The Caretaker of Lorne Field

Chapter 12

It was forty minutes after Sheriff Wolcott was gone when Jack Durkin walked over to the Sheriff’s jeep and shut off the engine. He knew he had no chance of cutting down the Aukowies with the machete, especially after they had tasted human blood. How much blood did a man’s body hold? He remembered reading the answer to that when he was in school. What was it, something like six quarts? However much it was, the Aukowies had had all of it. No, the machete wasn’t going to work anymore. Something else had to be done to kill them.

He flashed his light in the front seat, then the back and finally the trunk compartment before finding a water bottle he could use, but he couldn’t find anything to siphon gas with. A Molotov cocktail would be easier, but there was another way he could do it. He looked around outside the jeep and found a rock that would be big enough, then dropped it on the passenger seat and drove the jeep to about twenty yards from the edge of the field.

The headlights of the jeep caught the Aukowies swaying in the night’s air, still drunken from their feast. Durkin wished Dan Wolcott could’ve seen it. That sight would’ve changed his mind. But it was too late for that now. He went back to where the remains of the shed had been scattered, searched through the rubble and found one of his blankets. He brought it back to the jeep and used the machete to cut a strip widthwise from the material. After popping the trunk open, he used the dipstick to spread oil over the strip and then pushed it into the jeep’s fuel tank. He got back into the jeep, started it, and waited until the cigarette lighter turned hot enough. He took the lighter and held it against the oil-coated fabric until it caught on fire. It burned slower than he expected-the blanket must’ve been treated with flame retardant chemicals-but because of the oil spread on it, it did burn. When it had burned three-quarters of the way up, Jack Durkin placed the rock on the gas pedal. The rock wasn’t heavy enough to push it down much, but enough to where he could get the engine to rev up a bit. Reaching in, he put the jeep in drive. The jeep lurched forward, knocking the wind out of him and dragging him almost into the field before he was able to push himself out of it. Holding his ribs, he sat on the ground and watched as the jeep drove into the field and exploded. The blast knocked him over. He could feel the heat of it over his body. Then he could hear them screaming. Thousands of Aukowies burning to death, their cries piercing the night’s air. He cupped his hands hard over his ears and tried to block out the sound. Rolling up, he could see the flames spreading over the field and shooting up into the sky.

The ashes were still smoldering when the police car showed up. He looked over his shoulder and saw Bob Smith getting out of the car. He turned back to watch the dying embers blinking red across the field. A light flashed on the side of his face. He heard Smith call out, asking if that was him. He didn’t bother to respond. A minute later he could hear Smith breathing heavily out of his mouth. He looked out of the corner of his eyes to see Smith holding his nose.

“Gawd, it reeks here,” Smith said. “I don’t think I ever smelled anything worse. What did you do out here tonight?”

“Only what I had to.”

“Did you see Dan Wolcott?” Smith asked. “I got a call from his wife. He was supposed to be heading out here a while ago, but he hasn’t come home yet. She’s worried.”

“He was here,” Jack Durkin said. “He’s gone now.”

The police officer was flashing a light across the field and it hit the burned out shell of Wolcott’s jeep. The light froze on it.

“Oh my God,” Smith said. “What did you do tonight?”

Durkin didn’t bother to answer him. He just stood up and put his hands out in front so Officer Smith could cuff him.

Jack Durkin was taken to the State Police Station in Eastham and put in an interrogation room and told to wait. It was many hours later when police detective Dave Stone came in and introduced himself. He was about Durkin’s age, large-boned, with bloodshot eyes and a rumpled look about him. Along with a manila file stuffed under one arm, he carried a box of donuts and a tray holding two coffees into the room. He took a few sips from one of the coffees and slid the other over to Durkin and offered him a donut. Durkin looked blankly at both before shaking his head. He stared bleary-eyed at his watch until he could focus on it.

“It’s nine-ten in the morning,” Durkin complained. “I’ve been left alone here almost eight hours.”

“I apologize for that,” Stone said. He took another sip of his coffee and then a bite of his glazed donut. Brushing the crumbs from his lips, he added, “As you can probably guess, we’ve been busy. Now, Mr. Durkin, why don’t you tell me what happened last night.”

“I already told Bob everything.”

Stone nodded agreeably. “I know you did,” he said. “And we appreciate your cooperation, but why don’t you tell me again so that I can hear it in your words.”

Durkin stared hard at Stone’s artificially friendly smile. He was sure the detective was struggling not to react to how badly he smelled. He knew full well he reeked with both the stench of burnt Aukowies and all those weeks outside by himself. Fine with me, he thought. Let him suffer if he’s going to keep me here all night like that. He shrugged and took the coffee that had been offered to him. “You got cream and sugar for this?”

Stone took some sugar and cream packets from the cardboard tray and slid them over to Durkin, along with a plastic coffee stirrer.

“I ain’t got nothin’ different to tell you than what I told Bob Smith.”

“Why don’t you tell me anyway.”

“I killed Dan Wolcott, just like I told Bob.”

“That’s the part I’m confused about when I read your statement. How’d you do it again?”

“Wolcott didn’t believe me about the Aukowies. I challenged him to walk into the field. When he did they tore him apart.”

“And that’s how you killed him?”

“Yep.” Durkin stared coldly at Stone as he drank his coffee. “I knew what they were going to do to him. He wouldn’t have walked out there if it weren’t for me.”

Stone opened the manila folder and searched through the papers in it. He found the one he was looking for and skimmed his finger over it as he read it. Like Durkin, he had thick stubby fingers.

“And what about the machete?” he asked.

“What about it?”

“You didn’t use the machete to kill Sheriff Wolcott and cut his body up?”

“Of course not.”

“Mr. Durkin, we know you bought a machete yesterday from Hallwell’s Army Surplus store. We found it at the field.”

“I told you what happened.”

Stone flipped through the manila folder and pulled out a photograph. He placed it on the table in front of Durkin. The photograph showed the lower part of a boot that had been cut off at the ankle. A severed foot was plainly visible inside the boot.

“We brought dogs to the field,” Stone said. “They found this foot in the woods. It’s Sheriff Wolcott’s, isn’t it?”

Durkin nodded softly as he stared at the photograph. “They must’ve flung it out there in their frenzy.” He jerked his head up to meet Stone’s red eyes. “You took dogs out there? I bet they wouldn’t step foot in that field!”

“Why wouldn’t they?”

“’Cause of the Aukowies growing there, that’s why!”

Stone let out a heavy sigh. “There’s nothing growing in that field.”

“That can’t be true.”

“Mr. Durkin, I left there only a half hour ago. There’s nothing there but ashes and a burnt out jeep. Your setting fire to the field did the trick. I doubt anything’s going to be growing there for a long time.”

Durkin sat back in his chair, a confused look spreading over his face. “That don’t make sense,” he said.

“Mr. Durkin, where’s the rest of Sheriff Wolcott’s body?”

“What?”

“I know you cut up Sheriff Wolcott’s body and left his foot in the woods. I also know you did this because you wanted to be caught, the same reason you hung around waiting for Officer Smith to come by and arrest you. Mr. Durkin, for the sake of Dan’s family, what did you do with the rest of his body?”

Durkin closed his mouth, his eyes vacant as he stared at the detective. “From this point on, I ain’t talking to you without a lawyer,” he said.

Jack Durkin was taken to the County Jail for processing. When the warden saw him, he immediately had one of his guards get Durkin a clean set of clothing. “You change into this,” the warden told Durkin, putting the new clothes and a bag outside his cell. “Leave what you got on in this bag. We’re going to have to throw your clothes away. No use trying to save them.”

The warden came back a half hour later and saw Durkin frowning dourly as he sat on his cot wearing his new shirt but still wearing the same soiled and filth encrusted dungarees as before.

“How come you haven’t changed your pants?” the warden asked.

“I can’t get my work boots off.”

“What do you mean you can’t get them off?”

Durkin shrugged, his frown turning more dour. “I hurt my ankle a few weeks back and I can’t get the boot off my foot.”

The warden had one of the guards enter the cell to pull off the boots. When Durkin passed out from the pain, the warden decided he’d better have him taken to the hospital.

The emergency room doctor who cut off Jack Durkin’s boot blanched when he rolled off the wool sock and saw the severely blackened foot underneath it.

“Your ankle’s broken,” he said in a voice that sounded too calm to Durkin. “When did you hurt yourself?”

“I don’t know. Maybe four weeks ago.”

The doctor told him he’d be back and then left to consult with the warden who had accompanied Durkin to the hospital. “This is a very sick man,” he told the warden. “It’s a miracle he’s still alive. Along with being dehydrated, malnourished and carrying a high fever, he has one of the worst cases of gangrene I’ve ever seen. He needs to be admitted for surgery right away. How long has he been in police custody?”

“Since last night.”

“He should’ve been brought here immediately. There’s no excuse for this.”

The warden made a face. “I agree. Jesus, the guy’s nothing but skin and bones, and with the story he was telling them they should’ve realized he wasn’t right. So what do you need to do to him?”

“We need to cut off his foot and get him on some serious antibiotics.” The doctor left the warden to arrange for the emergency surgery. Twenty minutes later when Durkin was on the operating table, the anesthesiologist told him to count down from ten.

“Someone’s got to weed that field,” Durkin warned, his voice barely a whisper, his eyes rolling wildly.

“Please, just count down from ten.”

By the time Durkin reached six he was out.

During the next three days, Durkin flitted in and out of consciousness. When he woke up, his fever had broken and he found his left wrist chained to the hospital bed and his injured ankle throbbing worse than ever. For a long moment he stared blinking, with no clue where he was. Slowly the cloud fogging up his head lifted a bit and he realized what was on his wrist, then he remembered where he was. He also knew that it must’ve been days since the Aukowies had been weeded. Unless first frost had come early, it was already too late.

A nurse came by a short time later and noticed he was awake. “You’re finally back among us,” she said, her tone flat, her eyes and mouth plastic and expressionless. “And how are you feeling?”

He tried to talk but his lips and throat were too dry for him to do anything but croak out a hoarse whisper. She held a plastic water glass for him so he could suck on the straw. With his lips and throat wetted, he tried to talk again and whispered that his ankle hurt.

“If you press the button next to you, you can control your pain medication,” she told him.

Durkin reached blindly as he searched for the button. When he finally got his hands on it he pressed it several times. He caught her looking at him no differently than the way a snake might. “How come I ain’t seen my lawyer yet?” he demanded.

“I’ll let the doctor know you’re awake,” she said without emotion as she turned and left the room.

It was hours later when the lawyer from the public defender’s office showed up. He looked like a kid, wearing a cheap suit that was two sizes too big, with a thick mop of unruly brown hair covering his head. He introduced himself as Brett Goldman and sat hunched over, grinning a lot, though he had trouble making eye contact. Durkin explained to him the history of Lorne Field, what happened that night with Dan Wolcott, and why it was so important for him to be let go. Goldman nodded regularly, grinning down at his hands as he rubbed them together as Durkin might if he wanted to start a fire with sticks.

“Why do they got to keep me chained to the bed like this?” Durkin complained bitterly. “With my foot cut off how the hell can I run off?”

“They have to, Jack. They’re just following regulations.”

“It’s Mr. Durkin to you. And quit rubbing your hands like that! You’re making me nervous.”

Goldman gave a lopsided grin and moved his hands awkwardly to his sides.

“Sorry, Mr. Durkin,” he said, sneaking a peek at his client before lowering his eyes. “I guess I’m a little nervous, too. Now, I’ve spoken to the doctor you saw when you were brought to the emergency room. He told me that you were a very sick man. Do you realize you almost died?”

“I realize I ain’t got my foot no more. That’s what I realize!”

Goldman smiled sympathetically. “I know, Mr. Durkin, and I’m truly sorry about that. According to Dr. Brennan you were very sick that day, and quite likely delusional. I know you think you know what happened at that field with Sheriff Wolcott, but the reality is that as sick as you were you didn’t know what you were doing and you didn’t know what you were seeing. We have a very strong case for temporary insanity.”

Durkin sat quietly while the lawyer spoke, a deep scowl folding his face. “I ain’t crazy,” he said.

“I’m not saying you are.” Goldman brought his hands together and absentmindedly started rubbing them together again. He caught Jack Durkin glaring at them and he shoved his hands into his pockets. “The important thing now is to get you released so you can go back to that field, right?”

“I know what I saw,” Durkin said slowly, “I ain’t delusional. And I ain’t letting you say that I’m crazy.”

“How about this,” Goldman said. “You keep telling people what you saw and let me take care of the rest.”

Durkin was going to argue with him that it was important for people to believe what happened, but the morphine and antibiotics had wiped him out. He sank back into his bed and closed his eyes. Before drifting off, he murmured to the lawyer to find out if first frost had come yet. That the fate of the world depended on him learning that.

Later that night Goldman was at a local brewery slowly working through his second nut-brown ale when he was clapped on the shoulder from behind. He turned with his lopsided-grin in place for William McGrale, the state’s attorney who was going to be prosecuting Jack Durkin.

“Goldman, how’d you get in here?” McGrale asked. “Let me guess, you used a fake ID?”

Goldman shook hands with McGrale. “Nah, I threw my fake one out years ago. I’ve been legal six years now. How are you doing, Mr. McGrale?”

“After three scotches, pretty damn good.” A slight sheen showed over the prosecutor’s eyes. “What do you say you grab that soda pop you’re drinking, and the two of us move over to a table and discuss your client.”

“Are you buying dinner?”

“Anything for a deserving young attorney.”

Goldman took his glass with him and followed McGrale to his table. When the waitress came over, McGrale ordered another scotch, Goldman another beer, along with a cheeseburger and onion rings.

“Maybe when you grow up you’ll start ordering a big boy’s drink,” McGrale said, smiling pleasantly.

Goldman shrugged off the dig. “You realize that I have a strong temporary insanity defense,” he said.

“And how’s that?”

“Have you talked to his doctor? Durkin was at death’s door when he was brought in. A hundred and two fever, gangrene throughout his foot and ankle. Shit, he was hobbling around on that broken ankle for four weeks, pulling out weeds because he thought if he didn’t the world was going to come to an end. He was absolutely delusional, with no idea even which way was up.”

“All that may be true, but juries hate the temporary insanity defense. All my years as a prosecutor, I never once saw a jury buy it.”

“Forget temporary, my client’s insane. It scared the hell out of me just sitting with him. And that was with him chained up!”

“He’s as crazy as a loon,” McGrale agreed. He stopped to take his drink from the waitress and offer her a smile. After she walked away, he studied his drink for a moment before sipping it and looking back at Goldman. “There’s a big difference, though, between insane and criminally insane. No, Goldman, your client knew what he was doing. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but there were charges filed against him earlier this summer for cutting off his son’s thumb. I talked to Jill Bracken already about it. He did that solely as a ploy to convince that town of his that those weeds were monsters. Same reason he killed Sheriff Wolcott.”

“And that’s not insane?” Goldman asked.

“Not criminally insane, no.”

The waitress came back with Goldman’s food and ale and placed it in front of him. His grin was halfhearted at best as he picked up the burger and took a bite.

“I thought your office was floating the theory that my client blamed the sequence of events leading to his younger son’s death on Sheriff Wolcott. That the murder was done for revenge,” Goldman concluded decisively.

“A little bit of both,” McGrale admitted.

Goldman considered this as he took another halfhearted bite of his food. “Mr. Durkin really does believe that monsters grow in Lorne Field,” he said. “And not just him either. That town has been paying his family for over three hundred years to weed that field.”

McGrale rolled the last sip of scotch around his mouth the way a wine connoisseur might do with a fine burgundy before swallowing it. “I heard something about that. Doesn’t surprise me. They always seemed a bit inbred over there. But again, there’s a big difference between insanity and criminal insanity. It all comes down to whether your client understood his actions, and he clearly did. As insane as his motives might’ve been, he fully understood his acts.”

Goldman put his burger down so he could dip an onion ring in some ketchup. “Mr. McGrale,” he asked. “What exactly do you want?”

McGrale held up a finger to the waitress to signal for another scotch before turning back to Goldman. “I have a family that’s grieving right now,” he said. “They want to bury their loved one, but they can’t because there’s no body. If your client discloses where he hid the rest of Sheriff Wolcott, I can offer man-two, with a minimum of ten years.”

“Quite a deal,” Goldman said.

“Given what he did, I’d say so.”

Goldman’s lopsided grin showed again. He took a long drink of his ale and laughed sourly to himself. “I’ll talk to him, but I don’t think he’s going to take it. I don’t think he’s going to let me plead insanity either. I think he’s going to force me to argue that there are monsters growing in Lorne Field.”

“There are ways around that. Have him declared incompetent.”

“I could try to do that, but what if he’s right?” Goldman said, his grin fading. “According to the forensics report there was no blood found on the machete.”

“So?”

“Why cut off Sheriff Wolcott’s foot and leave it in the woods, but wipe the machete clean? And even if he wiped it clean, there still should’ve been traces of blood found.”

“Not necessarily,” McGale countered. “There are chemicals you can use to remove blood traces.”

“And how exactly would my client get his hands on those, living out there in the middle of that field? And what bothers me even more is the report that the foot was sliced and not hacked off. My client was deathly ill, his weight had dropped from one hundred and seventy pounds to one hundred and thirty in about a month, and yet he was able to cut off that foot with a single blow from the machete?”

“Ah, Goldman, you’re making this so damn complicated. The insane can show amazing strength sometimes.” McGrale held up a finger for emphasis. “But let me repeat, insane, not criminally insane.”

Goldman let out a sigh. “I’ll talk to my client tomorrow. If I have to get the ball started on competency hearings, I’ll do it.”

“That’s fine, Goldman. Remember, though, I’m going to need the location of the body before I can agree to any deal.”

Goldman shook his head and laughed softly to himself. “You realize how nuts this is? To go to court to prove my client is mentally incompetent, but still not criminally insane?”

The waitress brought McGrale another scotch. He smiled sadly at it, knowing he had reached his limit. “If our office’s psychiatrist considers him criminally insane, I won’t fight a lifetime confinement to one of our fine mental institutions.”

Goldman finished his dinner, but stopped himself at three ales. He knew there were a number of police officers unhappy with him taking this case-as if he had any choice -who would be looking for a chance to pull him over for a DUI charge. After leaving McGrale, he sat in his car trying to make up his mind about something, then finally took out his cell phone and called his mother.

“Have we had first frost yet?” Goldman asked.

His mother sighed heavily. “I had just gotten into bed,” she complained. “You’re calling me at ten o’clock at night to ask me that?”

“Mom, please.”

“Well, if you had your own garden you’d already know the answer.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“Yes, I know, you’re too busy as a hotshot lawyer to bother with a simple activity like gardening.”

Hotshot lawyer. He wanted to laugh. Public defender was nearer the bottom rung of the ladder, although this case could get his name in the paper. If it went to trial.

“Mom, please, can you just answer the question?”

“The answer is no. There hasn’t been a frost yet. But I’ll call you when we have one.”

“Thanks.”

After hanging up, he headed home. Before he had driven more than a few blocks, he turned his car around.

Goldman had left his car and was standing on the edge of Lorne Field. He had to admit that it was eerie standing out there under the full moon. The place had a desolate feel to it. No animal sounds, no birds or insects, nothing. That part of what Durkin had told him was true. But he also found himself disappointed that there was nothing growing there. The field was completely empty. Wolcott’s burnt-out jeep had been removed and there was nothing there but ashes from the fire. It made sense that there wouldn’t be any weeds growing there now, but it didn’t stop his disappointment. Goldman walked out into the field and could feel the hairs standing up on the back of his neck. He hurried back to his car, his heart racing with irrational fear. He could only imagine what spending four weeks alone out here could do to a man’s sanity, especially if you were already unhinged enough to believe that the weeds growing up where you slept were blood-thirsty monsters.