Prayer for the Dead (17 page)

“Did you recognize the look?”

“What do you mean?”

“He got you into the car some way. He tried to stick you with the syringe, but you saw it and hit him. You beat him badly. He might have died.”

“He didn’t. I checked.”

“You checked before you came over to rob his house. That was good, that was smart. It’s not your fault the guy’s got bodies under the floorboards.”

“Is that for real?”

“He didn’t seem the type, did he?”

Eric shook his head. The man had been a weakling; he’d taken his beating like he deserved it.

“They never do,” said Becker.

“Is that why you wanted to kill me? You thought I was him?”

“I knew you weren’t him. Did he offer you money? Did he say anything about your mother?”

“My mother?”

“What was your mother’s maiden name?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Any reason not to tell me?”

“Margaret.”

“Her
last
name.”

“Evinrude.”

“Did you ever see him before?”

“See who?”

Becker spoke evenly, reasonably. “I’m tired of your horseshit, Eric. Did you know him? Had you ever seen him before? Tell me how he got you into the car.”

“Are you trying to get me on some kind of accessory-to-murder rap? Because honest to God, I don’t know a thing.”

“How did he get you into the car?”

“I never got into any car. I don’t know anything about a mugging.”

“The mugging’s a freebie, Eric. We don’t want you for it. He’s not going to testify about it. Just tell me.”

“Sure, just tell you. How about if I tell my attorney now?”

“You don’t need an attorney to talk to me. I’m a private citizen.”

“You’re not a fed? Why am I talking to you in the first place?”

“You’re not. I’m not here. You heard Tee. You’re alone in a locked room.”

Becker placed his thumb atop Eric’s knuckle and slowly squeezed. Eric was not prepared for the pain and gasped. Becker released the pressure but held on to the hand. His voice was still sweet and reasonable.

“Did you ever talk to anybody about insurance, Eric?”

“I suppose so. They call me up. Don’t they call everybody?”

“Did you ever meet anybody to talk about it?”

“Ever? Maybe, sometime. I don’t know.”

“Did you ever see him before you beat him up?” Becker touched the knuckle again and watched Eric’s eyes widen.

“Never. Are they going to let you do this to me?”

“Do what, Eric?”

“You’re torturing me, man. I’m going to scream brutality to the papers.”

“There’s not a mark on you—except the one you put there yourself.” Becker tapped the knuckle again.

Eric moaned. “You got no idea what that feels like.”

“Of course I do. Listen to me, Eric. Nobody wants you here, you’re not important in this one. We want him, the guy you mugged, the guy whose house you broke into. We want him very, very badly and we don’t have time to waste with you, so just answer the questions and get it over with.”

“And cop to all kinds of shit? How do I know what I’m involved in here? I want my lawyer.”

“That’s what we don’t have time for. We can’t wait a week to cut a deal before you answer a few simple questions. You are not going to incriminate yourself with me. Do you believe me?”

Becker pressed the knuckle and held it. Eric moaned.

“Do you believe me?”

“I believe you!”

Becker released the knuckle but continued to hold Eric’s hand in his.

“How did he get you into the car?”

“He was parked right next to my wagon. He had the passenger door open so I couldn’t get past him. He said he needed my help in starting the car without his key. Some bullshit. I don’t think he knew how to hot-wire.”

“The syringe?”

“He must have had it down on the seat. It fell on the floor when I dragged him across the seat. I didn’t know about it till then.”

“You were too busy hitting him.”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the busted knuckle. Ironic, don’t you think? You use it on him, I use it on you, it gets you coming and going.”

Becker released Eric’s hand.

“You did want to kill me in that house, didn’t you?”

Becker smiled at him.

“I still do.”

The snails were doing their usual thorough job. After five hours of labor, there was not a square inch of Dyce’s house that Drooden’s forensic team hadn’t scrutinized, dusted, scraped, probed, or photographed. Becker could read their trails everywhere, like the rivulets of slime left behind by garden slugs. As Becker had known it would, the house had given up its ghosts, and they had been replaced by tape measures, grid lines marked with string, smudges of fingerprint powder. The house was no longer a place where a man had dreamed his nightmares and made them come true—it was now an archaeological dig. All that remained undisturbed were the bones.

“I thought it might be helpful for you to see this in situ before we take the bones for analysis,” Hatcher said.

Drooden leaned against the refrigerator, watching like a protective parent. He had resented the Bureau involvement from the beginning and was barely able to tolerate Becker’s unorthodox presence. A member of his forensic team stood in the doorway, tapping the ashes from his cigarette into an evidence bag.

“If he didn’t see it last night,” said Drooden.

Hatcher ignored the state cop. He had seldom met one who liked being outranked.

“I was struck by the stones,” said Hatcher. He pointed with the toe of his shoe as Becker squatted next to the makeshift graveyard. The state police had removed enough floorboards to reveal all of the skeletons, which lay atop each other like the tossed shafts of a game of pick-up-sticks. Only the skulls were kept separate. They were sitting side by side in a row eight long. Next to each skull, like a hyphen separating it from its neighbor, was a small stone.

The snails had covered the area with a grid of string bisected into three-foot squares and then photographed it from several angles so that exact measurements could be reproduced later. A twelve-inch ruler included in the photos to give perspective still lay between a pair of thigh bones.

“I assume he kept the skulls separate as some sort of burial notion. Given the cramped circumstances, it was probably the best he could do.” Hatcher stepped back and watched Becker.

“You call that a burial?” Drooden asked.

“Well, he didn’t just throw the skulls in there with the rest. What would you call it?”

“You cut somebody up in your bathtub, flush his hair down the drain, and boil his bones—I doubt that you care enough about him to give him a burial,” said Drooden.

Becker spoke for the first time. “He cared about these men very much. They were very important to him.” Becker looked at the forensic man, who was watching his smoke rise to the ceiling. “They were all men?”

The forensic man nodded. “Pelvic bones look like it. We’ll know for sure later.”

“He cared enough about them to keep them alive for a while,” said Becker. “He might very well care enough to give them the best kind of burial he could manage.”

“Kept them alive while he did what to them?”

“Watched them, for one thing.”

“How do you know that?” Drooden demanded. Becker moved a hand toward one of the stones. “May I?”

The forensic man removed a pair of disposable plastic gloves from his pocket and handed them to Becker.

“Wait a minute,” said Drooden. He rounded on the forensic man. “Did I say anything could be disturbed yet?”

“No, sir.”

“You wait until I do, damn it.”

The forensic man was standing at attention in the doorway, trying to figure how to get rid of the cigarette without leaving and without giving Drooden another chance to yell at him;

“What have you found out about him from the neighbors?” Hatcher asked evenly. He moved slightly to screen Becker who was already holding one of the stones between his gloved fingers.

“They liked him,” said Drooden. “Nice man, quiet, minded his own business. He distributed fruit cakes at Christmas, attended the annual Fourth of July barbecue one of them gives in his backyard. On Halloween the kids said he usually gave candy and acted like he was scared by every ghost and ballerina that showed up. The first year here he gave them fruit, but apparently someone set him straight and after that it was always candy. The kids think he’s fine. The adults don’t pretend to know him, but think he’s fine, too. Can you imagine Halloween at this house?”

“Did they say anything about his girl?” Becker asked, straightening. He had replaced the stone.

“No one knew about her. If she came here, they never saw her.”

Hatcher looked at Becker, who nodded. The two men walked toward the door.

“Finished, are we?” Drooden asked. He turned on the forensic man, who was snuffing out the cigarette between moistened fingers. “Clean it,” he said. “And Wilkins …”

“Yes, sir.”

“You people better find out something we don’t already know.”

Hatcher walked Becker to his car. Some of the neighbor-children were still gathered on a lawn outside the barricade, making a picnic of watching the police come and go.

“What about the stones? Anything?” Hatcher asked.

“Just gravel, I think. But fresh; it still had a dusting of pumice on it. Either it came right out of the rock crusher or else he got it somewhere before it got rained on and was washed clean. You might check on the local source for gravel, see where they’ve delivered in the last four years, cross-check that with precipitation reports, find out when and where he might have got it before it got wet.”

“Are you kidding?”

“I think the stones were markers. Tombstones. His way of paying his respects. He might come back for more.”

“More?”

“You don’t think he’s through killing people, do you? He’s just warming up.”

“But he must know we’re on to him by now. That’s why he walked out of the hospital.”

“He’s not a criminal. Hatcher. He can’t just decide to lie low for a while. He doesn’t kill for profit.”

“Why does he do it? Do you have any theories yet?”

Becker hesitated.

“Why not ask an alcoholic why he drinks? Because by the time he knows he has a problem, the problem is already most of his life. It would be easier if you find him and we’ll ask.”

“We’ll find him. He’s got no credit cards, no money, thanks to our friend Eric. Who’s he going to turn to for help? We’re covering his girlfriend, the people he worked with. If he has any family, we’ll find them, too. We should have him in custody within forty-eight hours.”

“Save that for the press release. This guy is not stupid. He only got caught this time because of the girl. He won’t make that mistake again.”

“What tipped him off that we were on to him?”

“Have you been to his office?”

“The insurance company in Hartford? Not personally. Milch has talked to his employer.”

“And?”

“Good worker, low profile, not much snap to him, but he does his work on time and accurately. He was passed up for a promotion recently and they assume there was a natural resentment, but he didn’t show much.”

“I want to go there. Can you arrange it?”

“You can’t stay on this as a civilian. You know that, don’t you? Drooden snarls every time you show up as it is. It took me the better part of an hour just to talk him out of arresting you for entering the scene of a police investigation last night.”

“So I won’t stay on it. How’s that?”

“Who are you kidding? You’re already on it; you’ve swallowed the hook. You couldn’t leave now without ripping out your guts.”

“Shall we see?”

“Why else were you in there last night? For your own entertainment?”

“I was helping Tee. Now he’s got you.”

“I can get you back on temporary assignment. They’d love to have you.”

“How about you. Hatcher? Would you love to have me?”

“You’re good at it. I can live with you.”

“Get me in to see the actuaries at Dyce’s insurance company.”

“I’ll have to go with you unless you take temporary assignment.”

Becker watched Drooden exit the house and speak into the radio in his car. The electric crackle of the response could be heard, loud but unintelligible, across the road.

“We’d need a clear understanding,” Becker said.

“Name it.”

“I’ll work on it from this end, but I won’t go near him. I don’t want to be within miles of him.”

“Fine by me.”

“I mean it. Hatcher. I will not go down the hole for this one. You’ll have to find another ferret.”

“I
didn’t send you in after Bahoud. It just happened.”

“I’m not going to debate history with you. All I do on this one is think, or I don’t have any part of it.”

“Agreed. We love you for your mind alone.”

“And try to stay away from me as much as you can, too.”

“Finding Bahoud was little short of a miracle, I’ve told you that. I admired your work greatly. Nobody expected you to take him on yourself”

“I was made certain promises then, too.”

“We tried to keep them. It just happened.”

“Well it won’t happen this time. You find another ferret. Because I’ll make you a promise, Hatcher. If I have to go down the hole, I’ll tie your arms and send you in in front of me.”

“Or we could try something novel for one of your cases,” Hatcher said. “We could make an actual arrest and bring him back alive to stand trial.”

Becker breathed with exaggerated calm and Hatcher feared he had gone too far. Hatcher did not fear most men, but he was afraid of Becker—he had seen him work.

“What have you found out from the girl?” Becker said at last.

“Very little of real use. We went at her nonstop for a couple of hours, but didn’t get much. The report’s being typed up now. She’s a weird one.”

“I’m going to see her.”

“What do you hope to learn we haven’t already got?” That was one of the qualities Hatcher disliked most about the man: He had no respect for the work of others but seemed to have to do everything himself, and in his own way. “She really doesn’t know much of anything about him. We will know more about him than she does by tomorrow.”