Prayer for the Dead

Chapter 13

Lying in Cindi’s arms, Becker heard the low whine of car tires on pavement as the cruiser prowled by. The night was very quiet, otherwise, with the kind of hushed awareness with which nature anticipated a coming storm. The lights of the car ran quickly across the wall, then onto the ceiling before vanishing.

Cindi stirred and rolled away from him, which told him she was ready for sleep in earnest. She liked to make a show of drowsing off while clinging to Becker as if he were some enormous Teddy bear, but finally she would turn her back to him and slip into real sleep the only way she knew how, on her side, legs up, clasping a pillow to her. It never failed to touch him to see her thus, such a brave and secure young woman giving in to such vulnerability at night.

Easing himself out of bed, Becker glanced at the red numerals of the digital clock. It was 2:45. He wondered when Tee slept, if he was still cruising by at this hour. Perhaps when Becker himself did-when he could no longer put it off, when it came on him with a rush and swept him away without a chance to fight or care what lay in store for him in his dreams.

Standing at the window, naked but for his shorts, Becker stared into the unusual silent stillness of the night. The normal night sounds were stifled and the sky was unyieldingly black. Becker had a sense of dark clouds roiling atop each other, gathering strength and violence, but he could not see them.

Tee’s cruiser came back down the road, completing its swing of dutiful vigilance. Becker stepped back from the window. He did not want Tee to see him watching Tee watching him. There seemed no need to complicate the game. As the headlights hit the window, Becker turned to see Cindi’s body glowing palely in the illumination dimly reflected from the walls and ceiling.

She was completely naked and her shape seemed to meld into the white pillowcase at her breast as fine distinctions faded in the brief and feeble light. When the headlights were gone, Cindi’s image continued to shine on Becker’s retina.

He waited a moment for his eyes to adjust and when they did Cindi seemed nearly to have disappeared. Becker could make out the brighter whiteness of the sheets and pillows, but Cindi’s flesh, pale though it was, had all but vanished in the gloom.

Becker closed the bathroom door and turned on the light. He searched until he found a container of baby powder. Turning the ventilated lid, he sprinkled some on his hands and rubbed, feeling the silky smoothness of corn starch. The scent reminded him of Cindi, of certain hollows and depressions where the odor lingered long after application.

He smiled wryly at his reflection in the mirror. “You’re going to have a fine time explaining this in the morning,” he thought.

Leaving the bathroom door open a crack for the light, Becker returned to the bed and gently dusted Cindi’s legs with the powder, then her buttocks and her back. She moaned happily as he rubbed it delicately on her body with his palm. But when she turned her head, half awake, for his kiss, Becker eased her back into position. He kissed her softly on the cheek, then slipped away from the bed as she smiled and settled back into sleep.

Becker closed the bathroom door entirely. A line-thin ray of light shone through over the sill and seemed to die, exhausted, a few feet into the room. Becker paced away from the bed, six steps to the corner, as far away as he could get from the bed. Dyce’s chair had been twenty feet from the makeshift table or altar. With his back against the wall, Becker sat in the corner and looked at Cindi’s body on the bed.

She was now as white as the sheets, a peculiar, unnatural, spectral pale in the dun light. After a few minutes, as he continued to stare at her, his eyes began to rebel against the conditions, and the body appeared to rise slightly above the bed and to float in position all on its own.

A ghost, thought Becker. The optics necessary to create a ghost. Is this what you were looking for, friend Dyce? When you covered yourself in talcum powder and looked in the mirror, what did you want to see? A spook? Something as silly as that, children in bedsheets, Halloween tricks? And when you sat and stared at your victims, did you see the same thing? In Helen’s bathroom, dusting yourself in the dark, were you trying to create the same vision in yourself you sought in the men you killed? But not just ghosts; it had to be something more than that, something profound enough to kill for.

Cindi’s leg jerked and she groaned in her dreaming. Becker watched as her breathing became more even again, slowly subsiding to a rhythmic rise and fall. It wasn’t just optics that made her appear ghostlike, he realized. It was the slight motion caused by her breathing that gave her the sensation of hovering. Ghosts moved, they quivered, they shook.

But you didn’t want them to move, did you, Dyce? The drug you gave them, PMBL, is a hypnotic; it reduces men to a coma-like state. Metabolism is reduced, bodily functions slow, and that means breathing, too. They were scarcely alive. You sat and watched them. In the dark? In the gloom. That room was sealed off from sunlight like a cavern. You sat like this, watching the men who were laid out flat, men who could not twitch and toss and turn to spoil your illusion, men who barely moved. Did your eyes play tricks on you, too? Did you see these men as ghosts-or did you see them as something real? Something from your own experience, friend Dyce? All of our perversions come from something real in the beginning; they don’t just arrive from nowhere. Men lying flat, barely breathing, pale as talcum powder, pale as ghosts. Pale as death. Ghosts move, dead men don’t. You wanted them dead, didn’t you, Dyce?

You sat in the dark and saw them dead, wished them dead, and ultimately made them dead. Like in the graveyard, you were communing with the dead, weren’t you, you son of a bitch.

On the bed, Cindi rolled toward the center, tossing the pillow aside so it fell on the floor. She reached out an arm for Becker’s body but her eyes did not open. Becker rose and slid into bed beside her. The light from the bathroom made the door above it appear as dark as the entrance to a cave.

Lying under the eaves, Dyce could hear the rain on the roof, which seemed Just inches above his face. It was a comforting sound, one of many in the old house. Dyce loved the sounds of the insects in the country night, he loved the way the wind moved across the open flatland and made the house whistle when it blew hard. He even loved the groan of floorboards, the squeak of doors that age had tilted slightly off the square. None of the sounds frightened him, no matter how dark it was or how late-and it got so very dark in the country on a cloudy night. When his grandfather went to bed for the night, all lights in the house were off and it was as if the old man had pulled the switch on the universe. Even that did not frighten Dyce. He felt safe and protected in his grandfather’s house; he knew the presence of the old man would ward off evil. If there were any spirits hovering in the dark, they were from Christ, attracted by grandfather’s goodness.

Dyce tried to concentrate on the rhythm of the rain this night, to let the gentle patter lull him into sleep- but the voices kept intruding. Try as he might, he could not shut off his hearing and blank them out. They were louder tonight than usual, angrier. Although he could not make out the words, he could distinguish the voices-his father’s tone, high, on a rising pitch, alternately whining and yelling, then slipping occasionally lower, as he uttered imprecations in what he thought were asides to himself but could be clearly heard by anyone in the room. And his grandfather’s voice, much lower than his father’s, slower and more measured-the voice of God, Dyce sometimes thought-not Jesus who he thought would speak in a gentle tenor, but God the Father, strong but compassionate. This night even grandfather’s great patience was being tried and he, too, was angry.

Dyce slipped out of bed and opened his dormer window. Light from the parlor below his bedroom spilled out into the night, swallowed immediately by the rain. And the rain kept him from hearing, too. The voices were louder this way but still masked by the constant tapping on the roof. Dyce did not really need to hear them to understand. The two men had this same argument every time, and in his mind Dyce could see them as he had seen them several times before when he crept from his bedroom and stole halfway down the stairs to peek into the parlor. His father would be pacing, jabbing at the air with his fists, snarling sometimes as he faced the old man. All pretense at sobriety would be long gone by now after repeated visits to the bottle under the car seat. The bottle itself was probably gone and the knowledge that he would have nothing more to drink until midday when the Minnot liquor store opened would be enough to drive Dysen into desperation.

Nate Cohen would be seated in his highbacked chair, the arms worn shiny by use. From his angle on the stairs, Dyce could just see part of the side and back of his head as he leaned forward slightly. The old man sat ramrod straight whenever he was talking to his son-in-law, never allowing his back to ease into the chair as if that would be a sign of weakness before the devil. Dyce knew that grandfather thought his father was the devil. Sometimes Dyce believed that, too. That was often the only way to explain his behavior. He could see the wave in grandfather’s silver hair, curving as gently as a furrow in the field, over and past the ear. In the background, behind his father, was the heavy brass candlestick with its eight candles that grandfather used for his devotionals. Grandfather did all of his worshipping at home; there was no church that did it right, he had explained to Dyce.

They would be arguing about money, Dyce knew. His father would be demanding more, alternately cursing and wheedling, frustrated in his powerlessness. Grandfather would be demanding changes in Dysen’s behavior, some of them about the drinking, some about his treatment of Dyce. Sometimes he would insist that Dysen give his son up, let him come to live here in the old farmhouse-that was when Dyce felt his heart soar with hope. But his father never agreed. He would continue to yell and whine and in the end he would always return home to the city with Dyce beside him. The trip back would be a time of peace, his father happy and gloating over having won out over the old man again, and Dyce would be torn between sorrow at leaving his grandfather and yearning that this moment of satisfaction for his father could last and last. His father never hit him on the way back to the city.

Finally, unable to blank out the voices or to hear them clearly, and alarmed by the increase in hostility, Dyce stole to the stairs. He wore flannel pajamas that his grandfather always had laid out for him on the bed and that he always carefully folded and put back atop the covers when he left. He loved the pajamas but he never thought of taking them with him. They were part of grandfather’s house, another sign of love, just like the sheets that were always fresh and crisp, the woolen blankets with the crease down the middle from being folded and stored for his return. The wooden floors were cold to his feet as he crept across his room. There was a board that creaked every time, no matter how he tried to avoid it, but he knew they were talking too loud downstairs to hear it.

Dyce settled on the stairs and watched as the familiar pattern began to change. His father was drunker than usual and he would pause sometimes in his ranting as if trying to remember what he was saying, and where he was.

“You struck him on the way here in the car,” said grandfather, and there was an ominous note to his voice.

“I never.” Dysen seemed insulted by the suggestion.

“You hit him on the shoulder. I saw the bruise.”

“He fell down. He’s a kid, he falls down.”

“You hit him. The boy told me. I saw the bruise when I bathed him.”

Dysen squinted at the old man knowingly. “You spend too much time giving my boy baths, how about that? He can wash himself, he’s old enough to wash himself.” Dysen rocked back on his heels, grinning triumphantly as if he had scored a telling point, then staggered as he fought to keep his balance. When he recovered, he seemed lost for a moment.

“He can wash his own damned self,” he said finally.

“He has marks all over his body,” said grandfather. “He tells me what you do to him.”

Dysen shook his head vigorously. “He’s a lying little fucker.”

“I can report you,” grandfather said. “I can have him taken away from you. You are a drunken sot and you mistreat the boy. I will have the authorities give him to me.”

“The fuck you will,” said Dysen. “You just want him for yourself, you old bastard. You just want to give that boy baths all day long, how about that?”

Nate Cohen rose to his feet. His voice was trembling with fury.

“You Antichrist!” He lifted his arm, finger pointing at the sky, shaking.

“… raise your hand to me, you son of a bitch,” Dysen said. “I’ll take your head off, you old Jew fuck!”

Dyce gasped as his father cocked a fist and stepped toward his grandfather, then lurched past him and toward the stairs. He was on Dyce before he could get to his feet. His father showed no surprise at finding him there.

“Trying to take my boy away from me,” he said. He hugged Dyce to him and the alcohol on his breath enveloped them both. “Trying to steal old Rodger-Dodger.”

His father swept him up in his arms and staggered down the steps, nearly falling.

“Put the boy down,” grandfather demanded. But Dysen clung to his son with both arms.

“We know what the old fart’s up to, don’t we, Rodger?” He lurched into the parlor, still carrying Dyce.

“I want what’s best for the boy.”

“We know what he’s up to, “Dysen repeated. “We’re just a little too fucking smart for the old bastard.”

“Put the boy down, you‘ll hurt him.”

“Never hurt my own son,” Dysen said. He thrust his head forward and snarled at the old man, the snarl turned into a laugh, and he wobbled on his feet, suddenly confused again.

“Put him down, let him go to bed,” grandfather said. “He doesn’t need to see this.”

Dysen sat heavingly onto the sofa, pulling his son atop him, laughing as the breath left him, as if it were a good joke. Dyce looked to his grandfather, his eyes pleading for help. Dysen’s cheek pressed against the boy’s and the stubble of his beard scraped the skin. Suddenly he was kissing Dyce and squeezing him harder as his mood vaulted into maudlin.

“I love my boy,” he said. “Love my Rodger-Dodger. Won’t let. you have him. He wants to stay with his papa, don’t you. Rodger, tell him, tell the old fart you want to stay with your papa.”

“No,” said Dyce.

“No?” Dysen stared at him, blinking, trying to clear his vision as if the boy’s remark had made it blurry.

“No?”

“I want to stay here,” Dyce said, but he was so breathless with his own audacity that he wasn ‘t certain if the words came out.

Dysen looked at Dyce for a moment, then at grandfather, shaking his head, bewildered. A smile played at his lips and for a second Dyce thought it would be all right, he understood.

Dysen slapped the boy with the back of his hand, then with the open palm going the other way.

Grandfather screamed “No!” then was yanking Dysen to his feet and away from Dyce, pulling so hard the material on Dysen’s shirt ripped In a blur, his ears still ringing from the blow, his vision misty with tears and disorientation, Dyce saw the two men struggle. Grandfather was surprisingly strong for his age, but even when drunk Dysen knew how to fight. By the time Dyce could get to his feet, his father had the old man on his knees, his hands on his throat. Dyce could hear grandfather coughing and gasping for breath. Dysen was roaring with oaths. In his anger, he seemed happy, and Dyce realized he would gladly kill his grandfather.

Dyce swung the candlestick with both hands from the waist upward. The brass base hit his father in the back of the skull where the head met the neck. Candles flew throughout the room and one hit Dysen on the ear as he turned his head toward Dyce.

His head continued to swivel as he fell, stiff legged, and his eyes caught his son’s on the way to the floor. When he remembered it, Dyce thought the eyes were still glowing as they bore into his own even though reason told him his father was dead when he hit the floor.

Chaney was glowing with satisfaction. He looked to Becker as if the buttons on his cardigan would burst with pride. “Got him,” Chaney said.

He led Becker down the hallway toward the actuarial room, nearly skipping in his excitement. “Tell me,” said Becker.

Chaney kept walking and Becker realized the man wanted to relive his triumph in his own domain, to be overheard and admired by his fellow actuaries. Becker held any further questions until they stood at Dyce’s old desk.

A young woman sat at the desk until Chaney shooed her away with a gesture. It was a theatrical impulse, Becker thought. Chaney could have demonstrated his prowess at any terminal, but he wanted to do it at Dyce’s.

“Got him cold,” Chaney said, pointing at the computer terminal as if it were Dyce himself His voice was elevated just enough to be easily overheard by the others in the room. Becker realized how Chaney had succeeded in rising above the others into the position of supervisor-he knew how to stage-manage his moments. Becker wondered if Dyce had disliked the man as much as Becker did.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?” As if he could have prevented him.

“Well, the key to success is setting up the right trap in the first place,” Chaney said, launching into a detailed, technical explanation of his prowess with the computer. The speech was aimed at his peers, not Becker, who understood just enough of it to realize it was fairly ingenious. Not brilliant, but bright. Not, most likely, much better than anyone else in the room could have done. They were actuaries, but manipulation of the computer was essential to their functioning.

When Chaney breathed, Becker cut in. “Where?”

“What?” Chaney was annoyed at the interruption.

“Where was he when he tried to break in?”

“I’m getting to that.”

“And how do you know it was Dyce?”

“How do I know?” Chaney looked taken aback and uncomfortable. “Well, I don’t know know, but I know. I mean, who else could it be? Who else even knew his file existed? We’re going on certain assumptions here, aren’t we? Do you want him to sign his name? The trap was set up to alert us when someone tried to get into Dyce’s file. I mean, we assumed it had to be Dyce, didn’t we, Becker?”

“That’s Special Agent Becker, actually,” Becker said.

The woman who had been sitting at the desk and now stood, arms folded and watching a few feet away, suppressed a giggle. Chaney glowered at her, then glowered at Becker.

“Would you like to continue?” Becker asked politely.

“That’s what I was trying to do,” said Chaney.

“Where was he when he tried to break in… He did break in, didn’t he? He was successful.”

“You didn’t tell me to stop him, just find out when he tried to do it.”

“Did he try or did he do it?”

“He did it. He read his file. I mean he ‘tried’ in the sense that he didn’t escape my detection.”

“So, where was he?”

“I have that information,” Chaney said, speaking as if his bit of gold had turned to dross.

I shouldn’t do this, Becker thought. It costs me nothing but time and annoyance to let the man do his little victory dance. Why hassle him and make him look like a jerk in front of his people? Not that I’m making him look like a jerk. He is a jerk, and they probably all know it anyway, so what do I accomplish? I satisfy a small vindictive urge. Petty, petty, Becker thought. No wonder Hatcher is district agent in charge and I never rose higher than special agent. Even the ‘special’ was no distinction since everyone was called special agent. A hangover from Hoover’s grandiosity. No ordinary agents for the Chief.

“The request for information came from an office in Waverly, Connecticut. It began as a request for rates on home owner policies; that’s how he got into the system, and from there he moved into actuarial and finally into his own files. He knew all the codes, he had no trouble.”

“So he wouldn’t know he was being watched.”

“There was no way he could detect that from his side. As far as he knows, he got away with it.”

“Do you have an address for that office in Waverly?”

“Of course. He didn’t just read his file, by the way, in case you want to know.” Chaney had turned snippy.

Becker just stared at him.

“Well, he tried to destroy the file, too.”

“Did he?”

“You can’t erase a personal file from outside the system, of course; we have safeguards on that. Either Dyce forgot or thought he’d take a fling at it anyway. He didn’t get away with it.”

A small triumph, and not one that belonged to Chaney but to the designer of the original system, but Becker let him have it anyway.

“Well done.”

“Thank you.”

“What time did this happen?”

Chaney glanced at a notebook in his hand.

“Eleven thirty-six.”

“It’s only ten o’clock now,” Becker said. “I was going to say p.m.”

“He broke in last night and you didn’t tell me until now?”

Chaney smiled involuntarily, nervously. “Actually, it was Friday night.”

“This is Monday!”

“I didn’t find out until this morning myself…”

“If you’re going to build a trap, you ought to be able to tell when you’ve caught something,” Becker said. “By now our boy has probably taken the cheese and disappeared back into the woodwork.”

Becker yanked the phone from its cradle and punched Hatcher’s number.

“You can have your desk back. Miss,” Becker said, dismissively turning his back to Chaney.

I really have to work on my people skills, he thought briefly, waiting for Hatcher to answer.

He brushed grandfather’s hair and watched the old man’s face ease into relaxation. It was one of the few times Dyce saw his beloved grandfather allow himself to relax, and it thrilled him to be the instrument of it. He used the twin brushes with alternating strokes and watched the hair straighten momentarily, then recover into the gentle waves.

“I must have an Italian in the woodpile, “grandfather would say with a wink. “I still have all my hair and all my teeth. Can you believe that?”

“Yes, I can,” said Dyce, who believed everything his grandfather told him.

The old man looked at his reflection in the mirror, nodding approvingly, then smiled at the boy who stood behind him. “The Lord takes care of His own in many ways,” he said. “He even helps out with your vanity sometimes, although I don’t believe He approves of it. But He understands. ’Cause the Lord himself is vain, Roger. Did you know that?”

“Yes, grandfather.”

“You did? You did know that?”

“No, sir, I didn’t.”

“You certainly didn’t learn it from your father.”

“No.”

“And I don’t believe I have told you this. About the Lord being vain.”

“No, sir.”

“Then you don’t know it.” Roger shook his head, pausing for a moment with the brushes. “How many strokes is that?”

“Seventy-eight,” said Dyce, moving the brushes again.

“You mustn‘t say you know a thing if you don’t know it, Roger.”

There was never a note of threat to his grandfather’s tone. Dyce did not fear being corrected by him because a blow did not accompany the lesson.

“I won’t.”

“What you know is all you will have in this life. What you know of man and what you know of God. Now the reason I can say the Lord is vain is because of the praise He demands of us. Look at what the Bible tells us to do. Look at what the Lord commands us to do. Praise Him to the Heavens. Sing out His praises. Glory unto God. The Lord wants to hear us praising Him. Glory to God in the highest. He requires it, Roger. And, of course. He deserves it. Vanity in a man is a human failing-not a bad one, mind-but vanity in God is holy. There’s the difference. You won’t hear that in any church.”

“One hundred,” said Roger, letting the brushes fall to his sides.

“You might do a few more tonight, lamb,” grandfather said. “Considering.”

Dyce understood the special circumstances. Grandfather had worked hard all day preparing for the ceremony. He had built the box himself from lumber stripped from the loft in the barn, sewn the cloth, prepared the body. All the while tending to Dyce, feeding and dressing him and offering hug after hug as he explained all that he was doing. The boy understood that his grandfather was concerned about his state of mind, but Dyce was not feeling sorrow the way grandfather feared. He couldn’t say he was feeling much of anything except the tingling of hope. If he knew his father was dead, if he could be absolutely certain that he would never come back and that he could stay here forever with grandfather, then he knew what he would feel. But it was too soon; his father was dead too short a time to be fully believed. Dyce had simply put his emotions in abeyance; grief was not called for and hope was too painful if it were to be undone. What he felt more than anything was anticipation, as if the great event had not already happened but was yet to come. He could not have said what the great event was to be.

“Let us prepare ourselves, “grandfather said at last. He touched Dyce’s hand holding the brush. Dyce saw the brown spots on his skin, the large veins that looked swollen, close to bursting through the flesh. Grandfather was seeking his eyes in the mirror and Dyce looked at him and smiled broadly. He hoped the old man could tell how much he loved him, how much he wanted to please him. How very grateful he was for the love the old man showed to him. Dyce would do anything for his grandfather.

“I like to brush your hair, grandfather.”

“Do you, boy?”

“Yes, sir.”

Grandfather’s voice was oddly strained. “Why is that?”

Dyce lay his cheek against grandfather’s hair and closed his eyes. “I love you,” he whispered.

Grandfather didn’t answer and when Dyce looked in the mirror he saw the old man’s face twisted into the strangest mask. He looked as though he might cry. but there was something else there, something that Dyce had seen a few times before, but could not identify.

“We must prepare,” grandfather said again, in a voice that was cracked. He moved to the window and looked out. “The sun is down,” he said. “It’s time.”

When the candles were lighted and all was ready, grandfather fetched Dyce from the bedroom, leading him into the darkened parlor by the hand. The candles provided the only light in the room and shadows danced on the walls and ceiling and floor. His father lay in the coffin grandfather had made that day, his head resting on a pillow. A black tarpaulin covered the legs of the sawhorse on which the casket rested, making it appear to float in the air.

“We will watch him for three days,” grandfather said. “We will pray and ask the Lord to return him to us. If the Lord chooses not to do so, then we will bury him.”

His father’s features loomed in the semidarkness of the room, as sharp as if chiseled from New England rock.

“Come.” said grandfather, pulling at Dyce’s hand as he moved closer to the coffin. Dyce pulled back, drawing away.

“I don’t want to.”

“He cannot hurt you now.”

“I don’t want to.”

Grandfather stopped tugging at his hand. He walked to the casket alone and stood above the corpse, looking down.

“Lars Dysen, you took my only child, my beloved daughter, away from me and killed her with your abuse and neglect. You drank and whored and blasphemed and wasted the life the Lord gave you. You mistreated my beloved grandson and beat him and deprived him of the joy of his youth. You have been a canker in my life since the day I first saw you and I have hated you, and the Lord has turned His face from you and brought you to this end… I forgive you now for all you have done to me and mine and I pray that the Lord will forgive you also. I pray for your return to us, and if the Lord sees fit to take you unto himself, I pray for your redemption. “

Nate Cohen leaned into the coffin and kissed his son-in-law, then stood aside and regarded his grandson.

Dyce shook his head violently.

“You must,” said grandfather. His voice was calm and understanding.

In the flickering of candlelight, Dyce thought he saw his father move. He began to cry.

Grandfather was nodding his head slowly now. “You must,” he repeated. “The Lord wants you to.”

Dyce whimpered. Please don’t make me, he thought. Please, grandfather, I’ll do anything for you, but please not this, don’t make me do this.

Grandfather stood waiting. With his eyes on grandfather, not looking at his father, Dyce approached the coffin, little bursts of fear shaking his chest with sound.

Grandfather lifted the boy and held him over his father’s face. Dysen’s face moved, seemed to rise, to come forward toward Dyce’s face. The boy could see his eyes through the pale lids, the pupils wide with anger, red streaks shooting off’ into the whites like furious fire. Dyce squeezed his own eyes closed, but he could still see his father’s face, drunken, dangerous. Deadly. I do not want him back, Dyce thought. I want him dead, dead, dead.

“Kiss him,” said grandfather.

The old man’s hands trembled with the effort of holding the boy up. He put his knee against Dyce’s buttocks to help support him. Dyce felt the pressure in his bottom and groin.

He opened his eyes and Dysen was even closer, pale, so ghastly pale, but all the blemishes were gone. The broken blood vessels, the veins burst in the nose, the red flushes on the cheeks that seemed to burn when he drank-all had vanished into a smooth, snowy white.

“Kiss him, “grandfather said. “You must.” His knee pressed harder into Dyce’s bottom as he urged him forward a bit more so that the boy’s face was nearly touching his father’s.

Again the corpse seemed to move. Dyce squeezed his eyes closed and pursed his lips, then touched them to his father’s skin. It was so cold. Grandfather had shaven the corpse in the morning, but the beard had continued to grow and a slight stubble pricked against the boy’s lips.

Grandfather sat in his chair and Dyce stood beside him, holding the old man’s hand.

“Now we will watch,” said grandfather. “When I am gone, you must do this for me.”

Dyce stared dutifully at the corpse for a while, watching it seem to sway and lift in the candlelight, choking down his terror. After several minutes he became aware of grandfather’s hand clutching his own. The hand seemed so warm and the warmth just kept increasing. Dyce glanced at grandfather to see if he felt it, too. Grandfather did not return his look, but pulled slightly on Dyce’s hand, drawing him around to the front of the chair.

“See how peaceful he looks,” said grandfather. “How serene. Nothing troubles him now.”

Dyce climbed onto grandfather’s lap and lay his head back against the softness of the old man’s silver beard. Grandfather put one arm around the boy’s waist and with the other continued to hold his hand in his gentle fiery grip. When he spoke, his breath tickled Dyce’s ear, making it tingle.

The two of them continued to watch the corpse in silence. Dyce felt grandfather growing hard against his bottom. He shifted his weight and grandfather imperceptibly tightened his grip on Dyce’s waist, pulling him more firmly into his lap. Dyce loved the warmth of grandfather, the safety and comfort of him. He would do anything for him. After a time the feel of the firmness pressing against his bottom no longer confused him.

“How serene,” grandfather said. They watched until the candles guttered out and the room was in darkness.

“We’ve got Special Agent Hoban coming down from Boston; he’s actually the closest. He should be in Waverly already. We can fly in to an airstrip in Minnot and from there it’s a half-hour drive to Waverly. The plane’s ready for us now at McNeil airport. Allowing for traffic, we’ll be at the insurance agent’s office within an hour. It’s a Cessna eight seater, a little bumpy, but we can’t get a jet into the Minnot field. You can handle a little airsickness, can’t you, Becker?”

Becker studied the traffic in front of them as they raced toward the airport. The driver was good; he made high speed seem almost safe.

“I’m not going,” said Becker.

“What do you mean? We’ve got the guy.”

“So far you’ve got a computer terminal, but I’m not going with you anyway. I told you, I’m not going down any more holes for you. You go down this one.”

“Hole, what hole? He’s trapped in plain sight.”

“A lot of people are using the word trapped, but I haven’t seen anyone actually caught yet.”

“We know where he is, we know who he is, he doesn’t know we’re coming. What do you want? You expect him to come out with his hands up before we even get there? We even know his family.”

“When?”

“Records and Statistics came up with it last night.”

“Everybody’s taking his time about telling me things.”

“I am in charge, you know,” said Hatcher. “You want to know how we found the family?”

Becker shook his head. People asked the stupidest questions. The driver was passing on the inside lane, weaving like a fish through the rapids. He hated driving in cars with broken seat belts and the belts in the backseats of federal cars seemed never to work.

“He worked for a pharmacist once, apparently while he was still in college. Delivering prescriptions. The DEA had his prints on file for the standard security procedures because he was handling prescription drugs and controlled substances. What do you want to bet that’s where he learned about PMBL? Probably stole some from the supply room. A gallon jug would last him for life. So we got his real name, his family background, and his source of supply all from the same search. Talk about serendipity.”

“We didn’t find any gallon jug of PMBL in his house. Where is his supply?”

“I mean we found out where he probably got it.”

“If he got it ten years ago, does that mean he’s been killing men for that long? Or did he take a sample of PMBL just in case he might someday want to start drugging his victims?”

“When we find him, you can ask him. We might be digging up kitchen floors for a week just to keep up with him.”

“You find him. I’ll ask him when he’s behind bars in a straitjacket.”

“What are you afraid of, Becker?”

Hatcher regretted the remark immediately. Becker turned slowly away from the traffic and looked into Hatcher’s eyes. He didn’t appear to be angry, Hatcher thought. His gaze was pitying, murderous, maybe, but not angry.

“Sorry,” said Hatcher.

“Who’s his family?”

“Well, as you know, his real name isn’t Dyce, it’s Dysen. Norwegian, right? The kind he’s looking for, but his mother wasn’t Norwegian; that’s the strange thing. Her maiden name was Cohen. Jewish.”

Becker nodded. “Jewish.”

“Your theory on the stones and the grave markers? Okay, you may be right about that, but not in the cemetery in Clamden. He has no family there. You’re wrong on that one. If he went there to commune when he picked up the stones, he wasn’t communing with family. We went back to his great grandparents on both sides and none of them is in the Clamden graveyard.”

Becker shrugged. “The stones were just gravel, they could have been from anywhere.”

“What’s wrong, Becker? You don’t like your own theories anymore?”

“I guess I don’t like them when they become yours. Hatcher.”

“Have you lost your touch all of a sudden? Have you lost the legendary Becker feel of a case?”

“I wish,” said Becker.

“Well, we didn’t need it anyway, did we? We cracked this one with ordinary detective work. The kind the less gifted among us can still perform.”

“More power to you.” Becker leaned forward slightly and caught the driver’s eye in the mirror. “Reynolds, after you drop Hatcher at the airport, you can swing me back toward Clamden.”

Reynolds, reduced now to just eyes and brows in the mirror, sought out Hatcher for confirmation.

Hatcher said, “You can still be useful up there, Becker. You’re the only one who knows what Dyce looks like.”

“Tee saw him in the hospital, too.”

“Who, the local sheriff? Come on.”

“He’s a good man and he knows as much about this case as anybody.”

The car nosed in front of traffic and came to a halt at the terminal amid the honking of horns.

Hatcher got out and leaned toward Reynolds.

“Get a hold of Sheriff Terhune. I want him in Waverly as fast as you can arrange it.” Hatcher slammed the door closed. “And take Becker wherever he wants to go.”

They watched Hatcher stride quickly into the terminal. He was thick through the hips and his toes splayed out to either side like a dancer’s. In a hurry, he looked like a duck. Behind his back the men called him Donald.

As the car backed into traffic then spun away from the curb, Reynolds was already on the radio.