In the Dark of the Night

Chapter 26

RUSTY RUSTON STOOD at the back of the small Lutheran church, which was packed with nearly every resident of Phantom Lake. The old wooden pews had filled an hour before the organ music even began, and as the service began, people kept on coming. Now the front doors were propped open, and a throng sheltered by a sea of umbrellas stood outside in the droning rain, listening to the service.

Flowers filled the sanctuary, and the closed casket was covered with a blanket of white roses, a large framed photo of Ellis propped on an easel in their midst.

Ruston tried to concentrate on what the pastor was saying, but the combination of Emil Lundgaard’s mumbling voice and his own irresistible urge to scan the crowd for anything that wasn’t as it should be, made following the service impossible. Though Fred Bicks had released Ellis’s remains for burial, Rusty hadn’t yet received the official report, and though he — along with nearly everyone else in town — hoped the report would show an accidental death, his gut told him otherwise.

The missing arm was the problem. Ellis Langstrom could easily have drowned while drunk, or even fallen and hit his head. But a missing arm raised a huge red flag in Ruston’s mind.

And if his instincts were right, then he needed to concentrate less on the eulogy and more on the possibility that if someone had, indeed, killed Ellis Langstrom, that somebody might very well have come to his victim’s funeral. For what seemed like the hundredth time, Ruston scanned the faces he could see, looking for someone who looked nervous, or someone who seemed to be acting strange, or just for something that felt wrong.

All three of the boys from The Pines were there with their families, which didn’t surprise him. Nor did it tell him anything, either about the boys’ innocence or their possible guilt.

Ellis’s entire high school class was there, of course, along with most of the rest of the school-age kids, at least the ones who were in middle school or beyond. Eudora Morrison — his own old English teacher — was sitting in the third pew next to Neal Barton, who was scheduled to retire from teaching math next year, though nobody expected he would give up coaching the football team.

And everybody was behaving exactly as he would expect them to.

The congregation rose for the final prayer, and Ruston bowed his head along with everyone else, then — also along with everyone else — remained standing while Adam Mosler, Chris McIvens, and four of their classmates strode to the front of the church to act as pallbearers for the short walk to the graveyard that occupied the acre next door.

Then, as the boys struggled to carry the heavy coffin down the aisle as if it weighed nothing at all, Ruston saw Adam Mosler’s eyes suddenly blaze with pure hatred. He shifted his own gaze, and realized who it was that had roused Mosler’s fury.

Eric Brewster, flanked by Tad Sparks and Kent Newell.

Ruston watched carefully to see how Brewster and his friends would react, and a moment later, as neither Eric nor either of his friends broke from Adam Mosler’s fury, he came to a decision: even if Fred Bicks ruled Ellis’s death as something other than an accident, he wouldn’t waste much time trying to prove that the boys from The Pines had anything to do with it. His judgment — honed by years of observing all kinds of kids — told him that had those boys been guilty of anything, they wouldn’t have been able to meet Mosler’s gaze at all, let alone hold it until Adam himself had to break it.

No, the murderer may indeed be here, but Ruston was nearly positive that he wasn’t a resident of The Pines.

As the coffin, closely followed by Carol Langstrom, passed through the church’s doors, the pastor spoke loudly over the sounds of people starting to put on their raincoats. “After the interment, please join Ellis’s mother for a small reception in the parish house.”

Ruston fell in beside Carol Langstrom as soon as she was out of the church and guided her to a folding chair under a tiny awning that had been set up at the grave site, then stood with the decidedly smaller gathering as the minister softly prayed, Carol Langstrom silently wept, and the six pallbearers lined up behind the coffin under identical black umbrellas.

The rain beat down as the pastor spoke his final words.

Carol stood up on trembling legs, touched the coffin for a moment, and watched silently as it was lowered into the ground.

It was finally over.

Murmuring softly, the crowd began to drift toward the parish house where Anna Lundsgaard would undoubtedly have laid out twice as much food as anyone could possibly eat.

Ashley Sparks and a woman Ruston didn’t know walked slowly beside Carol, Ashley holding a large black umbrella. Carol was hunched over, as if the weight of Ellis’s death was more than she could bear.

Ruston kept an eye on Adam Mosler and his friends, readying himself for whatever they might do now that the funeral was over, but the six merely handed their umbrellas back to the funeral director and walked away.

A red-eyed Cherie Stevens went with them, along with Kayla Banks.

Ruston had long ago learned to trust his gut instincts, and right now his gut was telling him that Ellis’s murderer — assuming he had been murdered — was not among the mourners. But something had happened to the boy, and as soon as Fred Bicks’s report was faxed to his office, he was going to have to start coming up with some answers, or else answer a lot of fury from a lot of people.

And he was going to have to deal with both Gerald Hofstetter and Ray Richmond, at least one of whom wasn’t going to like the coroner’s report no matter what it said.

And, of course, there was Carol Langstrom. Rusty didn’t care much about either Gerald Hofstetter or Ray Richmond, but Carol Langstrom was another story altogether.

She deserved to know what happened to her son, and whatever else occurred, he intended to give Carol the answers — and the resolution — she needed.

He looked up at the sky, hoping maybe God would be looking down on Carol Langstrom, but all he saw were ominous black clouds.

God, apparently, had no intention of giving him any help at all.

Whatever needed to be done, he’d have to do it himself.