An End to a Silence: A mystery novel (The Montana Trilogy Book 1) (14 page)

Ward hadn’t
needed to call Larsson. He’d somehow got Ward’s cell number. He thought Newton.
They’d set up a meeting for the next morning. Ward had asked for somewhere out
of town. Larsson knew a place – a truck stop on the I-15 highway.

When Ward
pulled into the parking lot of the truck stop Larsson was already there,
shivering and smoking a cigarette, which he took a large double draw on before
tossing the butt into a puddle. Larsson held out his hand but Ward didn’t take
it.

“Have you
had that hand looked at?” Larsson asked, and Ward ignored the question. “Could
be broken.”

Ward
looked him up and down. He was a weasel. He might have been five ten but he
stooped to five six and snowman eyes fixed Ward and asked questions before
they’d even started. His gray hair was swept back and up, presumably held by
hairspray, and it offered patchy coverage in places. His teeth seemed sharp and
small. More gum than tooth. He made an attempt to dress for the job but his tie
was loose and his top button was open. He looked like he needed a dry clean.

A
tractor, minus its trailer, revved as it passed them heading towards the pumps.
Larsson stepped back to avoid getting his hundred-dollar suit splashed as it
drove over the winter-plowed surface, potholes filled with oily water. Ward did
the same just in time and Larsson smiled hungrily.

In the
direction the truck had come from Ward noticed the
girl.
One of the whores from the house where Troy had taken his beating. She was
probably selling blowjobs to the truckers.
She starts early
, Ward
thought. Probably hitched up here for the price of a blowjob too. There were
plenty of trucks parked up. Ward guessed there would be some good business for
her.

They
entered the truckers’ lounge which was just fixing to open, although a trucker
had already managed to get himself a beer and sat at the counter pondering his
next shave. The trucker glanced around at the two of them and then returned to
his beer. Ward guessed he was Mexican.

Ward and
Larsson sat and a young woman came to their table. Told them the kitchen was
closed for food till twelve. Drinks only. They both ordered a coffee. Larsson’s
smile was still on his face. He occasionally glanced at Ward and looked
everywhere else in between times. Ward’s eyes didn’t leave Larsson. They sat
like that for a minute or two.

“It’s
good to see you, detective,” Larsson said finally. “Can I call you detective
now, since you’re suspended?”

“Cute,”
Ward said, trying to be friendly. He took off his hat and placed it on the
table and then rubbed at his head.

“I need
to know what I’m getting if I can be so vulgar,” Larsson said.

“Well,
that depends,” Ward said. “Depends on what I get.”

“Well, we
can go on depending till Labor Day but I got to know I’m not wasting my time
here. With respect.”

“You seem
to have a line into the department already,” Ward said.

“I do.”

Ward
touched his beard with his blue, swollen hand.

“That
really is a nasty injury,” Larsson said. “That guy was a real mess, wasn’t he?”

Ward held
his tongue.

“Cop on a
charge of assaulting a citizen. That’s a big story,” Larsson said, and he
grinned and he chattered his small teeth.

Ward
said, “I need a few days.”

“Well,
let’s see, I can give you a couple and then it runs,” Larsson said.

Ward
nodded.

“And I want
the inside exclusive when you solve these homicides.”

Ward
nodded again. He said, “You got what you need,” and the young waitress appeared
with their coffees. She plonked the cups down and slipped the check under the
napkin dispenser that sat in the center of the table.

Larsson
said, “Thank you, missy,” and he watched her all the way back to the counter,
where she sat and rested her head on her hands and stared into nothing.

“Where
are you at with the Bill O’Donnell case?”

“We got
one or two leads we are following up. Nothing concrete. Nothing you don’t
already know.”

“So, my
next headline is ‘Cops No Closer to Finding Man’s Killer’? Is that how you want
it to read?”

Ward felt
his busted hand. “Okay, we’ve got a new lead. Suspect fled from the scene and
left prints matching the ones on the windowsill of the old man’s room at the
nursing home.”

“Very
good,” Larsson said, and he started to take notes in shorthand. “You think he’s
the killer?”

“He’s a
line of inquiry,” Ward said.

“Okay.
What about the little boy? How’s Newton? He feeling the pressure?”

Ward
didn’t answer.

“Good,
good,” Larsson said, and he scribbled something on his pad.

Ward
reached for his hat and stood up. “I’m wasting my time here.”

“No, no,
detective. We have a deal.”

“Right
now I’m wondering whether to leave you
facedown
in a
shit-filled puddle or under the wheels of a semi.”

Larsson’s
smile twitched and fizzled off his face. “Let’s not… let’s take a deep breath
there, detective,” Larsson said, and he moved his hands like an orchestra conductor.
“We’re coming to the main course. I’m just doing my job. It would be a
dereliction of duty for me not to ask these questions.”

Ward
slowly sat again.

“Okay.”
Larsson took a sip of coffee. Added some sugar. “You know I covered the
original case? You do. Of course you do. It was hot that summer. Hot as hell.
Hell, it was hotter than Texas.” He laughed. Ward didn’t. “I even bought myself
air conditioning. You imagine that?” He knocked back his coffee. “Say, you not
drinking that coffee?”

Ward
shook his head.

“Then do
you mind if I…”

Ward
nodded and Larsson took the coffee and sipped at it. He poured some sugar in,
stirred and took another sip.

“We had
forest fires too but I’ll get to that. The night the boy disappeared I was
sweating over a story about corruption in City Hall. Never did like that kind
of story. Wanted to cover real crime, you know? I get excited over homicides,
not white-collar crime. I know that might sound wrong but I’m a reporter and…
well… the boy wasn’t noticed missing till the next day. Say, what do you know
about his parents?”

“Only
what it says in the case notes,” Ward said.

“Does it
say both were drunks? Eugene and Janice Novak. A model couple. Model parents.”

“Janice
was Bill O’Donnell’s daughter, right?”

“Right.
I’m sure she was a nice girl, but Eugene Novak. There was a son of a bitch if
ever I saw one. Sure, he cried and made appeals for the safe return of his son.
But he was down one punching bag.” Larsson looked up at Ward.

Ward
said, “He was abusing his son?”

“Don’t it
say that in the file?”

“Maybe I
haven’t gotten that far.”

“Well,
maybe you haven’t or maybe it’s not there. I had to do some digging to get that
information. Social Services was never alerted to it but I found out.”

“How?”

“Investigative
journalism, see. It’s what I do. What I keep telling you. The only thing is I
could never go to print on that. It was hearsay and there’s Eugene Novak
sobbing to the cameras saying how he wants his son back and the people see him
as this helpless victim. I’d say it makes me sick to think about it but I have
a detached indifference to these things. I’ve seen it all, detective.”

“Go on.”

“My
theory is the boy was fleeing another beating. He goes walking off never to be
seen again. Why would he do that unless to get away from his abusive daddy?” He
took a drink of Ward’s coffee and added some more sugar.

“So you
think someone took him?”

“Well, I
know what Newton thinks and I reckon that that just about ruined the case for
him. Early in the case he was leaning towards Bill O’Donnell, the grandpa. You
want to know why?”

“Go on.”

“Well,
you see, it’s all about timing. Way O’Donnell explains it, his truck got stolen
and he took off looking for it.”

“And a
police report backs that up.”

“Yes, it
does. It’s merely a coincidence that this little boy goes missing on the same
weekend as his truck. But the truck got taken first. Police report shows that.”

“You buy
that? Or did he report the truck missing knowing that he was taking the little
boy to kill him? A cover story. An alibi?”

“I see
how it could sound like that but look… Bill O’Donnell was a good man. Was the
janitor at the elementary
school.
All the kids loved
him. The teachers too.”

“You
spoke to him?”

“I did.
And his story came across as genuine. He was distraught about the boy. Totally
destroyed and I believed him. I’ve seen people go on TV to make appeals and you
kinda know straight away that they did it. Never got that with O’Donnell. Not
to say he was an open book.”

“How do
you mean?”

“He didn’t
want to talk, of course he didn’t. He wanted to help the case but nobody trusts
a reporter, do they?” He laughed and then took out a handkerchief and wiped his
mouth. “Something he said but didn’t elaborate on has always stuck with me.”

“What did
he say?”

“Well,
detective, if you don’t mind I’ll get to that later.” He smiled and Ward
suppressed the urge to wipe that smile from his face. “I told you we had forest
fires that year. Had a couple up at the National Forest. Big ones. Some weeks
later once the fires was put out they found the truck burned out. Some
joyriders had taken it up into the hills and left it there to burn. Never got
the varmints but they never do. Truck was destroyed. The heat was so intense
that it was mostly melted. Thing is, Newton goes and puts two and two together
and reckons that O’Donnell had taken the body into the hills to bury and left
his vehicle there. Of course there was no forensic evidence left. Hell, there
wasn’t much left of the truck. I saw it myself. They got it towed back. And
that was that. It all dried up. And a while later the FBI came on board. The
captain at the time, guy called Garrett, called them in. He’d fended them off
long as he could. Newton wasn’t pleased. FBI thanked him for his work and waved
him away. He’d had his shot and blew it.”

“I don’t
have much background on the FBI investigation.”

“Neither
do I, but that’s because they found nothing. They retraced Newton’s steps,
followed up his leads, basically did the same job as he had done and they got
the same result. They took it nationwide so I guess they did something. I guess
that’s what finished the case. Soon as the FBI pulled out, Captain Garrett
wasn’t inclined to put any more hours into it. Of course, they tell the media
that the case is still open and that manpower will still be allocated to the
case but that means zip. They called it off and gradually people forgot about
it. Newton took it hard. He got a bad press and I guess that’s down to me.” He
smiled broadly and Ward wanted to knock his weasel teeth through the back of
his neck.

“Did the
bureau like O’Donnell for it?” Ward said eventually.

“Well,
let’s say they weren’t as enamored as Newton was. They spoke to him but they
bought his story about the truck and so on and so forth.”

“Did
anyone like the parents for it?”

“Not
really. They were just drunks.”

“But you
say the father was abusive.”

“He was.
Nobody was convinced that he had it in him to kill the boy though. The boy was his
favorite sport. And besides, his story that he was in a drunken coma at the
time the boy walked off didn’t take much convincing. Not to say they didn’t
look at the father, they did, but that line wasn’t going anywhere.”

“So, what
happened to the parents?”

“Janice
got herself impregnated again and had another child a year later. Child died.
She died a few days after.”

Ward sat
up at that. He thought of Alice White and her book of dead babies and wondered
if the child was in there.

“Eugene
Novak got tangled up in the back wheels of a trailer. Killed instantly. Shame.
Would’ve liked to have seen him drink himself to a painful death.”

Ward
nodded and instantly hated himself for agreeing with this man.

“You
mentioned something about O’Donnell said something interesting.”

“I’m
coming to that. Patience, detective. Can we get another coffee?” He gestured to
the waitress and shouted, “Can we get a freshen-up here?”

The
waitress nodded and wrenched herself off the counter as Larsson finished Ward’s
coffee.

“I can’t
function without caffeine,” Larsson said. “So, where were we? Ah, yes. You will
have noticed from the case notes that there were no eyewitnesses. Well, there
was one but he was ruled out as being an imbecile. Which, to be fair, he was.
You read what he said? At the time? He said the boy was abducted by aliens! How
about that? Who would take seriously a witness who says such a thing?”