The Judas Child (12 page)

They looked across the lake to the redbrick institution atop the hill. Might the old man be watching them now? Over the years at St. Ursula’s Academy, they had forgotten the unlimited freedom of neglect in old environs, and they had become accustomed to the ever watchful housemothers and the faculty’s deep interest in all their affairs, rule-abiding or illicit.

They turned back to the broken window. A curtain covered the hole, and neither boy wanted to see what lay beyond the cloth.

“What
is
that smell?” Jesse thought it was very like the odor of old people—his own grandmother rotting away in the state nursing home.

But Mark had come from an urban rat maze of a thousand anonymous doors along thirty flights of corridors, and he knew exactly what it was. “That’s what death smells like.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Jesse dropped the gun. “We killed somebody?”

“No, jerkoff. It’s
old
death.” Like the odorous deaths that had seeped under the doorsills of the tenement house that was once his home. Bodies, waiting on discovery, had sent stinking invitations along the hallways to their undertakers. Mark sought a reference point that his more rural classmate might understand. “It’s like old roadkill—something that got run over
days
ago.”

 

Though the briefing was limited to members of the task force, reporters and politicians outnumbered and outshouted the FBI agents and BCI investigators. The armed presence of state troopers had no effect on the feeding frenzy of television crews and journalists. A crush of bodies closed around Rouge Kendall as he backed up to the wall of the ground-floor reception area.

Captain Costello appeared at the bottom of the stairs, and the crowd shifted toward him, creating a momentary parting in the screaming sea of bobbing heads and camera equipment. It was no surprise to see Senator Berman, tall, reedy and cadaver white. Wherever there was human misery and a photo opportunity, the state’s most mobbed-up politician would be there, doing nothing useful, yet always maintaining the illusion of being in charge. But now the reporters were in love with Costello and turned their backs on the senator. In the absence of focused cameras, Berman wore no expression as he moved toward the door. The lifeless, dull brown eyes seemed blind to the press of living flesh all around him.

Standing only a few feet away was the more familiar and repulsive figure of a former BCI investigator. Oz Almo was swaddled in a winter coat and a sick-sweet cloud of cologne. Rouge remembered the excess of scent from his childhood, though it was a cheaper brand the first time they had met. As a ten-year-old he had wondered if the perfume was slathered on to mask another odor, for the intuition of something hidden was strong and persistent. The ex-BCI man was slowly turning around as he pulled a fur hat from his sweating bald head. And now the detail of reddened eyes completed the image of a pudgy, wrinkled baby who drank too much.

Before Oz Almo could make eye contact, Rouge moved away quickly. He was about to climb the stairs to the task-force room when Marge Jonas appeared in front of him, decked out like a fire engine in a bright red sweater dress. All her chins jiggled as she shook her head in dismay. “Sweetie, tell me you’re not wearing the same thing you had on yesterday.”

He flashed his best smile. “I changed my shirt and underwear, just for you.”

“You devil.” She dropped a veil of false eyelashes and put a warm cup in his hand. The coffee was black, and he knew it would contain exactly three sugars, as it always did when Marge was about to make a strong suggestion.

Oz Almo was looking at him now, raising one hand in a friendly wave. There was no escape for Rouge; Marge’s fingers had a death grip on his arm. “Hon, I saw all the paperwork for your pay raise. You can afford another sports coat, okay? Maybe some trousers? A new tie?”

He had lost track of Almo by sight, but he could smell the man’s cologne. And now a thick hand weighed down his shoulder.

“Rouge, boy,” said Almo as if they were old friends. They were not. “How the hell are you, kid? You know, we don’t see enough of each other these days.”

“Almo,” said Rouge, nodding curtly to the older, shorter man, though his mother had taught him better manners; he knew well enough to address a person of sixty-five with more respect.

Oz Almo grabbed up Rouge’s right hand and pumped it between two sweaty palms. “Great to see you again, boy. Hey, Marge, how ya doin’?”

“Hello, Oz.” Marge’s nostrils were delicately flared and obviously offended. She left them quickly, stepping lightly into the crowd, and it closed behind her like a door.

Rouge pulled his hand free of Almo’s and wiped it on his jacket, as though he had touched something unclean. And he had.

The old man appeared not to notice the insult. His mouth was a wide, fake smile of yellow teeth. “You have to stop by my place sometime, kid. You never saw my lake house, did you? Say, why not come over for dinner tonight?”

Rouge only stared at him, making no response. The older man’s face fell, but then he recovered his smile. “Hey, I read about your task force assignment. Congratulations. I never made investigator till I was close to forty.” He nodded toward the double doors at the end of the hall. “Can you get me into the briefing?”

“What for?”

“Well, I like to keep my hand in, kid. I really do miss the action.”

By the expensive winter coat, Rouge guessed the trade of private detective had been far more lucrative. And he had to wonder about that in a town six inches wide.

“Say, you’re doing great, Rouge. Saw you on TV last night, bringing in that pervert schoolteacher. Oh, and the bike thief—that was fuckin’ fantastic. How’d you find the kid’s bike so fast?”

“Dumb luck—same way you found my sister’s body.”

Almo’s jaw went slack. “Now that’s no way to talk. Your old man wouldn’t a liked that. You know, since your dad died, I think of you as my own—”

“Push off, Oz!” Captain Costello’s voice cut through the surrounding babble. He was almost on top of Almo when the old man, quick as a thief, ducked back into the crowd. The captain turned to Rouge. “You can pass on the briefing, Kendall.”

“I’m on the task force. Oz read that in the morning newspaper, so it must be true.”

Captain Costello elected to pass on the light sarcasm. He nodded toward the staircase leading up to the briefing room. “There are crime scene shots of old cases all over the walls. Lots of little girls—all dead.”

“So?”

County Medical Examiner Howard Chainy was a man of average height in middle age. A meticulously trimmed moustache gave his bushy eyebrows the comparative look of unkempt hedges. And because he had fallen in love with his ratty old athletic shoes and would not part with them, one might believe he had stolen the well-made topcoat and the black fedora. Under his winter wrapping, he was dressed for a game of racquetball. He glanced at his watch and worried about losing his court reservation.

Well, how complicated could this be?

Dr. Chainy had stepped out of his private car just in time to settle the disputed ownership of the dead body. The van from the county morgue was parked close to the lake, and its gray metal doors hung open, awaiting the corpse. Only a few yards away, a closed black body bag lay on a gurney.

As the doctor examined his assistant’s hasty notes, he lifted one hand in a greeting for Eliot Caruthers, of St. Ursula’s Academy. Then he glanced at the two boys, identified as Mark and Jesse. Both children had the look of pained expectations. Apparently, Caruthers was saving his lecture for a more private moment when he had the errant students alone in his office. This was a minor bit of sadism practiced by every good parent or guardian: let the child’s imagination do all the hard work, conjuring up the worst possible penalties for possessing a pellet gun and breaking a window. Later there would be a punishment, but first, the real torture—anticipation.

The medical examiner looked over the rest of the assembled company. Two men in dark suits stood by the black hearse from the Makers Village Funeral Parlor. They were engaged in a heated argument with a local police officer, Phil Chapel, who was saying—yelling—that the corpse on the gurney belonged to him.

Dr. Chainy had no idea why the young policeman might want a dead body.

The chief of the village police stood off to one side of the battle. Chief Croft’s hair had gone gray, and his weathered face was gathering more wrinkles by the minute, but the blue eyes were young and gleeful. The director of the funeral home was exasperated; the young cop was livid; another uniformed officer was studying the clouds overhead, and pretending that he did not know Phil Chapel; and Charlie Croft was obviously enjoying the show as a pure spectator.

Dr. Chainy caught the chief’s eye and nodded in Phil Chapel’s direction. “I gather he’s the one who called out my meat wagon?”

Chief Croft smiled. “How’d you guess?”

“Oh, shot in the dark.”

In recent years, the local funeral parlor had passed into the hands of an idiot renowned for grinning corpses, fixing features of the deceased in expressions more appropriate to a winter vacation in the tropics. The faces of happy, albeit dead, customers communicated postcard sentiments of “Having a wonderful time, wish you were here.” In any fair comparison, Officer Chapel was not a complete fool. He had merely gone a little strange today.

The medical examiner looked at his watch again. He might still make his date for racquetball. He pointed to the zippered body bag on the gurney. “My assistant says it’s a natural death.”

“I should hope so. The old lady must have been ninety years old. Take a look for yourself.”

“No thanks, Charlie. I understand her own doctor examined her a few days ago?”

“Right again, Doc. I found a bottle of pills with Dr. Penny’s name on it and called his office. The nurse was a little put out. Said she already gave that information to the funeral parlor.”

Officer Chapel and the funeral director were engaged in a swordplay of pointing fingers. The other uniformed cop was walking away from the gurney, perhaps not wanting to be on the winning side of a contest for a corpse.

Dr. Chainy turned back to the chief, who was still maintaining neutrality. “What am I doing here, Charlie? Her own doctor can sign the death certificate.”

“Well, Phil tends to get a little excited sometimes. Part of the ceiling came down in the old lady’s bedroom. Phil thinks it might be a sign of foul play. He’s hoping it’s a gigantic bullet hole.”

Dr. Chainy looked back at the small pellet gun Eliot Caruthers was holding, and he shook his head. “But no holes in the body? We still got a natural death here?”

“Yeah, your guy called it right. I’d say she died in her sleep. Looked real peaceful when we found her. Dr. Penny’s on the way over now.”

“So, Charlie, did you get a good look at the
alleged
bullet hole in the ceiling?”

“Yeah. It’s a real mess. I suppose a large military cannon could’ve done it. But whoever aimed it was a real poor shot. Missed the old woman by a mile. Her bed was clear on the other side of—”

“And in the
absence
of a cannon?”

“You’re taking all the fun out of this, Howard. Well, there was a lot of water pouring out of the hole. I had to turn off the feed line for a toilet tank on the second floor. Stank some. I figure it was stopped up awhile before it broke. That’s probably what brought down the ceiling plaster. That or the cannonball nicked a pipe. Phil thought there was a whiff of gunpowder between the stink of the corpse and the toilet. Couldn’t smell it myself. Say, maybe you could stick your nose in the door and give me a professional—”

“I like the leaky pipe theory.” Dr. Chainy called out to the excited young officer, who was still arguing with the funeral director. “Phil? We’re gonna let them have the damn body.”

The men in dark suits were moving toward the gurney, but the policeman wrapped both hands around the chrome rail and held fast.

Chief Croft stepped forward and yelled, “I think they really want that body more than you do, Phil. Be a good sport, okay?” He turned to Dr. Chainy. “I don’t like to thwart Phil’s enthusiasm.”

A deflated young officer stood to one side as the men in the dark suits captured the gurney and wheeled it toward the black hearse.

They would need the death certificate before they could take the body away. The medical examiner reluctantly pulled a block of printed forms from his briefcase and resigned himself to losing the racquetball court. It was unlikely that the old woman’s personal physician would show up in time to take the paperwork off his hands.

“Charlie, you got a statement from the little boys?”

“You mean the salt and pepper gang?”

Dr. Chainy was suppressing a smile when he joined Eliot Caruthers and the guilt-ridden duo, Mark and Jesse. “You’re not in any trouble, kids. In fact, it’s a good thing you found her. She was a very old lady—probably didn’t have any local family to check in on her.”