The Dark House (43 page)

“But it's over, Marj. Over.”

“It won't ever be over.”

Rollins was frightened by her tone. “Please, Marj, don't talk that way.”

There was a knock on the door. “Time to go,” Schecter shouted to him. “LeBeau's here.”

“Just a second,” Rollins shouted back. Then he returned to the receiver. “Look, I've got to go. Just hang on a little longer. Okay, Marj? Please?”

“Okay, Rolo. I'll try.”

 

Detective LeBeau handed Rollins and Schecter some coffee he'd picked up at a Dunkin' Donuts. “Thought you might need something.” Then he drove them back to the house on Bald Mountain Road. The place looked drab in the early morning light, which revealed more starkly the peeling paint and untended shrubs. It seemed destined for tragedy. Several news vans were in the driveway, their satellite dishes elevated to beam the story back to the home station. Over a dozen reporters and cameramen had gathered behind the yellow emergency tape, which now ran from the side of the house out to the trees. They converged on the three of them the moment they emerged from LeBeau's unmarked Chevrolet, shouting so many questions that Rollins couldn't quite make them out.

LeBeau raised his arms to keep everyone back. “Later, guys, please.” He managed to clear a path through them all for Rollins and Schecter, and then raised the yellow tape to allow them to pass through to the backyard.

The two-man Red Top crew was already there. They'd driven their tank across the lawn, flattening several of the croquet wickets on the way. The air stank of raw sewage. “I think we're about halfway down,” one of the policemen said, shouting to LeBeau over the heavy chugging of the Red Top pumps and the horrid slurping sounds coming from inside the tank. It took about ten more minutes, but finally the Red Top man handling the thick hose made a signal to the driver, who shut off the pump, bringing silence to the surrounding field.

“All right, let's get this over with,” Pete, the hose man, said. He was in faded red overalls, and from the expression on his face there was no doubt this was the last place on earth he wanted to be. The driver retracted the hose onto a big spool on the side of the truck, and then four or five uniformed policemen crowded around the open septic hole while the hose man got down on his knees to look inside. “Hand me that flashlight, wouldja Larry?” he told the driver. Larry climbed out of the truck to pass him a long metal flashlight. The hose man thrust the flashlight into the hole, and then poked his head down into it. “Oh boy,” he said when he pulled his head back out.

“What's he see in there?” one of the reporters shouted. Rollins turned: Three or four bulky cameramen had aimed their cameras at him, and a couple of technicians extended long boom microphones his way. Then one of the reporters stepped over the tape to steal a closer look, and three or four others followed. In moments, the whole press contingent was streaming across the lawn. The police chief himself, a burly character named Wexler, raised his arms and shouted to everyone to move back, and then directed a couple of his men to cordon off the area with their cruisers. They came around from the other side of the house, lights flashing, right across the lawn, flattening yet more wickets.

“Okay, let's have a look there,” Chief Wexler said once the cruisers were in place and the media were under control. He took Pete's flashlight and crouched down to peer into the hole himself. “Well, it's a body all right.”

“How in hell we gonna get it out?” a lieutenant asked.

“You can help us with that, can't you, Pete?” the chief said to the hose man.

“I'm not messing with no bodies,” Pete said.

He turned to the driver, who was gazing into the hole. He was extremely slender, with a prominent Adam's apple. “How 'bout you, Larry? You're skinny enough.”

“Aw, shit,” Larry said. “It's always me.” He went back to the truck and put on a pair of heavy work gloves. He sat down by the hole, with his feet in, and then several policemen grabbed him by the arms and lowered him through the narrow opening.

“Careful you don't step on her,” the chief shouted.

“I know, I know,” Larry said.

Finally only his two arms were visible out the opening, and then they disappeared, too. “Okay, I'm down,” came a hollow sound from inside. “Hand me the flashlight.”

A cop obliged.

“You see her?” the chief asked.

“Sure do. Goddamn.”

“Well, bring her up,” the chief said.

Minutes later, as the cameras doubtless zoomed in from behind the squad cars, a bit of grimy skeleton rose out of the hole. A portion of the rib cage, it looked like, with one arm limply attached. “Holy mother of God,” Rollins heard one of the reporters say. The bones themselves seemed delicate, like some sort of artwork, but they were blackened with what must have been excrement, and strips of rotted flesh clung to them in places. Rollins watched with a leaden feeling. Neely. The golden hair, the bright smile, the keenness and joy—all gone; only a few scraps of skin and bone remained. Without a word, the policeman standing by the hole took the segment gently in his gloved hands and laid it down on a canvas sheet that had been stretched out by the hole.

“Hang on. Here's some more,” Larry said from underground. A butterfly-shaped pelvis with a long piece of one leg bone dangling off it came up. The cop laid that down on the canvas, too. Then, one by one, other grime-splattered bones emerged, some a few feet long, others
just an inch or two. Finally, a skull. It might have been a prehistoric pot except for the few strands of golden hair that still adhered. The wisps of hair sparkled yellow in the sun. “Jesus,” a reporter said. The policeman set the skull down on its side.

“That's it,” Larry yelled up finally. “I don't see no more.”

“Okay,” Chief Wexler shouted down. “Good work, Larry. We'll haul you out.” The policemen reached down into the hole to grab Larry's hands. They braced themselves, then, their faces red with effort, pulled Larry out again.

Larry's boots, elbows and much of his front were black with sewage. “I'm never doing that again,” he said. “No fucking way.”

Some reporters shouted for him to come over and answer some questions, but Larry waved them off. “I'm done, guys.” With his gloved hands, he tried to wipe off some of the thicker blobs, but succeeded only in smearing it. “God, I stink,” he muttered. He and Pete climbed back into the big truck and turned it around. The police guided the truck back around to the far side of the house. They undid the police tape, and let the truck pass back through to the driveway.

A man in khakis with the word
FORENSIC
on his nameplate came up to LeBeau, who was still standing with Rollins. “I've got some preliminaries for you,” the man said. “Real rough.”

“Let me have 'em,” LeBeau said.

“Caucasian female, about five-six or five-seven. I think we're looking at about a three-or four-centimeter indentation of the temporal lobe of the skull.”

“You mean she got smacked around?” LeBeau replied.

“You could say.”

“This before or after she was dropped in the tank?”

“It's hard to know for sure, but I'd guess before. Has to do with the location and degree of the trauma. I could show you if you like.”

“Save it,” LeBeau said.

“Also got a bullet hole in the occipital region. About ten millimeters. That's what killed her.”

“Right in the back of the head?”

“Execution style.”

“How about the fact that the body's in pieces?” Chief Wexler asked.

“I'd say that came after.”

“To fit her in the tank, you mean?”

The specialist nodded.

“Larry went in easy enough,” the chief said.

“Larry didn't have rigor mortis.”

“Well, ain't that pretty,” the chief said.

Schecter watched with his arms folded.

By then, the reporters must have figured out the basics of the story, for they started firing questions at Rollins about what had happened. “So what was it?” one man shouted. “Your dad just snap?” Another cried out: “Who's in the tank—your girlfriend?” Still another: “You been arrested yet?” And finally: “I heard there was another man involved. We got a love triangle here?”

Rollins said nothing, and Chief Wexler came over to quiet the throng. “Got anything for us, Chief?” a reporter shouted. “Names? Ages? Motive?”

“Show a little respect, would you please?” Wexler shouted. “This man's innocent. This is a family tragedy, and he's a victim here. We'll be providing some information a little later. This is just for photos, if you want to take them. It's all pretty damn disgusting if you ask me.” Then he pulled Rollins away. He shouted over to the detective, who had returned with the forensic specialist to look over the skeletal remains.

“You need anything more from our friend Ed here?” Wexler asked.

LeBeau shook his head. “Nah, I think we're done for now.” He came over to shake Rollins' hand. “I'm real sorry about all this.”

Then the chief checked to make sure that LeBeau had addresses and telephone numbers for Rollins and Schecter, which he did. “Okay, I think we're all set,” Wexler said finally. “You get home to your family.” He enlisted several of his officers to escort Rollins to his car. Then he shouted after him: “And make sure these jackals don't follow him, you got that?”

Schecter had to leave his car with the police for a few days, since it had figured in the action against Sloane. They wanted to compare his
tires to the tire tracks on the lawn and measure out all the angles involved to make sure the evidence squared with his account. “Sorry, but we've gotta do all the bullshit,” Detective Jencks told him sympathetically. The right side of Schecter's car was in bad shape, anyway. He'd caught the corner of the house when he raced back around to the driveway, and Schecter wasn't sure the Cressida would get all the way to Maine in that condition. He'd have to arrange for repairs through his insurance company. Rollins insisted on paying for any damages that weren't covered by his insurance. “Really, Al, after everything you did for me,” he told him.

He dropped Schecter at the bus station in Brattleboro. He started to shake hands with the detective on the sidewalk, but Schecter clapped him in a big bear hug.

“You know what you need?” Schecter asked.

“No, what?”

“You need a really good cigar.”

Schechter handed him a top-of-the-line Macanudo.

Rollins smiled and climbed back in the car. He ignored all speed limits in driving back down 91 to the hospital. He parked in a loading zone, then dashed inside to the ICU without stopping to check in at the nurses' station. His mother's door was open. She lay motionless in bed as before, tubes drooping down to her. But a man was sitting in a chair by the foot of the bed. He was lean and tousle-haired, and he wore a gray suit, no tie, but a handkerchief in his outside pocket. It was his brother, Richard.

“Hey, Ed,” Richard said quietly, as he rose to his feet.

“So you heard—”

“Your girlfriend called me.” His eyes were downcast, wary.

“Where is she?”

Richard hesitated. “She said she had to go.”

“Go?” Rollins felt panic. “Where?”

“I don't know.” Richard shrugged. “She didn't say.”

“Did you say something to her?”

“Nope.” He turned back to the table where he'd been sitting. “She left a note for you.” He handed his brother a small white envelope, and Rollins ripped it open. There was a note inside.

His bank card was in the envelope.

Rollins had to read the note twice, but even the second time, it didn't make sense.
Can't go on?
What did that mean? Of course they could go on.

Richard spoke: “She didn't really seem your type—if you want my opinion.”

Rollins cut him off. “What would you know about that?”

“Sorry. Look, this whole thing—””

“I've got to find her.”

“Now?” He glanced up. “With Father dead—and what about Mother?”

“You can manage.” Rollins stepped past him to his mother's bedside. She lay on her back, her eyes closed, the breath whistling in and out. Rollins leaned down to her. “And you—God.” She continued to lie there, nearly motionless except for the slight rise and fall of her chest with each breath. “See no evil, hear no evil—isn't that right, Mother?” He stared at her, the anger still strong. “When I think about what you shut your eyes to. What you let me think.”

“If you're going, go,” Richard called over to him. “You're right—we don't need you here. You've done enough.”

“Done enough? Oh, like I'm the one who screwed my niece, then raped her when she wouldn't have me anymore, and then—oh, to hell
with it. What's the point?” Rollins moved to the foot of the bed. “I'm going.” He plucked the jaunty handkerchief from Richard's outside jacket pocket and stuffed it in his brother's hand.

“Use this,” Rollins said. “Crying helps.”

 

He hurried back to his car and drove up to Boston at eighty-five miles an hour, the Nissan shuddering. He made straight for Marj's Brighton apartment, parked by a hydrant, and charged into the lobby the moment the first person opened the front door. He felt the suspicion on him, but he didn't care. He rang Marj's buzzer several times, but got no response. Finally, he pressed the button marked
SUPERINTENDENT
. After several minutes, a sleepy-looking black man in work clothes appeared. “I'm looking for Marj Simmons,” Rollins told him. “You seen her?”