Black Evening

  Lieutenant Clauson. Middle forties. Tall. Pronounced nose and cheekbones. Trim — Clauson's doctor had ordered him to lose weight, Grady remembered. Short, receding, sandy hair. On occasion, Clauson and Grady had worked together when a crime was committed in one jurisdiction and a suspect was apprehended in the other.

  "Ben."

  "Jeff."

  "Did your dispatcher explain?" Clauson looked uneasy.

  Grady nodded, grim. "Brian shot Betsy and then himself. Why the hell would he — "

  "That's what we were hoping you could tell us."

  Grady shivered despite the afternoon heat. "How would I know?"

  "You and the Roths were friends. I hate to ask you to do this. Do you think you can… Would you…"

  "Look at the bodies?"

  "Yes." Clauson furrowed his brow, more uneasy. "If you wouldn't mind."

  "Jeff, just because my wife and son died, I can still do my job. Even though Brian and Betsy were friends of mine, I can do whatever's necessary. I'm ready to help."

  "I figured."

  "Then why did you have to ask?"

  "Because you're involved."

  "What?"

  "First things first," Clauson said. "You look at the bodies. I show you what your friend Brian had in his hand, clutched around the grip of the forty-five. And then we talk."

  ***

  The stench of decay pinched Grady's nostrils. A waist-high wooden fence enclosed the swimming pool. Grady followed Clauson through an opening onto a concrete strip that bordered the pool. One of the policemen was taking photographs of something on the concrete while the overweight man in the gray suit suggested various angles. When the other policemen saw Clauson and Grady arrive, they parted to give them room, and Grady saw the bodies.

  The shock made him sick. His friends lay facedown on the concrete, redwood deck chairs behind them, their heads toward the pool. Or what was left of their heads. The .45-caliber bullets had done massive damage. Behind Betsy's right ear and Brian's, the impact wound was a thick, black clot of blood. On the opposite side, at the top of each brow near the temple, the exit wound was a gaping hole from which blood, brain, bone, and hair had spattered the concrete. A repugnant swarm of flies buzzed over the gore. The .45 was next to Brian's right hand.

  "Are you all right?" Clauson touched Grady's arm.

  Grady swallowed. "I'll manage." Although he'd been the police chief of Bos worth for almost ten years, he'd seen few gunshot victims. After all, Bosworth was a modest-sized town. There wasn't much violent crime. Mostly the corpses he'd viewed had been due to car accidents. That thought suddenly reminded him of the accident in which his wife and son had died, and he felt grief upon grief: for his friends, for his family.

  Determined to keep control, Grady sought refuge in forcing himself to muster professional habits, to try to be objective.

  "These corpses" — Grady struggled to order his troubled thoughts — "have started to bloat. Even as hot as it's been, they wouldn't be this swollen… Unless… This didn't happen today."

  Clauson nodded. "As close as we can tell, it was early yesterday."

  The overweight man in the gray suit interrupted. "I'll know for sure when I do the autopsy."

  The man was the county's medical examiner. He gestured for the trooper to stop taking photographs. "I think that's enough." He turned to the ambulance attendants. "You can move them now." He pivoted toward Clauson. "Provided you don't object."

  Clauson thought about it and shrugged. "We've done as much as we can for now. Go ahead."

  Feeling colder, Grady heard the zip of bodybags being opened. To distract himself, he stared toward the glistening blue water of the swimming pool while the attendants put on rubber gloves. He was grateful when Clauson spoke, further distracting him.

  "Brian and Betsy were expected home yesterday evening," Clauson said. "When Brian's sister phoned and didn't get an answer, she figured they must have changed their plans and spent the night here. But when she called again in the morning and still didn't get an answer, and when it turned out that Brian hadn't opened the restaurant this morning, his sister got worried. This place doesn't have a phone, so she drove out here…"

  "And found the bodies," Grady said, "and then phoned you."

  Clauson nodded. In the background, the attendants strained to lift a bulging bodybag onto a gurney, then rolled it toward the ambulance.

  Grady forced himself to continue. "It looks as if they were both sitting in these deck chairs, facing the pool. The impact of the bullets knocked them out of the chairs."

  "That's how we figure it," Clauson said.

  "Which tends to suggest they weren't arguing, at least not so bad that it made Brian angry enough to shoot Betsy and then shoot himself when he realized what he'd done." Grady's throat tightened. "People are usually on their feet when they're shouting at each other. But it's almost as if the two of them were just sitting here, enjoying the view. Then Brian goes to get the pistol, or else he's already got it on him. But why? Why would he decide to shoot her? And why would Betsy just sit there, assuming she knew Brian had the gun?"

  "He planned it," Clauson said.

  "Obviously, or else he wouldn't have had the gun."

  "That's not the only reason I know Brian planned it." Clauson pointed downward. "Look at the gun."

  Grady lowered his gaze toward the concrete, avoiding the black clots at the rim of the pool and the contrasting white chalk silhouettes of where the bodies had been. He concentrated on the weapon.

  "Yes." He sighed. "I get the point." The slide on the .45 was all the way back, projecting behind the hammer. The only time a .45 did that, Grady knew, was when the magazine in the pistol's handle was empty. "Brian didn't load the magazine completely. He put in only two rounds."

  "One for Betsy, one for himself," Clauson said. "So what does that tell you?"

  "Brian thought about this carefully." Grady felt appalled. "He respected guns. He didn't load the magazine completely because he knew that otherwise the gun would selfcock after he fired the second shot, after he killed himself and the pistol dropped from his hand as he fell. He didn't want whoever found him to pick up a loaded gun and accidentally fire it, maybe killing the person who held it. He tried to do this as cleanly as possible."

  Grady forcefully shook his head from side to side. Cleanly? What a poor choice of word. But that was the way Brian had thought. Brian had always worried that an animal he shot might be only wounded, might escape to the forest and suffer for hours, maybe days, before it finally died. In that sense, the way Brian had arranged to kill his wife and then himself was definitely clean. Two shots placed efficiently at the soft spot behind each victim's ear. A direct route to the brain. Instantaneous, non-painful death. At least in theory. Only the victims knew if their death was truly painless, and they couldn't very well talk about it.

  Grady frowned so severely that his head ached. Massaging his temples, thinking of the bullets that had plowed through Betsy's skull and then Brian's, he studied Clauson. "Usually someone does this because of marriage problems. Jealousy. One of the partners having an affair. But as far as I know, Brian and Betsy had a faithful relationship."

  "You can bet I'll make sure," Clauson said.

  "So will I. The only other reason I can think of is that Betsy might have had a fatal illness, something they kept hidden because they didn't want to worry their friends. When the disease got worse, when Betsy couldn't bear the pain, Brian — with Betsy's permission — stopped the pain, and then, because Brian couldn't stand the agony of living without Betsy, he…"

  "That's something else I'll check for when I do the autopsy," the medical examiner said.

  "And I'll talk to her doctor," Clauson said, determined.

  Grady's sadness fought with his confusion. "So how does this involve me? You told me it was something about his hand. Something he clutched."

  Clauson looked reluctant. "I'm afraid there's no good way to do this. I'm sorry. I'll just have to show
you. Brian left a note."

  "I was going to ask if he did. I need answers."

  Clauson pulled a plastic bag from a pocket in his shirt. The bag contained a piece of paper.

  Grady murmured, "If Brian left a note, there's no question. Combined with the way he loaded the forty-five, there's no doubt he made careful plans. Perhaps along with…" Grady shuddered. "I've got the terrible feeling Betsy agreed."

  "That thought occurred to me," Clauson said. "But there's no way we'll ever know. He had this piece of paper clutched around the grip of the pistol. When the forty-five dropped from his hand, the note stuck to his fingers."

  Grady studied it and shivered.

  The note was printed boldly in black ink.

  TELL BEN GRADY. BRING HIM HERE.

  That was all.

  And it was too much.

  "Bring me here? Why?"

  "That's why I said we had to talk." Clauson bit his lip. "Come on, let's get away from where this happened. I think it's time for a stroll."

  They emerged from the swimming pool area and crossed a stretch of gravel, their footsteps crunching as they passed the barbecue pit as well as two redwood picnic tables and approached the largest of the cinderblock buildings. It was thirty feet long and half as wide. A metal chimney projected from the nearest wall and rose above the roof. There were three dusty windows.

  "Bring you here." Clauson echoed Brian's note. "That can mean different things. To see the bodies, or to see the compound. I didn't know Brian well, but my impression is, he wasn't cruel. I can't imagine why he'd have wanted you to see what he'd done. It makes me wonder if…"

  Grady anticipated the rest of the question. "I've never been here. In fact, I didn't know this place existed. Even with the directions you relayed through my office, I had trouble finding the lane."

  "And yet you and the Roths were close."

  "Only recently — within the last year. I met them at a meeting of The Compassionate Friends."

  "What's…"

  "An organization for parents who've lost a child. The theory is that only a parent in grief can understand what another parent in grief is going through. So the grieving parents have a meeting once a month. They begin the meeting by explaining how each child died. There's usually a speaker, a psychiatrist or some other type of specialist who recommends various ways of coping. Then the meeting becomes a discussion. The parents who've suffered the longest try to help those who still can't believe what happened. You're given phone numbers of people to call if you don't think you can stand the pain any longer. The people you talk to try their best to encourage you not to give in to despair. They remind you to take care of your health, not to rely on alcohol or stay in bed all day, instead to eat, to maintain your strength, to get out of the house, to walk, to find positive ways to fill your time, community service, that sort of thing."

  Clauson rubbed the back of his neck. "You make me feel embarrassed."

  "Oh?"

  "When your wife and son were killed, I went to the funeral. I came around to your house once. But after that… Well, I didn't know what to say, or I told myself I didn't want to bother you. I suppose I figured you'd prefer to be left alone."

  Grady shrugged, hollow. "That's a common reaction. There's no need to apologize. Unless you've lost a wife and child of your own, it's impossible to understand the pain."

  "I pray to God I never have to go through it."

  "Believe me, my prayers go with you."

  They reached the largest cinderblock building.

  "The lab crew already dusted for prints." Clauson opened the door, and Grady peered in. There were sleeping bags on cots along each wall, two long pine tables, benches, some cupboards, and a wood-burning stove.

  "Obviously more people than Brian and Betsy used this place," Clauson said. "Have you any idea who?"

  "I told you I've never been here."

  Clauson closed the door and proceeded toward a smaller cinderblock building next to it.

  This time, when Clauson unlatched and opened the door, Grady saw a wood-burning cook stove with cans and boxes of food as well as pots, pans, bowls, plates, and eating utensils on shelves along the walls.

  "I assume," Clauson said, "that the barbecue pit was for summer, and this was for rainy days, or fall, or maybe winter."

  Grady nodded. "There were twelve cots in the other building. I noticed rain slickers and winter coats on pegs. Whoever they were, they came here often. All year round. So what? It's a beautiful location. A summer getaway. A hunting camp in the fall. A place for Brian, Betsy, and their friends to have weekend parties, even in winter, as long as the snow didn't block the lane."

  "Yeah, a beautiful location." Clauson shut the door to the kitchen, directing Grady toward the final and smallest structure. "This was the only building that was locked. Brian had the key on a ring along with his car keys. I found the key in his pants pocket."

  When Clauson opened the door, Grady frowned.

  The floors in the other buildings had been made from wooden planks, except for fire bricks beneath the stoves. But this floor was smooth, gray slate. In place of the cinderblock walls in the other buildings, the walls in here had oak paneling. Instead of a stove, a handsome stone fireplace had a shielded slab of wood for a mantle, an American flag on each side, and framed, glistening photographs of eight smiling youngsters — male and female — positioned in a straight line above the flags. The age of the youngsters ranged, Grady estimated, from six to nineteen, and one image of a boy — blond, with braces on his teeth, with spectacles that made him look uncomfortable despite his determined smile — reminded Grady distressingly of his own, so longed-for son.

  He took in more details: a church pew in front of the photographs above the fireplace, ceramic candle holders on the mantel, and… He stepped closer, troubled when he realized that two of the smiling faces in the photographs — lovely, freckled, red-headed girls, early teens — were almost identical. Twins. Another pattern he noticed, his brow furrowing, was that the oldest males in the photographs, two of them, late teens, had extremely short haircuts and wore military uniforms.

  "So what do you make of it?" Clauson asked.

  "It's almost like…" Grady felt pressure in his chest. "Like a chapel. No religious objects, but it feels like a chapel all the same. Some kind of shrine. Those twin girls. I've seen them before. The photographs, I mean. Brian and Betsy had copies in their wallets and showed them to me a couple of times when they invited me over for dinner. They also had larger, framed copies on a wall in their living room. These are Brian and Betsy's daughters." Grady's stomach hardened. "They died ten years ago when a roller coaster jumped its tracks at a midway near Pittsburgh. Brian and Betsy never forgave themselves for letting their daughters go on the ride. Guilt. That's something else grieving parents suffer. A lot of guilt."

  Grady stepped even closer to the photographs, concentrating on the blond, vibrant, ten-year-old boy with glasses and braces that reminded him so painfully of his son. The likeness wasn't exactly the same, but it was poignantly evocative.

  Guilt, he thought. Yes, guilt. What if I hadn't been working late that night? What if I'd been home and Helen and John hadn't decided to go out for pizza and a movie? That drunk driver wouldn't have hit their car. They'd still be alive, and it's all my fault because I decided to catch up on a stack of reports that could just as easily have waited until the morning. But no, I had to be conscientious, and because of that, I indirectly killed my wife and son. Not showing it, Grady cringed. From a deep, black, torture chamber of his mind, he wailed silently in unbearable torment.

  Behind him, Clauson said something, but Grady didn't register what it was.

  Clauson spoke louder. "Ben?"

  Without removing his intense gaze from the photograph of the young, blond boy, Grady murmured, "What?"

  "Do you recognize any of the other faces?"

  "No."

  "This is just a hunch, but maybe there's a pattern."

  "Patt
ern?"

  "Well, since those two girls are dead, do you suppose… Could it be that all the kids in these photographs are dead?"

  Grady's heart lurched. Abruptly he whirled toward the sound of a splash.

  "What's the matter?" Clauson asked.

  "That splash." Grady moved toward the door. "Someone fell into the pool."

  "Splash? I didn't hear anything."

  Grady's eyes felt stabbed by sunlight as he left the shadows of the tiny building. He stared toward the state policemen at the concrete rim of the swimming pool. The medical examiner was getting into his station wagon. The ambulance was pulling away.

  But the pool looked undisturbed, and if anyone had fallen in, the troopers didn't seem to care. They merely kept talking among themselves and didn't pay attention.

  "What do you mean?" Clauson asked. "There wasn't any splash. You can see for yourself. No one fell into the pool."

  Grady shook his head in bewilderment. "But I would have sworn."

  ***

  Disoriented, he did his best to answer more questions and finally left the compound an hour later, shortly after five, just as Clauson and his men were preparing to lock the buildings and the gate to the area, then secure a yellow NO ADMITTANCE — POLICE CRIME SCENE tape across the fence and the gate.

  Troubled, numb with shock, aching with sorrow, he trembled. He used his two-way radio to contact his office while he drove along the winding road through the looming mountains back to Bosworth. He had a duty to perform, but he couldn't let that duty interfere with his other duties. The office had to know where he'd be.

  With Brian Roth's sister. The deaths of his wife and son — the rules he'd learned from attending the grief meetings of The Compassionate Friends — had taught him that you had to do your best to offer consolation. Compassion was the greatest virtue.