The Breathtaker Page 11

  “Hm,” Hodge said, bending close. “Those look like scrape marks to me. They’re usually produced postmortem.”

  “What do you mean?” L’Amoureux said.

  “These type of scrape marks occur after a victim is dead, when a body is dragged across a floor.”

  They eyed one another uneasily, and then Hodge logrolled Matthew onto his side. After working the jacket and shirt away from the body, he found similar-looking scrape marks on the corpse’s back.

  A long silence followed.

  “I think we should re-autopsy,” Charlie said.

  Hodge turned to L’Amoureux. “Your call, Jimmy.”

  “Yeah, let’s do it.”

  The atmosphere inside the morgue grew more oppressive as the victims were undressed and re-autopsied. Hodge opened up each corpse like a dissected frog, snipping sutures and poking around inside plastic bags full of internal organs. He probed old wounds and reexamined X rays, while the sharp fumes rising from the chest cavities made their eyes water. “If you theorize that this was a homicide—if, I said—then you’ve got multiple stab wounds to the chest and abdomen. Autopsy report says impalement with two chair legs, a baluster and a fence strut. There’s a picture of the debris sticking out of the bodies… I don’t know, hard to tell. We’d have to examine the originals, but I believe they’re all gone. Isn’t that right, Jimmy?”

  “I didn’t see any need to keep them.”

  “I had my hands full with the dead and injured,” Hodge said defensively. “We lost the town clerk and his wife, my church organist, three young people. Three beautiful members of the next generation. Heck… these look like defensive wounds to the hands and arms. How’d we miss that, Jimmy?”

  “Damned if I know.”

  “It could’ve been caused by flying debris.” He continued with the internal exams.

  Charlie picked up the old autopsy reports and studied the pictures: The injury to Audra Keel with the strut of a picket fence was particularly obscene. The penetrating end had been driven into the victim’s chest wall, pushing the shirt fabric into her flesh and tearing through muscle and body cavity.

  “These are Matthew’s X rays.” Hodge held one up to the light. “Impact abrasion over the right supraorbital ridge. Also a hematoma, a large focal collection of blood on the right cheek. Scalp bruises visible.” He tossed the X rays down on the countertop and snapped off his latex gloves. “Blunt trauma to the head, multiple stab wounds. I don’t know, chalk it up to a house falling down around their heads.” He crossed his arms. “And you’ve still got no so-called replacement teeth.”

  The seed of an idea took root. “Maybe the tornado caught him by surprise,” Charlie said. “It was a direct hit on the house, right?”

  L’Amoureux blinked.

  “Maybe his forecast was a little off that day. Maybe the tornado interrupted him right in the middle of the ritual and he couldn’t complete the task at hand. The ritual with the teeth? What if he had to get out of the house before the tornado hit?”

  “That still leaves us with no definitive proof.”

  Charlie rubbed his forehead, trying to think.

  “I say we call it a night,” Hodge grumbled.

  “I agree,” L’Amoureux said. “The relatives gave their permission to re-autopsy, and that was it. We’ve gotta put these bodies back where they belong.”

  “Okay, wait.” Charlie bit his lower lip. “What would you do if you got interrupted in the middle of something?”

  “I dunno. Go back and finish the job later?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So?”

  “Got any sieves?”

  It was half past eleven by the time Bonnie the caretaker returned with a box of assorted sieves—a flour sifter, two colanders, a strainer, a sugar shaker and a deep-fry basket. They sifted through the graveyard dirt, searching for any object smaller than a marble. Any bicuspid, eyetooth, molar, premolar, incisor or milk tooth would do. The theory was that the killer had visited the cemetery one bleak night after the funeral and planted a tooth in the soil above each grave. Another long shot, but you had to play the long shots.

  Around midnight, it stopped spitting rain, but the sky still quivered with lightning. L’Amoureux drank from a bottle of Black Jack while Charlie and the pinch-mouthed contractor went to work, loosening dirt clods with their shovels, sifting through shifting heaps of dirt. They created first one pile, then another. Before long, Charlie began to feel a tingling sensation at the base of his spine. Deeply located, it began as a painless spasm, then the muscles around it started to stretch and pull.

  “Pass the bottle,” he said.

  “If I could choose how I was born,” L’Amoureux said, “I’d choose erupting out of the deep ocean floor in a hiss of molten rock…”

  Charlie looked at him. “You’re drunk.”

  “Not yet. But almost.”

  “Gimme that.” Charlie suddenly wanted to catch up. He took several greedy gulps, the pain only getting worse, like a razor cut or an open blister, radiating from groin to knee. Just his old scars acting up. The pain progressed down his left leg with a dry-ice feeling.

  Hodge went home around midnight and took Bonnie with him. She left her truck with its winch behind, and Charlie and L’Amoureux continued to get steadily drunker, working at it in earnest as if it were part of the job. Their duty as patriotic citizens. By the time Ed the contractor finally gave up, around one in the morning, Charlie was feeling no pain, no pain at all. He could hear his own hot blood whispering in his ears. When his hands began to throb from all that digging, he redoubled his efforts, muscles engorged with adrenaline. The air above the graves smelled like wet stone, and the wind carried with it the nervous barking of dogs.

  “This is a great big goose egg, my friend,” L’Amoureux said. “The only reason I’m out here now is because I refuse to go home sober. I have this recurring nightmare. It goes like this. My mother waves a knife over the family jewels. The blade sweeps down just as she shrieks, ‘You don’t need those, do you?’ That’s when I wake up.”

  Charlie laughed. The sky had cleared, and the stars were too numerous to count. The planet Venus glowed like a blown coal. His skin was filmed with grit, and he coughed from too much dust in the air.

  “I gotta admit,” L’Amoureux said, “you’ve got tenacity, my friend.”

  “I’ll tell you what I’ve got. I got a whole lotta nothin’.”

  The cemetery was full of the sounds of their breathing, of two lonely shovels scraping the earth. Too many headstones, too much polished granite stretching out into darkness on either side of them. Moths swarmed in the headlights’ glow, and Charlie’s hands grew blistered and aching. Anxiety gripped his heart as he exhaled the smell of death from his nose. A large bead of sweat broke out on his temple and rolled down one side of his face, making him feel lopsided. In the silences between all that breathing and scraping, he could sense the dead watching them. Legions of the dead. One split second was all it took—one wrong move, and you’d be out there among them, horizontal instead of vertical, the soil gradually leaching your carcass of color.

  “Give up?”

  “Not yet,” Charlie said.

  “’Cause I’ve got a cheeseburger waiting for me at Ruby’s.”

  “At two in the morning?”

  “Ruby’s is always open. I’m buying. They’ve got so many flies their cheeseburgers sprout wings.”

  The wind picked up, kicking last autumn’s leaves around, and Charlie stopped digging. It felt as if someone had poured hot lead on his arms. Pain and burning sensations extended up his neck and into his shoulders, becoming most pronounced where the shoulder blades winged out. “Bottle,” he gasped, and L’Amoureux handed it over.

  “We’re all tapped out, buddy,” the sheriff said. “Time to throw in the towel, pal. You and me gotta lower these caskets.”

  They left the truck running and unwound the heavy chain from the winch, secured the chain to the hooks on Audra’s caske
t and slowly lowered it back into the ground. The winch strained loudly as the truck’s diesel engine growled, and then the casket hit bottom.

  Charlie had to crawl down into the hole to unhook the chains. The coarse witchgrass sighed and crackled underfoot as he approached the lip of Audra Keel’s grave and switched on his flashlight. A pungent excavated-earth smell filled his nostrils as he peered over the edge, shadows jumping and realigning themselves. He leaped into the hole, feeling all swallowed up, and unhooked the chain. The hairs rose on the back of his neck as he hoisted himself out again, Audra’s shadow chasing up his spine.

  They lowered the other casket, then filled in the holes. By the time they were done, Charlie’s left side was stiff and on fire.

  “That’s all she wrote,” L’Amoureux said, clapping the dirt off his hands. “You joinin’ me?”

  “For flying cheeseburgers?”

  “Smoke-covered ceilings. Six different kinds of pie. Real mashed potatoes. Mmm-mm.”

  In the smoky play of light, a loose bundle of doubts nagged at him. The two cases were almost identical except for the replacement teeth. It wasn’t uncommon for sociopaths to leave taunting bits of evidence for the police to find. Some of them subconsciously wanted to be caught; others enjoyed outsmarting the authorities.

  He let his flashlight play up the side of Audra Keel’s headstone. Beloved wife and mother. Shit. Sophie. He’d forgotten all about her. What time was it? Then something glinted in the dirt.

  Of course. The withered roses.

  He dropped to his knees and started digging.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Getting the roses.”

  “Roses? What roses?”

  His fingers touched glass, and the first withered rose came out, its cut stem tucked inside a floral tube. Florists cut roses when they were tightly closed so that the bees couldn’t get to them. The stem was held in place by a rubber stopper at the neck of the tube so the flowers would stay fresh for at least a week.

  “Oh,” L’Amoureux said, “those roses.”

  Hands trembling, Charlie aimed his flashlight at the glass tube, and there it was, clinking around inside the filmy bottom. A human tooth. A harmless-looking lump of enamel, dentin and pulp. “Look,” he said, holding it out like a prize. “There’s your proof right there.”

  14

  CHARLIE GOT home around three in the morning and found the house empty. “Sophie?” She wasn’t in her room. She wasn’t in the living room or the kitchen or the rec room. He noticed that the light was still burning in his study and found an ugly array of crime scene photos scattered across his desktop. “Shit.” He hadn’t left them out like that. He never left crime scene evidence out where she might see it.

  Pushing through the back screen door, a heavy-duty flashlight clenched in his fist, Charlie strode across the yard with its garbage cans and vegetable garden, traipsed through sprigs of beans and corn and tomatoes and squash. His flashlight beam danced ahead of him, highlighting the purple aster and Indian paintbrush in jiggling sweeps as he headed into the back fields where she probably was. Years ago, when Maddie was alive, they’d picnic in these fields, the sea of grass practically swallowing them whole. His daughter’s favorite tree was out here, the place she used to come to be alone and cry after her mother had passed away. He strode past the bushy box elders, beyond which stretched a gentle swell of unbroken prairie. As soon as he spotted the cottonwood and the small figure crouched beneath it, he began to relax.

  “Sophie?” he said softly, so as not to alarm her.

  She turned with a blurred face. “Dad?” She was huddled at the base of the tree, knees raised, her skinny arms wrapped protectively around them. The old cottonwood was massive, nearly four feet in diameter, and the bark’s dark ridges teemed with aphids and mites. Its stout trunk grew into a wide-spreading crown where thousands of sharp-pointed leaves wagged gently on their flattened stems. Whenever the wind blew, the crown sparkled and beckoned from a distance, and if you closed your eyes, the sound of crashing leaves mimicked the waves of the ocean.

  He sat down next to her, the seat of his pants growing instantly damp from the grass. Once his breathing had resumed its regular pattern, he said, “Do you know what time it is?” He had the luxury of his anger now. “You scared me half to death. Is that what you wanted? To give your old man a heart attack?”

  “Yeah, my evil plan is working.” She winced. “God, your breath stinks! Have you been drinking?”

  He turned his face toward the darkness.

  “You drove home drunk, and you’re worried about me?”

  “You shouldn’t be out here in the middle of the night,” he said. “I’m serious, Sophie. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “Don’t change the subject.”

  “Oh? What subject is that?”

  “That you’re drunk. You lied to me. You said you’d be home by midnight. You’re a drunken liar.”

  It hit him all at once. He rubbed his tired face.

  “You forgot to turn on your cell phone again. There was no way I could reach you.”

  He looked at her. “Why didn’t you call Peg?”

  “Because I didn’t want to bother her. I just wanted you home.”

  “Don’t be mad at me, honey. I did something really unpleasant tonight.”

  Dismay rose in her eyes. “Like what?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Why not?” She was looking really scared now.

  “There are some things I can’t share with you, Sophie.” A whole panoply of images flashed through his brain, eviscerating images that mostly visited him in the middle of the night when he was least able to protect himself from them.

  “Still… Mom would be furious.”

  “I know.” He hung his head.

  “I love you, Dad, but you test my patience.”

  He couldn’t help it. He smiled. He bit it back, but she’d already seen it, and now she observed him with thinly veiled contempt, her mouth twisting slightly open.

  “You think this is funny?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  She dismissed him with feigned disgust.

  He felt her reproach like a thump in the chest and watched her sullen face. She smelled of department store perfume, those sample bottles they handed out. “Hey,” he said. “Forgive me.”

  “Mom wouldn’t let you get away with it.”

  “I know.” The words slipped off his tongue and into the wind like smoke. “You’re right. No more excuses.”

  In the moonlight, the fertile fields squirmed with new life, little green leaves unfurling like curled paws.

  “I came out here, and it was beautiful for a while,” she said, “but then things started to move in the shadows.”

  “It’s okay. I’m here now.”

  She buried her face in her hands.

  “It won’t happen again. I promise, sweetie.” He smoothed his hand over her shiny hair. “The last thing in the world your mother would ever want is for you to be unhappy.”

  “Remember the picnics we used to have back here?” she said, wiping her eyes and putting up a brave front. “We never do stuff like that anymore.”

  He could feel a piercing ache around his heart. “I guess I haven’t been much of a father lately, have I?”

  She curled herself into a compact ball of hurt, and they didn’t speak for a while. A patch of mud at the root of the tree kept sucking at the heels of his shoes. He could hear a chorus of crickets nearby, their mating calls discordant and rhythmic. He switched off his flashlight and the night slowly revealed itself to them, the air shimmery clear beneath a full moon. He could pinpoint downtown Promise by the twinkling beer-colored lights in the distance. So this was what the world was like when it finally caught its breath.

  “You wanna know what I hate the most?” she said in a scratchy voice.

  “What’s that?”

  “That I couldn’t be with her the day she died.”

 
“Your mother was in really rough shape toward the end.”

  She brushed away a quick tear. “I used to dream about her all the time, but I don’t dream about her anymore, Dad.”

  He nodded in silent agreement. Neither did he. He thought about Maddie a lot, but his dreams evaporated with the morning mist. Only the nightmares lingered.

  She looked at him, her mouth set. “Grandpa says we’re all just worm food, anyway.”

  “Your grandfather’s a fool. Don’t listen to him.”

  She glanced skyward, her earnest eyes reflecting two miniature moons, two sparkling orbs. Tears spilled over her lashes and rolled down her cheeks. “I forgot to tell her something,” she admitted.

  “What’s that?”

  “I forgot to tell her what a great mom she was.”

  “So? Tell her now.”

  Goose bumps rose on his arms as he watched her sending out her sad, loving thoughts into the air. He couldn’t look anymore and turned away, a lump forming in his throat. The grass broke before the wind in channels and rivers at their feet. He could hear the activity of the night creatures all around them—the flapping bats and rustling raccoons, the sly, shuffling skunks. His throat was parched, and suddenly he could see the fire with crystal clarity, cinders drifting down like snowflakes. He remembered his father’s blue-veined fury, the belt and fist his weapons of choice. It occurred to him that he’d been so brutalized as a boy he could sometimes be indifferent to his own child’s pain.

  “Think she heard me?” she whispered.

  “Of course,” he said, wondering himself. He wrapped his arms around her, and she grew docile inside his hug; when he wouldn’t let go, she finally relaxed against him and burst into tears, each heartfelt sob as bright as a bell.

  ROUGH WINDS DO SHAKE

  THE DARLING BUDS OF MAY

  1

  ALL THE boards in the house screeched at once, like a thousand nails being pried loose from the walls. Then came a terrible thump, and fifty-four-year-old Birdie Rideout worried about her Swedish modern furniture, the low-slung canvas chairs in the living room, Sailor’s Stratolounger, the dining room set, the bedroom with its pink and persimmon wallpaper. Her house, her beautiful house, was coming apart at the seams. The tornado must be very close.