An End to a Silence: A mystery novel (The Montana Trilogy Book 1) (12 page)

Alice
White heard a noise and she stopped reading. She listened carefully and all was
quiet. And then the noise again. A tapping on a window. She put down the
newspaper and levered herself off her chair. She paused to let the strength
come back into her gone-to-sleep legs. She hobbled over to the living room door
and then the tapping came again from the kitchen. She turned on the hall light
and shuffled to the back of the house. When she entered the kitchen she could
see a figure beyond the door that led into the kitchen. She flicked on the
light.

“Is that
you?” Alice called. She fiddled with the key in the lock and then opened the
door. The man stood there freezing.

“Yes,
it’s me, Ma,” the man said, and he pulled down his hood and clapped his hands
together to get some blood running through them. His face was a compendium of
turmoil.

“Everything
all right?” Alice asked.

“He saw
me, Ma,” he said.

“Who saw
you?”

“The
policeman. The old policeman. I was up at the old people place and…”

Alice
stared into the space at the side of the man and her eyes lingered there for a
few seconds and then she looked back at him.

“Well,
what’s done is done. Did he recognize you?” Alice asked, and she held his hand
and frowned at how cold it was and then she rubbed it.

“He
maybe… I think so,” the man said, and then, “Did I do something wrong, Ma? Do I
need to go away?”

“No, no,
of course not. The Lord showed you to him and this is all part of His plan.”
She took his other hand and started to rub that one. “You’re cold as death.
Come on, let’s warm you up.”

The
Bozeman residence of Troy’s parents was prairie Victorian style with an acre of
impeccably landscaped garden which was tidy even though it was winter ravaged.
A huge storage shed sat at the edge of the garden and a raised gazebo sat
center stage, waiting to be used again come springtime.

The snowy
mountain peaks loomed behind the house, their white tops obscured by sunken
sky. Aged snow still lurked in corners of the garden, hardened to white icy
crusts. When Ward stepped out of his car his breath seemed to freeze as it came
out and he figured it was probably five degrees colder here. His hand throbbed.
Troy’s father Joe opened the door before Ward got there and he called out to
Ward.

“What’s
your business before you come any further there?”

“I’m
Ward. Come to pick up Laurie, sir. Cherry called?”

“You’re a
cop,” Joe said, and Ward wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question but he
automatically pulled out his badge and held it up for Troy’s father to see.

“I don’t
need to see your badge. Cherry’s say-so is good enough for me. Are you going to
come in?”

Ward
said, “Yes, sir, please,” and he saw Laurie twitching a curtain and he smiled
at her. She disappeared and when Ward entered the house she was there, standing
behind Troy’s mom, Dorothy.

“What did
the son of a bitch do this time? That’s why you’re here.”

Ward
looked at little Laurie and wasn’t sure how to proceed. He just said, “Aw, she
had a fall and—”

“Bullshit,”
Joe said.

“Joseph,”
Dorothy said. “No need to curse.”

“I’ll
curse. She’s heard it before,” Joe said.

“From
you, mainly,” Dorothy said.

“He beat
her up?” Joe said to Ward.

Again, with
Laurie standing there Ward wasn’t sure what to say. So he didn’t say anything.

“She
already knows what a son of a bitch her father is.”

“Joseph,”
Dorothy said again and Joe relented.

“Come in,
Ward. You got a first name?”

“Ward will
do, I reckon,” Ward said. “It’s what everybody calls me.”

The house
was spacious and extremely tidy and Ward liked that. The entrance hall was clad
with wood from floor to ceiling. Ward was led into the large living room, which
displayed various hunting artifacts and an elk’s head on the wall. They all sat
except Laurie, who stood behind her grandfather’s chair.

“You like
to hunt?” Joe asked.

“I used
to like it some.”

“What did
you hunt?”

“Well,
sir, I would hunt deer and hog mostly and the occasional turkey,” Ward said,
and he detected a thawing in Troy’s father’s demeanor. “I fished too.”

“You a
good shot?”

“I would
say so, sir. Better with a rifle than a fishing pole.”

“You done
military service?” Joe said.

“Yes,
sir.”

“Where
did you serve?”

“I did tours
of Iraq and Afghanistan,” Ward said, and his face darkened at the mention of
that.

“Army?
Marine?”

“I was
Infantry, sir. Sniper.”

“Kills?”
Joe asked, and Ward took a deep breath.

“Oh, I
don’t know.”

“Bullshit,”
Joe said, and this time Dorothy just frowned an ‘I give up’ frown. “Sniper
knows how many men he’s killed. You guys keep a tally. Had one friend was a
sniper and he kept a book. Described every single kill in detail.”

“It’s not
something I usually discuss,” Ward said, and Joe’s eyes seemed to twinkle above
a faint smile but he let it go.

“I was in
the Marine Corps myself. Would have still been if I hadn’t have been retired
off. I could still do a job out in Afghanistan.”

Ward
nodded respectfully.

“You want
to see my guns?” Joe asked, and Ward didn’t feel he could refuse.

Ward said
goodbye to Dorothy as she fastened up Laurie’s coat and Laurie stood patiently
and quietly without a hint of a fidget.

Dorothy
said, “He’s still my son, you know.”

Ward
fixed his hat in place. “I know.”

All
fastened up, Laurie grabbed the handle of her miniature pink suitcase and took
hold of Ward’s left hand. At the door Troy’s father held out his right hand to
shake Ward’s and Ward offered it without thinking. He almost cried out in pain
under Joe’s grip and his knees buckled slightly. Joe let go quickly and he
stepped back and his eyes lingered on Ward’s. He slowly nodded his head at Ward
and Ward turned and walked to his car, hand in hand with Laurie, his right hand
throbbing and suddenly very hot, and tears freezing in the corners of his eyes.

Lieutenant
Gammond wasn’t observant for a cop. Newton had always felt he’d been lucky to
rise up the ranks as he did and he found it hard to give him his respect. A
feeling at the back of his mind scratched away from time to time and told
Newton that Gammond had stolen his job. But he lived with it. The failure
twenty-five years ago had thrown a spike strip under Newton’s career, or that’s
how he saw it anyway.

But
Gammond didn’t see the anguish on Newton’s face as he entered his office. He
merely waved a hand and gestured towards the chair on the other side of his
desk. Newton sat down instead on a chair on the other side of the room, by the
door. Ordinarily Newton wouldn’t have sat but he did this time. Something else
that an observant cop would’ve picked up on. In fact, he didn’t sit, he
slumped. Gammond waved his hand again and Newton understood it to mean he
wanted the door closed so he leaned to his left and shoved the door and it
latched gently.

“Bring me
up to speed on the O’Donnell case,” Gammond said, and for a moment Newton was
back in 1985 and heavy-lidded eyes cast up at Gammond and he was confused. He
expected to see Lieutenant Carson sitting there, his bald head nodding too
readily in that way it did as he listened intently to Newton’s excuses for not
finding the boy. Not getting close to a satisfactory resolution. Newton
scratched his head briskly and looked around the office to get his bearings and
suddenly he raced across twenty-five years and was back in the room.

“You want
me to send Ward in when he gets back?”

“No, I
want you to tell me.”

“Progress
is slow” is all Newton managed and Gammond nodded and Newton again thought of
Lieutenant Carson.

“Any
suspects?” Gammond said.

“Nobody
of any great interest,” Newton said, and he fished out his pain relief
medication bottle but there was only one pill left. He threw it back and
swallowed.

“You
spoke to James Kenny.”

“Right,”
Newton said as the pill went down slowly.

“He a suspect?”

“No.”

“Said you
had him cornered up there at the school and you did interrogate him some.”

“Wasn’t
much of an interrogation if that’s what he’s told
you.
”

“What’s
the angle there? Any?”

“Simply that
he owns the nursing home. It was just procedural stuff, you
know.”      

Carson
nodded vigorously and Newton wanted to grab him and shake his stupid head off
and then he realized it wasn’t Carson at all but Gammond.

Gammond
said, “Okay, good, right, well, let’s try and wrap this up quickly as
possible.”

And
Newton thought he might get a pat on the head, “good dog”, and tossed a
biscuit.

“And the
other case. The boy.”

Newton
was going to say Ward had that but he snatched his words back just in time. “We’re
not looking at that.”

Gammond
stared at Newton for a few beats and then nodded. “Good.”

Newton
didn’t mention that he had just seen the boy, grown up.

Gammond
seemed to have lost interest and he started to fuss papers around on his desk
so Newton concluded that the meeting was over. He rose slowly from his chair,
and as he did Gammond’s phone rang. Before Newton could get his brittle body
out of the room Gammond said, “Dang shit, we have a situation,” and his face
flushed as he stood. “I better go get the captain.”

The
shellac has dried up in the can. Bill O’Donnell pokes around in the bottom of
the can with a stick to loosen the dried-up bits and he adds some paint thinner
which has lasted better than the shellac. He stirs and as he does so he casts
around for something else he can make use of. An old can of paint, some
varnish, some wood preserver. He gathers it up and pours everything into an old
tub that once stored flour and he concocts a cocktail of various fluids and the
vapors sting his nose and his dried-out throat which feels like it’s lined with
tree bark. He realizes he hasn’t drunk or eaten anything for hours and he
wonders what the mixture in front of him might taste like. He finds a large
paintbrush which has stiffened over time but hasn’t rotted and he goes to work
on it to try and soften it up. He scrunches the bristles and taps them on the
old stone sink and one or two bristles break off but enough stay in place and
then he’s ready.

The boy
is still wrapped in the sheet, which is now showing the camouflage grime of the
journey. He lifts him and the tiny body is stiff and he’s desperate that it
doesn’t crack and shatter into a million parts and crumble to dust and blow
away on the breeze that has picked up now.

He
cradles him for half a mile through thick undergrowth and he goes up and up
above the cabin where he had once lived during a previous lifetime when things
were good and things were simple – until his wife died and set him on a journey
into civilization and on the road which eventually led to him burying his
grandson.

He comes
to a small clearing where the tree canopy opens up and is mostly below his feet
and the ground has a covering of grass and the hole that he has dug is so small
he thinks he will have to make it bigger but when he lays the boy next to it
the hole seems so large. He stands there a while and he looks around over the
tops of the trees which waltz on the wind. He hears the birds now and their
songs trill innocence and he thinks it’s a fitting requiem. He wants to say a
prayer but he isn’t sure how to do it so he just speaks the word “sorry”.

He sees
in the distance a thin pillar of smoke – five, six, seven miles away and for a
moment he thinks he’s being followed but then he realizes what it is. A
lightning strike from the previous night has lit the dried-out trunk of a dead
pine and a fire is spreading on the wind.

He goes
about his work now, tightening the sheet and tying it with the rope in a
crisscross pattern. Then he dips the brush into the cocktail he has created and
he begins to paint the bundle and he feels light-headed and he puts it down to
the fumes.

After he
has applied one coat he sits and rests. The dry wind has crusted the tears in
the corners of his eyes and he doesn’t cry again and he wonders if he will ever
cry again.

He sits
for an hour and then he paints on another coat and then he sits for another
hour and he begins to feel hungry.

Gently,
he lowers the boy into the grave and his hands are sticky with the
mummification mixture so he rubs dirt on them and wipes them on the grass. With
the spade he starts to cover the body. The dirt and stones thud against the
tiny package and gradually the body is covered and the level of the soil rises
as the earth swallows the boy until there is a small mound. He pats the mound
with the back of the spade and then he stands up and walks away, picking up the
tub and brush and making his way back to the cabin, where he leaves them and he
leaves the cabin and returns to the boat and rows.

He
retraces his journey on foot now and the smoke is no longer a pillar but a
cloud and it’s getting closer and he can smell it. He picks up his discarded
flashlight on the old lumber track where he left it.

It’s
hours later when he reaches his truck and he sits inside it and closes his eyes
but sleep doesn’t come. The smoke from the fire spreads through the forest like
a creeping fog now and the wind is blowing directly towards him and so he
starts up the truck and he drives into the forest and when the forest blocks
further entry he turns off the engine and he leaves the truck and he walks
away.

He passes
cotton wool pockets of thick smoke which have settled in sheltered dips and
then he sees the glow of flames ahead like the glow from a huge sodium-vapor
street lamp and as he gets closer the late afternoon gets warmer and he hears
the voices of firefighters so he turns south and picks his way through thick
plantation forest until he reaches another small track. The fire spreads west
behind him and the thickening black smoke veils the sun and the sky is dried
blood and he thinks that he smells like a resident of Hell.