"He doesn't like anybody."
"You can leave him out there then."
I ordered Anubis to sit and stay. He gave me a wry look that said I shouldn't bother him with petty commands, but he didn't mind so long as he was out of the house. He lay on Jim's welcome mat and rolled onto his side with a grunt and stared off at a series of faint tracks in the snow heading towards a clump of spruces.
Jim was only a few years older than me, but his mannerisms made him seem almost elderly. There was a slight hitch in his walk and he moved slowly, stoop-shouldered. He coughed constantly, his chest as resonant as a cave, and although he remained relatively thin he still sort of waddled.
"My sleep is all screwed up," he said. "I can't get used to these times. You know when you have to change the clocks, you're screwed up for a few days? It's like that for me almost all the time. Even when I get home at one or two in the morning I can't manage to sleep. It's like six in the evening for everybody else, except there's nothing to do. Even the bars are closing. And you can forget about watching TV, all they have are these infomercials and sex phone ads. You ever call one a them?"
“No.”
"They ain't so good, believe me. It's a wonder the Moral Majority don't come down harder on them. And they cost a bundle. You ever work a night shift?"
"In college," I said. "I was a bartender for a while."
He nodded and looked at his feet and tried to work his big toe back into his sock. "I can guess what you want to talk about." He nodded some more and I nodded with him because it seemed the thing to do. "Another one last night. We oughtta be ashamed what's happening in this town."
"Tell me what happened the night you found Richie Harraday's body."
He sighed and rubbed at the indents of his eyes. "Not much to tell, and what there was, I already told to the cops, believe me. I didn't exactly find the body, I just saw it lying there. Wasn't sure what it was at first, and then I realized. Scared the piss out of me is what it did, to be honest. I ran to your grandmother's house as much for my own sake as hers. I didn't know if somebody was still prowling around or what. Could've been seven psychos out there waiting to jump me. Freaked me pretty bad."
"Anna appreciated you staying with her."
"I appreciated her not sending me home," he said, laughing.
"Did you see anything on his body?"
Jim's forehead creased and he gave me a sidelong glance. "Lowell asked me the same question last night when I drove by. Now why do you ask that?" I didn't say anything. "Just snow."
"No footprints? Tire tracks? Nothing else?"
"Just snow. It was coming down hard that time of night, the way it has most of the week. That's why I didn't recognize him—it, I guess I should say—as a body. Looked weird and I was kind of bored, like I mentioned, and decided to come back and take a look. Nothing else to it, believe me."
"Thanks for telling me," I said. I hadn't thought he'd have anything new to add, but I'd been compelled to question him myself. I believed him almost as much as he seemed to want me to.
He shook his head. "Why would anybody want to do that to a nice girl like Karen Bolan, huh? The guy I heard was a burglar and a real creep, but why would anybody hurt that lady?"
"I didn't realize you knew Karen," I said.
Back to nodding. "Sure, sure, I know Willie from when he works late at night, which is almost always. He's a hustler, that guy. Puts in a hell of a lot of overtime but it's really paid off for him. He'll make senior VP within the next couple of years, you watch. You want a beer or somethin'?"
"No thanks."
"Yeah, her and Willie made a nice couple. A little weird, you know, what with the strong personalities if I dare say, but nice. She sometimes picked him up or brought him a late snack. Always had a nice word to say to me at the door. Never minded signing in or putting on the visitors badge the way they're supposed to, even if she was only gonna stay a minute. A real golden smile on that lady." After a pause he added, "How's your grandmother holding up?"
"She's doing good," I said. Jim Witherton, security guard and green toenail grower extraordinaire, was not a professional bodyguard or a martial artist, but I would not have wanted Anna to be alone that night. For all I knew, there were still seven psychos running around loose. "Thanks for all your help. Some people might not have gotten involved."
"That's New York City you're talking about," he said. "This is still Felicity Grove, believe me."
We shook hands and said good-bye, and Anubis bounded at my heels and we ran back up the block and around to the main gate of the park.
Jim was right.
It was always Felicity Grove; with its cool mint ambiance, park and children, ring of oak trees near the courthouse with initials and hearts with arrows through them carved in as far back as 1890. Aging and fertile. The lake where seniors rented boats on prom night before driving up to the back woods, where I'd lost my virginity like everyone else. With the memorial plaques and statues of historical figures that sparked no recognition: who could possibly know the Civil War hero Orville Drinkle? The high school was like a social machine where we had been turned out with as many hopes as fears, and too many good yearbook photos, all of us stuck together by that selfsame glue of youth no matter how much time passed. The inevitable snowfall followed by the five-ton sanders, red-eared children with ski suits and shovels trying to make a few bucks, and succeeding. Thick-furred dogs barking behind low wooden fences, cats forever mewling in trees—the fire department really did climb ladders to save them—girls skipping rope and running garage sales beside their mothers, and paper boys riding bikes across the neighborhood, perfecting their boomerang Gazette underhand toss.
It was always Felicity Grove.
With its shadows and dead and filthy secrets.
Home.
~ * ~
I let Anubis romp loose. Kids were sledding along some of the slopes and twenty or thirty people skated on the lake. I felt like going out there and unwinding but I'd left my skates at my apartment.
Anubis cut left towards the trees and sped through the snow, sliding and kicking out clumps. I jogged along the running paths; the thick evergreens and pines acted like umbrellas to keep the powdered trails passable. I usually ran in Central Park at least once a week, but my legs and back were especially stiff today. Nothing a beautiful oriental masseuse with teak-wood sandals couldn't fix.
I tried to keep a steady pace, but the tightness in my stitched chest kept throwing off my stride, ice so bad in spots I had to stop and carefully walk past. The trail rose across a ridge of copses and fell away to the distant side of the lake. There was nobody else at this end of the park. The virgin snow proved I was the only one willing to give it a shot. Orville Drinkle would have been proud.
It took twenty minutes to finish one complete circuit of the park, and I wasn't certain if I wanted to do a second. I passed Anubis sitting in the remains of a children's snow fort. He got up and started running with me and dropped off after a quarter mile. Kids knew his name and called to him and he charged through the brush. I kept going and started getting my second wind ten minutes later as I came up the ridge again. Tobacco was suddenly strong in the fresh air. Wind pressed it at me, and I peered around but didn't see anyone until the guy with the crew cut was nearly on top of me.
"Okay," I said.
I should've noticed his tracks even though he'd come from the opposite direction. The rest happened fast: he stepped out from behind the trees and spit his cigarette at me; I stopped short and ducked instinctively as he swung a Bowie knife downward at my legs. If I'd taken another step he would have sheared through my thigh. I shoved him hard and took an off-balance swing at his chin. I missed and followed through so far I knocked him down and tripped over him, hoping he'd dropped the blade. We both scrambled to our feet, five yards apart. He was on the path beneath the trees and I stood below him at the top of the slope, calf-deep in a dune of snowdrift.
"Stupid to bring a guard dog and then let hi
m run so far," he said. He held the knife confidently and comfortably, out near his fingertips, ready. His wrist was taped.
"Did you kill Richie?" I asked.
"No use in talking."
"And Karen, too? Why?"
"Still asking questions, even now? Damn, you're insane, boy."
"Look who's talking."
He must have hated me in his bones to want to carve me up so badly when he could've just used the .22 he'd killed Karen with. Maybe he didn't trust it unless he could place it in my ear, too. I might've been able to outrun him, if I'd been inclined to. I wasn't. I wanted to smash his teeth down his throat so badly my hands itched. I whistled loudly, a short, high note that carried across the park.
"He'll kill you when he gets here," I said.
Crewcut knew how to use the blade and he was eager to get at me, holding the knife up in front now, weaving it through the air like a snake mesmerizing its prey. He wasn't a redneck joker who could only gut fish and skin small animals. His smile was vapid, calm eyes containing levels of madness, and although his face remained equally nondescript, something chimed. "Maybe you'll be dead by then."
"We already played this out once," I said.
"It's going to be different."
He took a step forward and I moved to his right, snow soaking through my sweats and chilling my legs. Miss Marple would've been able to talk herself out of this situation, but all I could think of were more questions. "Who the hell are you?"
Like the last time we'd fought, he didn't waste his breath in dialogue. He rushed me, arcing the Bowie towards my belly. I tried to backpedal and couldn't find any purchase on the slope; heels digging in, I moved to my left and kept from tumbling. Instead of tagging my stomach he overshot and crashed into me and we both dropped backwards over the edge, sliding along the snowy copse. We wrestled and rolled end over end for a hundred feet, with him trying to stab me in the legs on the way down.
I looked up into his mouth; his back teeth were brown nubs. "Why didn't you stay out of it?" he said.
"Why'd you drag me into it?"
"You did this. You made it happen."
I grabbed his bad wrist and squeezed. He groaned and spun and wouldn't let go of the knife. With his free hand he punched me in the hinge of my jaw where the nerve center is and my head exploded. I cried out but kept squeezing harder and harder. Kids were yelling in the distance. Bones crackled as I crushed the wrist. He screamed and I liked the sound of it. He clubbed me across the neck and we dragged each other to the edge of the lake. The knife fell into the snow and I hauled him over my chest, rolling to get him away from it. He wound up on top. There was a lot of blood soaking through from the reopened slash on my chest, the snow changing to pink. Flat on my back he straddled me and screamed, "It was an accident, you nosy asshole! It had nothing to do with you!" He dug through the snow, searching for the blade, straining to reach forward as I pulled him back, and he found and grasped the knife handle.
Anubis leaped and tore out his throat.
TWELVE
More of the same. Cops at work, the crowd and little kids watching, with me standing in the middle of it all, feeling nothing and not quite ashamed of my detachment. It had been almost two hours, and Anubis wouldn't leave my side. The blood and excitement made him nervous, and he kept licking his lips, eyes flitting from face to face. He growled whenever anyone came near. The cops didn't know whether to give him a medal or gas him. Roy wanted to ask me a question, but as he approached he regarded the dog, swallowed audibly, shut his mouth and turned away. The police photographer took another hundred pictures of another corpse. I wondered if I'd be arrested.
The temperature had dropped to the teens and Broghin kept sweating, face crimson with the exertion from walking up and down the slope.
"Okay," he said, "go through it once more." Bing's "White Christmas" played on in my head. "From the beginning." Again there was no anger in him today, but at least he didn't come across with that ridiculous caring uncle attitude he'd taken the other evening.
What had been resolved for him?
"I've told you twice already," I said.
"Tell me again."
"First get me a jacket or let me go home and grab one. I'm wet and freezing."
Broghin must've enjoyed using the walkie-talkie affixed to his belt because he called Roy on it when the deputy was only ten yards behind him. Roy went to his cruiser, opened the trunk and brought me a spare coat.
"Don't I get a plastic badge and a two-way wrist radio?" I asked.
Roy smirked and said, "You pick some damn strange times to tell jokes, don't you?"
Wallace examined the body, making notes on the tracks and angles of bloodshed. Like a fire hose, crew cut's severed carotid artery had spurted his steaming blood over my shoulder to where it had melted through the ice and refrozen at the lip of the lake. Lowell and four other deputies were holding the people back.
I told the sheriff the story again. I got the sense that he wasn't listening to me for yet the third time. He kept looking down at the dog with a mixture of anxiety and pride, and fussed with sweaty strands of his hair. More than anything he seemed to exude satisfaction and relief.
"Why are you so happy?" I asked.
Chins jiggling, Broghin did a double take, the blue-black veins at his temples knotting. Still none of his usual gruffness came through. "'Cause my Preparation H is working today, and with you I need it full strength."
That was a fairly good comeback for him. I let it pass. "Who was he?"
Broghin didn't like being questioned, and for a moment the glare returned but faded immediately, replaced by an odd solace. "John Doe so far. No identification on him. We lifted his prints but he's not on file, and that dog didn't leave much for us to take a picture of and fax."
Crew cut was commonplace, an Everyman with a profound rage. Even now I checked him to remind myself this had happened, that the same person remained there. "Nobody's missing anything," I said.
"He is," Broghin said. "His face."
"Did you find a car? He's either parked in the lot or in the woods. Or else somebody dropped him off."
"Thanks for letting me know that," Broghin said. "Never would have thought of that on my own. Might be he parked on a nearby street. We'll get right on it and check. I appreciate you reminding me what my job is."
It must be the Lake Effect that makes everybody in this town so hyper-sensitive. "Don't you have any idea who he might be?"
"No." The word was bitten off from a great deal more left to be said.
I could've pushed—insulted, argued, or coaxed—and perhaps I would've, except news trucks were pulling up behind the rinky-dink orange sawhorse barricade. Video cameras zoomed in all over the scene, getting close-ups of the body and trying to get a shot of me and Anubis. We were adequately shielded so long as the sheriff stood in front of us.
Wallace Keaton trudged from the corpse as the EMS put the body in the hearse. He grinned painfully, thumb pressed against his gums and shoving at his bottom dentures. Broghin grimaced. "Wallace, you look like a damn fool with your fingers always in your mouth."
"Pardon me for speaking my mind, sheriff," Wallace muttered, "but go shit in your hat. I've been on my feet for thirty hours. Last night I had to do an autopsy on a girl whose mother is an hysterical wreck and near ready for the friggin' funny farm. Now I have to go back for this son of a bitch, who may have killed her."
"We don't know that for certain. Christ, don't go spewing conjecture when the press is just waiting to jump. What have you got for me?"
"For you? What in the hell do you think I got for you? A caucasian male approximately twenty-five years old, and lived about half a second with his throat ripped out. That's all I'm going to have until I get him on the table, and I doubt there will be anything much more substantial then. What do you got, Frank? I thought the police would have had these matters resolved by now."
Lowell came over and said something to Broghin, and the sheriff gave me a
nd Wallace a final glance before stalking off to make a statement to the reporters. Wallace said, "I had a terrible feeling you were going to become involved in this, Jon."
His face was so long beneath the terrier moustache I almost laughed. "They weren't just my grandmother's inclinations, Wallace."
He went after his back teeth again, prodding and tugging, and said, "I understand," though he looked extremely confused. I hoped he'd go to a new dentist soon. "You're bleeding. Lift your shirt, let me take a look."
I carefully pulled my sweatshirt over my head, and the throbbing flames dancing along my chest sprouted into all-out pyrotechnics.
"These stitches have pulled," he said, touching them gingerly. "Could've been a lot worse. Goddamn, I can't tell if you're the luckiest guy in the world or if you've got a home lined with broken mirrors." He plucked at the thread. "Go in and have them redone no later than tomorrow."
"Sure."
Wallace crossed the snowy field to his wagon, and the police parted the crowd to let him drive through with crew cut's corpse.
Lowell handed me his hat and said, "Here, you'll catch pneumonia."
I put it on and wasn't surprised to discover that a family of four could have lived comfortably inside. "Do I get my plastic badge and two-way wrist radio now?"
He ignored me. "I don't know who spread the word already but the big newspapers got hold of your name. I have no idea how they arrived here so quickly, but they're waiting to talk to you."
"Not again."
"Yeah, I know how well you get along with hordes of pretty reporters sticking microphones in your face."
"Depends on how pretty they are," I said, scanning the crowd. "Is the blonde from channel thirty-five around? The one with the cute overbite?"
"Yep," he said, "and not only is she more attractive but she's more polite than the rest, too. Handed me her card and requested that I ask you to do a formal interview." He took it out of his pocket and handed it to me.
The Dead Past Page 13