Trumpet of the Dead (Raven Trilogy Book 2)

by Kurt B. Dowdle

  “Hell, I got no discharge.”

  MacBride gave a thin smile. “No, no. Your release. I’m talking about when you can leave.”

  The kid sat up and swung his legs over the side of the table. “All righty then, let’s go.”

  The orderlies immediately took him by his shoulders and eased him onto his back.

  MacBride said, “I’m sorry. You’re not leaving now.”

  “Ain’t I been here long enough?”

  “I assure you your health is my utmost—”

  “Doc, iff’n one thing’s certain, it’s that you don’t give a squirt o’ piss about my—”

  “Ich sage dir wahrlich.” The man in the white coat spoke in a deep and somber tone that silenced the bickering.

  The kid said, “Come again, fella.”

  The man spoke slowly and approached the kid, “Ich sage dir wahrlich: Du wirst nicht von dannen herauskommen, bis du auch den letzten Heller bezahlest.”

  The kid looked at MacBride. “Doc, this fella looks as if he’s better suited to work in the morgue than in the hospital. No offense.”

  The man shifted his gaze from the kid’s forehead and looked him in the eye. “The last penny. You von’t get out until you have paid the last penny.”

  “Well, shit, I’m broke. So why don’t you an’ me jus’ call it even, and I’ll be on my way.”

  MacBride gestured to the orderlies. The first orderly pressed his full weight onto the kid’s chest, while the second buckled the kid to the table, wrists and ankles. Then he cleared his throat.

  “Becket, this is Dr. Schultheis.”

  The kid stared at Schultheis and then back at MacBride. “What kind of doctor?”

  “We’re delighted and honored that Dr. Schultheis has come. He’s very highly regarded on the Continent for perfecting a number of groundbreaking techniques.”

  “Then where’s his shovel?”

  MacBride pursed his lips. “There’s no need to be impolite, Becket.”

  Schultheis bent over the table and began massaging the kid’s temples and then ran the tips of his fingers softly across the kid’s forehead. He said, “Gut, gut…sehr gut,” speaking softly to himself. He said to the kid, “Close, please” and firmly pressed his thumbs against the kid’s eyes. Then he stood up to his full height, looked at MacBride without emotion and said, “The patient is suitable.”

  “Suitable for what?” The kid squirmed hard enough to push the Bible halfway off the table. When he saw that it was about to fall, he settled down and focused on MacBride. “Suitable for what, Doc?”

  Schultheis bent over again and touched the kid’s temples with his thumb and forefinger. “The incisions will be here and here.”

  “Incisions. Christ!”

  “Und then we will insert the instrument here.” Schultheis pointed to the tear duct of the kid’s left eye.

  MacBride smiled and extended his hand to Schultheis. “Thank you, doctor. Thank you.” Schultheis tilted his head slightly in acknowledgement and then left the room. MacBride looked at the orderlies and said, “Gentlemen, will you excuse us?”

  The orderlies left, closing the door behind them.

  MacBride patted the kid on the shoulder. “Now, now, Becket. Rest assured. Dr. Schultheis does extraordinary work. Once he’s cured you, you’ll be on your way home in no time.”

  The kid let out a long sigh. “What do you want, doc? Just come out with it.”

  “I’m afraid the time for bargaining has passed, young man.”

  “I’ll say whatever you want. I’ll act polite. Whatever you got in mind. Jus’ don’t scramble my grits.”

  “Your fear is understandable, Becket. But the severity of your condition demands that we use extreme measures.”

  The kid took in a deep breath. “Look, doc, I’ve been lying this whole time. Lying to my parents. I’ve just been angry at them, and I wanted to hurt them. I’ve perpetrated a shamnanigan here, and now I see the harm I’ve caused.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, sir. And I’ve lied to you.”

  “Well, that’s—”

  “I apologize. I’m sorry.”

  MacBride studied the kid for several moments and then unbuckled the straps at his ankles and then his wrists.

  “Well, Becket, I must say this is a great relief. Not because we were following the wrong course of treatment but because I can see we’ve finally gotten through to you.”

  “Yes, sir, and now I can appreciate it.” The kid let his body relax, and he lay motionless on the table.

  “In that case later today I’m going to ask you a variety of questions, questions regarding Nadine Bauer, her motives and her whereabouts. I’m going to ask you about Wendell Kamp, the ways he’s helped her and about other things he may have told you. I’m also going to ask you about some of your father’s business dealings.”

  “That sounds fine, doctor, I’m ready to help you.”

  “Excellent, Becket. Is there anything else you can think of that we might need to talk about, that you may have been keeping secret from us?”

  “No, sir. I intend to come clean. All the way clean.”

  “That’s wonderful.” MacBride held his hand out to the kid. The kid took it, and as he raised himself to sitting, he nudged the Bible off the edge of the table. It fell on its spine and popped open. The file bounced out of its hiding place and clattered loudly on the hard floor.

  MacBride looked at it and then went to the window, where he saw the iron filings on the sill. He said, “Hmm,” before he spun on his heel and walked out of the room.

  WHEN SHAW CAME IN THE BACK DOOR, the fire she’d started was going full blaze, burning up the clothes Kamp had been wearing, including the old thin work jacket he loved but that Shaw had been looking for a reason to get rid of. Kamp sat in the steaming bath Shaw prepared for him in the large metal washtub she’d put next to the fireplace. He crossed his legs at his ankles and hung his arms over the sides.

  Without looking at her, he said, “Appears you’ve been busy.”

  All of the files, including the murder files from the police station and the death records Grigg brought from the coroner’s office were spread out on every flat surface in the room.

  She said, “I couldn’t sleep, and when I realized you weren’t here, I got worried. And then I got bored.”

  “Worrying about me is boring?”

  She stood directly over him and looked down. “So I started looking through all of that ridiculous paper.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  She smiled and raised her eyebrows.

  “Like what?” He tilted his head back and closed his eyes.

  She said, “First I went through all the records, looking for anyone with a name that sounded anything like Abel Truax.”

  “And there was nothing.”

  “Yes. But then I looked for all the records of dead people whose names weren’t known.”

  “John Does.”

  “I looked up all of them. I wanted to see if there were any details that might show us it was Truax. Or whoever. And I found this.” She handed him a yellowed sheet of paper.

  He read aloud. “Return of a Death. Name of Deceased: Doe, John. Color: white. Sex: male. Age: question mark. Cause of death: unknown. Parents, occupation, place of birth: unknown, unknown, unknown.” He looked back up at Shaw. “Okay, this man died. No one knew who he was. What’s your shpitza?”

  “Look at the date of death.”

  He scanned the form. “December fifteen, 1861. So what?” He tried to hand the paper back to Shaw.

  “Now the place of death.”

  Kamp looked again. “County road two, number seven. Where’s that?”

  Shaw smiled. “That’s the church.”

  “What church?”

  “The one right over there. Evilstalk’s church.”

  “Eberstark.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then how come it doesn’t say church?”

  She shrugged. �
�You’re the detective. Think about it.”

  He sat up in the tub and looked at her. “What? I don’t see it.”

  “It’s him,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Abel Truax. This is his death certificate. This is him.”

  “Ach, I doubt it.”

  She pulled up a wooden chair and sat down next to him. “He told us it happened eleven years ago. He told us it happened in the churchyard and that no one knew who he was.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “So, you’re saying the kid’s been telling the truth after all?”

  He handed the paper to her, and she inspected it again. “No. But maybe he’s seen this. Or he heard the story from someone. But even if that’s so, this is the person he was talking about.”

  Kamp stood up and toweled himself off. “Well, we can’t ask the kid, and there’s no one else to talk to. Coroner won’t answer any questions.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Why not?”

  “The coroner may not even know about this. He didn’t sign it.”

  “So that’s a mystery, too.”

  “No, my love. Look. At the bottom.” She held out the certificate, and Kamp made out the signature in the lower right-hand corner of the form. He’d seen it hundreds of times on paperwork when he was the city detective.

  It read, “S.D., Cons.”

  HE DIDN’T WAIT for morning, didn’t bother to call on Sam Druckenmiller at the police station. He knew he’d be barred from entering, at best. Instead, hours after Shaw had gone to sleep, Kamp pulled on his boots and went out the front door, locking it behind him. He heard nothing but late winter wind, and he walked in darkness under a thin slice of moon.

  He sorted out the implications and possibilities the death certificate raised, while he walked the mile to the High Constable’s house. Since Druckenmiller had known about the body, he probably knew additional details surrounding the death. And if in fact, a man, Abel Truax or someone else, had been murdered in the churchyard, steps had been taken to obscure the truth from view. And that meant the murderer, or murderers, would have been working all along to keep the secret. And lastly, Kamp surmised, they’d know Druckenmiller would have to be protected, or killed as well. As such, Kamp expected to see at least one guard outside Druckenmiller’s house.

  He crouched low when he reached the path to the house and saw the cherry of a lit cigarette glowing next to the front door. From its light Kamp discerned the figure of a man with a shotgun across his knees, sitting on the front steps. He backtracked and slipped into the woods that wrapped behind Druckenmiller’s property, then circled around to the back of the house, crept to the back door and turned the knob. Locked. Kamp ran his fingers along the top of the door until he felt the spare key.

  He opened the door, pocketed the key and went inside. He walked to the front of the house to check on the guard, who was still sitting in the same position, stubbing out the first cigarette and then rolling and lighting another one. Kamp turned and started down the hallway to the bedroom. He hadn’t brought a pistol and felt its absence now. He knew, though, that given the protection outside his front door, Druckenmiller would feel safe from harm and probably wouldn’t have a gun under his pillow.

  Even before Kamp cracked the bedroom door, he heard loud, low snoring and from the way it echoed off the walls and ceiling, he discerned that the High Constable was lying on his back.

  Having made no sound thus far, Kamp crept closer to the bedside. He extended his arm, and as he reached the bed, he stepped on a board that made an exceedingly loud creak.

  The snoring stopped and Druckenmiller said, “What in the—”

  Kamp put his knee on the man’s throat and cupped his hand over Druckenmiller’s mouth and nose, suffocating him. Druckenmiller writhed under the pressure, but Kamp held him fast.

  He leaned close to his ear, “Shh. Settle down and listen. Say a word, and that’s it. Understand?” Druckenmiller kept struggling. “Think, Sam. Is this how you want it to end?” The High Constable’s body went slack. “I have questions for you. All I need is answers and then I’ll leave. Do not speak above a whisper. Understand?”

  He nodded.

  As soon as Kamp pulled his hand away, Druckenmiller hissed, “Godammit, Kamp. You know where I work, why in the name of Yasus Christus don’tcha just—”

  Kamp slammed his hand over Druckenmiller’s mouth again. “Sam, shut up and listen. If that guy out there comes inside, it’ll be bad for all of us. Got it?”

  He let go again.

  “Yah, yah, I got it.”

  Kamp said, “The rifle in your basement. It didn’t belong to you.”

  “Yah.”

  “It belonged to a man whose body you found. Is that correct?”

  “Yah.”

  “The man was murdered outside Eberstark’s church, correct?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “But you found him outside the church.”

  “Yah, but I didn’t see it happen.”

  “What did the man look like?”

  “Dead.”

  “From what?”

  “Ach, I don’t know.”

  “Did you see any wounds?”

  “Yah, he had such a bruise on the back of his neck. And a cut, too.”

  “So someone hit him.”

  “Ach, I don’t know.”

  Kamp glanced out the bedroom window and still saw the glow of the guard’s cigarette. He turned back to Druckenmiller. “Did you investigate it?”

  “Investigate what?”

  “How the man died.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Druckenmiller took a long pause, then whispered, “Well, if you find some nix nootz nobody knows lyin’ there stiff and blue, you don’t really wonder nussing. I just wrote a certificate for the guy and forgot about it.”

  “What did Oehler say about it?”

  “Who?”

  “The coroner.”

  “He didn’t say nussing about it. Probably never even heard about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, by the time I went back into the church to find a winding sheet and come back out, he was fergonga.”

  “Gone?”

  “Yah, rifle was there. Body was gone. Didn’t see no one take it. Coroner only wants to hear about it if there’s a body. You know how he is.”

  “Where do you think it went?”

  “Well, Jesus Boom, I don’t know. Maybe he just got up and walked away.”

  “Why were you there, Sam? Why were you at the church in the first place?”

  “Ach, leave.”

  “Why, Sam?”

  “There was a concert that night. Orchestra. I went to go see it on my own time. I went outside in the middle of it. That’s when I found him.”

  “Why did you go outside?”

  “Oh gut in himmel. I was falling asleep. I was bored. Not everything is a goddamned mystery.”

  “Sure about that?”

  “You can leave the way you came. Don’t worry, I won’t tell ’em you was here.” Druckenmiller pulled the blankets up to his chin and rolled over to face the wall. “Christ, you’re an asshole.”

  Kamp left the way he’d come, circling back to the road through the woods, watching the wax and wane of the guard’s cigarette as he went.

  KAMP WATCHED FOR THE DAWN, and at sunup, he saw the guard walking on the road in the direction of Bethlehem. He waited for him to pass and disappear over the horizon before heading out on the road himself.

  He walked the same route he’d taken when last he’d gone to the church, picking his way through the cemetery, passing again the stones that marked the graves of the upright Jonas and Rachel Bauer, already two years gone. He skirted the graves of his own parents and made for the side yard of the church. He went to the three stairs that led to the cellar door, a heavy oaken slab with a padlock, then turned around and tried to imagine the scene where Druckenmiller discovered the body.

>   Kamp caught the smell of wood smoke and peered up at the sparks popping from the chimney and at the newly-coppered steeple. He went to the back of the building and looked in through the window to the Reverend A.R. Eberstark’s office, where he saw the minister sitting down to a breakfast of toast, Bible open on his desk in front of him. He wore plain clothes and no vestments.

  When Kamp knocked on the door, Eberstark showed no surprise and smiled when he saw who it was. He waved Kamp in and then offered him a chair opposite his desk.

  “Guten tag, junge. Wie bischt?”

  “Good. Du?”

  “God is good, god is good.” Eberstark took a large bite of toast and washed it down with a long pull from his coffee. Kamp caught a whiff of alcohol. “How may I help you this fine Morgen?”

  “Reverend, do you remember a concert that was held here a while back, say, in 1861?”

  Eberstark tilted his head back, searching his memory. “Why, no, no, I don’t believe I was here yet.” He continued looking up.

  “Who was the reverend—”

  “Oh, wait, wait once. I may have been here. When was it?”

  “December. 1861.”

  “Ach, yes. I was here. I just wasn’t installed yet.” Eberstark saw the confusion on Kamp’s face. “I was here, but my predecessor was still the reverend, a fine man by the name of Alcock.”

  “Do you remember a concert around that time? Orchestra concert?”

  Eberstark finished his toast and drained his coffee while he thought. “Why, yes, now I do. I believe I tried to forget it, though.”

  “What was the concert?”

  “Mozart. I hate Mozart.”

  “Did you attend?”

  “I prefer Wagner. If you put these two men—”

  “Did you attend the concert?”

  Irritation flashed across Eberstark’s face. “I did.” He leveled his gaze at Kamp. “Reverend Alcock insisted.”

  “Reverend, do you recall whether anything unusual happened? In particular, was there any commotion outside the building?”

  “Outside the building?”

  “Yes, do you remember any commotion outside the church? Fighting or anything?”

  Eberstark tilted his head back and closed his eyes. “Why, no.”

  “Do you mind if I look in the cellar?”

  The reverend opened his eyes and faced Kamp. “The cellar? What is this about?”