Harry Dolan

by Bad Things Happen

  “Ask,” Kristoll said.

  “Start with the obvious: Are you sure he’s dead?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “It’d be a hell of a thing if he wasn’t.”

  “No breathing. No pulse. He’s dead.”

  He looked dead. He was on his back, his face tipped toward his left shoulder. Eyes open, staring. Blood at his temple. Left arm extended, palm open; right arm at his side. Pale fingertips touched the dark wood of the floor. Left leg bent; right leg straight. All that remained was for someone to draw an outline in chalk.

  “And you don’t know who he is,” Loogan said. “You never saw him before tonight.”

  “Never,” Kristoll said.

  “And he broke in. He was a thief.”

  “He didn’t literally break anything. The patio door was unlocked. But yes, I assume he was a thief.”

  He might have been a thief, Loogan thought. He looked to be in his early thirties, trimly built, with thinning blond hair. His face was clean-shaven. He wore a black turtleneck, appropriate attire for a thief. He wore it with tan khaki pants and a pair of brown loafers. There was a tattoo on his left wrist: a pattern of interlinked rings.

  “How did he get here?” Loogan asked.

  “He had a car,” said Kristoll.

  “I didn’t see a car.”

  “He left it down the hill, by the side of the road. I moved it into the garage.”

  Loogan stepped around the body in a half-circle.

  “Are you sure you want to . . . do what we’re going to do?”

  “He can’t stay where he is,” Kristoll said.

  “It’s not too late, though. To call the police. It was self-defense.”

  “Of course it was.”

  “They’ll want to know why you didn’t call immediately,” Loogan said. “But you can answer that. You were rattled. It’s understandable.”

  “I don’t know if I want to gamble on what the police will understand.”

  Kristoll’s voice was soft. He leaned against the door frame, staring at the floor.

  “Tell me how it went,” Loogan said. “You were in here. At the desk?”

  “Yes. I heard someone in the hallway.”

  “So you got up.”

  “Yes. He saw me. Maybe he didn’t realize anyone was home. He rushed at me.”

  “So you hit him. What did you hit him with?”

  Kristoll pointed to a bottle of Scotch—Glenfiddich, nearly full—that rested on a low table between two of the chairs.

  “Where did it come from?” Loogan asked.

  “From the desk. I brought it with me.”

  “You heard someone prowling. You wanted a weapon in hand. How many times did you hit him?”

  “Twice. Maybe more. I’m not sure.”

  Loogan brought his right hand out of his pocket and rubbed the back of his neck.

  “It would be better if you were sure,” he said. “And if there were a witness.”

  “I was here alone,” Kristoll said. “Laura has been gone all evening.”

  “Where?”

  Kristoll looked off in the direction of the front door. “She went in to her office at the university. She had papers to grade.”

  “When do you expect her back?”

  “I’m not sure,” Kristoll said. “That’s another reason not to delay. I want him gone when she gets home.” He stepped into the room and the overhead light made a hard line of his jaw. “Look, I’ve thought about this, David. If I go to the police, the very least that can happen is it gets written up on the front page of the paper. It gets talked about. I have to explain it to everyone I know. I can only imagine how miserable it would be. How could people look at you the same after something like that? And that’s the best case.”

  He glanced down at the body. “The worst case is the police are skeptical. Maybe this guy’s got no record. Maybe he volunteered at church, he had a tragic childhood, some goddamn thing. So somebody in the prosecutor’s office decides he has to bring it to a grand jury. And two out of three people on the grand jury decide they don’t like the look of me. I get to spend the next year of my life talking to lawyers and sitting in courtrooms. I can’t imagine twelve sane people voting to convict, but who knows?”

  Kristoll paused for a moment, his eyes intense under dark brows. Then: “This guy’s nothing to me. He should have stayed the hell out of my house. I’m not sorry for what I had to do to him. He’s not worth one minute of my life. I intend to drive him out to a field somewhere, plant him in the ground, and forget I ever saw him.”

  He looked away from Loogan toward a row of books along the wall. “Now I’m making speeches,” he said. “Listen, David, you can go if you want. I shouldn’t have called you. I’ll deal with this. You don’t need to get involved.”

  “I’m already involved,” Loogan said.

  “It’s too much to ask.”

  “You already asked.”

  “There’s still time to come to your senses.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you,” Loogan said. “And I still think you’d do all right if you went to the police. But if you’ve made up your mind, I’m with you.”

  Kristoll was quiet. His shoulders, which had been raised, seemed to relax.

  “Thank you, David.”

  His manner seemed to change then. He stood casually with his arms resting on the back of a chair, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up.

  “I suppose you’ve already been shopping,” he said to Loogan. “You found a good shovel.”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve got three in the garage, but all of them have handles that are five feet long. They’d be useless in a . . . narrow space.”

  “This one should work.”

  “We’ll have blisters before we’re through. I should have had you buy gloves.”

  “I did,” Loogan said. “Also water and sandwiches. And some potting soil and a bottle of weed-killer.”

  “What for?”

  “Camouflage. The cashier wanted to know if I was a gardener.”

  Kristoll laughed quietly, a single exhalation. “I made the right choice, calling you.”

  “We’ll see,” said Loogan. “For now, we need to think about the plan. You mentioned a field, but I don’t like the sound of that. Too exposed. A wooded area would be better.”

  “Not around here.”

  “No. Somewhere across town. Let’s give it some thought. In the meantime there’s one thing you’ll need to do for me.”

  Kristoll made a puzzled face. Loogan touched the sleeve of his dress shirt.

  “You’ll need to change your clothes.”

  The curtains of the study were closed, but when Kristoll was gone Loogan switched on a reading lamp beside one of the chairs and switched off the overhead light. He brought the lamp closer to the body and got down on one knee. He patted the man’s pockets, felt coins, no keys—Kristoll would have taken them in order to move the car. He shifted the body slightly so he could reach the back pockets. Found a handkerchief, no wallet.

  On impulse he held the back of his hand close before the man’s nose and mouth. No breath reached his skin. He laid two fingers on the inside of the man’s wrist. The flesh was neither warm nor cold. There was, of course, no pulse. Gingerly he picked up the man’s right hand and peered at the fingertips. There was red beneath the white of the nails. He lowered the hand to the floor and stood up. Realized he was trembling, his heart was racing.

  He scanned the body again, thinking there should be something more to look for. The man’s sock had fallen down around his right ankle. A patch of pale skin showed beneath the cuff of his pant leg. Loogan knelt and lifted the cuff. There was an indentation in the skin, a line that wound around the man’s calf, too deep and sharp to have been made by a sock.

  Loogan stood. He heard footsteps on the stairs—Kristoll had put on a pair of heavy hiking boots. He appeared now in the doorway of the study, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, unbutton
ed, a white T-shirt underneath, a denim jacket open at the front.

  “I’ve thought of a place,” he said.

  Chapter 4

  THE THIEF’S CAR WAS A SKY BLUE HONDA CIVIC WITH A HATCHBACK. IT had rust on the fenders and a crack in the windshield, but the suspension was good and the engine ran smoothly. Loogan drove it east and south toward the city, winding along beside the river. The rain had stopped.

  He reached the edge of the city and crossed the river and pointed the car northeast. Soon there were lights around him, shopping centers, gas stations. He could still change his mind, he thought. He owed nothing to Tom Kristoll. He could pull into any one of those parking lots. Abandon the car. Find a pay phone, call a cab, let it take him to the history professor’s house. Gather everything he needed—it would fit into a single suitcase. Another cab to the airport, the first flight out. In the morning he could be in a new city.

  He drove on, leaving the lights behind. Eventually he turned north, slowed, watched for a break in the trees. There were two wooden posts, a gravel drive between. After a short distance the drive widened out into a lot. Railroad ties marked the edges.

  He cut the engine, doused the headlights. The supplies were beside him on the passenger seat, and in the back were the shovel and a rake he had brought from Kristoll’s garage. He broke out a bottle of water and drank half of it sitting in the car. He noticed that the door beside him was unlocked, reached absently to lock it, and then felt foolish.

  He got out of the car and waited in the dark, sipping water, getting used to the idea that he was alone, that no one was going to charge at him from out of the trees at the edge of the lot.

  The moon was high above him, three-quarters full. He let his eyes adjust and after a while he could see, off to the right, a dirt path leading up into the woods. A sign stood at the foot of the path—he couldn’t read it in the dark, but he knew what it said. MARSHALL PARK.

  Ten minutes later, he heard the sound of another car’s engine. A pair of headlights jounced along the gravel drive and a long dark Ford sedan drew up alongside the Civic.

  Tom Kristoll’s steps were energetic. The gravel crackled beneath his boots as he came around to where Loogan was standing.

  “This is going to work,” Kristoll said. “I was right about it, wasn’t I? You can’t see the lot from the road.”

  “No.”

  “And nobody’s going to be around, this time of night.” He pushed a button on his watch and the face glowed in the darkness. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “As I was heading out, I realized Laura would come home to an empty house and your car in the driveway. So I dashed off a note. Told her you and I had gone to see a late movie, maybe have a drink afterward. It’s not the best lie, but it’ll have to do.”

  Kristoll locked his car and they took the shovel and the rake and went scouting along the path. Kristoll played the beam of a flashlight over the ground ahead. When the path leveled off, they struck out into the woods and after twenty or thirty yards came to a clearing. Branches on the ground, a scattering of autumn leaves. They left the shovel and the rake and made their way back to the path. Arranged a fallen tree limb to mark the turnoff.

  They had removed the body of the thief from the study using a folding cot from Kristoll’s basement as a stretcher. They used it again to carry the body from the trunk of Kristoll’s Ford up the hill and to the clearing. It was rough going, but they took it slowly. Kristoll had covered the thief’s head and upper body with a white plastic bag. It glowed faintly in the moonlight.

  They laid the cot on the far edge of the clearing, in the space between a pair of birch trees. Loogan shrugged off his coat and dropped it on the ground. Kristoll had already picked up the rake and begun sweeping away the leaves and branches from the center of the clearing.

  The moon descended beneath the treetops. Stars revealed themselves. David Loogan sat on a patch of moss, his back against a tree trunk, drinking the last of a bottle of water. He listened: for voices, for footsteps, for the rhythm of an engine. He heard nothing but the sound of Kristoll’s breathing, the blade of the shovel cutting into the earth.

  They were making good progress. Kristoll had taken the lead, marking out a rectangle on the ground, carving out hunks of turf with the shovel and laying them aside, to be replaced later. After that, he and Loogan worked in shifts, piling the dirt on one side of their excavation, raking it back from the rim when the pile rose too high. Kristoll’s flashlight, tied to a tree branch with a handkerchief, illuminated the scene. The grave descended, so deep now that only Kristoll’s head and shoulders were visible above the ground.

  Loogan got up and drew on his gloves. His arms were streaked with dirt and there was dirt in his hair, and his clothes had taken on the color of dirt. Kristoll had stripped off his denim jacket and flannel shirt; his white T-shirt was black.

  Loogan stepped to the rim and Kristoll looked up. “Rest, David,” he said. “I’m good for a few more minutes.” But Loogan shook his head and Kristoll relented. They traded places: Loogan sitting on the edge, sliding down, making a step of his hands to boost Kristoll out.

  “We’re close,” Kristoll said. “Another foot and a half should do it.”

  It went on. They traded places once again. Eventually Kristoll tossed the shovel over the rim, declared the job complete. Loogan helped him scramble out.

  They retrieved the cot, carried it to the side of the grave. By unspoken agreement, they paused and stood silently for a moment over the body of the thief. Then, because there was no graceful way to do it, they dragged the cot closer to the grave, lifted one side of the frame, and dumped the body in.

  “Something’s not right,” Loogan said.

  Kristoll had picked up the rake and started filling in the grave.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “This has all gone too smoothly,” said Loogan. “Two men set out to bury a body in the woods, and they succeed. There’s no tension. You see what I’m saying?”

  “Not really.”

  “If this were a story for Gray Streets, you’d reject it out of hand.”

  Kristoll smiled. He dragged the rake slowly along the ground. “If this were a story for Gray Streets,” he said, “I would have gotten a flat tire on the way here. And a helpful cop would have come along as soon as I pulled over. If this were a story for Gray Streets, there would be a mysterious blonde involved, and she would probably knock me over the head and push me down a flight of stairs.”

  Kristoll pointed the handle of the rake down at the body of the thief. “If this were a story for Gray Streets, he would only be pretending to be dead. The two of you would be in league, and the whole point of this exercise would be to lure me into the woods and make me dig my own grave.” He spread his arms out casually at his sides. “If you’re going to kill me, use the shovel. All I ask is: Not in the face.”

  Loogan shook his head. “I haven’t got the energy. But you’ve made my point for me. If this were fiction, things would be something other than what they seem. So what are we missing? Let’s go over the plan. We bury the body in the woods. We gather our tools, pick up the empty water bottles—no evidence left behind. Down the hill to the cars, a quick cleanup, a change of clothes. I drive the thief’s car, you follow along. We take the car to a questionable neighborhood, leave it on the street. And that’s it. The body’s taken care of, the car’s taken care of. What are we forgetting?”

  Kristoll gripped the end of the handle of the rake, holding it upright. He rested his chin on the back of his hand. “Well, you’ve gotten sloppy,” he said. “You forgot to wipe the steering wheel. Now you’ve left your prints.”

  “Fair enough. I’ll wipe the wheel. What else?”

  Kristoll seemed to consider the question for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders.

  “What about the gun?” Loogan said.

  The flashlight was aimed at the grave, but in its light Loogan could see Kristoll’s face well enough. It went blank for a second and
then life returned to it. To the eyes first. They were the eyes of a man making calculations.

  A trace of a smile formed itself in the corners of Kristoll’s mouth. “You’ve been waiting to ask me that, haven’t you? You’ve been very patient.”

  Loogan said nothing.

  “How did you know about the gun?” Kristoll asked him.

  The question hung in the air of the clearing. Off to the side, the branch that held the flashlight swayed. The clean edge of the circle of light shifted over the ground.

  “The thief had a mark on his ankle,” Loogan said, “the kind of mark made by a leather strap.”

  Kristoll laughed quietly. “You’re a detective.”

  “No. I just read a lot of stories. What do people strap to their ankles? Holsters. What do people keep in holsters?”

  “Elementary.”

  “So he had a gun,” Loogan said. “That’s an interesting fact. And here’s another: You took the gun. I can think of a couple reasons for that. You felt threatened. Your home had been violated. You planned to go out, in the night, to dispose of a corpse. Having a gun would be reassuring.”

  Loogan studied Kristoll’s face in the dim light. “There’s another reason,” Loogan said, “but maybe it’s best left unstated. You don’t want me to go into it.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “It’s all right, Tom. You can keep your secrets.”

  “Sounds like it’s too late for that. Say what you want to say.”

  “All right,” said Loogan. “You took the gun because the gun was inconvenient. Your story was shaky in the first place, but the gun makes it laughable. A man breaks into your house, presumably to rob you. If he’s any kind of thief at all, he has to realize that someone could be in the house. He’s brought a gun with him; he ought to keep it in his hand until he’s sure no one’s home. But he doesn’t. If he did, you wouldn’t be able to kill him with a bottle of Scotch.”

  Loogan shifted his gaze from Kristoll to the grave. “And that means you knew him. He wasn’t a thief. You let him in the house. He felt safe. He didn’t need to hold the gun. It was enough to have it in the holster on his ankle. That’s the only way it makes sense. That’s why we had to bury him. If he was a stranger, we could have dumped his body somewhere. What would it matter if he was found? No one would suspect you. But we had to bury him, because you knew him.”