“I tried calling Mark again today. He blew me off like he’s been doing.”
“He’s been a real bear to the nursing staff, too. Bites the head off anyone who comes in the room. He had one nurse in tears and another who wanted to strap him to a wheelchair and shove him down the fire stairs. I can hold on to them maybe—and I mean maybe—another couple of days and then I have to kick them both out of here.” He considered. “Or…I think I’ll decide that I don’t like the way the reseating of his teeth is going. I mean he does have the blue liptinting you can expect from ecchimosis, so I guess I can use that to keep him in a little longer, at least until we take the gum sutures out.”
“That’s a hell of a risk, Saul. I didn’t know you liked Connie and Mark that much.”
“I don’t. This is for Henry. For Val, too, I guess.”
“You’re the best, Saul.”
“Yeah, well don’t spread it around. Anyway, go celebrate being a responsible adult with at least an adequate sperm count. Congrats and give Val my love.” Crow clicked off and Weinstock closed his phone and dropped it in his lab coat.
The cleaners finished, packed up their mops and spray bottles, and left, both of them giving the room a spooked glance, their eyes darting toward the polished steel doors behind which lay three corpses. No—four bodies, because what was left of Tony Macchio was still behind Door #2. Three murder victims and one murderer who had been slaughtered by the Cape May Killer. He couldn’t blame the cleaners for being spooked, even with the lights on and the cold-room doors firmly shut, and he knew that it wasn’t just the fact that it was the morgue that was giving them the jitters—it was the fact that someone had broken in and stolen—actually stolen—a dead body. It was all very creepy, and Weinstock had to agree with their reactions. This whole thing was giving him an increasingly bad feeling. Not just the grief over Henry’s death and the deaths of the two cops, and not just the proprietary sense of violation he had about the violence and theft here in his hospital. It was just a general case of the heebie-jeebies. One of Crow’s words, and nothing Weinstock could think of described more aptly what he was feeling.
A really big case of the heebie-jeebies.
(6)
Newton came back to his desk with another cup of coffee, sat down, set the cup on a little electric hotplate, and frowned at the screen. All afternoon he had been busy making notes for his feature article, planning his research, surfing the Net to see what data were available, checking the Sentinel’s microfilm records of thirty years ago, and outlining his plan of attack. Most of the town’s folklore was easy enough to find—there were literally thousands of articles and over a dozen books written about Pine Deep, recent and long past. What was missing from all of this, however, were detailed and accurate records of the Pine Deep Massacre of 1976. That it had happened was certain, because there were secondary references to it, and he was able to cobble together a list of the victims by burrowing through public death notices, both in the paper’s records and at Pine Deep’s Town Hall. But there was no reliable account of the actual events, and none of the issues of the Black Marsh Sentinel for that year had been committed to microfilm. He found that really odd, since there were microfilm records of papers from 1960 through 1975; and from 1977 to 1998, when the paper began storing issues on disk and in Web site archives. But 1976 was missing. The whole calendar year.
Newton called one of his friends at the Pine Deep Evening Standard and Times, which was owned by a chain that published papers in most of Bucks County’s towns. “Toby?”
“Hey, my man Newt. They offer you the anchor of the CNN Evening Report yet?” Toby Gomm edited the op-ed page and was usually good for an info swap.
“Not yet. I’m holding out for Nightline. Hey, Toby, listen, Dick’s got me doing a feature piece on P.D.’s haunted history, you know the kind of thing.”
“Yeah, we’ve done a million of them. Bo-o-o-oring.”
“No kidding. Look, I wanted to go a little further, maybe flesh out the backstory by including some stuff from the Massacre of Seventy-six. You got anything on that?”
“Before my time, but I heard about it. Haven’t run anything on it lately, for the obvious reasons.”
Bad for tourism, Newton thought, but asked, “You got anything in the archives from September, October of that year?”
He expected Toby to have to look into it, but he said, “Nope.”
“Nothing? You mean you didn’t cover it?”
“Nope, I mean that our microfilm records from the mid-seventies through about eighty-two got melted in a fire. Some asshole maintenance guy tossed a lit cigarette into a trash can and burned half the records room down. You have to remember that—it was when we moved to the new building. Late 1990.”
“No, I was still in college.”
“Didn’t miss much. Trash fire is no news even when it’s old news that’s on fire. No biggie, though, we’re a corporate rag…we leave hardcore journalism to our colleagues in Black Marsh.”
“Very funny.”
“On the other hand…” Toby said. “I do know a guy who knows everything about what went on there. His family got caught up in it. Brother even got killed.”
“Are you talking about Malcolm Crow? The guy who shot Ruger?”
“Yep. He’s always being used as a source for haunted history stories.”
“I know. Dick told me that his family was involved, but I just haven’t seen anything about the Massacre that he’s quoted in.”
“You won’t, either, but I talked about it once with him. Kind of. Was back when he was on the cops, and he was walking a line between being a real hotshot cop and a total screwup.”
“Oh?”
“He drank,” Toby said in a way that said it all. “He was at a bar once when I was there waiting for a friend. Crow was there, totally bug-eyed. This was just about the time that Terry Wolfe was about to open the Hayride. Anyway, because of the Hayride and the tourist bucks that it would draw, the haunted history of the town came up and Crow started holding court, telling these crazy stories about ghosts and stuff. Most of the folks in the bar that night were regulars and had heard this shit and they started slipping off to take a leak but never came back, but I kind of felt sorry for the guy and hung out with him for a bit. Somewhere around the fifth or sixth round of boilermakers, Crow leans over to me and says, ‘But none of that shit is the real shit, you know?’ I didn’t know, and I asked him, and he told me some of what had happened back in seventy-six. And let me tell you—it was the shit. Total bullshit. I mean, it was clear that he believed what he was saying, but I thought it was the drink talking and pretty much let it go in one ear and out the other.”
“So…how’s this helping me?”
“Because he’s off the sauce now, and he’s the hero du jour, so go ask him.”
“That’s great, Toby, thanks for the lead,” Newton said, though he didn’t feel any thrills of expectation dancing through him. “I owe you one.”
“Just share the scoop next time.”
“Will do,” Newton lied, and rang off. He pulled the County Yellow Pages down and looked up the number for Crow’s store but it rang through to the answering machine. Same result for the Guthrie farm. He called the Haunted Hayride but it was closed. Finally he swallowed his pride and called Mayor Wolfe’s office.
After listening patiently, the mayor asked, “Is this the same Newton who broke the Ruger story? The fellow I met at the press conference?”
“Why, yes, sir, it is, and I—”
The mayor said, “Go shit in your hat,” and hung up. Which only made Newton more determined to get the story. He was starting to get the first faint whiffs of another cover-up, and that made him tingle all over.
(7)
“How’s it going, Iron Mike?”
“Crow?” Mike’s heart jumped into his throat and he nearly dropped the phone. “Oh my God! I heard about you on the news! Did Ruger really break into the hospital? Did you really kill him? Did Miss Gut
hrie really shoot him, too? Did—”
“Whoa! Slow down…only forty questions at a time,” Crow said but he was laughing. “Yeah, things got pretty hairy the other night. You probably saw most of it on the news. I’ll fill you in on the rest later. By the way, it’s Val, not Miss Guthrie, and yes, she’ll be okay.”
“Jeez…it was bad enough losing her dad and all. Now this.” Mike was sitting on his bed amid a sprawl of comic books, mostly Hellboy and Ghost Rider. He shot a quick glance at the closed door—he knew Vic wasn’t home—and said, “Tell…um, ‘Val’…that I’m sorry about her dad. I know how she feels. Kinda.”
“Yeah, kid, I know you do, and I’ll tell Val. It’ll mean a lot to her.”
“Thanks.” Mike cleared his throat. “How are you?”
“Like Superman if he’d been beaten with a Kryptonite tire iron.”
“Ugh. You gonna be in the hospital long?” His tone was uncertain, but his face looked hopeful. The day after the violence at Val’s farm, when Mike had gone to visit Crow at the hospital, Crow had offered Mike a job at his store, the Crow’s Nest, and the store was the closest thing to a real safe haven Mike had ever known. He couldn’t wait to get started with his new job.
“Actually, we’re out already. We left yesterday and stayed over at a friend’s house. Val and I are heading out now to go back to her place,” Crow said. “Which is why I called. I can’t afford to have the shop closed down for too long, not this time of the year. I won’t be at the store today, but tomorrow bright and early I want to meet you there to show you how to run things. In the meantime if you can swing it today I’d like you to feed my cats. My guinea pig, too. There’s a key hidden under a flagstone in the back. It’s the second from the left-hand side of the step and there’s a chip out of one corner. Lift the opposite corner and you’ll see the key in one of those plastic thingees.”
“Okay, I can do that, but when you said ‘run things’ I—”
“I may be staying at Val’s for a couple of days.”
“Wait…you want me to run the store by myself?”
“Yeah.”
Mike sat there, too stunned to even feel pain. “Alone?”
“Yeah…good with that?” Crow paused. “Mike—I’m counting on you here.”
“Crow, I don’t know if I—”
“Yes, you can. Jeez, kid, you know the layout of that store better than I do. The register is a snap, and you can open up right after school each day. Mornings and early afternoon are never my best times anyway, so you working afternoons and evenings will keep me out of the poorhouse. Besides, let’s face it, isn’t the store a better place to spend your days than hanging around the house?”
That said it all. Mike could not talk about Vic with anyone, not even Crow, but he knew that Crow understood. He felt tears stinging in the corners of his eyes. “Crow…I…”
“Dude,” Crow cut him off, “if you are planning to make some kind of ‘I won’t let you down’ speech, then save it. Both of us hurt too much for that and besides it’s way too After-School Special for either of us. Just say, ‘Thanks, Crow, you’re one helluva guy.’”
Mike laughed. “Thanks, Crow, you’re one helluva guy.”
“This I know. Now, I called Judy from the yarn place across the street, and she’ll keep her eye on you if I’m not there. She has the same kind of register if you have questions.”
“Wow,” Mike said. “Okay…this sounds great.”
(8)
Saul Weinstock said, “Turn him over,” and watched as his nurse tugged the cold, limp body of Nels Cowan on its side. Bending close, Weinstock examined the buttocks, the backs of the thighs. He frowned and reached for a scalpel. “Hold him steady,” he said and plunged the razor sharp blade into the corpse’s white left buttock, then drew a long line down toward the top of the thigh. He removed the scalpel and stared at the black mouth of the wound. “That’s weird,” he said.
The male nurse, still supporting the ponderous weight of the corpse, peered over its shoulder. “What’s weird?”
“Well, as you know, when the heart stops pumping, all of the blood settles down to the lowest points on the body, it gathers in the buttocks, the backs of the thighs, the back, so the procedure to drain the blood is to open those areas and let the blood drain out.”
“Uh huh,” said the nurse, who did know this and wondered why he was getting a lecture.
“So, tell me, Barney,” said Weinstock, “what’s wrong with this picture?”
The nurse looked again. “Oh,” he said after a handful of seconds.
“Yes indeed,” agreed Weinstock. “Oh.”
“There’s no—”
“Not a drop.”
“None?”
“None,” said Weinstock flatly.
Barney lowered the body back onto the stainless steel table. “Well, doctor, look at all the massive trauma to the neck and chest. Surely with all that flesh torn away the blood would have drained out.”
Weinstock shook his head. “Doesn’t work that way. No matter how traumatic a wound, there is pretty much no way to completely exsanguinate a body short of hanging it upside down after decapitation. This body is completely drained. Look at the face, at the arms. The veins are collapsed, the body is shrunken.”
“He was lying out there in the mud,” Barney said. “Maybe the blood just drained into the mud.”
Weinstock thought about that, then shook his head. “Nope. I saw the crime scene photos. I read Dr. Colbert’s report. There was some blood, true enough, but not nearly enough.”
“Then…what?”
“Hell if I know,” Weinstock said, and then shrugged. “Okay, now I want to take a look at the other guy. Castle. Wheel him out here. Let’s look at him right now.”
Barney gave his own shrug and went into the cold room. While he wrestled with the body of Jimmy Castle, Weinstock glanced over at the tape recorder that he’d started running at the beginning of the autopsy. The counter was ticking along steadily, having recorded all of his remarks to Barney. Frowning, he did a few more tests to Cowan, piercing the lower back, upper back, calves, thighs: trying to find blood. His frown deepened as he examined the ragged wounds at the throat. Strange wounds, not like knife wounds, not like any kind of wounds he had ever seen outside of a textbook. He bent close, gingerly pressing the flaps of skin back into place like puzzle pieces, reconstructing the throat as accurately as possible. The loose strips of skin added up to most of the throat, though some small sections were missing. Probably lost in the mud or destroyed when Boyd did whatever it was he did to the corpse the night he broke into the morgue to steal Ruger’s body. Even so, there was enough to piece together most of the throat. Weinstock used his fingers to hold the patchwork in place, and stared at what the marks on the flesh told him.
“Oh my…God!” he breathed softly, and he could feel sweat popping on his forehead and spreading under his arms. He looked up quickly as the nurse came crashing through the double doors, pushing a gurney. The naked body of Jimmy Castle lay on the steel surface, his white face wiped clean of all its former easy smiles, his body robbed of animation, dignity, and humanity.
Barney barely glanced at the doctor, didn’t see the brightness of his eyes or the sweat that ran in trails down the sides of his face. “You okay, Doc?”
Weinstock grunted something and reached out to pull the second gurney closer. Together, Weinstock and the nurse hoisted him onto the second of the steel surgical tables. Weinstock said, “Help me get him on his side. Good. Hand me that scalpel. Thanks.” Weinstock repeated the same cuts he made on Cowan’s body.
Barney looked at the incisions and then at Weinstock. “No blood.”
“No blood,” Weinstock agreed slowly, his voice soft, thoughtful. He set the scalpel down and eased the body onto its back. He shifted position, standing near to Castle’s head, his body blocking the view from the nurse as he poked and probed at the dead officer’s throat.
“What’s it mean?”
; Weinstock turned toward him, and now Barney could see that sweat was pouring down the doctor’s face. Weinstock folded his hairy arms and leaned a hip against Cowan’s table, looking slowly from one body to the other and back again. He was trying to look casual, but his face was hard and his eyes almost glassy. Then he reached over and punched the Off button on the tape recorder and looked up at the nurse, who was beginning to fidget. “Let me ask you something, Barney,” he said slowly, his voice as taut as violin strings. “How much do you like this job?”
“Huh?”
“Your job, being a nurse here at the hospital, how much do you like it?”
“Uh…well, I like it just fine, Doc.”
“Means a lot to you, this job?”
“Yes sir.”
“Got a wife? Kids?”
“Sure, Jenny and I have just the one. She’ll be ten months on Monday.”
“Ten months? My oh my. Babies are expensive, aren’t they?”
“You said it.”
“So, I guess it would be a safe assumption that you really need this job?”
“Sir?” Barney was frowning, beginning to feel really nervous.
“I mean, with a wife and a new baby, you need to keep this job, am I right?”
Carefully, afraid to commit himself, Barney said, “Ye-ees.”
“Uh huh.” Weinstock rubbed at the corner of his mouth with the back of his bent wrist, his eyes fixed piercingly on the nurse. “Well, let me just say this, then. Right now there are just two people who know about the condition of these two bodies. Correct?”
“Um…yeah, I guess so.”
“Just the two of us. Now, I am going to write a very confidential report on the condition of these bodies. I will only be sharing that report with Mayor Wolfe, and perhaps with the chief—and no one else. I can reasonably expect those two gentlemen to keep this confidential, you understand?” He paused. “You know about it as well.”
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