William Giraldi - Hold the Dark

He spoke to the cop standing behind him. “What’s in the building?”

“Another one dead. Frank the coroner, we think.”

“You think?”

“Shit, Don, we can’t get near enough him to see. He’s in a whole lake of blood, in his office.”

“Dead how?”

“Dead all the way through, it looks to me.”

“You find the casings here?” he asked.

“The what?”

“Shell casings. How do you think these men were killed? With some tickling? Dig up that spot for the casings, please.”

“How do you know it’s this spot?”

“Those wounds are nearly point-blank. You see the faint star pattern of that wound? On that man’s face there? You’re standing on the shell casings.”

“Something from here did this?”

“I’d say a someone did it. Dig up the casings, please.”

“Feels like a something to me. First that village kid, and now this. What a goddamn shitty way to end the year. That kid’s gone, you know.”

“Gone how?”

“His body, it’s gone. They took the kid’s body. You ever see anything like this?”

“Not quite like this, no. Please find the casings.”

Marium stood smoking a cigarette in the cold as men continued this work. The ambulance sat silent and without use, its lights pointlessly in twirl. His dreams in the night had offered him no sign of what this day held.

The morgue’s waxed hallways squeaked beneath a racket of wet boots. A half-moon of cops stood at the cusp of the coroner’s blood. He lay facedown and Marium could see the stab wound was in the side of his head, through the ear and out the other side.

“You boys waiting for Frank to sit up and tell you who did it? Mop right up to him, please, and look for boot marks as you go.”

“What about forensics, Don?”

“About what?”

“The guys from the city.”

“You photograph this room?”

“Took a hundred shots.”

“Then you and a mop are as forensic as it’ll get right now. Look for a goddamn boot mark, please, and stop if you see it.”

“I thought the city guys were coming. Or troopers, something. How in the hell we supposed to handle this?”

Marium smiled at him. “Troopers. That’s a good one. I didn’t realize troopers even knew we were here, this town. Let’s think of this as our own mess for now. Stop touching things, please.”

His salmon-and-eggs breakfast sat half eaten on his kitchen table. He thought of coffee, Susan, his wife, in her bathrobe and nothing underneath, toenails the pink he liked. Twelve years younger, redheaded and lithe, she was a former dancer of ballet. Her breath stayed sweet even at waking. She was his promise of thaw in this place. She wanted children and kept Marium engaged in the task, early-hours coupling with an erotic unclean scent on her. He was prepared for kids, willing now at forty-eight.

At the rear of the hall he stepped into the break room. He could smell the cigarette smoke stuck on curtains and patted a jacket pocket for his own pack. He saw dents in the sofa cushions where heavy men had sat. Other rooms, offices down a second hallway, and the metallic coldroom at the end. He’d been to this morgue dozens of times over the years—to sign papers for old people dead from sickness, or young people dead from being dumb—but he’d never entered this coldroom. Never wanted to.

He grabbed the handle with a latex glove, pulled to open the door, then entered in the kind of caution born of superstition. The extended corpse drawer was empty, the sheet thrown aside. On the floor beneath it lay a toe tag in blue ink. He crouched to get it and read the name, read the numbers telling all of Bailey Slone.

Looks like your daddy’s home, boy.

Cheeon answered the knock, opened his front door and kept it open, a cigarette glowing to its stub, the heat from a cast-iron stove pushing at the cold. Marium’s coat was unzipped to show no weapon in his underarm holster. When he saw Cheeon’s cigarette he retrieved one of his own from a coat pocket. The men leaned against the doorframe smoking, looking fifty yards out in front of Cheeon’s two-level cabin where police vehicles sat arranged on the snow front to back, four of them. The men behind wore flak jackets and helmets, their rifles lowered, some sipping from cups of coffee hastily got.

“Was wondering when you’d show up here.”

“I told them I’d try talking to you, Cheeon. See if I could get you to come without any goddamn mess here. I’m not claiming to be a friend. I wouldn’t claim that.”

“If you say.”

“But we’ve talked over the years, when you were in town. Had coffee a few times, if memory serves. We’ve been friendly, anyway. Our fathers knew each other, I think. Your wife and girl were friendly with me. With Susan too, my wife. Would you agree with that?”

“If you say.”

“And that has to mean something.”

Cheeon spat, half in the snow, half on his boot.

“If you say. But I don’t think it means what you want it to mean right now, guy. Not even close.”

A scud of wind lifted loose snow from roofs and moved across open space in a white swirl. The late morning sun was just a peach smear.

“I’m from this place just like you.”

“You ain’t from this village.”

“No, not from here, but not that far from here.”

“You come to tell me your life story, guy?”

“We’ve got two cops killed out back of the morgue in town, Cheeon. Also the coroner inside with a knife wound through his head. And then there’s a missing dead boy. That’s what we’ve got here, Cheeon.”

He nodded and smoked but did not look at Marium.

“You list those dead in order of importance? Because a couple of dead cops is cause for a party around here.”

“No, I did not. I’m not saying that dead cops are something special, more special than anyone else dead. Dead all around is not a good thing, you ask me.”

“I can think of some sons of bitches that might do the world a bunch of good dead.”

“That’s fine. I ain’t disagreeing. I just don’t want anyone else dying here today if we could help it, please.”

“Looks like you came expecting it, though. All these cops out here.”

“Like I said, I told them I’d try talking to you first. See if we could prevent a mess here.”

“Come quietly, you mean. That’s the cop phrase, right? Come quietly.”

More silence while they smoked.

“Cheeon, most of these cops out here aren’t our redneck guys from town. They’re Feds, city boys, and they’ve got a fair amount of firepower they’re ready to use today.”

“I’ve got a fair amount of my own I’m ready to use.”

“I know it. That’s why we’re talking here, Cheeon. Your father was busted a few times for illegal firearms. You know what they say about that apple not falling far.”

“Nope. I don’t know nothing about that apple. But it’d be real smart of you, guy, not to mention my father again.”

“Okay. I won’t. It was either you or Slone who killed those men and took that child. Maybe it was the both of you. I know you boys have been tight since way back.”

“Vernon’s gone to the desert. There’s a war there. You got a radio?”

“Vernon Slone is home. You know that. And you helped him. I was just at his cabin. Looks like I missed him by five or six hours.”

“If you say.”

“Listen, Cheeon. Whatever happened, we’ve got to get it figured. The cops were shot with a .45 Springfield. You’ve got one of those registered.”

“I’ve got others not registered.”

“I figured that. Frank, the coroner, was retiring this year, moving to San Diego, I believe. Hell, he wasn’t even a real coroner. Just a doctor who did the job for us because no one else could do it.”