Face on the Wall (36 page)

“What about an autopsy?” demanded Annie. “Wouldn't an autopsy show what really happened?”

“A fractured skull, that's all, perfectly consistent with the impact of the kid's head on the tile floor. And of course it would be perfectly consistent with a sledgehammer blow too, only Gast must have been careful to strike in the same place.”

“Oh, I hate him,” groaned Mary.

Annie gripped Homer's arm. “It all adds up. The Chevy, the key, the sledgehammer. We've got him, Uncle Homer.”

Homer shook his head gloomily. “No, we haven't.”

“Oh, Homer,” said Mary, “surely it's enough.”

“No, it's not. Ron at the hardware store, he can't remember what tools Gast bought that day. The sledgehammer still has a price tag on it, but it might be three or four years old. Even if it's brand-new, there's no way of proving it was used to murder Eddy. And as for the keys, there's no law against copying somebody else's keys.”

“But what about the failing brakes?” cried Annie. “Uncle Homer, he hired that guy in prison to make the brakes fail.”

“You mean you'd take the word of a convicted felon over that of an upstanding citizen like Gast? There was no contract, no writing on a piece of paper. Gast can claim he never met the guy. He never paid him, there was no written agreement to do anything.” Homer looked at Annie dolefully. “So you see, it's no good. It's just not good enough.”

They stared at each other and fell silent. Then Mary looked at her watch and jumped up. “It's quarter to ten. I should be in school. Thank God, there are only a few more days.”

There was a loud knocking at Annie's front door. “Hey, you guys, let me in!” It was Perry Chestnut, coming to take Homer's place. Homer got up and opened the door, then slipped past Perry and hurried across the driveway to his car. Tim Foley, the good-looking young photographer from the
Globe,
took his picture.

Behind Tim a dumpy middle-aged camerawoman let the opportunity go by. Bertha Rugg remembered what her boss had said,
Come back with a picture of Anna Swann,
and she intended to do just that.

Dirk Sprocket's bill was in the mail. Bob Gast looked at it in horror. “But you're part of the firm,” he said to Roberta. “I thought it was sort of like a family, you helped each other out.”

“We do. That sum, it's nothing. It would normally be three times that.” Then Roberta burst out at him, “You said we were doing so well. When your mother died you said—what was it you said?—we're sitting pretty, that's what you said.”

Gast's toupee had slipped over his forehead. Wrathfully he thrust it back. “Well, we're not. Not anymore. My God, with all those fucking wrecking companies and Charlene's goddamned private school and, look here, just look at this little reminder from her swimming coach! God
damnit,
Roberta, we can't afford an indoor swimming pool.”

“How are you going to tell her that? The poor kid has just lost the Junior Olympics.”

“Well, it's too bad. It's not my fault, is it? I've done my best, my goddamned best.” Gast was nearly in tears. “She'll just have to take it. There isn't going to be any indoor pool.”

At this there was a scream behind his back. It was Charlene, coming into the room. “Daddy! You said! You promised!”

He whirled around and faced her, his daughter, his enemy. “We can't do it, Charlene. There'll be no indoor swimming pool. It's impossible, it's absolutely impossible. Face facts. Have a little pity.”

Charlene had no pity. She stared at him, another scream bursting in her throat as the vision faded, the blue-green water, the track lighting, the deck chairs, the tropical plants. Stiffly she turned and walked away, betrayed by her own father.

Chapter 54

Who'll be chief mourner?

I, said the Dove,

I mourn for my love,

I'll be chief mourner.

Mother Goose rhyme

S
ergeant Bill Kennebunk was on the phone again.

“Oh, hi, Bill,” said Homer. “What's new?”

“That forensic botanist, he finally made his report.”

“Oh, of course. I forgot about the forensic botanist. What did he say?”

“Those leaf fragments, some of them are
Ajuga canadensis.
It's a member of the mint family, a kind of low-growing ground cover.”

“Well, okay. Small's coat was covered with burdock burrs and
Ajuga canadensis.
So what?”

“It's very interesting, that's what.
Ajuga canadensis
is very rare in Massachusetts. I happen to know that it grows in only one place in Norfolk County. Last year I wrote it up for the local paper.”

“I see.” Homer gripped the telephone eagerly. “So you know where that fleecy coat of Small's picked up all those leaves? Are you sure he wasn't a wildflower enthusiast, just like you?”

“I doubt it very much. So how'd you like to join me? It's one of the last remaining patches of woods around here. It's not in Southtown, it's next door in Northtown, on Route 109.”

“How about this afternoon My class in Cambridge is over at two.”

“I'll meet you at three. There's a Mobil station on 109 about a mile beyond Westwood. It's right across from the woods. Three o'clock,” okay?”

The trees on the edge of the woods in Northtown were lopped to make room for tiers of telephone wires. Homer parked on the shoulder of the road behind Kennebunk's elderly Volvo, and together they walked through the mangled trees.

Deeper into the woods the trees had been left alone. Birches bent this way and that. There were yellow growing tips on the lacy branches of the hemlocks. Below the trees the undergrowth was thick with ferns. “Look,” murmured Kennebunk, “princess pine.”

They walked on, and Kennebunk pointed out the miniature creeping plant he called
Ajuga canadettsis.
Homer bent down to look at its microscopic flowers. Then Sergeant Kennebunk beckoned, and they went farther into the woods, following no path, climbing over fallen tree trunks, wading through densely interlaced dead branches. At last Bill Kennebunk stopped and said softly, “Here we are,” and Homer muttered, “Oh, my God.”

If it had not been strewn with fresh flowers, they would have missed it. The grave was only a slight rise in the ground, littered with fallen twigs and a rotting stump that had been dragged over the ground to cover it.

“Who brought the flowers?” whispered Homer.

“I don't know, but I'll bet it wasn't Small.”

“The lover?” said Homer. He watched as Sergeant Kennebunk reached down and gathered up a handful of wildflowers—yarrow and chicory, daisies and clover. “Look,” he said, “they're fresh. They must have been picked very recently.” He glanced at Homer, and together they stared around into the surrounding trees. “Come on,” said Kennebunk. “Let's take a look.”

They moved in a circle, exploring the nearby woods, finding only scatterings of dead wildflowers. Someone had been bringing them to the grave, gathering up the old flowers and tossing them away.

At last they gave up and walked back to the road, where Kennebunk reached into the back of his car and brought out a couple of shovels. Together they returned to the grave and cleared it of fallen branches and the rotten stump. Meticulously, for no reason he could think of, Homer picked up all the flowers and set them aside. Then, solemnly, resolutely, they began to dig.

It wasn't hard. The original burial must have been much more difficult—Homer pictured Frederick Small sweating, cursing at the root-packed dirt. Before long they had shoveled out a heap of sandy soil, leaving a steep-sided hole bristling with the torn ends of roots. Only two feet down they put aside their shovels and Homer said, “Oh, Christ.”

In the dry cavity, spreading out from the mound of dirt still covering the body, was an aureole of golden hair.

“That goddamned bastard,” said Kennebunk. He looked up at Homer. “You know, McNutt isn't going to like this. He'll think of some excuse to hush it up.”

“Why don't you put it in the paper first?” suggested Homer brightly. “I mean, before you tell him?”

“He won't like that either, but what the hell?”

Bob Gast too said,
What the hell
? Bob had a new number for Fred Small, but he was so blinded with rage, he misdialed it again and again. When he got through at last, Small merely whispered his hello.

Bob roared at him. “What the hell's going on? What the hell, what the hell?”

Mary Kelly did not swear when Homer told her what he and Sergeant Kennebunk had found in the Northtown woods, she wept. When she stopped weeping, she said, “Oh, Homer, what happens now? What will they do with her now?”

“Well, there'll have to be an autopsy,” said Homer uncomfortably, wincing at the memory of the pathetic remains he had seen in Pearl's grave. “Fortunately, we found her in Northtown, not Southtown, so Kennebunk doesn't have to deal with Chief McNutt. The chief officer in Northtown was reasonable enough. He's starting a serious search for Small, spreading a wide net, bringing in people from all over. He seems to know what he's doing.”