Grave Situation

by Alex MacLean

  Potter’s gaze lingered on the picture. Longer, Allan saw, than it had on Cathy’s.

  “Forensics lifted your thumbprint from that bag,” Allan explained. “That’s what lead us to you. And these same bags were found at your home earlier. All of them filled with your product.”

  A furtive look snuck into Potter’s eyes. “You looking for a confession?”

  “We don’t need one. We’re looking for the truth. Some reason why you were selling smack laced with coke. Did you not take into account the jeopardy you were putting people in?”

  Potter gave a look of astonishment. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  Allan rose to his feet, leaning over the table. “The heroin you sold Cathy Ambré was contaminated with cocaine. Did you intentionally put it in there, you fucking trash? Perhaps to give your clientele an extra kick?”

  Potter’s throat began working. His face was paler than before. His fingers gripped the edge of the table, chain of his cuffs dangling between his wrists. For the first time he looked genuinely afraid.

  Finally, he shook his head. “I never touched it.”

  “I don’t believe you. Your drug caused her death. And we’re looking into the deaths of four others in the city who’ve died under similar circumstances. Criminal negligence causing death carries a stiff penalty in this country. Even steeper than the drug charges we already have on you. Up to life. You’re facing some serious time.”

  “I never messed with it. If the heroin was contaminated, it was like that when it came in. It wasn’t me.”

  Bingo, thought Allan.

  His deadpan expression belied the satisfaction he felt inside.

  If only all criminals were this stupid.

  A heavy hush fell over the room.

  As if deflated, Potter slumped in the chair. With his eyes downcast, he seemed to reflect. Perhaps on the mistakes he had made or the prison cell that would soon become a substantial part of his remaining life. But not on the lives his actions had affected; of that, Allan was certain.

  When at last Potter looked up again, he had only one thing left to say. “I want to call my lawyer.”

  “Sure you do,” Allan said, and walked out of the room.

  29

  Acresville, May 16

  7:25 p.m.

  The ranch house, nestled amidst a lushly treed hillside, was clad in cedar bevel siding. Police Chief David Brantford sank into a wicker settee on the back deck. He struck a match and touched the flame to the end of a cigar clamped between his teeth.

  It was a pleasant evening. Behind the thin stand of trees in the backyard, the westering sun backlit the spindly branches and needle leaves. A gentle breeze carried the scent of pine and spruce. The only sound was the undulation of crickets chirping.

  Crossing his legs, David inhaled on the cigar and blew smoke at the sky. This was part ritual. Depending on the weather, he came out here after supper to unwind, to enjoy the peacefulness of nature. He’d never been the type to sit in front of a television set until bedtime.

  In his late fifties, he was a paunchy man with liquid brown eyes, balding gray hair and a pepper-and-salt beard.

  From inside the house came the muffled sound of the telephone. It rang twice and then stopped. Moments later, the screen door opened and his wife, Margaret, appeared. She was a short woman, bordering on plump, with sea-gray eyes and light coifed hair. There was a kind, motherly look to her. A cup towel hung from one hand.

  “You’re wanted on the phone,” she said.

  “Who is it?”

  “Sam, from the station.”

  David looked at his watch. 7:32 p.m.

  “Did he say what it’s about?”

  “Only that it’s an emergency.”

  David’s eyebrows bushed together. The cigar smoldered in his hand. Trails of white smoke wisped from the tip. He took one last puff and then ground out the nub in an ashtray on the arm of the settee. Because of her asthma, Margaret forbade smoking in the house.

  David walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone on the counter.

  “What is it, Sam?” he asked without preface.

  The voice he heard on the other end of the line was taut. “Sorry to bother you at home, Chief. But a body’s been found.”

  David felt himself tense. “Where?”

  “Timbre Road. I’m here now.”

  “Who found it?”

  “Two locals. Roland Grant and Thomas Cussons.”

  David considered the names but couldn’t recognize either one.

  “And how’d they come upon the body?”

  “Grant owns a camp up in the woods nearby. He and Cussons went up there yesterday morning for a weekend of fishing. His dog wandered off earlier this evening and wouldn’t return after repeated calls out to it. When they went out to look for it, they found it by the body. Must’ve picked up the odor.”

  David paused at this. “So the body’s in bad shape?”

  There came an intake of breath.

  “It’s not in good shape. We didn’t go that close so to jeopardize the scene. The body’s not skeletonized. I have no idea how long it’s been there. Few days. A week. Maybe longer. There’s insect activity and one more thing, Chief.” Sam hesitated, finishing weakly, “The hands are missing.”

  David became quite still.

  “What?”

  “Yup.”

  “Perhaps they were taken by animals,” David suggested. “It happens.”

  “I don’t know. Everything’s equivocal right now, Chief.”

  At the corner of his vision, David saw Margaret watching from the doorway. Instinctively, he turned away.

  “Male or female?” he asked in a hushed tone.

  “Caucasian male. Looks to be in his sixties. We haven’t touched the body. We’re waiting for Doctor Fitzgerald to get here. Willy says the victim looks like the park hermit.”

  David felt his heart lurch. Briefly, he closed his eyes.

  God, don’t let it be.

  “Are Grant and Cussons still at the scene?” he asked.

  “Yes. Willy’s going to have them come down to the station.”

  “Keep them separated. And have their statements taken one at a time.”

  “Okay…” Sam’s words fell off. “I can see Doctor Fitzgerald’s van coming now.”

  “I’ll be there soon,” David said promptly.

  He put down the phone. Palms on the countertop, he stared absently at the sudsy water in the sink. His thoughts were a mix of foreboding and duty. Behind him, he didn’t hear Margaret move up.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  The closeness of her voice startled him. For a moment, David was quiet. When he spoke, his tone was close to a murmur. “A man’s body was found.”

  “Do they know who it is?”

  He turned to her, saw the concerned look on her face. “Not sure yet.”

  “I suppose they don’t know the cause of death either?”

  David exhaled. “The coroner will give that ruling. I’m going out there.” He kissed her on the forehead. “Don’t wait up for me.”

  He prepared to leave, grabbing his keys from the counter, his jacket from the closet in the living room. Margaret followed him outside to the front porch. She leaned a shoulder against the post and crossed her arms, watching him.

  Head down, eyes crinkled in thought, David climbed into his car. As he drove off, he saw Margaret in the rear-view mirror, still on the porch, her hand lifted in a wave.

  Twilight was settling over the countryside. Soon, David realized, it would be too dark to launch a beneficial search of the crime scene.

  The road ahead wound through farmland and foothills. Much of the scenery passed without registering on his consciousness.

  Murder number three, he reflected.

  In his thirty-six years with the Acresville Police Department, David had encountered only two murders. The first occurred while still a lowly constable. On one sweltering August evening in
1976, Gavin Rector, a nineteen-year-old addict walked into Bailey’s Pharmacy near closing. He had a loaded .32 revolver concealed in the waistband of his pants. He loitered in the aisles until the last of the shoppers had left and then went up to the pharmacist and ordered him to fill a brown paper bag with amphetamines. Once the pharmacist had finished, Rector shot the poor man three times. David and his partner caught Rector fleeing the scene.

  A nineteen-year lull passed before the second murder occurred. It was in June of 1995. Forty-three year old, Malcolm Friesen had a history of domestic violence. He and his wife had just recently separated after eight years of marriage. Ignoring the restraining order to stay away from her, Friesen suddenly showed up at her door one night. Drunk and infuriated, he fatally shot the woman when she answered. Neighbors called the police after hearing six gunshots ring out. Five were into Friesen’s wife; the final one ripped through his own brain. The tragedy had left their two daughters, aged four and seven, orphaned.

  Two murders in thirty-six years of service. David had always been proud of that. Violent crime took place elsewhere—Halifax, Pictou, Sydney. But not here. Not in his town.

  David shot across a wooden bridge. Seven kilometers further, a sign directed him to Timbre Road. As he turned onto it, his mouth became dry.

  Trees ran along both sides of the road. In the rear-view mirror he could see only a cloud of dust, curling in upon itself.

  The time was 7:54.

  For the next minute he ascended a steep hill. At its top, red and blue strobe glanced off the sky. David parked behind a black van and for a moment stared at the white lettering across the read doors, Coroner.

  All good things must come to an end, he thought glumly.

  Yellow barrier tape cordoned off the area; Police Line Do Not Cross repeated in black. The Ident van was parked on the other side of the road.

  Constable Sam Patterson stood a few feet from the van, looking down over the embankment with a somber expression. He appeared younger than his age of twenty-eight. He was dark-haired and slim with an athletic build.

  When David shut off the car, he became aware of the drone of a running motor. As he slipped out and walked over to Sam, the noise grew louder.

  “Do we know anything yet?” he asked him.

  Sam turned to him. “It’s murder, Chief. Fitzgerald said the victim looks like he was stabbed.”

  David inhaled. With a knot tightening in his stomach, he stepped to the edge of the embankment and peered down. A grassy slope descended one hundred feet to a creek that measured perhaps four feet across. Two arc lights, powered by a portable generator, bathed the area. Bugs had already begun flashing within their beams.

  The dead man lay sprawled on the bank of the creek with his feet in the water and his pant legs ballooned up. Paul Fitzgerald, the county coroner, was crouched next to the body, blocking much of the view. He was in his early thirties with bright eyes and jet-black hair, neatly cut.

  On the other side of the creek stood James Bentley, snapping pictures from multiple angles. He was a twenty-six year veteran who held the rank of staff sergeant and worked as the department’s sole Ident tech when needed.

  Sam walked over to David.

  “It’s going to be pitch-black soon, Chief,” he said.

  “I know.” David cast a concerned glance at the dimming sky; a ridge of fluffy clouds ran along the horizon just below a gibbous moon. “We’ll have to postpone a search until morning. At least it’s not supposed to rain.”

  “Do you want me to stay here overnight?”

  David nodded. “Yes. I’ll have Terrance come in early for his shift in the morning to relieve you. Did Willy take Cussons and Grant into town?”

  “Yeah, he took Cussons in his car. Grant took his own truck in.”

  “Good.”

  Fitzgerald broke away from his work to look inside his medical bag for something, and it was then that David had a full view of the body. Even though the dead man’s face was twisted away, the trench coat was recognizable anywhere.

  David grimaced.

  John, he thought sadly. Who did this to you?

  Up the road a bit, a heavy rope marked the entrance into the crime scene, stretching down the embankment north of the victim. David went to it, sliding down the hillside, grabbing at clumps of grass, nearly tumbling to the bottom. He moved slowly along the bank of the creek, mindful of burrows and fallen branches. The woodland on the other side was dark and gloomy.

  As David got closer, he saw Fitzgerald directing the beam of a flashlight around the ground by the body.

  “How long do you think he’s been out here?” David called out to him.

  “A week, maybe,” Fitzgerald shouted back over the sound of the nearby generator. “There’s decomp and bloating present. I’ll be able to establish a better time frame when I get him back to the morgue. We’re lucky the local wildlife didn’t find him.”

  David frowned.

  Didn’t find him?

  As he reached the body and stared down at it, he found himself unable to move. He remembered a boy in high school who was short and chubby, like him. Outgoing. Bright. Someone the teachers thought would go somewhere in life, but all David saw now was the emaciated shell of a man who had gone nowhere in life and whose lined and ravaged face made him look many years older than he was.

  For a moment, David lowered his head in silent grief. He touched his forehead, his heart and each shoulder in the sign of the cross.

  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

  May God be with you, John.

  James walked over to him, camera dangling from a strap around his neck. “What do you say we remove the body tonight and come back in the morning to finish the search of the scene?”

  David nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”

  James pointed to the embankment. “There’s a path of matted grass and fall-like indentations in the soil leading from the edge of the road straight down to the body.”

  David’s gaze moved up the slope to where Patterson stood looking down.

  A dump job? he wondered. Is this the primary or secondary scene?

  “I wonder if he was murdered here?”

  “I don’t know,” said James. “Someone brought him out here, that’s for sure.”

  David paused a moment, staring at the creek cascading past.

  “Fitzgerald hasn’t checked the body for ID yet,” James said. “But I think the victim’s the park hermit.”

  “He is.” David turned to him. “His name was John Baker.”

  “You knew him?”

  “Yeah, many years ago.”

  “What made him become such a social oddity?”

  David looked at the body with a sad expression. “The bottle became his demon.”

  “Did he have any family?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  David watched Fitzgerald slide a probe thermometer into a mass of maggots on the vagrant’s abdomen and then record the temperature in his notebook. When he finished, he took out a plastic spoon from his medical bag and began using it to collect specimens of maggots in two jars.

  “We’re going to have the body removed tonight,” David called to him. “Return at daybreak to continue the search.”

  Fitzgerald tightened the lid of one jar. “Okay, Chief. I’m going to come back then as well and check the soil for pupae.”

  “Will you do the autopsy tonight?”

  Fitzgerald checked his watch. “I can. I’m going to get these little critters,” he held up a jar, “ready to send down to Halifax for analysis.”

  “Did they do much damage?”

  “Only a little. We’re lucky there aren’t too many flies around yet. If this was the middle of July…” Fitzgerald paused and shook his head. “Well, there wouldn’t be much of a body left.”

  “Can you determine how his hands were removed?” David asked.

  “Don’t know. Sawed off. Chopped off.”

  This ga
ve David pause. “Animals couldn’t have done it?”

  “No.” Fitzgerald reached down and lifted one arm. “The cuts are too clean.”

  David’s gaze fell upon the stump of a wrist, crusted with writhing maggots. Suddenly exposed to the powerful arc lights, they began dropping off the arm in a steady line. David brought up a fist to his mouth, knuckles touching his lips, as he tried to fight the rise of a late supper.

  He turned to James. “Did you find the hands?”

  “No, Chief. I looked on the hillside, along the bank of the creek, even downstream, but they’re not here.”

  David shook his head. He felt a strange sense of foreboding.

  Why the hands? Where are they?

  30

  Acresville, May 17

  8:15 a.m.

  Herb pulled on a pair of gloves and opened the creaky basement door. Below him a flight of narrow steps disappeared into a murky darkness. He flipped the light switch and went down. The dank smell of moist soil flooded his nostrils. One dimly-lit bulb hung from a wire in the middle of the ceiling joists, casting long shadows out to the cement walls.

  The basement itself was open and unfinished with an earthen floor. Resting on a slab of concrete, a furnace took up the center floor space, its pipes jutting in all directions.

  In three strides Herb crossed to a chest freezer set up on two pallets against the right-hand wall. A blast of cold air struck his face as he lifted the lid and bent inside. He took out two Ziploc bags containing the hands he had stolen from the vagrant and carried them upstairs.

  There was a small Coleman cooler on the table. Herb put the frozen hands inside it and closed the lid. He removed his gloves.

  The clock on the wall read 8:23.

  Almost time.

  Herb sighed, feeling tension in his gut.

  What will they want next? he wondered.

  The uncertainty made him anxious. He went to the kitchen counter and slid open the linen drawer. From beneath a pile of dishtowels he withdrew his .38 revolver. He didn’t need to check the cylinder; he kept the gun loaded at all times. He tucked it in the back of his pants and pulled his shirt over it.

  To calm his nerves, he poured a generous amount of whiskey into a glass and gulped it down in one swallow.