Black House (35 page)

“I understand a lot of things,” Beezer says. “How much did you pay those clowns?”

“Who? What clowns?” Wendell pretends to notice Doodles and the others for the first time. “Oh, them? Are they the ones who were making all that ruckus?”

“And why would they go do a thing like that?”

“Because they’re animals, I guess.” The expression on Wendell’s face communicates a great desire to align himself with Beezer on the side of human beings, as opposed to animals like Runkleman and Saknessum.

Taking care to fix Green’s eyes, instead of his camera, with his own, Beezer moves in closer and says, “Wendy, you’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

Wendell holds up his hands to ward off Beezer. “Hey, we may have had our differences in the past, but—”

Still looking him in the eye, Beezer folds his right hand around the camera and plants his left on Wendell Green’s chest. He jerks the right hand back and gives Green a massive shove with the left. One of two things is going to break, Green’s neck or the camera strap, and he does not much care which it is to be.

To a sound like the crack of a whip, the reporter flails backward, barely managing to remain upright. Beezer is pulling the camera out of the case, from which dangle two strips of severed leather. He drops the case and rotates the camera in his big hands.

“Hey, don’t do that!” Wendell says, his voice louder than speech but softer than a shout.

“What is it, an old F2A?”

“If you know that, you know it’s a classic. Give it back to me.”

“I’m not going to hurt it, I’m going to clean it out.” Beezer snaps open the back of the camera, gets one thick finger under the exposed length of film, and rips out the entire roll. He smiles at the reporter and tosses the film into the weeds. “See how much better it feels without all that crap in there? This is a nice little machine—you shouldn’t fill it with garbage.”

Wendell does not dare show how furious he is. Rubbing the sore spot on the back of his neck, he growls, “That so-called garbage is my livelihood, you oaf, you moron. Now give me back my camera.”

Beezer casually holds it out before him. “I didn’t quite catch all of that. What did you say?”

His only response a bleak glance, Wendell snatches the camera from Beezer’s hand.

When the two state cops finally step forward, Jack feels a mixture of disappointment and relief. What they are going to do is obvious, so let them do it. Perry Brown and Jeff Black will take the Fisherman case away from Dale and run their own investigation. From now on, Dale will be lucky to get random scraps from the state’s table. Jack’s greatest regret is that Brown and Black should have walked into this madhouse, this circus. They have been waiting for their moment all along—in a sense, waiting for the local guy to prove his incompetence—but what is going on now is a public humiliation for Dale, and Jack wishes it weren’t happening. He could not have imagined feeling grateful for the arrival of a biker gang at a crime scene, but that’s how bad it is. Beezer St. Pierre and his companions kept the crowd away more efficiently than Dale’s officers. The question is, how did all those people find out?

Apart from the damage to Dale’s reputation and self-esteem, however, Jack has few regrets about the case passing to another jurisdiction. Let Brown and Black scour every basement in French County: Jack has the feeling they won’t get any further than the Fisherman permits. To go further, he thinks, you’d have to travel in directions Brown and Black could never understand, visit places they are certain do not exist. Going further means making friends with
opopanax,
and men like Brown and Black distrust anything that even smells like
opopanax.
Which means that, in spite of everything Jack has said to himself since the murder of Amy St. Pierre, he will have to catch the Fisherman by himself. Or maybe not entirely by himself. Dale is going to have a lot more time on his hands, after all, and no matter what the State Police do to him, Dale is too wrapped up in this case to walk away from it.

“Chief Gilbertson,” says Perry Brown, “I believe we have seen enough here. Is this what you call securing an area?”

Dale gives up on Teddy Runkleman and turns in frustration to the state cops, who stand side by side, like storm troopers. In his expression, Jack can see that he knows exactly what is going to happen, and that he hopes it will not be humiliatingly brutal. “I did everything in my power to make this area secure,” Dale says. “After the 911 call came in, I talked to my men face to face and ordered them to come out in pairs at reasonable intervals, to keep from arousing any curiosity.”

“Chief, you must have used your radio,” says Jeff Black. “Because for sure
somebody
was tuned in.”

“I did not use the radio,” Dale says. “And my people knew better than to spread the news. But you know what, Officer Black? If the Fisherman called us on 911, maybe he also made a couple of anonymous calls to the citizens.”

Teddy Runkleman has been attending to this discussion like a spectator at a tennis final. Perry Brown says, “Let’s handle first things first. What do you intend to do with this man and his friends? Are you going to charge them? The sight of his face is getting on my nerves.”

Dale thinks for a moment, then says, “I’m not going to charge them. Get out of here, Runkleman.” Teddy moves backward, and Dale says, “Hold it for a second. How did you get here?”

“The back road,” Teddy says. “Comes straight down from behind Goltz’s. Thunder Five came the same way. So did that big-shot reporter, Mr. Green.”

“Wendell Green is here?”

Teddy points to the side of the ruin. Dale glances over his shoulder, and Jack looks in the same direction and witnesses Beezer St. Pierre ripping film from the back of a camera while Wendell Green watches in dismay.

“One more question,” Dale says. “How did you learn that the Freneau girl’s body was out here?”

“They was five or six bodies up at Ed’s, is what I heard. My brother Erland called up and told me. He heard it from his girlfriend.”

“Go on, get out of here,” Dale says, and Teddy Runkleman ambles away as if he has been awarded a medal for good citizenship.

“All right,” Perry Brown says. “Chief Gilbertson, you have reached the end of your leash. As of now, this investigation is to be conducted by Lieutenant Black and myself. I’ll want a copy of the 911 tape and copies of all notes and statements taken by you and your officers. Your role
is
to be entirely subordinate to the state’s investigation, and to cooperate fully when called upon. You
will
be given updates at the discretion of Lieutenant Black and myself.

“If you ask me, Chief Gilbertson, you are getting far more than you deserve. I have never seen a more disorganized crime scene. You violated the security of this site to an
unbelievable
degree. How many of you walked into the . . . the structure?”

“Three,” Dale says. “Myself, Officer Dulac, and Lieutenant Sawyer.”

“Lieutenant
Sawyer,
” Brown says. “Excuse me, has Lieutenant
Sawyer
rejoined the LAPD? Has he become an official member of your department? And if not, why did you give him access to that structure? In fact, what is
Mr.
Sawyer doing here in the first place?”

“He’s cleared more homicide cases than you and me ever will, no matter how long we live.”

Brown gives Jack an evil glance, and Jeff Black stares straight ahead. Beyond the two state cops, Arnold Hrabowski also glances at Jack Sawyer, though not at all the way Perry Brown did. Arnold’s expression is that of a man who deeply wishes to be invisible, and when he finds Jack’s eye on him, he quickly glances sideways and shifts on his feet.

Oh,
Jack thinks.
Of course, the Mad Mad Mad Mad Mad Hungarian, there you go.

Perry Brown asks Dale what
Mr.
St. Pierre and his friends are doing on the scene, and Dale replies that they are assisting with crowd control. Did Dale advise Mr. St. Pierre that in exchange for this service he would be kept up-to-date on the investigation? It was something like that, yes.

Jack steps back and begins to move sideways along a gentle arc that will bring him to Arnold Hrabowski.

“Incredible,” says Brown. “Tell me, Chief Gilbertson, did you decide to delay a little bit before passing the news on to Lieutenant Black and myself?”

“I did everything according to procedure,” Dale says. In answer to the next question he says that yes, he has called for the medical examiner and the evidence wagon, which, by the way, he can see coming up the lane right now.

The Mad Hungarian’s efforts at self-control succeed only in making him look as though he urgently needs to urinate. When Jack places a hand on his shoulder, he stiffens like a cigar-store Indian.

“Calm down, Arnold,” Jack says, then raises his voice. “Lieutenant Black, if you’re taking over this case, there’s some information you should have.”

Brown and Black turn their attention to him.

“The man who made the 911 call used the pay phone at the 7-Eleven store on Highway 35 in French Landing. Dale had the phone taped off, and the owner knows to keep people from handling it. You might get some useful prints from that phone.”

Black scribbles something in his notebook, and Brown says, “Gentlemen, I think your role is finished here. Chief, use your people to disperse those individuals at the bottom of the lane. By the time the M.E. and I come out of that structure, I don’t want to see a single person down there, including you and your officers. You’ll get a call later in the week, if I have any new information.”

Wordlessly, Dale turns away and points Bobby Dulac down the path, where the crowd has dwindled to a few stubborn souls leaning against their cars. Brown and Black shake hands with the medical examiner and confer with the specialists in charge of the evidence wagon.

“Now, Arnold,” Jack says, “you like being a cop, don’t you?”

“Me? I love being a cop.” Arnold cannot quite force himself to meet Jack’s eyes. “And I could be a good one, I know I could, but the chief doesn’t have enough faith in me.” He thrusts his trembling hands into his pants pockets.

Jack is torn between feeling pity for this pathetic wanna-be and the impulse to kick him all the way down to the end of the lane. A good cop? Arnold couldn’t even be a good scoutmaster. Thanks to him, Dale Gilbertson got a public dressing-down that probably made him feel as though he’d been put in the stocks. “But you didn’t follow orders, did you, Arnold?”

Arnold quivers like a tree struck by lightning. “What? I didn’t do anything.”

“You told someone. Maybe you told a couple of people.”

“No!” Arnold shakes his head violently. “I just called my wife, that’s all.” He looks imploringly at Jack. “The Fisherman talked to
me,
he told
me
where he put the girl’s body, and I wanted Paula to know. Honest, Holl— Lieutenant Sawyer, I didn’t think she’d call anybody, I just wanted to
tell
her.”

“Bad move, Arnold,” Jack says. “You are going to tell the chief what you did, and you’re going to do it right now. Because Dale deserves to know what went wrong, and he shouldn’t have to blame himself. You like Dale, don’t you?”

“The chief?” Arnold’s voice wobbles with respect for his chief. “Sure I do. He’s, he’s . . . he’s great. But isn’t he going to fire me?”

“That’s up to him, Arnold,” Jack says. “If you ask me, you deserve it, but maybe you’ll get lucky.”

The Mad Hungarian shuffles off toward Dale. Jack watches their conversation for a second, then walks past them to the side of the old store, where Beezer St. Pierre and Wendell Green face each other in unhappy silence.

“Hello, Mr. St. Pierre,” he says. “And hello to you, Wendell.”

“I’m lodging a complaint,” Green says. “I’m covering the biggest story of my life, and this lout spoils a whole roll of film. You can’t treat the press that way; we have a
right
to photograph whatever the hell we like.”

“I guess you woulda said you had a right to photograph my daughter’s dead body, too.” Beezer glares at Jack. “This piece of shit paid Teddy and the other lunkheads to go nuts so nobody would notice him sneaking inside there. He took pictures of the girl.”

Wendell jabs a finger at Jack’s chest. “He has no proof of that. But I’ll tell you something, Sawyer. I did get pictures of you. You were concealing evidence in the back of your truck, and I got you dead to rights. So think twice before you try to mess with me, because I’ll hang you out to dry.”

A dangerous red mist seems to fill Jack’s head. “Were you going to sell photographs of that girl’s body?”

“What’s it to you?” An ugly smirk widens Wendell Green’s mouth. “You’re not exactly lily-white either, are you? Maybe we can do each other some good, huh?”

The red mist darkens and fills Jack’s eyes. “We can do each other some good?”

Standing beside Jack, Beezer St. Pierre clenches and unclenches his enormous fists. Beezer, Jack knows, catches his tone perfectly, but the vision of dollar signs has so gripped Wendell Green that he hears Jack’s threat as a straightforward question.

“You let me reload my camera and get the pictures I need, and I keep quiet about you.”

Beezer lowers his head and balls his hands again.

“Tell you what. I’m a generous guy—maybe I could even cut you in, say ten percent of my total.”

Jack would prefer to break his nose, but he contents himself with a hard punch to the reporter’s stomach. Green clutches his gut and folds in half, then falls to the ground. His face has turned a hectic pink, and he struggles for breath. His eyes register shock and disbelief.

“See, I’m a generous guy, too, Wendell. I probably saved you thousands of dollars in dental work, plus a broken jaw.”

“Don’t forget the plastic surgery,” says Beezer, grinding a fist into the palm of the other hand. He looks as if someone just stole his favorite dessert off the dinner table.

Wendell’s face has become a reddish shade of purple.

“For your information, Wendell, no matter what you think you saw, I am not concealing evidence. If anything I am
revealing
it, though I hardly expect you to understand.”