Sweet After Death

by Valentina Giambanco

  “Mr. Tanner,” Chief Sangster said.

  “Chief,” Jeb Tanner replied.

  “I’d like to speak with you.”

  “What about?”

  “It would be easier to do it in town.”

  “In town means in the police station.”

  “It means what it means.”

  “I don’t think so,” Tanner said. “You have anything to say, you can say it to me here, or not at all.”

  “It won’t take long.”

  “I don’t care how long it would take.”

  “We can come back with a warrant, but then you’d have wasted your time and ours.”

  It sounded like a conversation that had played out a number of times before.

  Tanner ignored the chief and turned his attention to the two strangers in his yard—Hockley and Kupitz were also strangers, but they wore the local uniform and thus were no more significant to him than a spare tire in the chief’s cruiser.

  “Who are you?” Tanner addressed Brown. The tone was not hostile, it was more of a rough kind of curiosity.

  “Someone who’s here to make sure the chief does his job right,” Brown said.

  The reply seemed to amuse Tanner, because he smiled at Sangster. There was nothing pleasant about the smile.

  “I can see how you’d want to check up on him,” Tanner said. “Local police couldn’t catch flies in a bucketful of honey.”

  Brown didn’t exactly return the smile but bowed his head a little, as if they’d just shared a private joke. He extended his hand: “Detective Sergeant Brown, Seattle PD.”

  Tanner looked at the hand for a moment, then took it. His own hand was large and calloused and it gripped Brown’s like a snake’s coil.

  “Detective Madison, Seattle PD,” she said and was glad she was standing too far away to shake his hand. His touch, she had decided without knowing exactly why, would be as foul as the scent in the yard.

  “Let’s keep it short and to the point, Tanner,” Sangster bristled. “We need you to come back with us. The sooner you come, the sooner you get back.”

  “We’re on the man’s land, Chief,” Brown said. “Maybe we can show a degree of respect. What do you think?”

  “I think I’ve just about had enough.” Sangster turned to Tanner. “Do I need to get a warrant?”

  “You can go to hell to get your warrant, Chief. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

  “It’s all right, Sangster,” Brown said. “Mr. Tanner here doesn’t really need to come back to the station.”

  “The heck he doesn’t.”

  There were the men’s words, rising in pitch, and there was the pale little boy, so exposed in the icy air. Madison focused on the father but her attention kept drifting to the child’s dainty foot. Was he not cold? Where were the others? And how many others were there?

  “We can talk to him here just as well,” Brown said.

  “Back off, Detective,” Sangster said. “You’re here as a guest of the county.”

  As the exchange had become sharper, the kid had tensed up in his father’s arms. He might, or might not, be cold, but he certainly was scared.

  “How old is your boy?” Madison said abruptly.

  “What?” The question had surprised Tanner. “Why do you care?”

  “Because he shouldn’t have to listen to this kind of rudeness, sir,” Madison replied. “I’m sure you have plenty of better things to do but, please, let us do our job and we’ll be out of here faster than he can go get his warrant signed.” She looked at the chief. “Faster than shit through a goose.”

  “That’s not—”

  “The choice,” Brown said, “is Mr. Tanner’s.”

  The notion of sticking it to the chief was simply irresistible. How many times had Sangster pestered him over the years? How sweet would it be to humiliate him in front of his superiors? Tanner was going to enjoy the moment.

  “Get off my land,” he said. “Didn’t you see the NO TRESPASSING sign? Don’t you know how to read? Don’t they teach you that in cop school?” He sneered at the local officer. “Get off my property, Chief. The Seattle cops can stay.”

  Chief Sangster’s cruiser made its way back along the dirt road that led to the gate of Jackknife Farm.

  When he reached the state police truck, the captain—still in the cab—met his eyes.

  Sangster gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Come with me,” Tanner said.

  How much time did they have before he tired of their company? How much time to get what they needed? Tanner’s sons both carried rifles, and either could have been used in the murder of Ty Edwards. For the first time Madison made eye contact with the youths, but they quickly looked away and followed their father: they were his bodyguards. And the small boy, she sensed then, had perhaps fulfilled the same function as the ballistic vest that bound her chest—if not protection, definitely a deterrent.

  The barn was dim after the wide, watery sky of the yard. In the far corner a deer hung upside down, tied by its hind legs to a joist. Their visit had interrupted the men in the middle of field-dressing the animal, and Madison blinked away the spiky scent.

  A table covered with sharp tools stood in the middle of the cavernous space and a boy looked up as they entered. He was in his teens, so lean he was scrawny, and if he was ever going to go through the same growth spurt as his brothers there was no sign of it yet.

  The boy stared from his father to the strangers and back to his father, as if to gauge what his own reaction to the strangers should be.

  The man passed him the little boy, and he took him without words; Madison noticed his gentle handling of the child, how he tucked him under his coat.

  “Take him inside and come back. Tell the others to go back to their chores,” Jeb Tanner said.

  The boy acknowledged the instruction with a curt nod and left. The man waved to the youths and they propped their rifles against the bales of hay stacked on one side, then started to work on the deer. Madison, who knew more than she would have liked about the subject, watched their incisions. They were fast and efficient.

  There had been no question or hesitation in following the orders given, and Madison doubted there had ever been.

  “What do you really want?” Tanner said after a moment. “Aside from offering me a chance to vex old Sangster, that is. And I sure thank you for it.”

  The question had been asked of Brown. “The chief does what he can in a situation that’s less than good,” he replied.

  “You don’t need to apologize for him. I’ve known him for years. Have endured him for years.”

  “We’re here to make sure things are done right, and this particular situation is bigger than the chief can handle.”

  “Is it now?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  “We’re talking about a double murder.”

  Tanner stiffened. Madison glanced at the young men, and for a heartbeat their knives hung still.

  “A double murder?” the man said.

  “Yes.”

  “In Ludlow?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” Jeb Tanner said. “I’m very sorry to hear that. Who died?”

  “You didn’t hear about it on the radio?”

  “We don’t have a radio, or a television for that matter.”

  “Why not?”

  “I won’t let my family be corrupted by the filth and the lies they push.”

  “Very wise.”

  “Who died?”

  “Dr. Robert Dennen and Mr. Ty Edwards.”

  Jeb Tanner’s small, bright eyes shone in the gloom as he turned to the deer to check his sons’ work. “What a loss for the community,” he said.

  “You knew them?” Madison said.

  “I knew them, as the chief has no doubt told you. I go into town from time to time. Edwards owns . . . owned the only hardware store in Ludlow so, yes, I knew him.”

  “And the doctor?”
<
br />   “I knew who he was, but I’ve never been to the clinic.”

  “Never?”

  “Never needed to.”

  “What about your kids?”

  “Never needed to.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Tanner examined the deer’s empty chest cavity. “They were murdered?”

  “Yes,” Madison replied.

  “How?”

  “Mr. Edwards was shot, and we’re still trying to establish the cause of Dr. Dennen’s death.”

  “And that’s why you’re here?”

  “We’re here to ask you if you’ve seen anything unusual in the area recently, and whether you might know something useful to the investigation.”

  “Is it one investigation or two?”

  “We’re still working it out.”

  “I see.”

  “When was the last time you went into town?” Brown said.

  “I can’t remember exactly. Probably a few weeks ago.”

  “You sure?”

  “Do you know how Ludlow started out? Whores’ cabins and bars. It’s moved forward, but not that much. I go only when I need to, and I come back quickly.”

  “You weren’t in town yesterday?” Brown said.

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “Where were you?”

  Tanner snorted. “Are you asking me for an alibi, Detective?”

  “Let’s just get it over with, Mr. Tanner. We have to ask everybody.”

  “I could order you off my property, just like I did the chief.”

  “You could, but we know this mess has nothing to do with you. We only need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s, because the chief doesn’t know his left from his right.”

  “What time do I need an alibi for?” Tanner said.

  “About noon yesterday.”

  “Easy: I was with a neighbor at his farm from about ten to one o’clock. Couple of miles from here. Will Clay.”

  “Great, thank you. And where were you in the early hours of last Thursday morning?”

  “Right here in my home, asleep. As any of my children can bear witness.”

  Tanner pointed. “This is Luke, my firstborn. And Jonah, my fourth son. Where was I in the early hours of Thursday morning?”

  “At home,” Luke spoke, and his voice had a rough quality to it. “With us.”

  Jonah said, “Yes,” but it was so quiet Madison barely caught it.

  “Where are you going to keep it?” Brown pointed at the quartered deer.

  “We’re going to smoke a lot of it. Keep some in a meat box—no trouble keeping things cold around here. Exchange the rest for dry goods with neighbors who don’t hunt.”

  The dates for the deer-hunting season were well past, but a farmer could kill a single animal that was damaging his property—Tanner’s kids had to be eating a lot of deer meat, whatever the season.

  “You’ve got a big family, Mr. Tanner?” Madison said.

  “Children are a blessing, Detective. Don’t you think?”

  “Can you see them?” The state police captain whispered into his radio.

  “No,” the SWAT team member replied. “They’re still in the barn.” The officer lay flat on the ground on the edge of the forest, his binoculars trained on Tanner’s compound one hundred and fifty yards away. His partner lay three feet to his left and saw the yard through the crosshairs of his M14.

  They had darted through the firs and the spruces to find a sheltered spot behind a Sitka mountain ash. The cold under the man’s belly cut through the layers of his clothing—then again, maybe it was his regular nerves that reminded him to stay alert.

  The captain didn’t like incidents in rural areas: everybody always had more firepower than they knew what to do with, and his officers got shot at more often than in urban situations. This one was a peach—the targets were packing even as they greeted the detectives. He hated the idea that they were out of sight in the barn, but it was impossible for his men to get cover to approach any closer, and he had been asked to keep his distance. They had gotten into position as soon as Sangster had given them the signal, and now they were his eyes and ears on the farm.

  “Any movement in the yard?” he asked.

  “Young kid carried the child into the main cabin. After that, nothing.”

  “Copy that.”

  “Wait . . . cabin door is opening . . .”

  “I don’t know . . .” Jeb Tanner said. “If you hadn’t come up here today I wouldn’t have known about what happened, and I sure can’t think of anything unusual in the woods this past week or so.”

  “Your neighbor, Mr. Clay, didn’t he tell you about the doctor’s murder when you were with him yesterday?” Madison said.

  “No, must have slipped his mind—or maybe he didn’t know himself.”

  “He doesn’t have a radio either?”

  “I don’t know that he does. I was helping him with his truck. We didn’t talk about anything else.”

  “What was the matter with his truck?”

  “The ignition coil didn’t spark,” Tanner said. “As I’m sure he’ll tell you when you speak with him.”

  “Did you manage to fix it?”

  The cuts of deer meat had been lined up neatly on the table. Tanner speared a large chunk with a knife and lifted it to examine it. Luke, who had cut it and placed it there, waited for his father’s judgment. The man pointed without words, and the youth hurried to correct whatever mistake he had apparently made.

  “You have to be able to fix things around here,” Tanner said to Madison, “because nobody’ll fix them for you.”

  “First time I quartered a deer,” Madison said, “I tried to cut the scent gland from the leg and sliced right through it. Spoiled more meat than I took home. Your sons have done a good job.”

  “How old were you?”

  “That time? About twelve.”

  “Learned your lesson the hard way, didn’t you? Bet you didn’t make the same mistake again.”

  “No, the next time I made a whole set of new ones.”

  Tanner smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s the way it goes,” he said. “I’ve taught my kids to trap and hunt since they could walk. Started with squirrels, then rabbits and all the way up to wolves and bears.”

  “You hunt wolves and bears?”

  “No, Fish and Wildlife wouldn’t be so happy with us if we did, but a man has to protect his land, and from time to time things just can’t be helped.”

  Luke and Jonah had listened to their father’s every word even when they had been outwardly engrossed in their work. Whatever the man said always seemed measured and always appeared to fall on the youths like a blade from a great height. If Madison knew a better way to describe fear she couldn’t think of it. She heard a rustle behind her and there he was, the boy who had been so tender with the little child.

  How long had he been standing there?

  Madison was glad to return to the yard and to the fresh air. She wanted to give Brown some room for a quiet word with Mr. Tanner, and it was a chance to look over the place without the man’s sharp focus on her.

  It was only when she reached the paddock and leaned against it that the word came to her. Unforgiving. That’s how the man came across. That seemed his default state of being. She couldn’t begin to imagine what it would be like to be a small person growing up within the reach of his hand.

  The drapes in the cabin had been opened, and though it was impossible to see clearly inside, she noticed shadows shifting behind the panes. Were they watching her? Had one of them scrawled the appeal given to Robert Dennen? Madison had studied the shirts the brothers were wearing, but none of the fabrics matched the cloth—Tanner’s white shirt looked town bought. And anyway, she doubted any garment of his would have been used to throw out into the world that desperate plea.

  Somewhere nearby someone was chopping wood and the cracks echoed in the open plateau. By her reckoning the SWAT officers were going to be to her left, by the s
pruces, and no doubt they would be telling their captain that Brown and Madison had made it out of the barn in one piece.

  One of the horses padded close as the boy appeared to Madison’s side and pushed some hay, oats, and the seed head of dry grasses into a bale feeder. Some grain spilled onto the ground and Madison saw a glossy dark feather that the breeze had blown against a fence post. She bent and picked it up. It was dusty and she blew on it. It must have come from the ravens on the roof of the cabin. They had flown off but the shiny black was beautiful against the palm of her hand.

  “Your horses are pretty,” she said to the boy. It was a limp conversation opener, but she didn’t have anything better at that moment.

  He was looking at her, wide eyed, and Madison realized that it was quite possible he had never spoken to a police officer.

  “I’m Alice Madison,” she said, but she looked straight ahead because something told her the father wouldn’t have wanted her to talk to his boy. “What’s your name?”

  The boy didn’t answer. He just stood there, pouring the horses’ feed from a bucket into the metal contraption. After a second something came over him and he climbed onto the fence and shook the grains at the bottom of the bucket into the feeder.

  Madison reached out and stroked the hard place between the horse’s eyes. Maybe the boy had been instructed by his father not to talk to strangers—it wouldn’t surprise her one bit if that had been the case.

  “Samuel,” the boy said, so quietly that it could have been the breeze. “I’m Samuel.”

  Madison’s heart sped up and she almost tripped on her racing thoughts, because there was too much she wanted to ask and no time to ask it. “Samuel,” she said, and the words rushed out before she could think them through. “We’re here to help you. Do you understand what I mean? We’re here to help you.”

  Why had she just said that when in fact they were there on a murder case? When the fate of Jeb Tanner’s children was not the business of the Seattle Police Department?

  The boy picked up a stick from the ground and poked a knot of hay that had gotten stuck. He nodded, or maybe it was only Madison’s imagination.