Quiet Dell: A Novel (24 page)

The stunned assemblage stood silent. There was no intake of breath, no murmur, but absolute stillness, shared even by the police, who now viewed what they’d carried as folded, terrible weight.

She lay facedown on a dark cloth, her hands still tied behind her. The head was completely bald. It gleamed, round as a globe, and the flesh was deathly white, like alabaster. Her voluminous garments lay about her, layer on layer caked with black dirt. The great
bald head, frightening, otherworldly, dwarfed the small, downward sloping features. Her garments shrouded her to midcalf, and her legs, ankles, feet, seemed of deliberate weight, banded in dark swaths of earth. Hosiery, unbroken, encased her heels and arches; nowhere, below the hem of her garment, did flesh protrude. She looked like a powerful, trussed god, sacrificed and cast into preserved form, an object of veneration to be admired or feared.

Still, no one spoke.

Dr. Goff stepped forward, his pince-nez removed to his front breast pocket. He nodded to the mortician, and continued. “The subject lies facedown in order that the manner of binding be photographed . . .”

Eric moved to take a series of close shots. His blond hair looked greenish in the harsh light. Cold moved upward through the stone floor while the lights directed bars of heat at what could not feel or know or turn away.

Dr. Goff conveyed the narrative seamlessly. “. . . though the victim lay faceup in the trench, completely clothed but for her shoes. Note the two straps of webbing, as from a trunk’s straps, buckled around the neck. Indentions in the dermis, even weeks later, indicate cause of death was strangulation. A great quantity of jet-black hair”—he paused to cough behind his hand—“once fastened with combs and pins, was found of a piece in the folds of the clothes and saved as evidence. Very rarely, the hair can turn white or gray in a matter of hours, due to severe fright or trauma. In this case, the hair came away completely, a reaction induced before death but perhaps hastened if the victim was dragged by the hair. This seems likely, as the hair lay loose about her.”

•   •   •

In the car, Eric took Emily’s hand. She returned his level gaze, and he embraced her. She breathed in the fragrance of aftershave and warm dust.

“Miss Thornhill,” he said softly, “I’m reconsidering not sleeping with you.”

“Ah well,” she said, “you’re only human.”

He pulled gently away. “And some merely take human form.”

Powers, thought Emily. She’d seen his photograph, taken from Asta Eicher’s correspondence. He appeared average but was maimed, born wrong, an alien smart and brutal enough to be enraged, to plan and do. Surely these acts were revenge. Car doors slammed. The police were taking their leave. “Let’s go,” Emily said. “They can see us.”

“You’re my cousin,” he said. “I’ve every right to comfort you.”

“Then do. Let’s drive—away from here.” She had not taken a note. No notes were necessary. It was nearly 8:00
P.M
. Dusk leavened the cooling air. Eric headed toward the country. They rolled the windows down and he sped faster, past fields and lone barns.

“Let’s yell,” he said, and leaned into the rushing air. “Ahhhhhhh . . .”

The noise disappeared behind them. She drank in the clean smell of clover and alfalfa, and shouted until she was breathless.

•   •   •

Eric dropped her at the Gore and drove directly to the airport, to get his film on the evening plane to Chicago. He would come by later for a stiff brandy. The storefront telegraph office next to the Gore was open to the hotel lobby. She herself must file tonight, after her interview with Grimm. He would want ground rules observed in exchange for information. She had walked the dog behind the hotel and secreted him within her valise, and now she lay on the bed in Room 127, arms and legs flung wide like a child. Duty curled beside her. What strange universe was this? Sheriff Grimm. Mild-mannered Parrish, manning the desk at the Gore Hotel. Children, perished. Pierson was now Powers, in homage to himself: cunning, unpunished. That body today, the limbs bound. Deputy Bond. One’s word is one’s bond. Dr. Goff, coughing. Grethe, like Gretel, bread crumbs in the woods. Lavinia. Laver: to wash. Clean, washed vines. Annabel. Belle: beauty. A banker named Malone. Perhaps only loaned to me, she thought. One of her lovers, years
ago, had jokingly called her a thorn on a hill. She must get up and wash and dress. She must be alert and on her game to meet with Grimm, but she gazed at the ceiling fan turning above her and closed her eyes, only for a moment.

•   •   •

Annabel is with her mother. She does not know how or where, but there are broad green lawns and a wading pool with four fountains; a white statue of a girl and her dolphins holds aloft a pitcher and garland. That is Athena, her mother tells her without speaking. One does not need to speak here and everyone is present, inside the turn of the air. The light is soft and full, like twilight, though it will never be twilight and the light will never go. Her mother encloses her, is everywhere about her, and says there is no darkness anymore, or sleep or hunger, or striving toward one thing and another. A dapper young man approaches, holding a baby. He has a mustache and his reddish, ginger-colored hair is neatly trimmed. He wears dark trousers and a fine button-down cotton shirt, spotlessly white, the sleeves rolled up and banded. He is so at ease and familiar, his collar open at his throat, and rocks the round-faced, barefoot baby in his arms. She’s a year old today, the man gives Annabel to understand, and she knows the baby is herself: her father stands before her in the midst of numerous guests. A pony whickers nearby and Hart is riding him; Betty, their nursemaid, holds him in the saddle. Annabel smells Betty’s nutmeg and vanilla scent, smells it too on her father’s shirt, for Betty does the laundry; perhaps the fragrance of the soap powder Grandmother prefers is the barely discernible perfume investing all. Hart is laughing, and the sound, for he is very young, four, perhaps, tinkles lightly above Betty’s soft encouragements. Someone calls for Heinrich, and he looks at Annabel, warmly and proudly, knowing all so completely. She reflects that his hair is not black and only looks so in photographs, yet the memory of his hair in her fingers, long and coarsely thick, is true. She feels Hart beside her now, very near, just as in the car that day stopped at the gas station, with Pierson inside buying
ice creams. Hart fixes with her on their father’s face and they rise above him; Heinrich looks up at them with happy certainty. Hart wears their father’s white shirt like a cloak, and Charles’ long white scarf; Annabel clasps both his hands as the air billows under them, blowing the scarf out and filling the shirt with wind. Borne up, flying or gently falling, warm, suspended, they pull one another closer; she looks into her brother’s delighted eyes. Duty stands on a white bed below them, barking excitedly, but they cannot reach for him. He knows them but is not with them.

•   •   •

Emily has slipped through the fence; she is small enough to fit herself between the rough wood slats and run ahead of her grandfather to see the new calves. She runs into the field, the morning sun glancing down in shafts, and the field under her still dewy, thick and tufted, deeper than the tops of her boots. She sees the cow with her two calves, the young calves barely standing, trembling at the force of their mother’s tongue. They blink their doelike eyes and Emily slows, not to scare them. She hears behind her a breathy roar of exhale, like a rumble in a bellows, and sees the bull. He’s huge and smells of dung and heat and the white mud caked to him. A small bird sits upon one flank. The bull’s rheumy nostrils quiver; he lifts his big head. She goes hot all over and her head buzzes. The bull lowers his ringed nose and stomps the ground, throwing up clods of dirt. Emily sees the little bird rise straight into the air and turns to run. She can’t hear for the dense noise in her ears but feels the pounding of the animal stun the ground. She sees her grandfather standing on the fence, braced on the upper rung, reaching for her, shouting. Somehow he grasps her wrists and swings her high, an endless arc, while the bull thunders past, pivoting his immense weight and rumbling like an engine. Emily cannot catch her breath, and her grandfather is holding her, gasping with relief. We must all embrace Duty, she hears him say, but no one says it; she is only thinking the words as the dog runs back and forth across the bed in the Gore Hotel, jumping frantically at the turning fan above them.

•   •   •

She sat up, her hand on her forehead, to find her brow was moist. She felt in the grip of some panic and saw the time: Grimm would be waiting. Let him wait: she must have ten minutes. She grabbed the frantic dog and went to the bathroom, where she ran a puddle into the tub and put Duty at water’s edge. She bathed her face and smoothed her hair while the dog drank as though parched. “There now,” she said. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now.”

•   •   •

Emily focused her thoughts in the elevator, emptying her mind of all but what lay immediately ahead. She’d thought the tearoom would be full, a warm night like this, but Grimm sat alone at a table by the wall. She nodded as he looked up, grateful the chairs were upholstered, that there was a pot of tea.

“Miss Thornhill.” He poured her a cup.

“Sheriff Grimm.” How smooth he was. Eric was no doubt right about him. He hadn’t changed his clothes, had come direct from Quiet Dell. She could smell that green, dusty smell that was so redolently everywhere.

“I’ve ordered supper. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve asked them to serve us here. Crowded in the restaurant, in the lobby, everywhere. Noisy, with reporters and the curious. The hotels are doing quite a business. Crime pays for some, eh?” He raised one brow. “Pays us, I suppose, though we’re not often taxed with this order of thing. Once in a lifetime, probably. For you, as well.”

“Let us hope.” She preferred not to joust with him, and drank her tea.

“I understand you were at the morgue today.”

“We were. Mr. Lindstrom will of course provide the police with copies of the photographs, courtesy of the
Tribune
.” She noticed Grimm’s hands and his even, well-tended nails.

“He will, and the negatives as well. Those photographs are
police property. I spoke with him. He’s not so receptive, your Mr. Lindstrom. Concerned about journalistic independence.”

“Of course. Aren’t you?”

“I’m concerned with lawfully executing a serial murderer against whom all evidence is likely to remain circumstantial.” He nodded at the waiter. “I ordered steak, and fish for you. Acceptable?”

“Perfectly. Separate checks, please; my editors require it. Now, you were saying . . . But hasn’t Powers confessed?”

“He has, after interrogation, but he’s hired a lawyer, ex–prosecuting attorney, who’s insisting Powers’ bruises—sustained in resistance, you might say—be photographed, to render the confession inadmissible. We tried to stave it off, but he’s gone to another county to get the order.”

“The lawyer’s name?”

“Law.”

Had she heard him correctly? “The DA’s name is Law?”

“Law. J. Ed Law. A real milquetoast, gaunt and righteous, but he’s on his game. He’ll claim duress, but if the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming enough, an inadmissible confession won’t matter.”

“Duress,” said Emily. “So they beat it out of him.”

“Expertly,” Grimm said. “Does that concern you?”

“I don’t condone police brutality, and I assume it’s not your regular practice, but I can’t pretend to sympathy for Powers. His guilt seems certain.”

Grimm nodded. “He would not have admitted to a thing. He specializes in brainless, childlike, continual denial, touring his own crime scene with mild, objective interest. He will do well in court: he’s oblivious to verbal badgering. During the other, though, he cried out once or twice. Words, like curses. I’m sure he’s not American.”

“You couldn’t discern . . . which language?” Emily leaned toward him in unconscious response to the nature of the information.

“It was an instant’s utterance. Guttural. A Germanic language
perhaps. He’s adapted like a native, but his picture will be everywhere. Someone will know him.”

“And now, this fifth victim. Who is she?”

Grimm looked into the empty room, shaking his head. “Powers is sloppy, arrogant, hurried. He burned trash at the garage to destroy evidence, but we found a bankbook and address book, half burnt, in the ashes. She’s from Northborough, Massachusetts. Dorothy Lemke. We’ve notified the family. A married sister and an aunt.”

Emily opened her notebook and began to write. “Yes?”

“Maiden name, Pressler. Married name, L-e-m-k-e. She’s divorced, fiftyish. Childless. Family will be here tomorrow, the aunt, the sister, and her husband, to identify the body. They’ll be staying at the Gore. You’ll have an exclusive.”

Emily was writing.
Divorced when? Why?
She raised her eyes to his. “The access is appreciated, but I need to know now, Sheriff Grimm, if there are expectations I’m obliged to meet, in return for any privileges you might offer.”

“There are expectations.” He lowered his voice and leaned in. “I want the facts straight, at least in the top-tier coverage, which the
Tribune
will provide. Nothing I can do about the rest. And there will be . . . facts, documents inadmissible in court, that must find their way to public knowledge, for the good of the case.”

“I see.” Emily realized he’d signaled the waiter to stay away. Now he raised his square, well-cut chin, and the waiter moved soundlessly to her side, balancing a huge silver tray on his shoulder. Food, placed before them on gold-edged china, was everywhere; the waiter removed the salver lids with flourish.

“I thank you, sir,” Grimm was saying. “Steak here is very good, and the rainbow trout are local, caught today. Your best entrees, possibly. Agreed?” He smiled at the waiter, man to man.

“Yes. sir. The potato croquettes, the scallion gravy, the fried green tomatoes, all specialties of the house. Anything else, sir? Wine? Cocktails?”

“I believe we’re fine.” Grimm watched the waiter retreat. “Are we fine, Miss Thornhill?” Surprisingly, he tucked his napkin into
his shirt collar like a workingman. He could not have planned a gesture more appealing to her.