bigger. And then he saw what they were running from. A huge stampede, altogether more yellow and carrying snow, obliterated the moon. Almost instantly the snow started to fall. Large flakes this time. By the time he reached the school, the ground was already covered with the fresh snowfall and the wheels of his car began to find grip a difficult task as he pumped the gas pedal gently and pulled up the ramp and onto a short driveway which led into the parking lot.

  “Stay there,” Ward said to Jesús, but the dog jumped over from the passenger side onto the driver’s sea
t and straight out of the car like an excited puppy. Flakes of snow landed on his face and he shook his head and sneezed and snuffled and the leash flapped and rattled about him.

  “Okay, but I don’t want no trouble from you.”

  Jesús danced on the freshly fallen snow and Ward smiled as he opened the trunk and took out the spade and pickax.

  Ward walked around the south side of the main school building towards where the entrance was, where the new development was going to take place, and there he found a small area of lawn, almost completely covered in white aside from one edge which had been afforded some shelter by the school building. The grass was bordered with winter flowers and in the middle, just visible, was a circular indentation, about a foot in diameter. Ward bent down and wiped the snow away with his hand to reveal a plaque. He read the inscription – Meriwether Elementary School Time Capsule: To Be Opened 2036. The plaque was embedded into the ground and Ward took the pickax and levered the plaque out and rolled it to one side and then let it drop with a thud. The ground underneath it was a rug of anemic grass shoots and tangles of webbed roots and Ward took hold of the spade and thrust it into the ground. It went in an inch and he dug out a layer of soil, liberating the albino grass with it. He rammed the spade in again, harder this time, and he managed to go deeper. The ground here was not as hard as the ground in the forest which had held Ryan. He repeated this a few more times and his fingers became stiff with the cold, despite the gloves. His right hand ached miserably.

  When the spade struck metal with a hollow clunk he stepped back and took a deep breath and he rubbed his hands to try and get some warm blood back into them. Jesús was straight in, scratching away at the capsule like a maniac. Ward let him have his fun for a minute and then pulled at his leash, which was soaking wet from the snow.

  “Good work there, boy,” Ward said to Jesús, and the little dog wandered off and took a leak on the flowers. And then he trotted away and disappeared around the side of the school building, his nose sniffing as much ground as it could as he went.

  Ward started to dig around the time capsule then. He’d have to go deep to give himself any chance of getting the thing out of the ground. The soil yielded more readily as he dug deeper and a short time later he could see what he thought must have been most of the capsule.

  The capsule had a lip around the top edge and that gave him something to grip onto. He could see the lid wasn’t welded on and he was grateful for that. His fingers hooked under the lip and he tugged at it but it didn’t move. He took the spade and turned it upside down and inserted the handle into the hole he had dug and he used it to lever the capsule. He did this all around it and eventually he figured it was loose enough. He tossed the spade to the ground and again he crouched down and started to tug at the capsule. Immediately it broke its sticky bond with the earth and he heaved it out and set it on the grass. By now he was covered almost completely in snow and he thought if he stayed still long enough he would become a perfect snowman in the middle of the commemorative garden. He took off his hat and shook the snow off it, then set it back on his head.

  He tried the lid, which was somehow screwed onto the capsule like a soda bottle top, and it didn’t budge. So he took the pickax and gave it a few whacks and tried again. With all his strength applied, the lid started to turn and it let out a high-pitched groan as it did so. Two or three rotations and it was off.

  He took out his flashlight and shone it into the cylinder. There were three large sheets of paper which had been rolled up. There were little handmade envelopes with pretty personalized decorations on them, no doubt containing children’s letters to their future selves detailing their hopes and dreams and predictions for the future, most of which would have been fanciful and unrealized. There were other knickknacks from 1986, some which only kids could have deemed important enough to preserve for posterity; a Transformer toy, a Rainbow Brite Color Kid, a copy of The Wind in the Willows, which the younger kids had read that year in class. And on the top of all this was an envelope, not manmade this one. And on the front it said something in pallid blue-gray ink. Ward carefully picked it out and turned it over and the words on the front read “Please Deliver to The police,” written in an untidy but grown-up hand. The flap of the envelope had been stuck down in 1986 but the glue had since perished and the envelope was open. Ward shook off his right glove and let it drop to the ground. He had fresh strapping on his hand and yellow and blue bruising spread out from under the bandage. He slid the piece of paper out from the envelope. It was then that he heard the rumble of a car slowly pulling up on the other side of the school building where the parking lot was. Then he heard the car door close. He didn’t pause. He opened the letter and began to read. On the second read he heard the snow-cushioned footsteps behind him. He reached into his coat but the voice stopped him.

  “Take your hand slowly from your jacket, Ward.” The voice had a nervous tremble coating it. But Ward recognized it. He took his hand from his coat and he held out both hands at right angles to his body, the letter in his gloved left hand, the bandaged one empty.

  “Now turn around slowly.”

  Ward did.

  “What you got there, son?” Gammond said.

  “Took you longer than I thought to get here. Bad traffic?”

  “Dang it. I said what you got there?”

  “It’s a letter.”

  “I can see that,” Gammond said, and his gun hand shook as he spoke.

  “It tells everything,” Ward said. “’Bout what you did. Kenny. It’s all there.”

  Gammond took a deep breath. “Well, that’s a dang crying shame.”

  Ward said, “Why?”

  “Why?”

  “We can take this down to the station if you like,” Ward said.

  Gammond chuckled in his chest but his face was frozen, his lips tightly shut.

  “I ought to read you your rights,” Ward said.

  “That’s not how this is going to go, son,” Gammond said.

  “Just tell me why. Why does a cop do something like that?” Ward said, and he looked down at the ground. The spade, the pickax, the metal cylinder containing broken dreams and half-assed predictions of some sci-fi futuristic vision of flying cars and rocket packs.

  “Dang. I just wanted… I was just trying to help, you know. It was an accident. Didn’t I tell you not to go reopening ol’ wounds? Didn’t I tell you that, son? I told you that.” And Gammond’s shoulders slumped and his gun hand lowered slightly.

  “If it was an accident we can sort this out,” Ward tried but Gammond chuckled again.

  “That’s not going to work,” Gammond said. He was quiet a moment, eyeing Ward, who stood motionless with his arms stretched out at his sides.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  “Not really.” Gammond’s shoulders dropped a couple more inches. “Dang. Dang it.” And then he looked at Ward but almost over his shoulder, avoiding eye contact. “I was on patrol. Driving up Rochester and I saw the car and knew something was off. I gets out the car and sees the little boy. Boy was dead already. I tried CPR but he was gone. I was going to radio it in but then things got away from me. I was going to… I’d called Kenny on the boy’s cellphone. Told him we’d got a situation.”

  “You called Kenny?”

  “Boy had asked me to call him. Straighten things out. Truth be told I can’t remember why I did it. I knew Kenny and… well…”

  “You knew Kenny from the golf club, right?”

  “I’d recently joined. He was one of my proposers.”

  “You’d done him favors before.”

  “Oh, little things, you don’t need to know. We ain’t got the time. You see, the little boy had apparently run out into the street and Arthur hadn’t been able to stop in time. Ran him down. The kid was crushed under the dang wheels.”

  “Arthur?” Ward said, and he began to move from one foot to the other to keep warm.

  “Don’t be moving around,” Gammond said, and he
waved the gun. “Arthur is James Kenny’s son.”

  “I still don’t understand why you didn’t call it in,” Ward said.

  “Well, you see, Arthur had been at the liquor. Was well over the limit. He was in college. Had a promising career ahead of him. You see how it would’ve been bad for the kid. Had big plans to be some highfaluting lawyer in New York.”

  “And then O’Donnell came, right?”

  “Just as we was wondering what we was going to do with the body.”

  “And O’Donnell just went along with it? Just like that?”

  “It was James Kenny we were dealing with. Dang. I told you about his influence but you wouldn’t listen. You know how he influences?”

  “Money.”

  “Well, that’s just some of it. He has a way of putting things. People fall into his words like one of those pit traps you see in the movies. He’s like a snake oil salesman.”

  “He’d paid you off before O’Donnell got there.”

  Gammond didn’t say anything but scratched at his cheek.

  “And it was you who talked O’Donnell into getting rid of the body. It was you Kenny sold the snake oil to. And you sold it on to O’Donnell. Don’t go putting this all on Kenny. It was you brokered the deal and you took your commission.”

  “Dang, it was best all around.”

  “Best for who? Best for you who got rich? Best for the boy? Best for O’Donnell?”

  “Boy was dead. Ain’t nothing going to bring him back. No point ruining a young man’s life. I just made it clear to O’Donnell that if he didn’t go along with it he’d find himself in a heap of trouble in other ways. He worked with children and… you know. Rumors could start.”

  “And you didn’t want to lose your heap of cash that Kenny had offered you.”

  “Like I said. It was better for everybody.” He looked to Ward like he had some regret. “Anyways, we’re running out of time here. I got to clean up this mess you made.”