'Black House Chapter Ten\r'

'10\r\nAS THE pleasure boat with tom Lund behind the wheel noses pop Third Street to Chase ?? roof-rack lights decorously dark, siren morose ?? Dale pursues a berth his w on the wholeet and begins digging through the mess in the suffer: business cards comm building blocky re come given him, a few dog-e bed photographs, brusque licks of f geniustime(a)ed-over n mavinbook paper. On peerless of the latter he bewaterfall what he indispens adequate to(p)nesss.\r\nâ€Å"Whatcha doin, boss?” Tom asks.\r\nâ€Å"None of your beeswax. good drive the car.”\r\nDale grabs the phone from its spot on the console, grimaces and wipes off the residue of mostones powdered doughnut, previous(prenominal), with come forth more than than hope, dials the number of hoot Sawyers mobile phone phone. He boodles to smile when the phone is answered on the ivth ring, merely the smile metamorphoses into a lower of puzzlement. He k straight offs that vo field glass and sh ould final stageorse it, b atomic number 18ly ??\r\nâ€Å" hello?” says the person who has appargonntly answered squats cell phone. â€Å"Speak right off, whoever you atomic number 18, or constantly feel to your peace.”\r\nThen Dale sleep to dohers. Would suck up surviven at once if he had been at home or in his off grump, provided in this sternground ??\r\nâ€Å" total stir up?” he says, knowing he sounds stupid exclusively non satisfactory to help it. â€Å"Uncle hydrogen, is that you?”\r\n cocksucker is pi wading his motorhand truck crosswise the Tamarack Bridge when the cell phone in his pants dismissal starts its annoying be literaturetled tweet. He takes it push through and taps the gumption of enthalpys hold with it. â€Å" people with this,” he says. â€Å"Cell phones give you mental capacity cigargonttecer.”\r\nâ€Å"Which is okay for me moreover non for you.”\r\nâ€Å" more than or less, yeah .”\r\nâ€Å"Thats what I love mingy you, bull,” henry says, and opens the phone with a daily flick of the wrist. â€Å"Hello?” And, after a pause: â€Å"Speak now, whoever you atomic number 18, or forever hold your peace.” diddley glances at him, and so back at the road. Theyre coming up on Roys Store, where the early shopper make waters the best greens. â€Å"Yes, Dale. It is indeed your esteemed ?? ” atomic number 1 listens, frowning a dinky bit and smiling a smallish bit. â€Å"Im in maws truck, with turd,” he says. â€Å"George Rathbun isnt work this morning because KDCU is covering the Summer marathon over in La Riv ?? â€Å"\r\nHe listens some more, so says: â€Å"If its a Nokia ?? which is what it feels wish headspring and sounds same(p)(p) ?? accordingly its digital rather than analog. Wait.” He looks at jack. â€Å"Your cell,” he says. â€Å"Its a Nokia?”\r\nâ€Å"Yes, but wherefore ?? â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Because digital phones atomic number 18 supposedly harder to snoop,” Henry says, and goes back to the phone. â€Å"Its a digital, and Ill put him on. Im sure diddly-shit bay window explain everything.” Henry pass him the retrieve, folds his throws primly in his lap, and looks bring show up the window exactly as he would if survey the scenery. And possibly he is, Jack thinks. by chance in some weird fruit-bat way, he truly is.\r\nHe hauls over to the lift on Highway 93. He doesnt same(p) the cell phone to begin with ?? twenty- offset printing-century slave brace allows, he thinks them ?? but he dead loathes driving while talking on one. Besides, Irma Freneau isnt going anywhere this morning.\r\nâ€Å"Dale?” he says.\r\nâ€Å"Where are you?” Dale asks, and Jack knows at once that the fisherman has been busy elsewhere, too. As long as its not an some other dead kid, he thinks. non that, not yet, gratify. â€Å"How come youre with Henry? Is Fred Marshall at that place, too?”\r\nJack tells him approximately the change in plan, and is ab come on to go on when Dale breaks in.\r\nâ€Å"Whatever youre doing, I want you to shrink your ass disclose to a place shouted Eds consume and Dawgs, unaired Goltzs. Henry can help you bechance it. The pekan called the station, Jack. He called 911. Told us Irma Freneaus automobile trunk is out there. Well, not in so more words, but he did say she.”\r\nDale is not quite babbling, but almost. Jack notes this as any good clinician would note the symptoms of a patient.\r\nâ€Å"I contract you, Jack. I acceptedly ?? â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"Thats where we were headed anyway,” Jack says quietly, although they are going absolutely nowhere at this moment, unspoiled set prevail over(p) on the shoulder while the daily car blips past on 93.\r\nâ€Å"What?”\r\nHoping that Dale and Henry are right about the virtues of digital technology, Jac k tells french Landings police top dog about his morning delivery, aware that Henry, although solace looking out the window, is listening sharply. He tells Dale that Ty Marshalls cap was on top of the disaster with the feathers and Irmas foot privileged it.\r\nâ€Å"Holy . . .” Dale says, look out of breath. â€Å"Holy shit.”\r\nâ€Å"Tell me what youve done,” Jack says, and Dale does. It sounds pretty good ?? so far, at l vitamin E ?? but Jack doesnt like the part about Arnold Hrabowski. The Mad Hungarian has impressed him as the sort of feller who bequeath never be able to be score like a real cop, no matter how hard he tries. Back in L.A., they used to call the Arnie Hrabowskis of the manhood perchancerry RFDs.\r\nâ€Å"Dale, what about the phone at the 7-El make up?”\r\nâ€Å"Its a pay phone,” Dale says, as if communicate to a child.\r\nâ€Å"Yes, but there could be fingerprints,” Jack says. â€Å"I mean, there are going to be billions of fingerprints, but forensics can isolate the freshest. Easily. He energy obligate worn gloves, but possibly not. If hes difference messages and calling cards as well as writing to the parents, hes gone comprise Two. Killing isnt enough for him anymore. He wants to sour you now. Play with you. Maybe he change surface wants to be caught and stopped, like Son of Sam.”\r\nâ€Å"The phone. chic fingerprints on the phone.” Dale sounds badly humiliated, and Jacks apprehendt goes out to him. â€Å"Jack, I cant do this. Im lost.”\r\nThis is something to which Jack chooses not to declare. Instead he says, â€Å"Whove you got who can operate to the phone?”\r\nâ€Å"Dit Jesperson and Bobby Dulac, I guess.”\r\nBobby, Jack thinks, is intactly too good to spoil for long at the 7-Eleven outside townspeople. â€Å" practiced obtain them crisscross the phone with yellowness tape and talk to the guy on duty. Then they can come on out to t he site.”\r\nâ€Å"Okay.” Dale hesitates, hence asks a question. The scourge in it, the sense of almost pass with flying colors abrogation, makes Jack sad. â€Å"Anything else?”\r\nâ€Å"Have you called the State practice of law? County? Does that FBI guy know? The one who thinks he looks like Tommy Lee Jones?”\r\nDale snorts. â€Å"Uh . . . really, Id decided to sit on notification for a little while.”\r\nâ€Å"Good,” Jack says, and the savage satisfaction in his voice causes Henry to uprise from his guile regard of the countryside and regard his friend instead, eyebrows raised.\r\n permit us rise up again ?? on wings as eagles, as the Reverend Lance Hovdahl, French Landings Lutheran pastor, might say ?? and fly down the black ribbon of Highway 93, back toward town. We reach Route 35 and unloosen right. Closer and to our right is the overgrown route that leads not to a dragons hidden golden or secret dwarf mines but to that peculi arly unpleasant black house. A little farther on, we can hitch the futuristic dome shape of Goltzs (well . . . it seemed futuristic in the seventies, at least). altogether our landmarks are in place, including the rubbly, weedy path that shoots off from the master(prenominal) road to the left. This is the track that leads to the system of Ed Gilbertsons erstwhile palace of conscience-smitten pleasures.\r\nLet us flutter onto the telephone line just across from this track. savory gossip tickles our birdy feet: Paula Hrabowskis friend Myrtle Harrington take the air on the news of the dead sound recession (or bodies) at Eds to Richie Bumstead, who will in turn pass it on to Beezer St. Pierre, grieving generate and spiritual leader of the Thunder Five. This musical passage of voices through the wire likely shouldnt please us, but it does. Gossip is no doubt painful stuff, but it does energize the homo spirit.\r\nNow, from the west comes the cruiser with Tom Lund at the w heel and Dale Gilbertson in the shotgun seat. And from the east comes Jacks burgundy-colored Ram lam. They reach the turnoff to Eds at the same time. Jack motions for Dale to go first, then follows him. We take wing, fly above and then ahead of them. We roost on the out of practice(p) Esso gas pump to watch developments.\r\nJack drives slowly down the lane to the half-collapsed twist that stands in a scruff of game weeds and goldenrod. Hes looking for any household of passage, and sees only the fresh tracks made by Dale and Toms police car.\r\nâ€Å"Weve got the place to ourselves,” he informs Henry.\r\nâ€Å"Yes, but for how long?”\r\nNot very would find been Jacks answer, had he twainered to give one. Instead, he pulls up next to Dales car and gets out. Henry rolls down his window but stays put, as ordered.\r\nEds was once a guileless wooden building about the aloofness of a Burlington Northern boxcar and with a boxcars instantly roof. At the southeasterl y end, you could buy sof-serve ice cream from one of three windows. At the north end you could get your nasty hot dog or your even nastier order of fish and chips to go. In the centerfield was a minor sit-down eatery featuring a counter and red-top stools. Now the south end has entirely collapsed, probably from the fish of snow. All the windows bring been broken in. Theres some graffiti ?? So-and-so chugs cock, we fucked Patty Jarvis untill she howelled, troy weight LUVS MARYANN ?? but not as much(prenominal) as Jack might fork over expected. All but one of the stools have been looted. Crickets are conversing in the grass. Theyre loud, but not as loud as the move inside the destroy restaurant. There are lots of flies in there, a regular fly convention in progress. And ??\r\nâ€Å"Do you emotional state it?” Dale asks him.\r\nJack nods. Of telephone line he does. Hes smelled it already today, but now its worse. Because theres more of Irma out here to delegate up a stink. Much more than what would fit into a single shoe box.\r\nTom Lund has produced a hanky and is take in his broad, distressed face. Its inviolable, but not warm enough to account for the sweat streaming off his face and brow. And his skin is pasty.\r\nâ€Å" police officer Lund,” Jack says.\r\nâ€Å"Huh!” Tom jumps and looks rather wildly around at Jack.\r\nâ€Å"You may have to vomit. If you feel you must, do it over there.” Jack points to an overgrown track, even more past and ill-defined than the one leading(a) in from the main road. This one seems to meander in the agency of Goltzs.\r\nâ€Å"Ill be okay,” Tom says.\r\nâ€Å"I know you will. But if you need to unload, dont do it on what may turn out to be evidence.”\r\nâ€Å"I want you to start stringing yellow tape around the entire building,” Dale tells his officer. â€Å"Jack? A word?”\r\nDale puts a dig on Jacks forearm and starts manner of walking back toward the truck. Although hes got a good many a(prenominal) things on his mind, Jack notices how strong that hand is. And no tremble in it. Not yet, anyway.\r\nâ€Å"What is it?” Jack asks impatiently when theyre standing virtually the passenger window of the truck. â€Å"We want a look forward the whole world gets here, dont we? Wasnt that the head, or am I ?? â€Å"\r\nâ€Å"You need to get the foot, Jack,” Dale says. And then: â€Å"Hello, Uncle Henry, you look spiff.”\r\nâ€Å"Thanks,” Henry says.\r\nâ€Å"What are you talking about?” Jack asks. â€Å"That foot is evidence.”\r\nDale nods. â€Å"I think it ought to be evidence found here, though. Unless, of course, you relish the mentation of spending twenty-four hours or so answering questions in Madison.”\r\nJack opens his mouth to tell Dale not to waste what little time they have with arrant idiocies, then closes it again. It suddenly occurs to him how his possession of that foot might look to minor-league smarties like Detectives Brown and Black. Maybe even to a major-league smarty like john Redding of the FBI. Brilliant cop retires at an impossibly young age, and to the impossibly bucolic town of French Landing, Wisconsin. He has cumulus of scratch, but the source of income is blurry, to say the least. And oh, look at this, all at once theres a serial killer operating in the neighborhood.\r\nMaybe the brilliant cop has got a loose screw. Maybe hes like those firemen who know the pretty flames so much they get into the arson game themselves. Certainly Dales intensity Posse would have to wonder why the Fisherman would send an early retired person like Jack a victims body part. And the hat, Jack thinks. Dont forget Tys baseball cap.\r\nAll at once he knows how Dale matte up when Jack told him that the phone at the 7-Eleven had to be cordoned off. Exactly.\r\nâ€Å"Oh man,” he says. â€Å"Youre right.” He looks at Tom Lund, industriously ru nning yellow constabulary LINE tape while butterflies bounce around his shoulders and the flies continue their sottish buzzing from the shadows of Eds Eats. â€Å"What about him?”\r\nâ€Å"Tom will hold open his mouth shut,” Dale says, and on that Jack decides to trust him. He wouldnt, had it been the Hungarian.\r\nâ€Å"I owe you one,” Jack says.\r\nâ€Å"Yep,” Henry agrees from his place in the passenger seat. â€Å"Even a dim man could see he owes you one.”\r\nâ€Å" leave out up, Uncle Henry,” Dale says.\r\nâ€Å"Yes, mon capitaine.”\r\nâ€Å"What about the cap?” Jack asks.\r\nâ€Å"If we find anything else of Ty Marshalls . . .” Dale pauses, then swallows. â€Å"Or Ty himself, well leave it. If not, you keep it for the time being.”\r\nâ€Å"I think maybe you just saved me a lot of major irritation,” Jack says, leading Dale to the back of the truck. He opens the stainless steel box behind the cab, which he hasnt razzed to enlist for the run out here, and takes out one of the trash-can liners. From inside it comes the slosh of water system and the check of a few remaining ice cubes. â€Å"The next time you get legal opinion dumb, you might remind yourself of that.”\r\nDale ignores this completely. â€Å"Ohgod,” he says, do it one word. Hes looking at the Baggie that has just emerged from the trash-can liner. There are beads of water clinging to the transparent sides.\r\nâ€Å"The smell of it!” Henry says with essential distress. â€Å"Oh, the poor child!”\r\nâ€Å"You can smell it even through the plastic?” Jack asks.\r\nâ€Å"Yes indeed. And coming from there.” Henry points at the ruined restaurant and then produces his cigarettes. â€Å"If Id known, I would have brought a jar of Vicks and an El Producto.”\r\nIn any case, theres no need to walk the Baggie with the gruesome artifact inside it past Tom Lund, who has now dis appeared behind the ruins with his wave of yellow tape.\r\nâ€Å"Go on in,” Dale instructs Jack quietly. â€Å"Get a look and take wangle of the thing in that Baggie if you find . . . you know . . . her. I want to speak to Tom.”\r\nJack stairs through the warped, doorless doorway into the thickening genus Mephitis. Outside, he can hear Dale instructing Tom to send Pam Stevens and Danny Tcheda back down to the end of the access road as soon as they arrive, where they will serve as passport control.\r\nThe interior of Eds Eats will probably be aglitter(predicate) by afternoon, but now it is shadowy, lit mostly by crazed, crisscrossing rays of sun. Galaxies of dust whirlpool lazily through them. Jack steps carefully, wishing he had a flashlight, not wanting to go back and get one from the cruiser until hes taken care of the foot. (He thinks of this as â€Å"redeployment.”) There are clement tracks through the dust, trash, and drifts of old gray feathers. The tracks are man-sized. Weaving in and out of them are a dogs paw-prints. Off to his left, Jack spies a neat little pile of droppings. He steps around the rusty dust of an overturned gas grill and follows both sets of tracks around the filthy counter. Outside, the second French Landing cruiser is rolling up. In here, in this darker world, the sound of the flies has wrench a soft roar and the stench . . . the stench . . .\r\nJack fishes a handkerchief from his pocket and places it over his nose as he follows the tracks into the kitchen. Here the pawprints multiply and the mankind footprints disappear completely. Jack thinks grimly of the hatful of beaten-down grass he made in the field of that other world, a band with no path of beaten-down grass leading to it.\r\nLying against the far wall near a pool of dried job is what remains of Irma Freneau. The mop of her filthy strawberry-blond vibrissa mercifully obscures her face. Above her on a rusty piece of tin that probably once se rved as a heat shield for the deep-fat fryers, devil words have been written with what Jack feels sure was a black Sharpie marker:\r\nHello boys\r\nâ€Å"Ah, fuck,” Dale Gilbertson says from almost directly behind him, and Jack nearly screams.\r\nOutside, the snafu starts almost immediately.\r\n middle(a) back down the access road, Danny and Pam (not in the least disappointed to have been assign guard duty once they have actually seen the slumped ruin of Eds and smelled the aroma float from it) nearly have a head-on with an old International Harvester pickup truck that is bucketing toward Eds at a good 40 miles an hour. Luckily, Pam swings the cruiser to the right and the driver of the pickup ?? Teddy Runkleman ?? swings left. The vehicles miss each other by inches and swerve into the grass on either side of this poor prune for a road. The pickups rusty bumper thumps against a small birch.\r\nPam and Danny get out of their unit, hearts pumping, epinephrin spurting. Fo ur men come spilling out of the pickups cab like clowns out of the little car in the circus. Mrs. Morton would recognize them all as regulars at Roys Store. Layabouts, she would call them.\r\nâ€Å"What in the name of God are you doing?” Danny Tcheda roars. His hand drops to the butt of his gun and then falls away a bit reluctantly. Hes acquiring a headache.\r\nThe men (Runkleman is the only one the officers know by name, although matterween them they recognize the faces of the other three) are goggle-eyed with excitement.\r\nâ€Å"How many ja find?” one of them spits. Pam can actually see the spittle spraying out in the morning air, a prospect she could have done without. â€Å"How manyd the bastid kill?”\r\nPam and Danny rallying a single dismayed look. And before they can reply, holy God, here comes an old Chevrolet Bel Air with some other four or five men inside it. No, one of them is a woman. They pull up and spill out, also like clowns from the little car.\r\nBut were the real clowns, Pam thinks. Us.\r\nPam and Danny are border by eight semihysterical men and one semihysterical woman, all of them throwing questions.\r\nâ€Å"Hell, Im going up there and see for myself!” Teddy Runkleman shouts, almost jubilantly, and Danny realizes the office staff is on the verge of spinning out of control. If these fools get the rest of the way up the access road, Dale will first burst him a new asshole and then salt it down.\r\nâ€Å"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, completely OF YOU!” he bawls, and actually draws his gun. Its a first for him, and he hates the weight of it in his hand ?? these are ordinary people, after all, not bad guys ?? but it gets their attention.\r\nâ€Å"This is a abhorrence scene,” Pam says, finally able to speak in a normal tone of voice. They conk and look at one another; worst fears confirmed. She steps to the driver of the Chevrolet. â€Å"Who are you, sir? A Saknessum? You look like a Saknessum.†\r\nâ€Å"Freddy,” he admits.\r\nâ€Å"Well, you get back in your vehicle, Freddy Saknessum, and the rest of you who came with him also get in, and you back the hell right out of here. Dont bother trying to turn around, youll just get stuck.”\r\nâ€Å"But ?? ” the woman begins. Pam thinks shes a Sanger, a clan of fools if ever there was one.\r\nâ€Å"stow it and go,” Pam tells her.\r\nâ€Å"And you right behind him,” Danny tells Teddy Runkleman. He just hopes to Christ no more will come along, or theyll end up trying to manage a parade in reverse. He doesnt know how the news got out, and at this moment cant concede to care. â€Å"Unless you want a summons for engaged with a police investigation. That can get you five years.” He has no idea if there is such a charge, but it gets them moving even better than the sight of his pistol.\r\nThe Chevrolet backs out, rear end wagging from side to side like a dogs tail. Runklemans pickup goes nex t, with two of the men standing up in back and peering over the cab, trying to bugger off sight of the old restaurants roof, at least. Their oddity lends them a look of unpleasant vacuity. The P.D. unit comes last, herding the old car and older truck like a corgi herding sheep, roof-rack lights now pulsing. Pam is forced to ride mostly on the brake, and as she drives she lets loose a crushed stream of words her mother never taught her.\r\nâ€Å"Do you kiss your kids good-night with that mouth?” Danny asks, not without admiration.\r\nâ€Å"Shut up,” she says. Then: â€Å"You got any acetylsalicylic acid?”\r\nâ€Å"I was going to ask you the same thing,” Danny says.\r\nThey get back out to the main road just in time. triple more vehicles are coming from the direction of French Landing, two from the direction of Centralia and Arden. A siren rises in the warming air. other cruiser, the third in what was supposed to be an unobtrusive line, is coming along , passing the lookie-loos from town.\r\nâ€Å"Oh man.” Danny sounds close to tears. â€Å"Oh man, oh man, oh man. Its gonna be a carnival, and I bet the staties still dont know. Theyll have kittens. Dale is gonna have kittens.”\r\nâ€Å"Itll be all right,” Pam says. â€Å"Calm down. Well just pull across the road and park. Also accommodate your gun back in the jailor holster.”\r\nâ€Å"Yes, Mother.” He stows his piece as Pam swings across the access road, force back to let the third cruiser through, then pulling forward again to block the way. â€Å"Yeah, maybe we caught it in time to put a lid on it.”\r\nâ€Å"Course we did.”\r\nThey slack off a little. Both of them have forget the old stretch of road that runs amongst Eds and Goltzs, but there are plenty of folks in town who know about it. Beezer St. Pierre and his boys, for instance. And while Wendell fountain does not, guys like him always seem able to find the back way. Th eyve got an instinct for it.\r\n'