An End to a Silence: A mystery novel (The Montana Trilogy Book 1) (15 page)

“You,
right?”

“Ah,
you’re one step ahead of me. You gotta slow down there, detective. I’m telling
the story. Don’t you go taking my punch line
now.
I
won’t abide that.”

“Go on.”

“You
might want to effect a drum roll now. Bang a couple of spoons on the table or
something. We’re getting to the best part.”

Ward
ignored him and was close to putting his good fist through his face as the
edges of his patience began to fray.

“I
interviewed Bill O’Donnell, God rest his soul. I told you he was really cut up
with the whole thing. He’d helped with the search himself. Didn’t sleep or eat
for days or so it seemed. Got a search party up and the whole town turned out.
They did it for him more than the parents. Everybody knew they were drunks and
probably not suitable parents. Searched high and low. If the police couldn’t
find him then he sure as hell would. He didn’t, of course.”

“About
this interview.”

“Okay,
you’ve waited long enough,” Larsson said, and then the goddamn waitress came
over with the coffee pot and she poured. Larsson checked her out again and
thanked her in the same condescending manner as before.

“Sometimes
I wish I wasn’t such a family man,” Larsson said. “Wouldn’t you like a piece of
that skanky ass there?” He sucked his lips. “So, where were we?”

“You
goddamn know where we were,” Ward said, and the threat seemed to do the trick.

“Okay,”
Larsson said with hands up in surrender. “I asked him if he thought that the
cops had done enough. An innocent question and a straightforward answer came
forth. Didn’t think nothing of it back then but it’s kinda been grinding away
at me in the years since. No, to be totally honest, I hadn’t given it a second
thought until the case resurfaced and then it came back to me. So O’Donnell
says maybe they did too much. How about that? A satisfied customer. You should
be proud of your department, detective. The cops didn’t just do enough, they
did too much.”

Ward
shifted in his seat.

“Thing
is, Newton had this guy down for the kid’s disappearance so maybe it was a
reference to the harassment that Newton gave him. He did too much. Or maybe
they did so much to find the boy it was meant as genuine praise. But this is
where it got interesting for me. The only eyewitness, old Mitch Filmore, said
that the boy was taken by aliens. He said he saw lights.” Larsson’s eyes
glistened and he wanted Ward to catch up. “You see where I’m going with this?”

“Not
really, but carry on.”

“Detective,
he saw lights. Don’t you see? Maybe flashing lights?” He gave Ward a few beats.

“You’re
not saying what I think you’re saying.”

“I’m not
saying anything, detective. Man saw lights is all I’m saying. And O’Donnell says
the cops did too much. Two and two.” He did a magician’s reveal gesture and
Ward expected him to produce some flowers from his sleeve.

“You
think the cops were involved? You gotta be kidding me. All that for this? You
gotta be kidding.”

“No, sir.
I’m an investigative journalist. That’s my job. I see things that others might
not. Not to blow my own horn too much.” He grinned.

Ward
stood and picked up his hat. “Well, thank you for your time.”

Larsson
quickly drank his third coffee and followed Ward into the parking lot.

“We’ve
still got a deal. Don’t forget about our deal.”

“I said
it depends,” Ward said.

“Aw, come
on detective. A deal’s a deal. Don’t go welshing on me now.”

Ward was
walking towards his car and he paused to let a semi pass. Larsson hurried past
him and nearly got wiped out by the truck. A tire clipped a puddle and
shit-colored water splashed up the back of his pants.

“Fucking
shit,” he said, and Ward continued to his car. “We have a deal.”

Ward
stopped, turned to Larsson.

“Just out
of interest, what happened to the corruption piece?”

Larsson
perked up. Smiled at Ward. “That got pulled.”

“Any
reason?”

“Who can
say? As I understand it they couldn’t make anything stick anyway.”

“Who was
involved?”

“A few people
in City Hall. A property developer.”

“Who was
the property developer?”

“James
Kenny.”

Ward’s
eyebrows raised.

“He pay
off your superiors to get the story killed?”

“Couldn’t
possibly say.”

Ward
turned and started walking away.

Larsson
called out, “Hey!”

The
waitress appeared at the door of the truckers’ lounge waving the check. Larsson
looked at the stain on the back of his pants and cursed.

Ward
called back, “You got your deal,” and he got in his car.

Ward drove
to his motel. Jesús came striding over to him as he opened the door and Ward
rubbed the dog’s head and play-fought with him. Jesús had Ward’s hand in his
mouth in a mock bite but he didn’t apply any pressure. Probably didn’t have a
whole lot of pressure left in his jaws anyhow. Ward went over to the
kitchenette and took a box from a cupboard. A high cupboard. He tossed a
biscuit to Jesús, who attempted to swallow it in one go and then coughed it
back up and decided to chomp it into smaller pieces. He made contented little
growling noises as he ate.

Ward
thought about what Larsson had said. Cops might have been involved. That seemed
unlikely. But could O’Donnell have been hinting at that? And how would he know
unless he was involved too? O’Donnell’s possible involvement matched up with
Newton’s train of thought. But everybody said O’Donnell was a good man. Was he
that good an actor? And all the time this was going through his mind Ward
couldn’t stop thinking about James Kenny. Corrupt property developer with a
habit of paying people large sums of money to get out of a tight spot.

Ward
called Newton. He had decided he wouldn’t tell him everything Larsson had said.

“I spoke
to Larsson.”

“Okay.”

“He’s
some shyster.”

“He tell
you anything you can use?”

“Oh, you
know. He went over the case. Pretty much what’s in the file.”

Newton
remained silent for a few moments. Ward thought he was waiting for more. He
didn’t give him anything.

“I need
to work one or two angles. Off the radar.”

“Okay.
You keep me updated?”

“I will.”
And Ward thought if there was police involvement in the disappearance of Ryan
Novak maybe he should keep that to himself for a while until he’d had time to
mull it over. “Say, what’s the latest on the old guy?”

“We look
for the man who left the prints. I’m getting a facial composite of the guy and
I’ll send out all units with it. See if we get a hit.”

“Good.
Progress.”

“We’ll
call it progress. Internal Affairs is scheduled for next week. You might want
to work on that too.”

“Okay.
Thanks for the heads up.” And Ward hung up.

Back at
the station Newton was slumped in his chair. He popped a pill, threw his head
back to dry swallow it, and he closed his eyes.

Over on
the other side of the office Mallory was hanging about like a bad odor. He
sidled up to McNeely, who tapped away at her keyboard with one hand, the other
feeding her mouth. She tried to ignore him.

“I
dreamed about you last night,” he said.

“Nice,”
McNeely said through her chewing.

“You gave
me the sweetest blowjob.” His grin made her next swallow impossible. “Woke up
in love with you.”

“Have you
told your father-in-law that yet? He’s right behind you. Tell him now.”

Mallory
whipped around like a rattlesnake. Newton wasn’t there. Mallory’s lips pinched
the smile from his face.

“You’re cute,
I’ll give you that,” he said, and he walked. McNeely spat out a mouthful of
chewed raisins into her hand and tossed them into the trashcan.

Marcelo
was to be Bill O’Donnell’s ride back into town. O’Donnell had carefully chosen
a rig that looked like it was from way out of town. Marcelo had obliged by
advertising his Florida credentials all over the front of his truck. ‘I heart
the Sunshine State’. ‘Go Dolphins!’ O’Donnell had gotten a hit with his first
thumb. Marcelo hadn’t commented on his appearance or his smell. O’Donnell had
been unaware of how dead he looked and reeked and Marcelo hadn’t mentioned it.

He asks
his name and O’Donnell says it’s Mike. Says he’s been fighting the fire and has
missed his ride back. Says he’s grateful for Marcelo stopping. Says nothing
else. Marcelo does a little talking in something of a Spanish accent, O’Donnell
thinks. O’Donnell counts the crucifixes that Marcelo has in his cab and then
his eyes land on the most ornate one and his gaze lingers there for the rest of
the ride. The intricate silverwork, or maybe pewter or some such alloy, weaved
into a cross upon which a depiction of Christ, detailed in divine pain, suffers
for man’s sins. He wants to take it and plunge it into his own heart but knows
he doesn’t have the strength.

Marcelo
drops O’Donnell five miles from town and sounds his horn as he pulls away off
the shoulder. The truck driver pulls into a truck stop a few miles further on
and has a beer. He will pull into the same truck stop twenty-odd years later, where
a cop who doesn’t believe in coincidences will be talking to an invertebrate
journalist who drinks too much coffee.

O’Donnell
walks the five miles into town. His sweat streaks the grime on his face so he
looks like a soldier with face camouflage. He passes a church and he pauses. He
hears muted singing inside. He carries on. He passes another church and a few
yards past it he stops and turns back and goes up to the door, which is open.
He pushes through the inner door and the congregation is singing a song so
sweet that his heart throws a roll and he wants to fall to his knees but he
stays upright. He stands at the back of the church and he stares at Jesus on
the cross and he gulps in air and he gulps in the spirit of the people, which
he imagines he can see swirling around above their heads as they stand and sing
at the top of their voices, and it’s lovely and he feels at home and he feels
like an alien at the same time.

The
preacher has a microphone and he is called Reverend Adrien Baptiste and he sings
the loudest.

Bill
O’Donnell stands there at the back of the church and when the congregation sits
he remains standing and one or two people cast looks over their shoulders to
look at him and he thinks he will be judged but they just smile and he resents
their gift at first.

But he
stands there and, when the service is over, every person who passes him on
their way out of the church smiles at him and the preacher, who stands an arm’s
length away from Bill O’Donnell, shakes their hands and they leave money on a
silver plate by the door - notes and coins. The preacher looks him up and down
and he smiles the entire height of him and Bill O’Donnell shakes his hand but
he doesn’t leave and he has no money to put on the plate but the preacher
understands that he hasn’t any and he just nods at him and says something which
Bill O’Donnell doesn’t hear and then the preacher turns and walks towards the
altar and he disappears through a door at the side and then there is just Bill
O’Donnell and God. And Jesus there on the cross. Sweet, lovely Jesus who is a
stranger to him.

And then
he notices the woman who’s doing something with the flowers. She doesn’t seem
to have seen him and he walks to the front of the church where the altar is and
he stands and stares at Jesus and he thinks he feels something but decides he
doesn’t. He stands there for a hundred years and tries to pray and then he
stands for a hundred years more and still he can’t pray and he can’t hear
nothing coming back from Jesus neither. Then he hears the woman say something
but he doesn’t hear it, he feels it, and he spins around and she’s there
standing and staring at him and she seems surprised for a millionth of a moment
and then she smiles like the others had. He says “I wanted to get closer,” and
then he strides out of the church and doesn’t look back at Jesus but he doesn’t
feel so wretchedly filthy no more. He stops outside and for a moment doesn’t
know where he’s going and the woman comes to him.

She says,
“You need to get washed and out of those clothes.” And she knows that if
anybody asks her later, and they will, she won’t tell this fragment of history.
The Lord will be all right with that. She knows that for sure.

Bill
O’Donnell doesn’t put up an argument. She introduces herself as Alice White and
she takes him home in her car very slowly and when they reach her house she
runs him a bath.

“I got
some old clothes you can wear. We’ll get rid of those filthy ones.” And Alice
White smiles at him and he feels different but he can’t tell how he feels but just
knows things will be okay.

After his
bath and change of clothes he thanks the woman. He walks home and Alice burns
the clothes that smell of hellfire when he has gone.

He lives
with his daughter and son-in-law in the least salubrious side of town. The
house is on one level and everything about it begs for repair. When he turns
the end of the street he can see the house and there is activity he hadn’t been
expecting. His labored walk becomes a frantic shuffle. His son-in-law, Eugene
Novak, asks him where the hell he’s been and Bill O’Donnell asks what’s going
on.

“Ryan’s
gone,” Eugene Novak says.

“Gone?
Where? How do you mean gone?” O’Donnell says, and in his confusion he is
genuinely shocked that the little boy is missing.

“He’s up
and run off.” Novak smells of booze but he seems stone cold sober.

O’Donnell’s
daughter Janice had been talking to a man who looked like a cop and she runs
over when she sees her father. She hugs him and her deep sobs inhale his soapy
smell. She smells of booze like her husband. Both too drunk to notice the
clothes O’Donnell wears are not his own.

“What’s
happened, Daddy?”

“What’s
this about Ryan? He up and went? When? Why?”

“He’s
been taken,” Janice says.

“Noticed
that he wasn’t there,” Novak says.

“Noticed
when?” O’Donnell asks and Eugene Novak steps back and he snarls at O’Donnell.

“Where
the hell have you been? We thought he was with you. How could we goddamn know
he wasn’t?”

Bill
O’Donnell says, “How long has he been gone?” And then the lanky cop is there and
he eyes O’Donnell like prey.

“Detective
Newton. You must be the grandfather? William?”

“Bill.”

“We’re
just trying to ascertain when Ryan went missing. To help us find him and bring
him on home.”

“Okay.”

“When did
you last see him?”

“Yesterday.”

“What time?”

“Afternoon,
I reckon. I’d seen him and then gone back to the school to take care of
something.”

“Where
have you been? Your folks have been looking for you.”

“I’ve
been looking for my truck. It got stolen.”

Detective
Newton doesn’t show any emotion and says, “What time did you report it
missing?”

O’Donnell
feels panic rise inside him. He hadn’t reported it. The man had said he would
take care of it. That was their story. And when O’Donnell got back from burying
the boy he would raise the alarm that the boy was missing. He knew Eugene and
Janice Novak wouldn’t notice Ryan wasn’t there. He was mainly invisible to
them. But they had noticed.

He takes
a guess and trusts that the man wouldn’t let him down. “Last night sometime. I don’t
know the exact time. I’m sorry. I’m in a bit of shock.”

“I
understand sir. I just got to ask these questions. I’ll check our records for
the exact time. You see anybody take it? Could the boy have taken it?”

Eugene
Novak jumps in. “He’s seven years old, for Christ’s sake. His feet wouldn’t
reach the damn pedals. Wouldn’t have gotten more than ten yards and then crash
it. Damn it, what are you doing to find my son? We ain’t got all day to talk.
It’s getting on dark. Get on looking for him.”

Janice
says, “He doesn’t like the dark. Always sleeps with the light on. Oh, I’m a
terrible mother. We should get some flyers done. Yes, we’ll get some flyers and
posters done.”

O’Donnell’s
heart stutters over the futility of what his daughter has said.

Newton
appears calm and reassuring. “We need to collect some information. I’ve already
got patrols looking out for him. Can’t have gotten far.”

“He
wouldn’t have took the truck,” Bill O’Donnell says. “Got to be some youths.
They been at it before.”

“You
reported it before?” Newton asks.

“No, sir.
They didn’t take it before. I stopped them.”

“You
stopped them? You saw them? You could give me a description?”

“No. I
didn’t see them properly. It was dark. I heard them and ran them off.”

“How many
were they?”

O’Donnell
pauses and feels rushed and he wants to run away from his answers. “They were
three or four. Like I said, it was dark and they run off. Maybe they took the
truck and took the boy.” He feels like he’s freefalling now and he desperately
tries not to show his fear which will expose his lies.

Newton
stares at the man in front of him and O’Donnell feels accused and trapped in
his own nightmare. O’Donnell glances over at the small cherry tree sapling
which he had helped Ryan plant days earlier and he bites hard onto his first
knuckle, right hand.

“You live
here also, correct?”

“Yes,
sir.”

“You
didn’t notice he wasn’t here?”

“I
didn’t. I had to go to the school and then when I got back I didn’t see him. I
would have thought he was in his bed.”

“Would
have?”

“What do you
mean?”

“You said
‘would have’ as if you’re not sure what you thought.”

“Heck, I
didn’t know he was missing.”

“You
reported your truck stolen at what time?”

“Like I
said, I can’t remember. It was last night.”

“And you
didn’t notice that the boy wasn’t at home?”

“This is
difficult for me. I can’t remember about last night. I just had my truck taken,
and… well, this is just… I’m upset is what I am.”

“I know
and I have to ask these here questions
so’s
we can
get to finding him.” Bill O’Donnell looks at the cop, who says, “You been gone
best part of a day. Looking for your truck, that right?”

“That’s
right, sir.”

“All
through the night and the most part of today?”

“Had a
fair few places to look. Say, are you suspecting me because if you are… it
ain’t right.”

“Just
asking questions, sir. We have a serious situation here and time is against
us.”

“I
understand.”

“Maybe we
can help you find your truck. Where have you looked?”

“Oh, I
looked just about everywhere in town.”

“You see
many people out and about?”

“Well, it
was nighttime and they weren’t many folks out.”

“What
about today?”

“I saw
people, yes.”

“Anyone
you know? Anyone can say they saw you?”

“Not
mostly.”

“Not
mostly?”

“Not
anybody, no. I don’t know why you’re asking that to help find my truck.”

“I’m a detective,
Mr. O’Donnell. It’s my job to ask questions.”

“Okay.”

“Did you
stop anywhere, maybe for something to eat?”

“No, sir.
I ain’t eaten. And if I had or I hadn’t it ain’t making no difference to
finding my truck.”

“Okay. You
look anywhere else? Outside of town?”

“No,
sir.”

A marked
police car pulls up and a short cop in uniform, packing a few pounds over,
steps out. Newton asks Bill O’Donnell to excuse him and walks over to the cop. He
nods and speaks the cop’s name in greeting and then says quietly, “The
grandfather took him.”

Officer
Gammond says, “He did? Dang.”

“Sure he
did. He’s lying. He’s lying about his truck being taken. Check to see if it was
stolen and what time it was reported.”