An End to a Silence: A mystery novel (The Montana Trilogy Book 1) (16 page)

Gammond’s
head snaps up. “No need to check. I done took that call. He reported it around
nine last night. I took a statement. He said he was going to go off and look
for it and I said not to but I guess he did anyways.”

Newton
feels a spasm scrunch his lower back. “Don’t change anything. I know he took
him. Get me that truck.”

“Yes,
sir,” Gammond says and he reaches into his car and grabs the radio.

Out front
of the Novak household Eugene Novak is jabbing his finger at the broken man and
shouting something. O’Donnell pushes him in his chest and Novak staggers back
and looks like he’s going to come in swinging at his father-in-law but doesn’t.
Janice Novak stands there sobbing.

Before
Gammond can speak into the radio, Detective Newton says, “The boy’s probably
dead already. I’m going to take the guy in. I’ll get his agreement to do some
tests on his clothes. I think we’ll find blood traces and we’ll get a
confession. I’ll have this case closed within days. You’ll see.”

Officer
Gammond nods and clicks on the radio.

Newton
stared at the evidence board for the O’Donnell homicide case. McNeely appeared
by his side and stood there with her hands on her hips, head tilted as if
trying to view the board sideways. Various photographs were attached to the whiteboard
with small round magnetic holders. There were two photographs of the old man –
one alive, taken a year or two ago at a church event, which Alice White had
given to them, and the other deceased, on the slab in the mortuary, his chest
bearing an ugly sutured autopsy scar. There was another image of just his foot,
showing the point of entry of the hypodermic needle where the fatal dose of
morphine had been administered. There was a copy of the photograph of the
little boy which they had discovered in O’Donnell’s Bible. There was a
photograph of the windowsill where the prints were found by McNeely during the
crime scene investigation. There were various words, phrases written in a kind
of word cloud – ‘clean scene’, ‘prints on windowsill’, ‘morphine’, ‘photograph
of boy’, ‘confession?’, ‘Ryan Novak’, ‘Alice White’, ‘MONEY’ in uppercase
letters. There was a photo of the newspaper that Penny Gilfoyle had been
reading to Bill O’Donnell on the night the old man had flipped. And there was a
photograph of Doctor Brookline, postmortem, and a circle around that with a BIG
question mark by the side of it.

“More I
stare at it the less it makes sense,” Newton said. McNeely placed a hand on his
shoulder.

“You
okay, sir?”

“I’m
fine, Helen. Thanks. It’s just… I need to finish.”

McNeely
said, “Finish the case?”

Newton
said, “Just finish. I don’t know.”

“We’ll
catch this guy. Don’t we always?” And McNeely realized what she had said a
moment too late. She cringed inside and looked at Newton, who just stared at
the board and said nothing. McNeely said “fuck it” over and over in her head.
And then Newton turned to McNeely and said, “Yes, we will,” and he walked over
to the door, grabbed his coat from the stand, and strode out of the station,
leaving McNeely standing there, searching the evidence board for something.
Anything.

Ward read
his notebook and scratched at his head with his good hand. The swelling on his
Troy-damaged hand had gone down but the bruising was coming out and Ward
grimaced when he noticed it as he turned pages. He had scribbled notes down
from his meeting with Larsson and he looked for his next move. Decided it would
be to talk to the crazy old man who’d witnessed something. Something strange.
It was a long time ago and he didn’t expect to get anything from him but he
hadn’t a great deal else to do and his suspension meant he had to follow the
quiet leads that wouldn’t get noticed.

He called
Newton and got the address. Newton had the case memorized and knew everyone who
had provided a statement by name and address. He gave him the Novak address
too. Newton was on his way driving somewhere but he didn’t say where. Ward
didn’t press him. He just grabbed his hat and coat and hurried out to his car.
They’d taken his badge and weapon but the car was his own. He was grateful for
that.

He drove
the few miles out to where Ryan Novak had lived unhappily with his parents and
grandpa. He stopped in front of the house and a gust of wind blew a spiral of
tiny snow crystals around the car and up into the sky, which was so low it
seemed to crowd out daylight. A decent snowfall would lighten things a little
from the ground upwards at least. The car’s headlights shone upon the house and
showed it to be empty and the wooden shell was bleached out like a skeleton
left out in the desert. The place looked bandaged up in parts and the front
screen door slapped sluggishly at its frame. An ancient realtor’s sign leaned
untidily against a cherry tree which had forgotten its leaves and looked like
it yearned for sunlight and warmth. The screeching sound of the tree’s trunk
rubbing against the signpost seemed like a keen for the little boy who had
planted it.

Then Ward
thought he saw someone looking through one of the windows and he straightened up
in his seat. But as soon as he had seen them they disappeared. He stepped out
of the car and opened the scabbed front gate to the property and he walked up
to the house. A gust of wind tried to take his hat but he hung on to it and
peered through the window where he thought he’d seen somebody but the room was
empty save for dusty memories of the previous occupants. He walked around the
outside of the house and looked through all the windows but saw nothing. Then,
from inside the house, he heard a bang. Sounded like a door slamming shut. He
scuttled around to where he thought the sound had come from but the door was
open. Again he checked all the rooms but all the doors were open. He shook out
a shiver and returned to the car.

The crazy
man’s house was a half mile away – four streets and a couple of acres of scrub
wasteland and scattered pines. The house stood alone on the quiet street, set
back from the roadside and a thicker collection of planted trees shielded it
left and right but opened up to the road at the front like a theater curtain.
The field of vision to the road was narrow but somebody positioned in one of
the two front windows would get a good view of any activity outside the house
even when the deciduous trees were in full leaf. And somebody did today. Ward
saw a figure at the window. He climbed out of the car and walked past the
realtor’s sign that told that the house had been sold and he stepped slowly up
to the front door. Before he could knock, a woman of forty or some years
appeared at the door.

The woman
said, “Can I help you there?” Her voice was
snatchy
but amiable.

Ward
said, “Well, maybe you can and I appreciate any help you can give me. I’m
looking for a Mitch—” Before he could say the last name she said it for him.

“Filmore.
That’s my father.”

“Would
Mr. Filmore be—
”

“Should
say
was
my father. He passed this last year.”

“Oh, I’m
sorry to hear that.”

“Thank
you, sir. Say, who are you?”

“Sorry,
I’m Ward. Detective. And this sure was a long shot and I’m sorry to have taken your
time. Again, condolences for your loss.” He turned to walk back towards his
car.

“Only
time police have been to this house was when the little boy was missing.”

Ward
turned.

“Come in,
detective.”

He
followed her into the house and he saw that her stay was coming to an end.
Open, half-packed boxes. Black garbage bags full and tied off and piled up in a
corner in the hallway and spilling into another room.

“Just
getting rid of a few things. Now it’s sold I got to clean it out. House has
been empty since Dad died. Empty apart from all this. He kept things you and
me
would consider unnecessary clutter.”

In the
main living room the old furniture was covered with dust sheets and she pulled
back one which concealed a sofa and invited Ward to sit. She sat next to him.

“I lived
with him back then. I was his caregiver, you might say. But I had to move away.
Heartless as it sounds I couldn’t cope no longer. He was difficult. A handful.
You might say crazy. I bet that’s how Detective… Newton described him to you.”
She smiled at that and Ward smiled an apology on Newton’s behalf. “I guess
you’re looking at the case again. I saw his grandfather died.”

“Yes,
we’re taking a fresh look.”

“Well, if
I can help, then I will.”

“Do you
recall what your father saw that day? I know what it says in the report but I
wondered if—”

“I can.
In fact, I can do better than just tell you.” She got up and walked over to the
pile of garbage bags. “I only just threw them away. Now, which bag was it?” She
untied the knot in the top of one of the bags and she fished around inside.
“Not this one.” But the second one yielded what she was looking for. A handful
of papers. She handed them to Ward and he turned them over one by one. There
were drawings on all of them.

“You ask
me if he drank, I’d say he favored whiskey, cheaper the better. You ask me if
he’d been drinking that night I’d say most likely definitely. Can’t recall a
day he didn’t. You ask me if these drawings are the work of a crazy man, I’d
have to agree with Detective Newton on that score. All I can do is show you and
you make your own mind up.”

Each
drawing was a depiction of the same event. The old man, Filmore, had drawn
stick figures for people and one of the figures was small and was carried by a
taller figure. There were three other figures standing watching. Maybe talking.
They were all tall and the old crazy man had drawn them with large heads.
Typical alien shape with large eyes. They were standing beside two interstellar
vehicles. Spaceships. He had taken colored pens to draw on lights around and
underneath the spacecraft. What struck Ward was that neither were in the air,
flying. Ward turned to the woman and he smiled.

She said,
“Crazy, huh.”

Ward
flicked through the pictures. They were all variations on a theme.

“He’d
draw them pictures for years after the boy had gone. I would find them and
throw them away but I guess he stashed a few.”

Ward
said, “These seem to back up his statement at least.”

“Nobody
paid him no heed. Probably rightly so. But he was adamant he’d seen what he
saw. He would sit in the window and look out most nights while knocking back
his drink and he’d fall asleep there and once he was asleep there was no
shifting him. He had a big middle and was heavy.” She laughed and Ward laughed
with her. “I’d be pleased to help you more but that’s about all there is.”

“No,
that’s fine. Really helpful, ma’am.”

“You’re
from somewhere down in the South, aren’t you?”

“Texas.”

“Don’t
you mind the cold?”

“No,
ma’am. It’s mostly manageable.”

She
nodded. “It mostly is I guess.” She stood and Ward did too.

“Thank
you again for your help. Do you mind if I…”

She waved
a hand and said, “Take them. They’re yours. If I come across anything more I’ll
send them on to you. You can take the rest of these bags while you’re at it if
you want.”

Ward
smiled and reached into his pocket and pulled out his notepad and a pen. He
scribbled his phone number down and tore the page and handed it to the woman.
“You can get me here.”

She
studied the piece of paper. “You have a first name?”

Ward
said, “Ward will do. It’s what everybody calls me.”

“Well,
Ward, it was nice to meet you.” She held out her hand to shake. Ward shook it
gently and his hand passed the test.

“You
too.”

As he
went back out into the cold her last words followed him.

“He
wasn’t loco
perdido
, you know. He held down a hundred
and one jobs. Some for days at a time.” Her smile was infectious and Ward
returned to his car with the makings of a grin.

In the
car Ward turned the heat on full blast and studied the drawings. Drawings from
a crazy old man of an alien abduction. And he got the feeling that this was
probably the most significant evidence in the entire case. The only eyewitness
account from a crazy old man. He just had to figure out what the hell it meant.

Newton
pulled up outside Alice White’s house. The place glowed with lights lit in all
rooms. He sat there in his vehicle a while and then got out and walked up to
the door. He paused. Didn’t want to knock. But he knocked.

It took a
few moments for Alice to answer, but when she did there was no surprise on her
face. She asked him in.

In the
living room there were two cups set out for tea and a plate piled high with
cookies. Her own. The house smelled of baking. She poured two cups of tea and
Newton took one and sipped. He reached for a cookie and Alice smiled at him. He
noticed the tear on her cheek and he wanted to wipe it.

The tea
was hot but he knocked back a pill and took a gulp of hot liquid, which seared
his throat.

“You
seen
a back prodder?” Alice White said.

Newton
said, “I’ve seen two.”

“Maybe
it’s time to try something else. Something more spiritual. I can recommend
someone.”

“Maybe
some other time. Thank you.”

He sipped
the tea and chomped on a cookie and it tasted as sweet as any cookie he’d ever
tasted.

“Snow’s coming,”
Alice White said.

“I see
it,” Newton said.

“It sure
is cold.”

“It sure
is.”

They sat
there without speaking any more words for five minutes. Newton looked at his
hands. He looked out the window. Alice sat there and hummed a tune, almost
inaudibly. Newton felt he could fall asleep. Alice smiled at him. He smiled
back. He took another cookie and ate it in two bites. Alice smiled bigger.
Newton stood and went over to the dresser where there were a dozen pictures of
children. He picked one up and studied it. He put it down and picked up the
photograph album which sat on the bookcase. He flicked through it. He sat down
again. Finished off his tea. Alice made to pour some more but Newton held his
hand up and he stood.

“
Wisht
my husband had made your age,” Alice said. “The Lord
had other plans for him unfortunately. Your wife is a lucky lady. She knows it.
Do you?”

Newton
was in the doorway with his back to her. He paused and then turned to briefly
look into Alice’s watery eyes and then he left.

Tommy’s
Bar was empty apart from two men who looked like they’d been at work but
probably hadn’t. Newton ordered a beer and immediately made a call on his cell
phone.

The big
bear of a man with the full salt-and-pepper beard arrived thirty minutes later
after telephone negotiation had failed. Newton hadn’t touched the beer. He’d
swiveled the bottle a thousand times and peeled back the label and scrunched it
into a perfect ball. And then he’d shaped it into a cube and continued to work
at it until his sponsor arrived. But he hadn’t taken a solitary swig. The
bartender had eyed him peripherally once or twice. Newton left the bar with the
man and then he got in his car and drove off.

The call
he got from the warden at the Montana State Prison came as he was driving to
nowhere.