Ax & Spade: A Thriller (Raven Trilogy Book 1)

by Kurt B. Dowdle

  He motioned to the rifle and said, “It’s not loaded, is it?”

  “How would I know?”

  Kamp sat up and held out his hands, and Nyx handed him the Sharps. He checked the breech and handed it back to her. “Did you get any food?”

  “Plenty. Aren’t you wondering how I got it?”

  “The food?”

  “The gun. Aren’t you wondering where it came from?”

  “I’m taking a break from wondering about anything.”

  “Well, I want you to teach me how to shoot it. And just so you know, I was walking around in the woods when I found it. I also found this.” Nyx held up a lace handkerchief that he recognized as Shaw’s. Kamp gestured for her to give it to him, and when she did, he held it to his nose and mouth and took a deep breath.

  Nyx said, “Still don’t know where they are, huh?” He stared at the handkerchief. “Can I talk to you about what I wanted to talk to you about?”

  Kamp said, “Can I eat something first?”

  Nyx handed him a satchel that contained a length of ring bologna, a wedge of cheese and a slice of shoo-fly pie. He devoured the food. In between bites he said, “Where’d you get this stuff?”

  Nyx leaned forward toward Kamp. “All right, here’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “Do the Fogels know you’re here?”

  “Listen.”

  “You need to tell them. Tell Charlotte Fogel you’re here.”

  “Kamp, listen! The other day I was thinking about everything that happened with my parents and Danny Knecht. And I just couldn’t figure out how he could’ve done that. I mean I knew him. I know the way he was with our family. He just would never have done such a terrible thing.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “My point is that, well, I guess I don’t think he killed them, and I want to hear what you think.”

  “Did you see him do it?”

  “No. All I saw was him burning clothes.”

  “What clothes was he wearing when you saw that?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Think.”

  Nyx closed her eyes and took a few breaths. “He was wearing the same clothes I saw him wearing earlier in the day.”

  “Seems unlikely that he would have changed clothes, carried out the killings, then changed again, especially if he was enraged. Possible, but unlikely. Did you hear anyone else in the house? Any other voices?”

  “No.”

  “If Danny Knecht didn’t kill them, he had to have been working somehow with the person who did. That means that someone else wanted to hurt your parents, and they needed Danny’s help for some reason.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you know of anyone who was angry at your parents? Your father?”

  “No one. They didn’t have quarrels with anyone. I mean no one.”

  Kamp said, “Do you remember your father acting strangely in the days or weeks before the murders? Anything different about him?”

  “Just that he was angry at Danny.”

  “For what?”

  “Oh, just the way he was around me. And, no, Danny never did, we never—if that’s what you’re going to ask next.”

  “Can you think of any person who came to your house, someone you didn’t recognize, who may have talked to your father or to Danny?”

  Nyx bit her lip and looked up at the ceiling. “Nope.”

  “Go back to last summer. Around the time he moved in, or just before. Can you remember anyone coming to your house?”

  Nyx’s eyebrows popped up. “Yes, I remember, there was a man. A fine carriage pulled up in front of the house. My sisters and I were at the creek. We saw him get out and talk to my father at the front door. Probably a few minutes. Then he left.”

  “Was it an argument? Could you tell?”

  “It didn’t look like an argument. He shook my father’s hand right before he left.”

  “Did you ever see the man again?”

  “Yes. He was that man at the funeral.” Nyx stared into the fire.

  “The one who spoke to you at the funeral? Silas Ownby. The owner of the coal mine?”

  “Uh-huh. The man who came up and talked to me after I throttled the reverend.”

  “What did he say to you at the funeral?”

  She turned to face Kamp. “He said, here’s exactly what he said…he said, ‘My child, it wasn’t your fault.’”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I said, ‘Of course it wasn’t my fucking fault.’ But I said it in a nice way.”

  “What do you think he meant?”

  “He probably meant that he knows that the reverend is a pervert.”

  “A what?”

  “A pervert. A dreckich wutz. He touches children, when they’re alone. Lots of people know. It’s not exactly a secret. But no one does anything about it.”

  “Did your parents know?”

  Nyx looked out the window. “I don’t know whether they did or not. I think they had to have known something. But I’m sure they didn’t want to believe it. They would have tried to protect us. I don’t know.”

  “Did the reverend ever do anything to you?”

  “He'll get his.”

  Kamp said, “What did he do?”

  “I should've thrown him down in that hole.”

  “Did he ever do anything to your sisters?”

  She leveled her gaze. “No.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He never had the chance. I made certain he was never alone with them.”

  “So, that’s why you went after him at the funeral, because of what he did to you.”

  Nyx’s lips curled in disgust. “No, that’s not why.”

  “Then why?”

  Nyx erupted. “All that garbage about how Danny is burning in hell, how he deserves to burn in hell. And how my parents are just floating up there in heaven and how pleased god must be with them and how if you think about it, they’re lucky they got hacked to pieces because now they get to be with god forever and ever. And how they all got what they deserved. Which means I guess my sisters got what they deserved. I guess I got what I deserved.”

  Nyx’s eyes brimmed with tears as she focused on him and said, “Danny is dead. My parents are dead. No one got what they deserved. I couldn’t listen to one more word from the mouth of that filthy liar. That’s why I choked him.”

  She dissolved into tears. Between the sobs she said, “I don’t want to cry about it.” And then she began crying even harder. He felt the sadness welling in himself, and he let himself feel it for a moment.

  When her tears subsided, she said, “My father didn’t like guns. He hated fighting. He just wanted to take care of us.”

  “He was a good man.”

  Nyx wiped the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand and said, “Is your father alive?”

  “No.”

  “What was he like?”

  Kamp stood up and shook the stiffness out of his legs. He said, “I’m going to get more firewood. Tomorrow, you need to go back to the Fogels. You have to tell them you’re staying here. If they strongly disapprove, you have to go back with them. Promise me you’ll do that.”

  Nyx said, “On one condition. You teach me how to shoot this gun.”

  “Deal.”

  LONG AFTER NYX had gone upstairs, Kamp lit a lantern and went down to the cellar. He found what he was looking for, a large metal bathtub. He hauled it back up the stairs and set it next to the fireplace. He retrieved a pail from the kitchen and filled it with water from the well in the backyard. He poured the water into the tub and repeated the process until the bathtub was nearly full. The fire heated the water until it steamed, and then he peeled off his clothing. His pants were shredded and muddy, as was his jacket. Even his shirt was tattered at the collar and had holes in the elbows. He rolled his clothes in a ball and threw them in the corner.

  Kamp put one foot and then the other into the bath. He held the
sides of the tub and lowered his body in. He tilted his head back and let his face submerge. He lifted his head from the water and leaned it against the back of the tub. Kamp felt the living hum come back into his bones, and he listened for all the voices in the house, the ghosts who lived there. He heard Jonas and Rachel, all the things they talked about, what they wanted for their girls. He heard Danny Knecht, his dark confusion and his desperate hope for a future. He heard the voices of ghosts from farther back, before the house was built, voices of original people, Lenape driven from the longhouse that had stood on the same site. He could hear their songs and their trailing cries.

  Kamp lay in the tub long enough so that the sweat began pouring from him and mingling with the well water in the tub. He waited until the heat nearly overtook him and then he went out the back door with the pail. He drew one more bucket of water and poured it over his head. A great cloud of steam rose from his body, and he felt clean. He let his body dry by the fire, and then Kamp went back into the cellar and found a wooden chest, secured with a padlock. By the light of the lantern, he picked up a sledgehammer and removed the lock. He opened the lid and found the personal effects of Jonas and Rachel Bauer, a Meerschaum pipe, a worn Bible, and a silver locket. Beneath the items were their clothes, neatly folded. He removed a pair of Jonas Bauer’s pants, a cotton shirt, wool socks and a coat. He tried on the clothes, and they all fit. He folded Shaw’s handkerchief and put it in his pocket.

  TWENTY-ONE

  AT FIRST LIGHT he went to the clearing in the woods where Nyx said she’d found the gun and the handkerchief. Rain had washed away all but the last bits of snow. He could see that there had been footprints, but he couldn’t discern which way they pointed. From there, he walked the railroad tracks to Bethlehem, instead of the road. He wanted the solitude, and in light of the circumstances, he thought it best to stay as far out of the public eye as possible. He knew that he was still functioning officially in the role of detective, but given what appeared to be a significant rupture in the town’s criminal justice system, Kamp wasn’t sure what it meant to be a part of it. Still, Kamp felt compelled to mine for the truth in the hope that it would lead him to his family.

  When he reached the outskirts of Bethlehem, Kamp pulled the brim of his hat low and headed for the morgue. Once inside the main doors of the building, he walked to a row of tall windows and at the far left, the door to the morgue itself. He didn’t knock but simply turned the knob and walked in. The coroner A.J. Oehler stood hunched over a cadaver, scribbling notes in a book. He didn’t look up when Kamp entered the room.

  Oehler said, “Unless you’re dead, you shouldn’t be here, whoever you are.”

  “It’s Kamp.”

  Oehler stood up to his full height, adjusted his glasses and looked at him. “You really shouldn’t be here.”

  “Tell me about what happened with Crow.”

  The coroner turned back to focus on the cadaver. “Someone’s always shuffling off the mortal coil. I’m especially aware of that on a day such as today.” Oehler gestured dismissively to the eight tables in the room, each of which had a corpse on it, covered with a sheet. “Accidents, disease, trauma. I have work to do, and no time to talk.”

  “The Judge told me you said it was a suicide.”

  “Ach, please leave.” Oehler continued inspecting the cadaver and taking notes.

  “A suicide? Christ, Abner, you think Crow would’ve done that? You knew the man.”

  Oehler stood up straight again. “I don’t concern myself with what might have led anyone to do anything. I focus on what actually happened, the facts.”

  “The facts? You mean your investigation led you to believe that Philander Crow murdered a prostitute and then made his quietus with a shotgun to his own chest?”

  “You do your work, and I’ll do mine.”

  Kamp said, “You noticed he was shot more than once. Tell me how he managed that. And where’s she?” Kamp scanned the rows of corpses.

  “Who?”

  “The prostitute. Where’s the body?”

  “Fergonga.”

  One by one, Kamp pulled the sheets off the corpses.

  The coroner said, “Have some respect!”

  “Just tell me one thing. Did you see this for yourself, the room, the bed where it happened? Did you actually see for yourself where all of this was supposed to have taken place? Did you see any of it?”

  “I saw the bodies, yes. I saw them both. I conducted both autopsies.”

  “But were you there?”

  Oehler said, “The bodies were brought here.”

  “Brought here.”

  “Yes, they were left outside on the front steps. I don’t know by whom.”

  “You don’t know how they got here?”

  “You’re the goddamned detective. Aren’t you supposed to be figuring all this out?”

  Kamp said, “I was there. I saw Crow, and I saw everything that happened. Whatever you wrote was a lie.”

  “What I wrote was consistent with the outcome of my investigation. It’s tragic, and it’s over.”

  “Where’s Crow’s body now?”

  “Gone to the undiscovered country.” Oehler began putting the sheets back over the bodies.

  “Tell me.”

  Oehler said, “It’s not here.”

  “Who took it?”

  “It was retrieved and buried. By his family. It’s gone. There’s nothing more to say. For the sake of Christ, leave.”

  “Does Druckenmiller know what you said? Did he see your report?”

  “Druckenmiller can’t see anything at the moment.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Hospital.”

  LIKE MOST PEOPLE, Kamp avoided hospitals. As he walked the miles to the new hospital in Bethlehem, fragments of memories of the months he passed in army hospitals began trickling through his mind, the doctors’ low murmurs, the shrieking of the man at the end of the ward, the endless procession of the dying, the darkness, the smell. By the time he reached the front lawn of the hospital, he found he had to force himself to enter the building. The trickle of his memories had become a torrent of loud voices and bodily sensations. In an instant Kamp felt as if he were the patient again, as if the years between his time in the hospital and now had evaporated. But having begun the process of discerning the truth, he continued on through the doors of the hospital, not so much dispelling his demons as ignoring them.

  Kamp disregarded the people working in the hospital, even those who inquired regarding the purpose of his visit. He quickly established that the hospital was divided into two main wards, one for women and one for men. He glanced into the women’s ward and saw that most of the beds were empty, while the men’s ward was overfilled. He scanned the large room and saw that the beds were laid out neatly, if somewhat close together, and in each bed was a man or in a few cases, a boy. Kamp didn’t see Druckenmiller and nearly turned to leave. But he noticed that the back corner of the room had been cordoned off with a curtain.

  He pulled back the curtain to find Druckenmiller in a bed with heavy bandages wrapped around his eyes. He wasn’t moving.

  “Sam? Sam?”

  “Kamp?”

  “Yah, it’s me.”

  Druckenmiller said, “There’s something I need you to get. It’s in the pocket of my coat. It’s important. Do you see my coat?”

  “I see it.” He grabbed the coat which had been slung over a chair. He reached into the vest pocket and felt a metal object. “The flask?”

  He whispered, “Oh, Jesus, yes. Goddamned nurses won’t give me a drop.” Kamp handed him the flask, and Druckenmiller carefully unscrewed the cap and took a long pull. “Thank you, thank you.” He took another sip, screwed the cap on and handed the flask back to Kamp. “You gotta leave. You gotta get outta here now. As soon as they hear you’re here, they’ll come for you.”

  “Who?”

  “Same guys that got us at that cathouse.”

  “Sam, what happened to you that n
ight?” He sat down in the chair next to the bed. He noticed Druckenmiller was still wearing the necklace with the brass key on it.

  Druckenmiller said, “I went in the window after you. I saw you get bopped on the head by a different guy.”

  You saw him?”

  “Yah, well, no, he come in right after you pulled the trigger.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What did I do?” Druckenmiller shifted his weight in the bed.

  “You were on the fire escape, at the window, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  He leaned closer to Druckemiller. “Sam, what did you do then?”

  “Well, I jumped in the window. There were people running, you know. Mayhem. Titties everywhere. And I raised my pistol to shoot the guy coming after you. And that’s all I remember.”

  “That’s it, huh?”

  “Yah, musta been the guy that come up the fire escape after us.”

  Kamp said, “The guy you handcuffed to the building? That guy?”

  Druckenmiller became still in the bed and said flatly, “Yah, that guy.”

  “Maybe you didn’t cuff him at all. Or maybe you cuffed him and gave him the key.”

  “Here we go again. You think I was helping them? Do you know what they did to me? Do you want to know? When they were done with me, they left me out on the street in front of the morgue alongside Crow. You want to see what they did? You don’t trust me. See for yourself. Here!”

  Druckenmiller unwrapped the bandages from his face. Both eyes were swollen shut, his eyelids bright purple. “They don’t know whether I’ll ever be able to see again. Are you happy now?”

  Kamp leaned back in his chair. “Why do you suppose they didn’t kill you? And why didn’t they kill me?”

  “All I know is, I’m telling you, they—”

  “Who are they, Sam? They didn’t give you a choice. I know. Tell me who they are.”