Mercy Falls

8

He was following his father through a stretch of pine woods he didn’t recognize, following him at a distance. Liam O’Connor loped ahead, a giant of a man, putting more and more distance between himself and his son with each stride. He broke through shafts of sunlight, flashing brilliant for a moment, all gold. In the next instant he dropped into shadow. Cork tried to call out to him, to bring him back, but his jaw felt rusted shut, and all he could push through his lips was a desperate, incoherent moan. He struggled to run faster, to catch up so that he could throw his arms around his father and hold him forever. From somewhere in the pine boughs above came the harsh taunts of crows. He realized that everything around him had been perfectly still until the birds shattered the silence, and he became afraid. The cawing turned into the rattle of gunfire, and he saw that it was not his father he was chasing but Marsha Dross. As he watched, blood bloomed on the blouse of her uniform and she fell. Cork fought to free his legs, which had sunk deep into a bed of pine needles that held him like quicksand. The gunfire again became the cawing of the birds, and the cawing became the ringing of the phone in his bedroom as he pulled himself awake.

“Sheriff?”

“Yeah.”

“Sheriff, it’s Bos.”

Cork registered that it was Boston Swain, the night dispatcher.

“You awake?”

“I’m here. What time is it?”

“Three A.M. You’re sure you’re awake.”

Cork wiped away tears but was quite sure he was awake. “What is it, Bos?”

“Sheriff.” She paused a moment, perhaps waiting for Cork to affirm that his eyes were open. “It looks like we’ve got a homicide.”

He’d gone to bed to a clear sky and a moon heading toward full, and he’d thought by morning there would be frost. Clouds had moved in during the night, however, and kept the temperature up. As Cork headed away from home, a light precipitation began to fall, more mist than rain, coating everything with a wet sheen. The wipers of his old Bronco groaned intermittently across the windshield, the headlights shimmered off glazed asphalt, and the tires hissed as they rolled. The road to the overlook at Mercy Falls wound through dripping forests that, in the dark morning hours, seemed primordial and menacing.

There were two parking lots for the overlook at Mercy Falls. The first lot was for the picnic shelter and the restroom blockhouse. The second lot, a hundred yards up the hill and hidden by a thick stand of aspen, was nearer to the falls but had no facilities. The lower lot was empty; in the upper parking lot Cork found three vehicles. Two were department cruisers. The other was a silver Lexus SUV with an Avis sticker on the bumper. Nearby, heard but unseen, Mercy Creek gushed through a narrows in slate-gray bedrock before tumbling one hundred feet into a small pool. The falls overlook was a favorite place for sightseers during the day. Officially, it closed at sunset, but at night it was a popular spot for couples to do what couples in parked cars had always done in dark, beautiful places. The deputies on night patrol would swing by occasionally, often enough to keep the local kids guessing.

The two cruisers had been positioned so that their headlights blasted over the SUV from either side. Cork parked in back of the Lexus and left the Bronco’s headlights on. Morgan and Schilling stood in the mist, their jackets zipped against the damp chill.

“Watch your step,” Morgan said as Cork approached.

Cork looked down and skirted a small puddle of vomit, yellow-white on the wet pavement.

Schilling looked pale and shaken. “On the ground, in front.” He nodded toward the Lexus.

The man lay on his back. A Cubs ball cap was pulled down over the top half of his face, obscuring his eyes. His mouth was open in an unending yawn. Long splashes of blood, almost black now from clotting, clung to his cheeks like leeches. His shirt, a button-down light-blue oxford, was a stained, shredded mess, getting damp from the mist. His pants and black briefs had been yanked down around his ankles. His knees were spread wide, and his crotch and inner thighs looked as if someone had taken a big brush, dipped it in a bucket of blood, and painted his skin.

Schilling said behind him, “They didn’t just kill him, Cork. They castrated him, too.”

“You found him?”

“Yeah.” Schilling blew into his hands and shifted on his feet as if he were freezing.

“You touch anything?”

“I checked him for a pulse, that’s it.”

Cork looked back at the puddle of vomit. “His?”

“Mine,” Schilling said. “Sorry.”

“How’re you feeling now?”

“I’ve been better.”

“Okay. Nothing gets touched until Ed gets here. In the meantime, Howard,” he said to Morgan, “I want you to get on the radio and run the plate, make sure it’s a rental. Then let’s contact Avis and find out who rented it.”

Morgan nodded and headed to his cruiser.

“What about me?” Schilling said.

Cork considered the body and the ground around it becoming wet as the mist grew heavy, turning to a light rain. He didn’t want to disturb the scene, but he also didn’t want the rain to wash away evidence.

“Pull your cruiser around in front, Nate, and park with your grille facing the grille of the SUV. Stay back from the body a good ten feet. Leave your headlights on.”

While Schilling maneuvered his vehicle, Cork grabbed a ground cloth and length of nylon rope from his Bronco. With his pocketknife, he cut four cords from the rope, each a couple feet long. When Schilling got out of his cruiser, Cork handed him one end of the ground cloth.

“Tie the corners to your grille. I’ll tie the other end to the SUV.”

When they were done, the ground cloth provided a shelter that kept the rain from falling directly on the crime scene.

“Now what?” Schilling asked.

“Wait for me in my Bronco. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Cork went to Morgan’s cruiser and spoke to his deputy through the open window. “How’s it going?”

“Bos is making the call now. Captain Larson’s on his way. Should be here pretty quick.”

“Stay with it. I’m going to talk to Schilling.”

“How’s he doing?”

“Still a little pale.”

Cork returned to his Bronco, where Schilling sat hunched on the passenger side up front. Cork killed his headlights, and the two men sat for a moment in silence.

“Ever seen someone dead before?” Cork asked.

“Only in a casket. Never like that.”

“Tough, huh?”

“You’ve got that right.”

“You want to smoke, go ahead.”

“Thanks.” Schilling pulled a pack of Marlboros and a silver lighter from the inside pocket of his jacket. He tapped out a cigarette, wedged it into the corner of his mouth, flipped the lid on the lighter, put the flame to the tip of the Marlboro. He shot a cloud of smoke with a grateful sigh.

Cork opened his window a crack.

“Didn’t touch the body, right?”

“Like I said, only to check the pulse.”

“When did you throw up?”

“Right after that. It hit me real sudden.”

“Sure. So you threw up and radioed the call in immediately?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What time was that?”

“I don’t know exactly. A little before three, I’d guess.”

Cork had given up smoking a couple of years earlier, but he still found the smell of the cigarette enticing. “Tell me about your night up to that point.”

“Nothing to tell. Real quiet up till then.”

“Routine check of the park? That’s why you were here?”

“I ran Arlo Knuth out earlier. I just wanted to be sure he didn’t come back.”

Arlo Knuth was an itinerant who spent his nights sleeping in parks or on back roads or wherever he could get away with parking the old pickup that was his home.

“What time?”

“Maybe midnight. Maybe a little before.”

“You always do that after you’ve run Arlo off? Come back later to check?”

“Sometimes, not always.”

“What made tonight different?”

“I don’t know. Just a feeling.”

“Why the hard-on for Arlo? He’s harmless.”

“Park closes at sunset. He’s not supposed to be here at night. No one is.”

“Most deputies cut Arlo some slack.”

“I figure it’s the law. Park’s closed, everybody should stay out. Hell, I run kids off all the time who are making out here. Why should Arlo be any different?”

“When you came back, did you check behind the restroom blockhouse down in the lower parking lot?”

“No, sir.”

“Sometimes Arlo uses the blockhouse for cover. That way he can wash up first thing in the morning.”

“I know. And I would have checked it out, but when I got here I found a dead man. Pretty well ended my patrol.”

“Think Arlo could’ve been involved in this?”

The deputy looked down at his cigarette, which hadn’t touched his lips since his first drag. “No, sir, I don’t expect so. Like you say, he’s harmless.”

Headlights flashed through the trees as several vehicles pulled off the main road and came up the winding access.

“All right, tell you what,” Cork said. “Finish that cigarette, then take a hike down the path to the lower lot, check the blockhouse, see if Arlo’s still around.”

Ed Larson pulled up in his Blazer and parked. Cork left Schilling and headed to the Blazer just as Larson got out.

“Early start to your day, Ed.”

“Same for you,” Larson said. “What have we got?”

“Male Caucasian. Multiple stab wounds to the chest. And castrated. That’s it so far.”

“ID?”

“Not yet. I didn’t want to disturb anything until after you’d had a chance to go over the scene. Looks like a rental vehicle. We’re running the plates, so we may get something soon.”

“All right. Who found him?”

“Schilling.”

“Where is he?”

“In my Bronco. He’s pretty shook. When you see the vic, you’ll understand why. Oh, and watch your step as you approach the Lexus.”

Larson looked at the SUV. “I called Simon Rutledge. I figured as long as he was in the neighborhood. He’ll be here in a bit.”

“Good,” Cork said.

Morgan stood beside his cruiser, arms folded, water dripping from the bill of his uniform cap. Cork went over, and together they watched as Larson’s team arrived and set about their work. Morgan had started his engine and left it idling so that the battery wouldn’t wear down while his headlights lit the scene. The exhaust gathered in a ghostly white cloud that crawled around and under the vehicle. A minute later, Schilling left the Bronco and started down the path to the lower parking lot.

“Where’s he going?” Morgan asked.

“I told him to check behind the blockhouse for Arlo Knuth.”

“Think Arlo’s still around?”

“Worth checking out. And gives Nate something to do.”

“Good idea. I still remember the first body I saw on duty.” Morgan’s face was lit from the reflection of all the light in front of him. His mouth was in a grim set. “Traffic accident. Guy went through the windshield, ended up on the other side in pieces. I lost my lunch that day.”

Ed Larson was kneeling under the ground cloth Cork and Schilling had tied above the body. “Cork,” he called.

Cork wasn’t in uniform. He’d thrown on a pair of wrinkled jeans and a green sweatshirt with MACKINAC ISLAND across the front, slapped a stocking cap on his head, and shrugged into his bombardier’s jacket that was so old and worn it looked like the hide of a diseased deer. The jacket was soaked dark from the mist and his face dripped as he walked to Larson.

“What is it?”

“You told me his balls were missing,” Larson said.

“They are.”

Larson held his flashlight out to Cork. “Look in there.”

Cork knelt beside Larson and shined the light into the cavern of the dead man’s mouth, which Larson held open with gloved fingers.

“Jesus.”

“They’re not missing,” Larson said. “They were fed to him as a last meal.” He straightened up. “We’ll move him in a little while to see if we can locate a wallet for an ID.”

Cork had had a good look at the face. He swung the beam of his flashlight down to the dead man’s right hand, where a big gold ring adorned the pinkie-an odd finger, Cork had always thought, for a man to put a ring on.

“No need,” he said quietly. “I know who it is.”