Cold Black Earth (17 page)

“Run where? Where’s there to run to?”

Matt said, “The closest house is the Nylands’, a couple of hundred yards north. The sheriff’s guys checked there right away, as soon as they got some backup. Everybody was OK there, no sign of trouble. They’re checking all the farms around there. Nobody knows where he went.”

“How could he just disappear?”

Nobody had an answer for that. “I gotta go tell Aunt Peg,” said Dan, his voice ragged. “I told the sheriff’s guys I’d do it. What the fuck was I thinking? I can’t do it. It’ll kill her. This’ll put her over the edge. Ah,
shit
.” He took a pull on his beer. “I gotta go tell her.”

Silence reigned. Dan made no move to get up. Rachel swayed a little, her eyes closed. How strong can I be? God, if this is a test, give me the strength to pass it. She opened her eyes and said, “Three miles from here?”

Matt looked up. “That’s right.”

“So he could be right outside by now. He could be watching the house.”

“He could be, I guess. If he’s invisible. There are a lot of cops on the roads right now.”

Dan said, “He could be going across fields. Nobody’d see him from the roads.”

“Then he’s leaving tracks. And the cops’ll find them. Soon as daylight comes. They were looking when we left.”

“He had to have a vehicle,” said Dan. “He’s still got Ed’s truck, I bet. Maybe he staged a breakdown, flagged Carl down, pulled the knife and cut him, then took off in the truck. Who the fuck knows?”

Matt sighed. “If he’s driving Ed’s truck around, I’m not so worried about him hanging around outside the house. It means he’s got a hiding place somewhere.”

They all thought about that for a few seconds. Rachel said, “Clyde gave me his gun. I’ve got it upstairs by my bed.”

A look of weariness, or maybe resignation, passed briefly over Matt’s face. “Keep it there. I think we’re OK as long as we keep the doors locked. I don’t know that this guy’s going around breaking into houses.”

“Not yet,” said Dan. “Shit, I gotta go tell Aunt Peg.” He shoved away from the table and stood up.

Matt watched him as he stood up. “You OK to drive? You look like hell.”

“I feel like hell. But I’ll make it.”

In pressure-cooker situations in Iraq Rachel had found that sometimes the worst part was seeing what stress was doing to other people. Dan looked dazed, unfocused. Rachel saw his hand trembling a little where it rested on the back of the chair. “Be careful,” she said.

“Oh, yeah. You know it.” He turned to her and spread his arms, and they embraced.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Dan released her and made for the door. “Hang in there, pal,” said Matt, and he hugged Dan as well, throwing in a couple of thumps on the back. “You want me to come with you?”

“No, I got it. My job. I shoulda done it first thing. What the fuck time is it? Christ, she’s probably woke up and gotten worried. She’s probably trying to call him on his cell phone. I gotta roll.”

When Dan had gone, Matt and Rachel sat at the table staring at nothing. “This is bad,” said Matt after a while. “This is really, really bad.”

Rachel was thinking about a beach in a sheltered cove on the island of Cyprus, where she and Fadi had lain in the sun and been happy. I want to be anywhere but here, she thought.

Tires crackled on frozen gravel outside. Matt and Rachel traded an electrified look. “Billy,” she said.

“Maybe. Go get that gun.”

“Come on, Matt. It’s Billy.”

They listened as the car pulled up, the engine shut off, a door slammed. When the key went into the lock in the back door, Matt exhaled. “Shit,” he said. “I’m freaked out now, too.”

Billy came into the kitchen with his keys dangling from his fingers, wide-eyed. He stopped still when he saw them at the table. “You heard?” he said.

Matt nodded. “We heard. Where you been?”

“Trying to convince a couple of sheriff’s deputies I didn’t have anything to do with it. They’re all over the place out there. What the fuck’s going on around here?”

“You tell me, son,” said Matt, shaking his head. “You tell me.”

17    

When Rachel awoke groggy and unrested after a couple of hours of fitful sleep, it was past ten and the sheets of snow on the fields outside were gleaming in the sun. She came downstairs to find Matt in the kitchen talking to two strangers, obvious cops despite the plain clothes. One was heavy-set and gray, the other thin, fair and intense with a short military haircut. Introductions were made but Rachel forgot their names immediately, retaining only the fact that they were from the Illinois State Police. Matt sat at the head of the table bleary-eyed and bedraggled, and Rachel wasn’t sure he’d been to bed at all.

“I was about to come and get you,” Matt said. “The, um, officers had a few questions. About Ed.”

“Oh.” Rachel made for the coffeemaker. “OK. I made a statement already. I thought the guys I talked to were from the State Police.”

“They were,” said the older man. “And we’ve got their report. We just wanted to go over a couple of things.”

Rachel poured herself a cup of coffee and brought it to the table. “Like what a coincidence it is that both murders were discovered by people from the same family?” There was an awkward silence, glances darting around the table.

With a hint of a shrug the younger detective said, “Well, technically speaking your brother didn’t discover it. He was the first on the scene after the call. But we don’t have any reason to believe it was anything but coincidence. If you’ve got any ideas about it being otherwise, we’d like to hear them.”

Rachel shook her head. “No. Though I’m starting to wonder why our family seems to have a black cloud hanging over it.”

It was Matt who answered the looks of keen interest from the detectives. “We’ve had some deaths in the family over the past few years,” he said.

“Sorry to hear that,” said the older detective, managing to look sympathetic. He waited a second or two and said, “Actually, what I wanted to ask you was whether you had remembered anything more. The report says you were unable to remember what exactly you saw at the scene.” He was working hard to keep his expression neutral, but Rachel could see the skepticism there.

She drew a deep breath. “I’m told it’s called traumatic amnesia. I can remember everything up until I went around the corner of the barn. I turned the corner and saw something terrible, and then the next thing I remember I was in my car, driving away. It’s hard to explain. I know I saw it, but I just have a blank there where there ought to be a visual memory.”

The detective nodded. “You use the term
traumatic amnesia
. Is that a professional diagnosis? Did you get counseling, see a doctor about this?”

She shook her head. “No. That’s not a professional diagnosis. It’s amateur speculation.”

The detectives traded a look, and Rachel knew what was coming. “I think you should see somebody,” the younger detective said. “Consult a doctor.”

Rachel clasped her hands under the table to stop them trembling. “So I can remember what I saw? I’m not sure I want to.”

“In case you saw something that might be of importance,” said the older man.

“I saw exactly what she saw,” said Matt. “I was there in a few minutes. And then within half an hour the place was overrun with cops. There’s no need to make her go through something traumatic again.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Lindstrom, you can’t guarantee she saw exactly what you did. Not if there was a gap of a few minutes.”

“I can tell you what I saw,” said Rachel. “I saw Ed Thomas’s body cut up in pieces. I know that intellectually. I just don’t have the visual memory, that’s all.”

Again the detectives consulted each other silently. This time the older one said, “All right, we’ll leave that for the time being. I was wondering if I could go over a couple of other points with you.” He took her through her story, from hearing the chainsaw in the night to seeing the coyote. “You’re fairly certain about the time, when you heard the chainsaw going?”

“I think it was close to midnight. That’s about all I can tell you. I looked at the clock in my room when I went to bed a few minutes later, and it was around twelve fifteen.”

The cop nodded. “That correlates pretty well with what other people have told us.”

“You mean I wasn’t the only one who heard it?”

“Oh, no. Lots of people heard it, and they all pretty much agree on the time. That’s pretty helpful, actually, in pinning down the time of the attack.”

Rachel felt a knot of tension ease deep inside her. She was not alone; this was not just her nightmare. “I wish I’d known what I was hearing,” she said.

“By that time it was too late to do anything,” the older cop said.

“Except maybe increase the chances of catching the guy.”

“Don’t second-guess yourself. Nobody else did anything, either. They just thought somebody was cutting up wood.” He put away his pen and flipped his notebook shut. “We’ll get this guy before too long. As I was telling your brother, we’re in the process of putting together a task force to investigate these killings. ISP, Dearborn County Sheriff and Warrensburg PD are all contributing personnel. That gives us plenty of manpower to track this guy down.”

Rachel frowned at him over her coffee cup. “You’re sure it’s Otis Ryle, are you?”

The cops exchanged a brief look and the older one said, “Nothing’s for sure at this stage except we’ve got two people dead in close proximity. But we’re working on a strong presumption it’s Otis Ryle, yes. Sometimes the obvious is actually the case. Most times, in fact.”

“So where is he?”

“Good question,” said the younger cop, as they both stood up. “We don’t know. But considering you’ve had two killings within a few miles of here, I think the answer has to be, ‘Not far’. I say that not to frighten you but to make you careful. Keep your doors locked, check the car before you get in. Don’t for God’s sake pick up any hitchhikers or even stop to help somebody at the side of the road, unless it’s somebody you know personally. If you see anything suspicious, don’t investigate, don’t be a hero. Call 911 and get to a safe place. This guy’s very, very dangerous.”

All Rachel could do was nod. Matt said, “I think we’re pretty clear on that point.”

When the detectives had gone Rachel said, “Why did they say to check the car before I get in?”

Matt sighed, massaging his forehead. “When they looked at the blood splatter, and the angle of the cut and all of that, it looks like Carl was attacked from behind.”

“From behind.”

“Yeah. It looks like the guy was sitting in the backseat of the truck and reached around and cut Carl’s throat from behind.”

Rachel shuddered. “God, like he was hiding back there or something?”

“That’s what it looks like. Carl had been at the tavern over there on 150 all evening. He left about midnight to drive home and Andy found him about a quarter to one. And the cops didn’t find any other tire marks at the scene, so it doesn’t look like he stopped for a breakdown or anything like that. Either somebody flagged him down, on foot, or somebody was in the car with him when he left the bar. In the backseat.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Rachel covered her mouth with her hands.

“Yeah. Think about that next time you get in the car.”

Rachel was in desperate need of normality. Susan had half a dozen interviews to transcribe for her oral history, so she volunteered to help. She drove into Warrensburg, checking the backseat of the Chevy carefully before she got in, suppressing a creeping dread. She saw a sheriff’s car on the highway into town, heading north as she went south, but otherwise no sign of any massive law enforcement mobilization. The land looked barren and sterile, scoured by a bitter wind.

I can do this, thought Rachel. If the military people can do it, if the Iraqi doctors can do it, I can do it. She had seen people whose job it was to contend with violent death get into a zone where they were able to function no matter how bad the things they saw got to be. She had never known how they did it, and she had hoped never to have to do it herself. Now she was feeling for that zone.

I got off easy in Iraq, she thought, and this is my test.

The wind whistled around the eaves of Susan’s house, but it was warm inside, with the radiators hissing and a pot of tea on the table and Brahms on the stereo. Rachel and Susan took turns at the laptop, straining to interpret the reedy voices coming from Susan’s recorder. It was really a one-woman job, but if it went more slowly with frequent interruptions for laughter and digressions, it also was less tedious. They had talked about Carl Holmes’s death on the phone in the morning, and it had not been mentioned again; Rachel silently blessed Susan for her restraint.

“The hard part was being so lonesome, with Bob so far away and nobody but small children to talk to. There were days when I just went and hid in a closet and cried.”
Rachel punched the Stop button on the recorder and her fingers flew over the keys. She finished the entry and said, “Boy, is that a common theme.”

“No kidding,” said Susan from the kitchen, where she was taking brownies out of the oven. “I know men have the tough part in a war, but the women aren’t far behind. Imagine trying to function like that, your husband out there in mortal danger somewhere, and here you are trying to keep a family together, run a farm, whatever. Those women were heroes, too.”

“Tell me about it. And these days a lot of the military people in Iraq are mothers with children at home. Try that one on for size.” Rachel punched the button.
“And it was the lonesomeness that made trouble for some folks, too. When the cat’s away the mice will play, you know.”

“Oh, yeah, this was interesting,” said Susan, bringing in the brownies. “Old Greta Swanson can still dish out the malicious gossip, seventy years later.”

“Not me, goodness, don’t get me wrong. But it happened. Farmers didn’t get drafted, because they got an occupational exemption. A lot joined up anyway, but there was a lot that didn’t. So there was a lot of lonesome wives and a lot of healthy young farmers around to make mischief. And then when men came home there was bad blood sometimes.”

“That would do it,” said Rachel. “Come home from the war and find out your wife had been sleeping with the guy that didn’t go? I’d be peeved, too. Come to think of it, that was pretty much what happened to me.” She bent to her typing.

Susan waited for her to finish and shoved the brownies toward her. “Try one of these. It won’t mend a broken heart, but it’ll keep you from wasting away. Want me to take over?”

“Sure.” Rachel yielded the chair to Susan and moved to the other side of the table, mouth full of brownie. The anecdote had hit too close to home. Suddenly stricken, she sat and ate, staring out the window at the leaden sky, determined not to tear up. She was aware of Susan shooting covert glances at her as she listened, then typed. “Don’t worry,” Rachel said. “I’m not going to cry.”

“Cry if you want to. Nobody here’s gonna mind.” Susan finished typing and started the tape again.
“I don’t think Gus Holmes ever really believed Carl was his son.”

Susan punched the Stop button, and she and Rachel stared at each other across the table.

“Oh, my God,” said Susan. “Is that a coincidence, or what?”

Rachel frowned. “Go on. What did she say?”

Susan started the tape.
“Nancy had Carl just under nine months after Gus got home from the army. Some people said the baby was early, but others said it looked like a fine healthy nine-month baby. Whatever Nancy thought about it was between her and Gus, but Gus was awfully hard on that boy, and on Nancy, too. And there was a young fellow that went off to California about that time, that some said was run out of town by Gus Holmes. But nobody ever knew what the truth of the matter was.”

“California,” said Rachel.

Susan punched Stop. “Huh?”

“Who went out to California about that time?”

Susan blinked at her. “Is this a riddle? I give up.”

“That’s too much coincidence,” Rachel said, feeling a chill creep up from her core.