Dead Man's Song

“What was that all about?”



Weinstock cocked his head at Crow. “You know Nels Cowan and Jimmy Castle?”



“Sure. Why?”



Weinstock rubbed his eyes. “That was Bob Colbert on the phone. You know him. Teaches at the college, fills in for me as ME sometimes.”



“I don’t like where this is going, Saul. Did something happen to them? Nels and Jimmy?”



“Yeah,” Weinstock said wearily. “Something happened.”



(6)



Once the sun was above the corn and the bodies of Officers Cowan and Castle were zippered into black plastic body bags and taken away by ambulance, it became easier to search the crime scene and surrounding fields for the blood trails that Ferro and LaMastra knew had to be there. It was LaMastra who ultimately found the line of footprints leading deep into the corn, though there was little actual blood along the wandering path.



Earlier, after they had first viewed the scene, Ferro had put the call out through Gus that they needed a lot more men on the ground, and the request—fueled by early news stories of the manhunt and the killings—flashed through jurisdictions on both sides of the Delaware. By the time LaMastra had picked out the front yard of the Guthrie place was a parking lot, and more cars lined the service road and both sides of the verge on A-32 for a hundred yards north and south. Gus took names and badge numbers from every cop, and LaMastra divided up the teams while Ferro and a ranger from the State Forest Commission pored over regional maps. Cell phone reception was spotty so officers with high-powered walkie-talkies were assigned to each group. Gus Bernhardt made some calls and brought in a dozen men he knew to be top hunters or hunting guides, and he deputized them on the spot, mostly to enforce a confidentiality decree. Three teams of hunting dogs were brought in—the same ones that had failed to track Ruger through the rain two nights ago—and at 9:15 the search began in earnest.



Before the teams headed out, Ferro made it very clear that this was a search and apprehend job designed to locate Boyd and/or his stash of money and cocaine, but there was not one officer there who wasn’t reading the situation as a search and destroy. Ferro and LaMastra both knew it. Spotter planes were in the air before the first teams had covered half a mile and they crisscrossed the fields all morning. There was nothing they could do about the forest—the great Pinelands State Forest was too dense for any aerial surveillance, so when they’d swept the Guthrie fields a dozen times they refueled at Doylestown Airport and flew back to start a spiral search that used the Guthrie farmhouse as ground zero.



Ferro stayed at the farmhouse to coordinate, but LaMastra wanted to be out in the fields. He carried a Mossberg Bullpup shotgun with a twenty-inch barrel and an eight-shell clip, and there was nothing in his expression that suggested “cuff-and-arrest.” The same hard lines were cut into the faces of every man with him. It had become a blood hunt, and everyone there wanted a taste.



(7)



They let Crow in to sit with Val later that afternoon, but he had to have his police guard with him—a sullen Sergeant Jim Polk had the afternoon shift. The officer stationed in Val’s room was a fierce-looking female cop from Philly named Coralita Toombes, and she showed great tact by pulling her chair outside to allow Crow some privacy. Polk also left, looking pleased to be out of Crow’s company. Their dislike of each other went back years. For the next few hours Crow sat by Val’s bedside, holding her hand, watching her sleep and praying to God that she was not dreaming. They had been having some particularly nasty dreams lately—both before Ruger’s arrival in town, and after.



Val was swathed in bandages and hooked up to machines that beeped and pinged. A bag of saline hung pendulously above her, dripping steadily. The liquid was so clear that it seemed to exemplify purity, and that somehow comforted Crow. Nothing else these days seemed very pure, from the blighted crops to the pollution spread by Ruger and his crew. He hated it that so much of this muck had invaded Val’s life, he hated seeing her diminished like this. Val was the strongest person he’d ever known; she was as tough as her father, and to know that she’d been manhandled, pawed at, chased, shot at, and then nearly murdered by Ruger filled Crow with a rage so white-hot that it was, in itself, an example of purity. At that moment he would have gladly traded his life to roll the clock back a couple of days so that he could have made the choice to go out to the Guthrie farm instead of doing Terry’s errand out at the Haunted Hayride first. Had he done so he would have gotten there before Henry had been gunned down. This knowledge was a worm gnawing at his guts.



Crow bent forward and kissed her hand, but she didn’t stir. Her face was shrunken by the depth of her sleep and her right eye was covered by a thick gauze pad held in place by a circlet of bandages, but even with all that she was beautiful. Strong jaw, high cheekbones, clear brow. Her nose was a little askew from a motorcycle accident—the same one that had given her scars on her knees, breasts, and belly. Scars Crow knew very well from close study. Val’s black hair was fanned across the pillow like a raven’s wings. Her left hand was hooked to the IV, her right held in Crow’s hands, and both of them looked strong despite the slackness of sleep. Not girlie hands like Connie’s, but the tanned, strong, clever hands of a woman who owned and managed the biggest farm in the region. Hands that could be so gentle and yet could turn a wrench or hit a tennis overhand that could chip paint from the foul line.



Crow had loved Val off and on since third grade, even though she was more or less a “rich kid” and Crow was anybody’s definition of “wrong side of the tracks.” They’d met when Crow and his big brother, Billy, had gone to work for the summer at the Guthrie farm, earning comic book money by picking corn and pumpkins, filling wheelbarrows full of apples, gathering basketsful of strawberries. At nine, Val Guthrie was as tough as a hickory stick and smart as a whip, and her father put in charge of all the kids hired from around the town. Her best friend at the time was another rich kid, Terry Wolfe, and it was pretty clear that Terry was sweet on Val. Crow and Billy had become friends with them and throughout that summer and into the grim Black Autumn that followed they ran as a pack, often with little Mandy Wolfe running along behind to catch up. When that season started it was always Val who called the shots even though Billy was older. Then things turned bad and by the end of that season Billy was dead, Mandy was dead, and Terry was in a coma, all victims of the Pine Deep Reaper. That left Val and Crow together during those last days before the Reaper was himself cut down. Now, thirty years later, Val and Crow were going to be married—just as another Black Autumn was burning its way through their lives.



Ubel Griswold sends his regards.



In his mind he could have sworn he heard the cold whisper of Ruger’s laughter. He realized that he was still squeezing Val’s hand too tightly and as he relaxed the pressure he nearly jumped as her fingers curled around his as if refusing to let go. He froze, not wanting to wake her and yet willing her to wake. Her one visible eyelid trembled for a moment and her brow furrowed as if she were puzzling out the nature of being awake. Then that eyelid opened and she looked right at him with one single dark blue eye.



All afternoon he’d been rehearsing something witty and clever to say when she finally woke up, but his throat went as dry as sand and he couldn’t say a thing.



Instead, Val said, “You look horrible.”



He swallowed, smiled, and said, “Whereas you are the most beautiful woman in the world.” He kissed her hand.



“Oh, please.” She pulled her hand gently out of his and reached up to touch her face, probing the thick bandage over her eye. “Ow. How’s this look?”



He peeked under the gauze. “Like an eggplant on a hot summer day, but hey, a few pounds of makeup and nobody’ll ever notice.” He took a cup of water from the bedside table and handed it to her. She sipped once through the straw, took a breath, and took a longer sip before handing the cup back, her face thoughtful. Crow could imagine the tape machines in her head replaying everything that had happened. He said softly, “Ruger’s dead.”



“For sure this time?” Equal parts edge and uncertainty in her voice, echoing what he had asked Jerry Head.



“For double damn sure.”



“Good,” she said and it was very nearly a snarl. She touched her chest, feeling for her little silver cross, but it wasn’t there; the nurses had taken it off. Crow opened the drawer of the bedside table and fished it out. He clumsily managed to place it around her neck and attach the clasp. She seemed to relax a bit more once it was on.



“How are Mark and Connie?



Crow gave it to her straight, repeating verbatim what Saul Weinstock had said. Val listened and then gave a single curt nod, but he knew she was processing it. “There’s more,” he said, taking her hand again. He took a deep breath and then told her about the new killings out at the farm. He could see the hurt register on her face, but she didn’t break.



“Those poor men,” she said, her voice hollowed out by shock. “Did they have families?” When he nodded, she shook her head. “My God!”



“They’ll catch Boyd soon, though. I saw the news earlier and they have state troopers, forest rangers, every kind of cop…even dogs and planes out there.”



Her mouth was as hard as a knife blade. “They ought to gun him down and bury him in an unmarked grave. Right next to Ruger.” Crow nodded, staring down at her hand, feeling the harshness of her words, but not finding any fault with her sentiments.



A few moments later she squeezed his hand and when he looked at her there were tears in her eyes. “I just want it to end, Crow!” she said, and her chest hitched with the first sob. “I just want it to be over.” She started to cry then—deep sobs that made her body spasm and jerk. Crow reached for her and tried to comfort her with his nearness, whispering meaningless words as he held her. When he heard her say, “Daddy!” between the sobs, Crow lost it, too, and they clung together in grief.



(8)