Ghouls

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

At five in the afternoon, Officer Mark Higgins directed traffic, without much enthusiasm, around the right-hand lane of 154, a short stretch of which had been drawn off with hissing red Sentry road flares. Within, a shiny Ford tow truck from DeHenzel’s Texaco backed into position. Higgins had spotted the demolished guardrail half an hour earlier; sometime during the night, Lenny Stokes’s Chevelle had fallen off the post, and could be seen now at the bottom of the gully, half submerged.

The tow truck team began to set up, winding off cable from the winch. Kurt and Chief Bard peered reluctantly down over the rail.

“The stupid cock-hanging son of a bitch really did it this time,” Bard observed. “Thank God it’s a state guardrail, anyway. Ten to one Stokes was drunk or stoned.”

And dead, Kurt thought. “Is he in the car?”

“Won’t know that till we pull it out.”

The tow truck operator tossed a length of hitch cable over the side, then went back to the pulley sticks. The second man from DeHenzel’s, the tall criminal-looking young man with freckles, bright blond hair, and green overalls, stepped over the rail and began to rappel down the slope of the gully.

“Be careful,” Bard said. “There’s quicksand down there.”

“No shit,” said the blond man.

“Maybe Stokes went down in the quicksand,” Kurt pointed out.

Bard seemed to experience a stab of gas at the possibility. “He better be in the car—dead or alive, I really don’t give a wad. Where am I gonna get the money to drag that ravine?”

Kurt looked down crookedly, his mind blank. It was easy to imagine Stokes’s waterlogged body flopping out of the car when they opened it up; his dead mouth would snap open and gush swamp water. But then the line was connected to the back bumper, and the blond man in green overalls shouted, “Up with this fucka!”

The winch made a sound like cats in a mulcher. The cable pulled taut—nothing at first—and then the Chevelle began to creak and rise jerkily out of the ravine.

Higgins was busy waving gawkers past. When the car was hauled up over the rail, Kurt and Bard took several hasty steps back. They watched as if leery of an explosion.

Impassively, the blond man yanked open the door. Out poured brackish water and mud. “No body,” said the blond man.

“Piss,” said Bard.

The blond man turned. On the front of his overalls he wiped his huge, grimy hands. Kurt focused on the hands, disappointed to count five fingers on each. “Who’s paying for this?” the blond man asked.

“Put it on the account,” Bard answered.

“What account?”

“The account we’ve had with DeHenzel’s for the last ten years.”

“Oh, that account.”

Kurt was staring at the dripping car. “Either Stokes climbed out and walked home, or he’s at the bottom.”

“Looks that way,” Bard said. “We’ll check around town. If no one’s seen him, I’ll have to drag the fucking ravine.” But he seemed to already have put the question of Stokes’s fate behind him. “How come you didn’t tell me Glen Rodz was polishing his post in Willard’s wife?”

“I only found out yesterday,” Kurt semi-lied. “Who told you?”

“Willard. He came to the station today and told me his wife still hadn’t shown up. So I said what do you mean still? And he says he talked to you about it already.”

“I didn’t put much stock in it at the time,” Kurt admitted. “She’d been gone less than a day.”

“Well, according to Willard there’s been no sign of her for almost forty-eight hours now. We can assume she’s officially missing. And that bugs me because Glen Rodz seems to be missing, too.”

“How do you know?”

Bard smiled, ever so slightly. “I’ve had Higgins keeping an eye on his place. Glen never came home last night, and he isn’t answering his phone.”

“It’s not illegal to leave town, you know.”

“It is when you’re a suspect in a murder investigation.”

“But he isn’t a suspect.”

“Damn near.” Bard was convinced. “When did you see him last?”

“Yesterday. I gave him a lift home after I talked to Dr. Willard.”

“He say where he might be going?”

Kurt shook his head. He felt something close to shame. All this time sticking up for Glen, and now it seemed he’d been wrong.

Bard liked to rub things in. “Conclusions?”

“All right, I guess you were right all along,” Kurt said. “Maybe he did split with Willard’s wife. Maybe he is a flake.”

Bard grinned fatly, like a sated tomcat. “Maybe, huh? Too bad you’re not a betting man… We’ll give him a day—fair enough? If we don’t hear from him by tomorrow afternoon, I’ll go to the magistrate and see if I can rustle up a warrant to search his place.”

Kurt nodded, depressed.

“And be in at six tonight, to relieve Higgins,” Bard added, and with notable effort slipped his thumbs under his belt. He was known for generosity when things went his way, which was about as often as Christmas. “I’m rescinding your suspension. State attorneyon. Ss office can kiss my whizzer if they don’t like it. Time you got back on the road.”

“Thanks, Chief.”

Bard shambled away, as awkward as a woman pregnant with triplets. After the tow truck pulled uproariously off with Stokes’s Chevelle, Higgins began kicking the whitened stubs of the flares into the shoulder. They sizzled out in puddles like fat cigars.

Another day, another dollar.

Kurt looked out over the gully, into the marsh. There, a family of water rats slithered for cover amid weeds. Toads as large as lopsided softballs grimaced at him, and even larger bullfrogs threateningly expanded sacs in their throats as if to warn him off. Beyond, the muck-bottomed forest seemed impenetrable and stretched on forever. Again Kurt was inundated by the notion that he was crazy to be here, that danger pulsed all around this place for miles.

Shit on this town, he thought. Shit on this job, this state. Shit on everything. He congratulated himself on a scholarly course of thought. If indeed he were wrong about it all, as was Bard’s apparent conclusion, then his reaction was a great cop-out. He’d painted himself into a corner with trust and was now trapped by it.

Behind him, Higgins and Bard were laughing over a joke as they prepared to go back to the station. The clarity of Bard’s laughter shone with relief, an attitude of normality returned; Bard believed Tylersville’s troubles were over.

But Kurt felt rancid, sour inside. It was a shriveling premonition. This was far more universal, and more primitive, than the tawdry sixth sense most police officers claimed to have. His spirit felt alone in the eye of a crushing storm, waiting for the worst, which had not quite yet arrived.

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