After I ate, I got upstairs and found a note on the bathroom mirror. “Don't forget that the fourteenth is the birthday party for Betsy.” A cousin. I would have, and probably would again, anyway. We were to be hosting the family for the afternoon and evening, since it was my day off. Fourteen guests, and our daughter, Jane, was coming home from Michigan for the event.
I hated the way we had to communicate with notes so much. I mean I know that some couples write to each other. But they're the ones who live apart, for God's sake.
I wrote on the bottom of the note that I'd be there no matter what. I hoped I was right. Then I took my flashlight, and, holding my hand over the lens and letting just a little light shine between my fingers, I crept into the bedroom, and turned down the blanket.
“It's okay,” came a sleepy voice. “I couldn't sleep. How'd the day go?”
“Fine,” I said. “No problems.”
I went out like the proverbial light.
The phone rang, and stopped after the second ring. I rolled over and looked at the clock. 07:48. I was the only one in bed, and Sue left for school at eight. She had probably gotten the call downstairs. I turned back over.
Sue said my name, from the bedroom door. “Carl?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“It's for you. The office.”
“Okay,” I mumbled. “Thanks.” I rolled back over, and reached out for the phone by the bed. “Yeah?”
“You better come out right away,” said Gwen, who should have been gone.
“Why are you still at work?” I asked.
“Bad wreck down by Freeman's Grove about zero two hundred,” she said. “Just getting ready to go. But you have to come out right away, and get up to the Freiberg Funeral Home.”
“What's up?” I swung my legs over the edge of the bed.
“I don't know. Really. But the Freiberg officer, Byng, says we need the investigator there right away.”
“Can you give me a guess?” I asked.
“All I know is that we got a call about ten minutes ago from the funeral home, and they requested an officer. He got there, and I thought it was just some traffic arrangement thing, you know, for the funeral today. And I think he did, too. And then Byng called on the phone, and said not to say anything over the radio, and not to tell Lamar.”
It all came out in a rush, and she just about lost me. “Right,” I said. “But no idea why?”
“No. And he said that he'd be very busy, and not to call him until you get there.”
Unusual. Very unusual.
I was in the car and en route to Freiberg by 07:59. Not bad, considering. There had been some very cold coffee standing in the pot, left over from yesterday morning. I'd slurped some from a cup, and winced. But it was coffee.
It was a school day, so I kept it under seventy all the way up, but I did turn on my red lights. Didn't encounter a single school bus. Figured.
I went out of the car on the radio at 08:18, at the Freiberg Funeral Home.
The first person I met was Mrs. Marteen, the director's wife, who was very pale and fluttering around like some sort of demented butterfly. All she said was “This way, this way,” as she ushered me into the back.
The funeral director and Byng were standing back by the vault where they would keep a body when it wasn't being viewed. The door was pretty big, in order to permit the easy passage of the coffins.
“What happened?” It's the best question.
“It's awful,” said the director. “Terrible. Just terrible.”
Byng said, “Broke into the vault, here, Carl, and I found a place out back where it looks like they might have come in through an unlocked window. No breaks, though.”
“Okay. What's missing?” I had an incredible feeling of dread that somebody had taken Edie's body.
“Nothing as far as we can tell,” he said. “But you better see this.”
We entered the well-lit, cool vault, and I could see that Edie's coffin was opened. I came around the right side, and looked down at her.
“Aw, shit,” I said.
“Yeah. Me, too.”
There was a crude wooden stake protruding from the center of her chest.
TWENTY-FOUR
Tuesday, October 10, 2000
08:35
“Where's your phone?” I asked the director.
He led me back toward the main part of the building. “What's wrong with this world today?” he asked.
“Lots,” I said.
“Don't let anybody touch anything,” I said to Byng. “After I make a call, I'm going to get my camera, and then take a bunch of photos. Stay around.” The last thing I wanted was to have an esthetically offended funeral director pull the stake out. As I dialed, it occurred to me that we had about three or four hours before the funeral.
“Sheriff's Department,” said Sally.
“It's me, Houseman. Get Hester up here, and don't let Lamar know anything about my being here until I can talk to him personally. Call Doc Z., tell him we're going to have a question. Then get Dr. Peters, the forensics man, on the phone and ask if he can call me up here. Tell him it's very urgent.”
“Right. What's going on?”
“Not over the phone,” I said. Then it came to me that mothers, even estranged ones, might want to pay a visit on the deceased before the funeral. “Hang on a second.” I put my hand over the receiver and raised my voice so the funeral director or his wife could hear, wherever they had chosen to be to give me privacy on the phone. “Mr. Marteen? Could you come here a sec?” He appeared almost instantly. He hadn't been too far, probably within earshot. “Can you tell me if any relatives will be here much before the funeral starts?”
“Many times they are. I don't know about this one.”
“And what time is the funeral?”
“Eleven. And the luncheon is at St. Elmer's, as well.” Habit.
“Thanks.” I talked back into the phone. “Look, you better have Lamar give me a call up here right away.”
“Okay.”
“We gotta move really fast on this one,” I said. “Later.”
I hung the phone up. “We might have to delay the funeral a bit,” I said to Mr. Marteen. “Maybe not. Will you come here and see if you think we can close the lid with that damned thing still in her?”
“How will I explain that?”
It was a fair question. “Just tell them it's at the request of the family,” I said. “After all, everybody got a chance to see her yesterday at the wake.”
“It's the family I was referring to,” he said dryly.
“You mean her mother?”
“Yes. How on earth can I tell her that she can't see her daughter one last time?”
I didn't really think that was going to be a problem, but you never know what a relative will do.
“You have a blanket? A nice one?”
“Yes.”
“Can't you tell her that it's part of the process, you know, to sort of cover her up? Just expose the face for the good-bye?” I thought it might work. The head of the stake only protruded about three inches, and if you were to wrinkle the blanket sufficiently…
He thought about that. “We do have to tell her. We really do,” he said finally.
He was right. Now I was going to have to tell Lamar and lay this additional task on his shoulders.
I looked at Marteen. “Let me make a call. Sheriff Ridgeway will handle Edie's mother for us.”
I really hated to make that call. Lamar, bless him, said he'd get to his sister's house right away.
“What they do to her, Carl?” His voice was tight with anger.
I told him. Sort of. “They slipped something into the coffin,” I said. “No point in going into the details. It's just that there's been some discoloration and stuff, and it's best to have the lid closed. If your sister has to see her, Mr. Marteen here will just explain that they always cover them up to the chin with a special blanket or cloth.” It was true as far as it went.
M
r. Marteen and I went to Edie's coffin, and very gently let the lid close. Just by gravity. “We have to close it carefully,” I said. “We can't use any pressure or anything, or it will change things just a bit for whoever comes for the lab work.”
He looked questioningly at me.
“Court, Mr. Marteen. You'll have to testify to this in court. That we didn't use any pressure to close the lid.”
The next fifteen minutes were pretty busy. First I had to photograph everything. I was very relieved the lid would close easily, and we were going to have to have a closed-casket ceremony. Better than none, I thought. I had Mr. Marteen remain there throughout, as an independent witness. Not a time to take a chance with the evidence.
I did photos inside first. It was backward procedure, but it was done that way to get things around the casket finished up and set back in place as soon as possible. I'd be able to take my own sweet time looking at the exterior evidence.
Just as I was heading for the back door, Hester came in the front.
“What's so urgent?”
I took her to the back room, and warned her. “Somebody's mutilated Edie's corpse,” I said.
“Oh, no… ”
“Yeah. A stake in her chest.” I said it as matter-of-factly as I could.
“You have to be kidding me. Jesus H. Christ,” she said softly. “What in hell is going on here?”
I raised the newly closed casket lid, and she looked in. We stared for a few seconds, neither of us really sure what to say next.
“You call Dr. Zimmer?” she asked, in a toneless voice.
“Yes. Told the office to tell him it was very urgent.”
“Who do you think? Chester? Peale?”
“Don't know. Chester'd be the logical choice. Being the mighty hunter and all, this should be the thing he does, shouldn't it?” I was far from sure, but he seemed like the reasonable suspect.
“It could be,” she said. “But, why would somebody do this, Carl?” She looked at me for the first time since I'd opened the coffin lid. “There's no such thing as a vampire, and… Anyway, there's no indication whatsoever that Edie ever even pretended she was one.”
“I don't know. But I will.” And I was sure that I would. A murder investigation, with its associated procedures, was rare in Nation County, and I was relatively unfamiliar with it. Burglary investigation, on the other hand, was my thing.
We hadn't been outside for more than five minutes, when I had the following information securely fixed in my notebook: A. Entry had been gained through the unlocked window, as described to me by Officer Byng. B. Unknown to Byng, who'd done a cursory check outside, the screen had been removed from the high window, and that had not been unlocked. The aluminum-framed screen was around the north side of the building, in some bushes. It had been bent, pried, and the screening material itself had been torn. All of that would have been unnecessary, if the suspect(s) had simply pried up near the wire latch. C. There were traces of blood on the screen frame, and on some of the strands of torn wire. D. The suspect(s) had approached the rear door, which had been locked, and had left some small pry marks near the lock, but right over the key mechanism. Not in the right place, they'd produced no result, and entry had not been gained. E. There were three identifiable footprints in the dirt under the window where they'd gained entry. Two left shoe, one right shoe, of identical pattern. F. There were shallow trench marks about a quarter inch wide and deep, and about three feet long, in the ground under the window. They indicated that either a box or a crate had been placed under the window to permit the suspect(s) to climb high enough to effect entry. G. There was a heavy-duty, blue plastic milk crate across the blacktopped alley, that proved to have similar dirt on the top edges. As would be expected if it had been inverted for use as a step.
All this was very positive, and I was pleased. The icing on the cake, however, was provided by one Rosalind O'Banion, a sixty-eight-year-old white female, who lived across the street from the funeral home, and who had shuffled over to watch the excitement. She was wearing a blue and white checked bathrobe, with a raincoat over it, and a gray stocking cap on her head.
“What's going on, Bingo?” she said, addressing Byng.
“Never mind, Rosy.” He was pretty short, I thought. I didn't think that she'd come all the way across the street, dressed like that, just to stare. Her house offered a fine view, and she could have sat down with her coffee and watched from there in comfort.
“We've had a little incident here, ma'am,” I said. Like I say, burglaries are my thing, sort of, and I knew from much experience that witnesses were worth their weight in gold. Rosy might have a bit of potential. “Can you tell me anything about it?”
“No,” said Rosy.
Well, so much for that.
“If you do remember anything, or hear anything, would you let us know?” Not quite a brush-off, and it left the door open.
Rosy looked at me closely, and I figured that since I wasn't in uniform, it really hadn't sunk in that I was a law enforcement officer. “Aren't you the cop who busted Quentin Pascoe a while back?”
The worst sexual abuse case I'd ever worked. “Yep, that was me.”
“The son of a bitch,” she said, “is my brother-in-law.” She thought for a moment, and then said, “Well, it probably don't mean shit, but… ” Music to my ears.
Rosy was the cleaning lady for one of the local taverns, and had just been leaving her house last night to clean the place when she'd seen somebody in the alley. He'd been coming toward her, from the funeral home direction, and just stopped cold when he saw her. He'd apparently stood stock-still, and didn't utter a sound. She walked about fifteen feet from him, following her usual path to the tavern, and he still hadn't moved a muscle, nor said a word.
“I didn't speak nothin' either,” she said. “Just walked by him like he wasn't there.”
“Did you recognize him?”
“I think so. I can't put his name on my tongue, but you know him, too. The short one.”
I'd need a bit more than that. “Uh… ”
“The short one, the one from up at the Mansion. Oh, you know… ”
“Male or female, Rosy?”
She snorted. “He's a male, I think,” she said disparagingly. “Comes into the tavern once in a while, I think for no good. You know the one, with the thing in his nose,” she said, and pointed to the bridge of her own nose. “Right here.”
I looked at Hester, who was grinning widely.
“Kid named Toby?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure. Toby. Toby, uh, Chalk or something, oh, it'll come to me… ”
“Gottschalk?”
“No, that's not right. Is it? Maybe it is,” she said, reflecting. “Maybe so.”
“But you know him to live up at the big house on the bluff, south of here, right?” I had to make sure, but there was no doubt in my mind who she meant.
“Hangs about with that Huck girl, and the other, smaller one, a lot. Him.”
“Did you see anything else?” interjected Byng, trying to be helpful.
“You're the one with the shiny badge, Bingo,” she said. “How much help you need?”
“Thanks, Rosy. Thanks a whole lot,” I said. “Big help, but now, don't tell anybody you talked to us, okay?”
“Quiet as a mouse,” she said.
“Promise?” I smiled.
“On a stack of Bibles,” she answered.
I figured that ought to buy us about ten minutes. But I was happy.
But Toby, for God's sake. I would have bet heavily on William Chester. Well, maybe Toby was just the lookout for somebody. Sure.
Hester and I rode up to the Mansion together, leaving the funeral home just as one of the area TV vans pulled up to get set to cover the funeral. Close.
I used her cell phone to call Lamar. I told him what had happened, sort of. He sounded angry and sad, but I think it helped when I told him we were on our way to bag a suspect.
“Let me know when you get him in cust
ody,” he said.
“You got it.” I handed the cell phone back to Hester. “He wants us to let him know when we've got Toby.”
“My pleasure,” said Hester. “Hey, go slow through here. I want to see if there's any sign of the old lift track from the top of the hill to the landing.”
I slowed, just past the silica mine, and we looked as closely as possible at the cliff faces and the ravines between them. There wasn't much to see, except a possible segment of a pathway up on the side of the bluff, just barely discernible among the trees. It seemed to disappear about fifty feet up the slope, among some boulders and old fallen timber.
“We should wait for winter,” I said. When all the leaves have fallen, and the first light snow comes, tracks in the hills stand out like white lines on a dark field.
“If we haven't found what we're looking for before the first snowfall, Houseman,” said Hester, “we're in real trouble.”
“Yeah.” I looked back, over my shoulder, toward the possible path. “I sure as hell wouldn't want to try that in the dark,” I said.
“Me, either. You could fall a good fifty feet onto those boulders. Especially if you were in a hurry.”
It was food for thought, though. There had been a clear way down there once, according to Old Knockle. There could be, still.
Hester used her cell phone to call Harry, over in Conception County, as I drove. She told him about the staking, and asked where the body of the late Randy Baumhagen was being kept. It was apparently in Harry's jurisdiction, because she cautioned him to keep an eye out on a funeral home.
Calling Harry had completely slipped my mind. That sort of thing bothers me, because it means that I'm not getting enough time between events to process information correctly.
“I'm about a hundred percent certain that he's up here,” I said, as we turned off the paving and onto the gravel that led to the Mansion. “He's pretty predictable.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Where else can he go? Just remember how predictable he is, when he runs into the woods on us again.”
“Good point.” I turned onto the long drive, heading up the hill. I slowed way down, so that the occupants of the Mansion wouldn't be alerted by the roar and rush of the car. “I just hope he's got the right tread pattern on his shoes, and that he's got a cut somewhere we can see,” I said, remembering the blood on the screen. Please, God. Please.
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