by Jeff Miller
He shook his head. “It’s not that, Dagny. I can console people. It’s one of my few skills.”
“Then what is it?”
He turned to her. “It’s the enormity of it all. And the helplessness I feel. This all happened on my watch.”
She shook her head. “Your job is to save souls, not lives. To inspire, not protect. A lot of people ought to feel shame for the fact that this has happened. You’re not one of them.”
He nodded in a way that conveyed appreciation but not agreement.
“Actually, there’s only one person who should feel shame,” she said. “And we’ll catch him.”
“Things like this aren’t caused by one man,” he said. “They’re caused by a rot in the community. I have all the confidence in the world that you’ll catch the murderer because I know you’re good at your job. But I know that I won’t heal the community, because I’m bad at mine.”
This mix of depression and self-loathing was completely familiar to her. Over the next twenty-three hours, it was likely to get worse. Once the information from the phones was synthesized, everything was likely to unfold at a breakneck pace. The best thing to do would be to relax, because it would be their last chance to do so.
“We’re all going out tonight,” she declared.
“Where?” Victor asked.
“To the theater.”
The lights dimmed between the acts, and stagehands rolled the judge’s bench away and replaced it with a large conference table and a dozen chairs. When the lights came on again, eleven men were seated around the table while one man stood on top of it. He started to sing in a slow, deep baritone:
Guilty, he’s guilty, he’s guilty—it’s clear.
Let’s vote this man guilty and get out of here.
Murder and manslaughter, it’s all the same.
If we make it quick, I can still make . . . the . . . game.
And then he began to tap dance.
It was as earnest and sincere as any performance she had seen—and terrible in the best of ways. More important, it was working on the three of them. Victor was stifling laughter, and Diego was smiling broadly. For Dagny, the show gave her a few moments of sheer joy that punctured through the cascade of questions circling inside her mind.
Why did he call the radio show? Was he playing a game? Did he want attention? Did he need to feel like he mattered? All of these, perhaps. Why did he bury the cell phones? Was he sloppy? Was he teasing them? Did he want them to have the information on the phones? Did he want them to find the bodies?
It was easy to dispose of one body. How did someone dispose of eighty-one of them? You can’t bury that many. You can’t dump them in a river.
You burn them, she thought. You burn them until they are ashes and dust.
If they didn’t find bodies, they couldn’t open a real investigation.
If they didn’t find the bodies, they would never catch the killer.
If they didn’t find bodies, she was out of a job.
CHAPTER 21
The thin man woke with vigor and excitement. This was the day that his work would become famous. This was the day the world would start coming for him.
He dressed and brushed, put on a shirt and overalls, tucked a gun into his pocket, and grabbed his keys. Bounding outside, he paused at the top of his porch steps, spread his arms wide, and took a deep breath. The predawn air was crisp and clean—enough to make a man feel like he was twenty again.
But he wasn’t twenty, and to rig the explosion, he’d need some help. Mexicans weren’t itching for work in Bilford, so he took the truck for a long drive. When he flipped on the radio, Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” was playing. He lit a match while driving, admired his own dexterity, and took a long drag from a cigarette. Freedom was smoking a cigarette, driving down the road, and listening to the Boss.
Forty miles later, he pulled into a Lowe’s in Springfield. Two young men were standing in the parking lot, looking sad and desperate, accosting every customer who exited the store. These boys will do fine, he thought. He rolled down the window, made his case, and they hopped into the back of the truck, right next to the barrels he’d filled the day before. The thin man didn’t even have to get out of the cab to rope these boys in. Lowe’s was a drive-through employment agency.
When they got to the silo, he took their phones with his standard spiel, then had them pile each of the diesel tanks onto a scissor lift he’d stolen from a construction site. Once the barrels were loaded onto the lift, they all hopped aboard, and he pressed the lever to lift them toward the sky. As they rose to the top, the thin man scanned the horizon. Would they see the magnificent fireball in Springfield? Wilmington? Dayton?
They rolled the barrels into the top of the silo and set them on the raised floor while he explained the task. Four of the barrels would remain at the top of the silo; two would be lowered to the bottom. The men would go down to the bottom of the silo and wait for him to lower the two barrels, so they could set them in place. They listened closely—interrupting only to ask about the smell. Dead animals, he explained.
The thin man pulled a new rope ladder from a spool on the silo wall, draped it into the hole in the floor, and cranked out enough slack to send it to the bottom of the silo. The first boy started down the ladder, followed soon by the second. As they dangled, the thin man cut the rope with shears and let them fall.
Both were hurt by the impact—their screams confirmed that much. They screamed again when they realized they had fallen onto a mound of rotting bodies.
It wasn’t easy to concentrate with the noise, but he lined up the six barrels and attached putty, explosive, wires, and a timer to the one that held the gasoline. At the appropriate time, the timer would send a pulse through the wires, which would trigger the explosives, shattering the barrel and creating a giant fireball. One by one, each of the barrels would explode, and one of them would pop the top of the silo. That was his theory, anyway.
The only thing left to do was set the timer. To light up the sky, he’d have to wait for night. Not too late, though. He didn’t want everyone to be asleep—he wanted families to gather in their yards, admiring the glow of the sky. These fireworks were for everyone. Nine p.m., he decided. Dark enough for a show, and early enough for an audience.
CHAPTER 22
Dagny bounded through the streets of Bilford in a predawn drizzling rain, wishing that Victor had given the schools twelve hours instead of twenty-four to develop the software to collate the phone data. Sure, she’d spend the day interviewing more families, taking down more notes, but none of that would matter. The phones were the key. Clicking through her iPhone, she found Track One from Tom Petty’s Hard Promises album, clicked the repeat icon, and let it cycle while she ran. A flash of lightning lit the sky, followed by a big boom of thunder. Everything about this day felt ominous.
Her mind drifted from the case to the dream that had ruined another night of sleep. It was the cafeteria dream again. When she was in her twenties, she figured that she’d grow out of her issues with food. At thirty-five, she knew they were something she’d be saddled with for the rest of her life.
A man driving an old, rusted Ford Escort tossed a McDonald’s bag out his window and onto the sidewalk. Dagny picked it up and tossed it into the trash, then felt compelled to clean up the rest of the copious litter she encountered on her run. Plastic bottles and pop cans. Food wrappers. A copy of the Dayton Daily News. She paused on the image of the burning gas station on the front page of the paper. According to the article, local authorities blamed the explosion on a smoking attendant, the sole victim of the fire. The newsprint began to drip under the weight of the rain. She tossed the paper into the trash and continued her run.
She returned to her motel and showered. As she dressed, her phone rang. Expecting a call from Diego, she answered without looking at the screen.
“You missed your appointment yesterday.”
It was Dr. Childs. “I’m sorry about that. I fo
rgot to cancel.”
“Again, my understanding is that attendance is a condition of your employment.”
“I’ve been suspended from the Bureau, so I suppose it doesn’t really matter.”
It took a moment for that to register. “Why were you suspended?”
“Insubordination.”
There was silence for a moment. “Dagny, I really think you should come in for a session.”
“I can’t. I’m in Ohio, working on a case.”
“I thought you were suspended.”
“I’m working pro bono.”
“I don’t know how the FBI works, but that sounds . . . preposterous.”
“I can understand that. Here’s the deal: I was suspended because I wanted to pursue a murder case where there are no bodies. But as soon as I find some bodies, I’ll be reinstated.” She heard the words as she said them. “I know I probably sound like a crazy person, but I think I’ll have some bodies within a day.”
“It does sound strange. How long will you be in Ohio?”
“I don’t know. As long as it takes to catch the guy.”
“The guy who has killed the bodies you can’t find?”
“Yes. Exactly.”
“Dagny, I really think you should come back home.”
“This only sounds crazy because there’s a lot I’m not telling you. People are missing by the dozens. I’m going to find them. I can’t say any more about it.”
“If you’re not coming back, I think we should consider doing regular sessions by phone.”
It was easier to leave the Church of Scientology than it was to get out of therapy with Dr. Childs. “I can’t commit to anything. Once we find the bodies, everything’s going to get crazy.”
“Then maybe we should talk now. Before things get crazy.”
Dagny looked at her watch. She had a few minutes before she had to leave.
“How are you feeling?” Childs asked.
“Just . . .” She stopped to consider the question. “Impatient, mostly.”
“Are you upset about the suspension?”
“No, it’s going to be fine.”
“Are you eating?”
“I am. I’ve got a good support network for that.” It sounded more effective to refer to Victor as a network.
“Any trouble sleeping?”
“No, just . . .”
“Just what?”
“I have weird dreams.”
“Hmmm.”
“What?”
“Well, Freud said that dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.”
“Yeah, but he also came up with penis envy,” Dagny said.
“Touché. Tell me about one of your dreams.”
It seemed harmless enough. “I’m back in college. I’m wearing pajamas in the cafeteria, and I’m surveying the options. There’s the salad bar—very sensible. There’s pizza and the waffle station and the sandwich bar. And I can’t decide what to get, so I keep circling, looking at each station again and again. Meanwhile, everyone else is picking up their food, taking it to tables, eating, and leaving. But I keep circling, and the food keeps disappearing. Eventually, everyone’s finished eating, and I’m still trying to decide what to get, except the only thing left is the picked-over garbage that no one wanted. And it drives me crazy, because I can’t even get away from my food issues when I’m sleeping.”
“Hmmm.”
“So, what do you think?”
“I don’t think the dream is about food at all.”
“Then what’s it about?”
“It’s about men.”
“No, it’s . . .” But thinking about it, she realized that Dr. Childs was right.
“Let’s talk about men, Dagny. Let’s talk about Mike.”
“I can’t. I’ve got to run.”
CHAPTER 23
Google led Diego to the website for The Clergy Project, a group dedicated to helping clergy leave the priesthood after they had lost their faith. The group seemed to have some affiliation with the scientist and secularist Richard Dawkins, who noted in a welcome letter that a departing clergyman “risk[s] losing all his friends, being cast out by his family, being ostracized by his whole community.” Diego didn’t stand to lose any of these things. He had no friendships of merit. He had drifted from his family when he was a teen. He hadn’t felt like part of a community in years.
And then Diego understood. He had already left the clergy.
He closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. All his boyhood friends were married to people who loved and adored them. They had careers that let them build or make or manage things, and that earned them money and bought them homes. Their children greeted them with smiles and hugs when they walked through the door. On weekends, they had cookouts with the neighbors. In the winter, they vacationed in places that were warm and sunny.
He had only a 1969 cherry-red Corvette convertible. It was a teenager’s version of adulthood. It was pathetic.
He closed the browser, showered, and dressed. Dagny wasn’t coming until nine fifteen, so he had an hour to kill. He picked up his phone and did something he’d thought about doing for two years. He called Katrina.
“Diego?” She said it with befuddlement.
“Hi.”
“You said you never wanted to talk to me again.”
“No, no. I said we never should talk again.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“It’s very different. There are lots of things I want to do that I shouldn’t.”
“Why are you calling me?”
“I-I—” He stammered a bit. “I guess I wanted to hear your voice. To see how you’re doing.”
“You know how I’m doing. I hear you call around to check up on me.”
“Just to see that you’re okay,” he said.
“Why now? All this time, and now you call?”
“I don’t know. I guess I miss you.”
“That ship has sailed.”
“I know, Katrina. I just miss talking to you.”
“You don’t have anyone to talk to in Bilford?” She said Bilford as if it were the name of a mistress.
“No. No, I don’t.”
“Then get a shrink.”
“I know you’re still angry, but—”
“No, I’m not angry,” she said. “I’m . . . confused. I don’t know how you can be so close to someone and then shut it off like that.”
“Katrina, if I didn’t—”
“What?”
“I would—”
“What would have happened, Diego?”
“I would have led you on a path that wasn’t good for you.”
“That’s sexist, Diego. I could make my own decision—”
“But you did make your own decision, Katrina. Because I left, and you still—”
“You made the choice for me.”
“No. I didn’t. And you still went ahead.” He searched for a truer answer. “And, honestly, I—”
“Didn’t want to feel responsible?”
“Yes.”
“Because, heaven forbid, you take responsibility—”
“Because I wasn’t worth it.”
There was a long silence. He knew she was still on the line; he could hear her short, exasperated breaths. And then she said, “It’s taken me two years to see it, but you’re right. You weren’t worth it.”
This was why he’d called. Not for forgiveness, which he would never get or deserve, but for absolution. She was better without him, and she understood it, and that meant he’d done the right thing. “Thank you,” he said, not realizing that this might confuse her.
“Is that all you wanted? For me to be mean to you?”
Maybe it was. Or maybe he wanted to relive memories from the last time he felt happy. “Do you remember that night we drove to Chicago?”
“Of course I remember.”
“And we went on that architectural tour—”
“It was ten degrees, with winds like a hurrica
ne.”
“And we went into the atrium of the Rookery building—”
“And stayed there while the rest of the tour left—”
“And talked for six hours, sitting on those steps.”
“I remember,” she said.
“Losing all track of time. Looking up through the clear glass roof and seeing that it was night, and not knowing how that happened.”
“Yes.”
“What did we talk about that day?”
She laughed. “You really don’t remember?”
“No.”
“We talked about baseball. And the Marx Brothers. We talked about Joni Mitchell. About politics and obligations and family. Childhoods. Fear. Death. We gossiped about people in the church. And you talked about that stupid red Corvette, which I hope you don’t still have, but I’m sure that you do.”
“I do.”
“Of course. And we talked about love. What it felt like, and what it meant.”
“And we talked about time,” Diego said.
“Because we were sitting in a masterpiece—”
“That Burnham and Root and Wright had designed a hundred years ago.”
“And it held up.”
“Enough that they would use it in Home Alone 2.”
“And I didn’t know why a thirty-year-old man—”
“Thirty-two, then.”
“Would know that.”
“I read it somewhere.”
“That’s what you said, but you seemed really familiar with the movie.”
“No, no,” he protested, the same way he had three years earlier. “I just like reading about architecture.”
“That’s probably why you became a priest. For the architecture.”
“That’s how they get you. With the architecture.”
She laughed again. “You think you miss talking to me, Diego, but you don’t. You just miss talking to someone.”
“You were a great someone to talk to.”
“Yeah, well . . . that’s nice of you to say.”
“I mean it, Katrina.”
“It was more than talking with the two of us.”
