Dead Man's Song

Chapter 19

(1)

In movies it always rains at funerals. The crowds all stand around dressed in black, their umbrellas forming a ceiling above them. Maybe the hero stands hatless in the rain, too tough to need any umbrella. Either way, the skies weep at death and the hiss of rain is like the white noise that will be the only sound at the end of the universe. Crow thought about this as he stood holding hands with Val under a brilliant blue sky in the big field behind the Guthrie house. The sunshine was rich and warm and the shadows cast by the line of towering elms was soft and cool. Birds sang in the trees whose tops were riffled by a gentle easterly breeze. Crow thought that it should rain, that the heavens should indeed weep literally as well as symbolically when someone like Henry Guthrie passes out of the world, but there wasn’t a speck of a cloud in the vast blue sky.

In accordance with his wishes, Henry had been cremated. There would be no tombstone, no marker, no specific anchor for his body; his ashes would be spread over the farm and that would create the link he wanted between his soul and the land he had loved so dearly. The ashes currently rested in a large silver urn that stood on a long table draped with white and crowded with flower arrangements sent by friends and family and business associates; scalloped along the edge of the table was the Guthrie family tartan, the greens and reds bright in the sunshine. Around the table were concentric circles of folding chairs and behind the table stood Rev. Donald MacTeague, who had gone to high school with Henry, had performed the wedding service for Henry and his wife, Bess, had baptized Val, and who had presided over the funeral of Roger Guthrie back in 1976, over Henry’s brother George eight years ago, over Bess two years ago, and now over Henry. Mac, as he was called by everyone in town, looked very old to Crow, and he could see that Henry’s death had taken a lot out of him.

As Mac slowly went through his homily, Crow surreptitiously looked around at the crowd. Nearly five hundred people had showed up for the service, a hundred of them standing after all the chairs were taken. Beyond the rings of guests there was a second ring of less formally dressed spectators made up of reporters from all over the county. Crow figured that no one beyond the fifth or sixth row could hear a word that Mac was saying, but no one had thought to bring a microphone for him, and when one of the press reps had asked if they could hang a lavaliere mike on him Val had withered him with a look that would have turned a stallion into a gelding.

Scanning the crowd though the opaque barrier of his sunglasses, Crow could see that anyone of any importance in town was there, from the selectmen and grower’s commission chair to the owner of the tractor dealership on Harvest Hill Road near the Crescent Bridge. Gus Bernhardt was there, sweating in his ill-fitting uniform, and next to him were the four Philadelphia cops, Ferro, LaMastra, Jerry Head, and Coralita Toombes, who had carpooled out for the occasion. It was the first of three funerals they’d be attending this month, he knew, with burials for Nels Cowan and Jimmy Castle pending the release of their bodies from the morgue. Crow thought it very decent of them to show up here, since none of them had actually known Henry. When Ferro saw Crow looking in his direction he gave a small, curt nod. There were a few other officers present, but they were mostly local blues working security.

Mac concluded his remarks and indicated that everyone should sit down. While they were sitting, Crow leaned close to Val and whispered. “You okay, baby?”

She just squeezed his hand, keeping her eyes fixed on the urn and her mouth locked in a hard straight line. A soprano from First Methodist stood up and began to sing “Amazing Grace” while a bagpiper played along. When that was done they segued into another hymn that Crow didn’t know. He lost interest in it and went back to checking out the crowd. Near the front, Terry and Sarah Wolfe sat next to Saul Weinstock and his wife, Rachel. At one point Mark, who was only one day home from the hospital and seated in front of them, began to cry quietly, and Terry reached out and massaged his shoulders briefly and then leaned close and said something in his ear. Mark nodded, sniffed, wiped his eyes, and let out a deep breath. When Terry sat back, Crow could see Sarah lean over and kiss his cheek.

What held his interest, however, was not this simple kindness, or Mark showing some emotion other than bullish hostility, but the haggard look on Terry’s face and the shell-shocked expression Weinstock wore. If there was a competition for the most demonstrably stressed-out man in Pine Deep, Crow wouldn’t have known who to bet on. Crow could understand Terry’s stress, but why Weinstock looked so battered was an unknown. He tried to catch his friend’s eye, but Weinstock just stared at the soprano with utter rigid indifference.

A flash of light caught his eye and he looked past the crowd and the press to the winding path that led past the field and back onto the road. He could see a kid standing there, with one sneakered foot on the gravel of the road and the other on the pedal of his bicycle, a hand raised to shade his eyes from the intense sun glare, light sparking off of the bike’s reflectors. Mike. Good kid, nice of him to show up, even at a distance.

The soprano concluded her song and sat down while Mac stood up again, holding his hands wide as he blessed the crowd and then invited everyone to come up and file past the urn to pay their last respects. As soon as the service was concluded, Val turned to Crow and he took her in his arms and held her while she wept. He fumbled for a pack of Kleenex, peeled one out for each of them; she dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose. Crow got to his feet and took Val’s arm, leading her over to where Connie and Mark stood. Crow shook Mark’s hand and kissed Connie, whose eyes were nearly vacant. Crow wondered what pill she had popped before the service, but he was sure that if he knocked nobody would be home.

The four of them stood to one side of the table, and Mac came to stand with them as the tide of mourners funneled into a single file and came past, paused briefly before the urn, and then came down the line to say a word to Val or Mark, shake Crow’s hand, and shuffle off. Terry and Sarah were the first ones there, and as Sarah leaned in to hug Val, she said, “Look, honey, the caterers have probably already set up by now, so if you don’t mind I’m going to take over and run things up there. I don’t want you to have to be bothered with nonsense like how many canapés are left. You just stick close to Crow and every else will be taken care of.”

“You’re a doll, Sarah. I appreciate it,” Val said, looking greatly relieved, and kissed her.

Terry shook Mark’s hand and then Crow’s. “You holding up okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Crow said, “I’m good. You?”

Terry made a ghastly attempt at a lighthearted smile. “Life’s a real peach. See you up at the house.”

Saul Weinstock appeared next, smiling a tight and humorless smile that made him look pained. Unlike Terry, Weinstock’s grip was desperately strong and he gave Crow a quick hard pump, then used the grip to lean in close as he said, very quietly, “Let’s find a place later to have a word. Okay?” He moved on before Crow could answer.

The rest of the crowd was like a blur of handshakes and careful smiles. When it was over Val looked exhausted, and Crow wrapped his arm around her as they walked slowly up to the house.

(2)

It was a typical post-funeral affair, with small conversational groups forming, breaking, reforming. Crow wandered through, shaking hands, exchanging bits and pieces of conversation with some of the distant Guthrie relatives and the general Who’s Who of Pine Deep. The Philly cops were clustered together in a corner looking out of place; Crow saw Saul Weinstock come up and lead Ferro away for a private chat. They stood with their heads bowed together for five minutes.

While he was watching the crowds a couple of folks asked him for drinks and Crow realized that he had been standing by the small wet bar. Usually he avoided getting within sniffing distance of it, but he mixed and poured and tried not to remember their old familiar tastes.

“Can I put my order in?” Crow looked up from the Manhattan he was mixing and saw Ferro looking wry and amused, LaMastra flanking him. “You have time for a quick word?” Ferro asked.

“Sure,” Crow said.

Ferro turned to LaMastra, put one hand on his shoulder, and nudged him toward the drinks table. “Presto change-o! You’re now a bartender.” Then to Crow, “Let’s step over out of the line of fire.”

Crow let himself be led far away from the bottles. “Thanks,” he said.

“Hope you don’t think I was overstepping—”

“Hell, no. My AA sponsor would throw a conniption if he heard I was mixing drinks.”

Ferro gave him a dour nod. “I just had a brief chat with your friend, Saul Weinstock. He said that there have been some unusual things happening in town. Would…you know anything about that?”

“This is Pine—” Crow began but Ferro held up a hand to stop him.

“Please, Crow, if I hear that ‘this is Pine Deep, things are always unusual’ line one more time I think I’m going to go a bit postal. I know things are unusual around here. I know this is America’s ‘haunted holidayland,’ yada yada yada. What I’m asking you, given the normal flow of odd happenings in Pine Deep, have you noticed anything outside of what you people here would consider odd.”

“Hmm,” Crow said, “that makes me wonder what Saul told you.”

Ferro’s face had a thoughtful, almost calculating look. “Would you mind just making a comment first?”

Crow shrugged. “Well…I read the papers, I talk to people who come into the store. It’s been a rough season. We had the blight—still have the blight—and that means that there’s a lot of tension and stress. There have been some fights. Probably people blowing off steam. You work your ass off all your life to try and make it work and then a bad season comes along and wipes you out, that’s gonna hurt. People get frightened, they get angry, and they start swinging. Is that what you’re talking about?”

“Anything else unusual?”

Crow thought about it. “Well, we had a pretty bad fire last night. A whole family was killed.”

“What do you think it was?”

“I’m not a cop anymore, Frank, and I’m not a fire inspector.”

“A cop’s always a cop,” Ferro countered.

“Maybe, but I’m also out of the loop. Terry was my conduit into the department, and he’s been wired ever since the Ruger thing.”

Ferro nodded. “What about other things in town? Unexplained deaths, anything like that?”

“Not that I’ve heard of. Saul would be the one to talk to about…” his voice trailed away and he studied Ferro’s eyes. “What exactly did Saul tell you?”

“Hasn’t he spoken to you about his suspicions?”

“What suspicions? What are you talking about?”

Ferro’s eyes were hard for a moment, but then his expression softened and he shook his head. “That’s just it, Crow—I don’t really know what I’m asking. I had a short talk with Saul and all he did was make extremely vague hints and when pressed wouldn’t actually get to any point. If it was anyone else I would have thought he’d been hitting the sauce too hard and was just talking shit, but Saul Weinstock impressed me as one of the more level-headed men in this town, so I’m having a harder time walking away than I otherwise would have.”

“Any idea what he was hinting at?”

“No. You?”

“No. He was pretty vague with me the last couple of times we spoke. Said he wanted to talk to me today, though.”

Ferro grunted. “Interesting.” He took a business card from his inside jacket pocket. “If there’s anything in what he says, would you be willing to give me a call? One cop to an—”

“Dude, if you don’t want me to play the ‘this town is weird’ card then don’t play the ‘brothers behind the badge’ card on me. Saul’s one of my closest friends. If there is something he needs and if that something is best handled by you, or if it involves the Boyd case, then yeah, I’ll give you a call.” With a smile he plucked the card from between Ferro’s fingers and tucked it in his pants pocket. “Speaking of which…what about Boyd? Anything new?”

Ferro shook his head. “No one’s had a whiff of him since he fled this jurisdiction. After the first few sightings in Trenton and Newark he’s dropped off the radar, so the general feeling is that he’s either gone to ground somewhere—a safe house—or he’s out of the country.”

“Gut?”

“I think he’s dead.”

Crow pretended to toast him. “Here’s hoping.”

“Mmm. It’d be nice if this case just quietly wound down and blew away. It’s been a major pain in my ass for too long. Yours, too, I imagine. Speaking of which, how’s your lady?” They lapsed into a more genteel conversation and after a while Ferro shook Crow’s hand and excused himself, and Crow watched as he and the other officers headed out of the house and, Crow thought, out of their lives.

He was looking around for Val when he felt a hand close around his elbow and turned to see Saul Weinstock standing at his side. “Word with you, Crow?” Weinstock’s face had looked pinched earlier, and up close it showed even more signs of stress. “Listen…have you noticed anything, um, ‘funny’ going on around town lately?”

Crow suppressed a smile. “Everyone’s asking me that.”

“I know, I saw you talking to Frank. What did he say? He tell you what we were talking about?” Weinstock’s questions came out so fast it was like they were wired together.

“He said you were bugged about something. What’s up?”

“I told him that there have been some bad things happening around here.”

“You said as much on the phone yesterday?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he mumbled while fishing a tin of Altoids out of his pocket; he opened it, looked inside, closed the tin, and put it back without having taken one. Crow had the impression that Weinstock had not even registered doing any of that.

“You need to lay off the microbrews, kemosabe,” he said.

Weinstock frowned. “Haven’t had a drink yet today,” he said, “but it’s a good idea.”

He started to move away but Crow caught his arm. “Dude…what the hell’s with you? You’re acting fruitier than a nutcake.”

Weinstock smiled faintly. “It’s…nothing. I’m just being paranoid.”

“Saul,” Crow moved closer, “don’t give me that bullshit. Something’s frying your grits and it’s not the corn blight.”

“I’m not sure I want to go into it right now,” he said, and then seemed to remember that it was he who had brought it up. He took a breath, blinked a few moments, and then met Crow’s gaze. “Look, some funky stuff has been happening at the hospital. I shouldn’t go into it right now. Hell, I shouldn’t even be talking to you about this.”

“Too late.”

“Crow…this is going to sound really crazy, but I want a straight answer.”

“Ooo-kay.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?”

Crow smiled. “Are you freakin’ kidding me here? You’re asking the biggest horror geek in Bucks County if he believes in ghosts?”

Weinstock touched Crow’s arm. “I’m being serious here. Not Halloween stuff, either. Just answer me straight. Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Sure I do, Saul, but you don’t, so why are you asking me?”

The doctor looked around at the other people milling in the kitchen, some of them smiling as they chatted and ate and drank. He licked his lips and then looked back at Crow.

“You’re right. Forget I said anything.” He went to move away.

“Whoa! Slow down, Saul…I didn’t mean to insult you here…”

“You didn’t. Forget I said anything.” He clapped Crow on the shoulder, gave him an enigmatic smile, and then melted into the crowd, leaving Crow feeling completely at sea.

“What was that all about?” The voice came from behind him and Crow jumped a foot. He spun around and Val was standing there holding a paper plate piled high with salad. “What are you so jumpy about?”

“I just had the weirdest conversation with Saul,” he said, and told her about it.

Val nodded. “I saw that he was looking stressed and asked Rachel about it, but she said that Saul’s been overworked lately. He’s been pulling a lot of long days at the hospital and is always exhausted, and yet she said—tired as he is—he can’t sleep at nights. He usually sits up on the Internet or locked in his office at home and then falls asleep around dawn.”

“Maybe whatever’s eating Terry is catching,” Crow said.

“I don’t think so,” Val said, and ate a forkful of spinach. “Terry’s been coming apart at the seams for weeks now. No, whatever’s going on with Saul is something new. It’s just been the last couple of days, Rachel said. Since those police officers were killed.”

“That can’t be it. Saul wasn’t close with either of them.”

“Then what’s your suggestion?”

“I don’t know. I’ll call him tomorrow. Maybe take him out to lunch, see what’s up.” At that point Val’s cousin Andrea and her fiancé came over to give her hugs and kisses and the tide of conversation turned back to the immediate. By the time the long day ended and Rachel and Sarah had helped Val and Crow clean up, Crow had completely forgotten about his conversation with Weinstock.

(3)

Mike cycled back toward town, climbing the long hills, gliding down the other side, eyes always flicking left and right down side roads, expecting to see the grille of the big wrecker. Nothing. As the days passed he was becoming more and more convinced that the incident on the road had been different than he remembered it. Sure it was a near thing, and sure it was scary as hell, and sure it hurt a lot—but whether it was intentional or not was something he was less sure about. He was also certain that if it had been Vic driving the wrecker then that prick would have found some way to taunt him with the information. Vic would have used the threat of it to hurt him.

But who else in town had access to a wrecker? From what little he could see that night on the road, it looked like a big tow truck and that told him nothing. Shanahan’s garage had a couple of them, and there had to be other garages with tow trucks in the area. He thought about the guys who worked at Shanahan’s with Vic. None of them ever came over to the house; none of them were friends with Vic. There was Buddy Tobin, Josh Adams, and that big guy everyone called Tow-Truck Eddie. Mike thought about that as he swooped down another hill. Crow had said that Eddie was a part-time cop, and Mike had seen him that first day Crow was in the hospital. They’d passed each other by the front doors.

Then something occurred to Mike, and it seemed like a really good idea. If Eddie worked with Vic, and drove a tow truck, and was a cop, then he’d be the perfect person to ask about who might have been driving that wrecker out here that night. He was nodding emphatically to himself as he pedaled along. It was a great idea. He chewed on it, working it out. He could say that he heard from some kid in school that a wrecker had almost run some other kid down. Make it sound like something he just heard around school; he could ask the cop to see if he’d heard anything. Would the guy tell him if he had? Mike wasn’t sure, but this was one area where his being Vic’s stepson might be an advantage. All Mike had to do was drop Vic’s name to remind him of that connection, and then idly ask the question. Yeah, that would work. He’d ask Tow-Truck Eddie.

He headed into town with the wind behind him while deep within his soul, far beneath his consciousness, the chrysalis within him screamed.