Black House (Page 92)

Then another police car breaches the defenses down on 35 and rolls up beside the part-timers’. Golden Boy and Gilbertson walk up to it and greet Bobby Dulac and that other one, the fat boy, Dit Jesperson, but the dude in the hat doesn’t even look their way. Now, that’s cool. He stands there, all by himself, like a general surveying his troops. Wendell watches the mystery man produce a cigarette, light up, and exhale a plume of white smoke. Jack and Dale walk the new arrivals into the old store, and this bird keeps on smoking his cigarette, sublimely detached from everything around him. Through the rotting wall, Wendell can hear Dulac and Jesperson complaining about the smell; then one of them grunts Uh! when he sees the body. "Hello boys?" Dulac says. "Is this shit for real? Hello boys?" The voices give Wendell a good fix on the location of the corpse, way back against the far wall.

Before the three cops and Sawyer begin to shuffle toward the front end of the store, Wendell leans out, aims his camera, and snaps a photograph of the mystery man. To his horror, the Cat in the Hat instantly looks in his direction and says, "Who took my picture?" Wendell jerks himself back into the protection of the wall, but he knows the guy must have seen him. Those sunglasses were pointed right at him! The guy has ears like a bat — he picked up the noise of the shutter. "Come on out," Wendell hears him say. "There’s no point in hiding; I know you’re there."

From his reduced vantage point, Wendell can just see a State Police car, followed by French Landing’s DARE Pontiac, barreling up from the congestion at the end of the lane. Things seem to have reached the boiling point down there. Unless Wendell is wrong, he thinks he glimpses one of the bikers pulling a man out through the window of a nice-looking green Olds.

Time to call in the cavalry, for sure. Wendell steps back from the front of the building and waves to the troops. Teddy Runkleman yells, "Hoo boy!" Doodles screeches like a cat in heat, and Wendell’s four assistants charge past him, making all the noise he could wish for.

13

DANNY TCHEDA and Pam Stevens already have their hands full with would-be gate-crashers when they hear the sound of motorcycles gunning toward them, and the arrival of the Thunder Five is all they need to make their day really complete. Getting rid of Teddy Runkleman and Freddy Saknessum had been easy enough, but not five minutes later the eastbound lanes of Highway 35 filled up with people who thought they had a perfect right to gawk at all the little corpses that were supposed to be stacked up in the wreckage of Ed’s Eats. For every car they finally manage to send away, two more show up in its place. Everybody demands a long explanation of why they, as taxpayers and concerned citizens, should not be allowed to enter a crime scene, especially one so tragic, so poignant, so . . . well, so exciting. Most of them refuse to believe that the only body inside that tumbledown building is Irma Fre-neau’s; three people in a row accuse Danny of abetting a cover-up, and one of them actually uses the word "Fishergate." Yikes. In a weird way, lots of these corpse hunters almost think that the local police are protecting the Fisherman!

Some of them finger rosaries while they chew him out. One lady waves a crucifix in his face and tells him he has a dirty soul and is bound for hell. At least half of the people he turns away are carrying cameras. What kind of person sets off on a Saturday morning to take pictures of dead children? What gets Danny is this: they all think they’re perfectly normal. Who’s the creep? He is.

The husband of an elderly couple from Maid Marian Way says, "Young man, apparently you are the only person in this county who does not understand that history is happening all around us. Madge and I feel we have the right to a keepsake."

A keepsake?

Sweaty, out of sorts, and completely fed up, Danny loses his cool. "Buddy, I agree with you right down the line," he says. "If it was up to me, you and your lovely wife would be able to drive away with a bloodstained T-shirt, maybe even a severed finger or two, in your trunk. But what can I say? The chief is a very unreasonable guy."

Off zooms Maid Marian Way, too shocked to speak. The next guy in line starts yelling the moment Danny leans down to his window. He looks exactly like Danny’s image of George Rathbun, but his voice is raspier and slightly higher in pitch. "Don’t think I can’t see what you’re doing, buster!" Danny says good, because he’s trying to protect a crime scene, and the George Rathbun guy, who is driving an old blue Dodge Caravan minus the front bumper and the right side-view mirror, shouts, "I been sitting here twenty minutes while you and that dame do doodly-squat! I hope you won’t be surprised when you see some VIGILANTE ACTION around here!"

It is at this tender moment that Danny hears the unmistakable rumble of the Thunder Five charging toward him down the highway. He has not felt right since he found Tyler Marshall’s bicycle in front of the old folks’ home, and the thought of wrangling with Beezer St. Pierre fills his brain with dark oily smoke and whirling red sparks. He lowers his head and stares directly into the eyes of the red-faced George Rathbun look-alike. His voice emerges in a low, dead monotone. "Sir, if you continue on your present course, I will handcuff you, park you in the back of my car until I am free to leave, and then take you to the station and charge you with everything that comes to mind. That is a promise. Now do yourself a favor and get the hell out of here."

The man’s mouth opens and closes, goldfishlike. Splotches of brighter red appear on his jowly, already flushed face. Danny keeps staring into his eyes, almost hoping for an excuse to truss him in handcuffs and roast him in the back seat of his car. The guy considers his options, and caution wins. He drops his eyes, moves the shift lever to R, and nearly backs into the Miata behind him.