An End to a Silence: A mystery novel (The Montana Trilogy Book 1) (22 page)

“He can
take you to where Ryan is buried,” she said.

“She said
what?” Gammond said.

“He knows
where Ryan is buried. Ward’s going to take a team out there. O’Donnell used to
take the boy to his brother’s grave. It’s out over in the National Forest.”

Gammond
seemed confused. Not sure where to put his hands. “That means O’Donnell’s the
killer. You see?”

“We’ll
get the body and take it from there.”

“But he
must’ve done it. He buried the boy. You were right.”

“Was I?
What about Lafayette? You had him definitely done it.”

Gammond’s
words wouldn’t come out and he got red in the face.

“You
going with Ward?” Gammond said eventually. “It was your case.”

“It’s
Ward’s case now. I messed it up first time around.”

“Okay,”
Gammond said. He paused and then said, “Tell him he has everything he needs.
Men. Chopper. All it takes.”

“He’s on
it.”

“You get
to wrap up this case once and for all. Now, it’s important you keep me informed
on developments. This is a sensitive story still. And don’t let it out. We keep
a lid on this. I need to get my head around this. Dang.”

Newton
stood in the parking lot. He looked up at the sky and it looked set to fall
again and the day had darkened. He put his head in his hands and his fingers
ran up through his hair. He felt a pain in his chest like a sharp object
skittering around in there. And then he felt the cold hand grip his heart and
he made to grab at his chest but his arm was weak. And then he fell.

Newton
was dead. That’s what they told him later. McNeely’s quick thinking and
proficiency with the defibrillator which they kept at the station had cranked
his heart back up. He would thank her later by buying her flowers. She would
receive them graciously and then throw them into the trash on her way home as
she’d always hated flowers. Remind her of funeral homes.

“It’s
been six months.”

“I don’t
give a damn,” Newton says.

“That’s a
hell of a quote,” Larsson says.

“Listen
here–”

“Now,
don’t let’s get falling out, detective. I’m just doing my job here. Throw me a
bone. Some gristle if you want. I’ve got five hundred words I need to pluck out
of somewhere. How do you want this to read? It’s basically your choice.”

Newton
takes in an ocean-deep breath and he silently mouths the numbers one through ten.

“Anything.
I’ll take some routine bullshit but I need to attribute it to a source,”
Larsson says.

After
another short pause Newton says, “Make something up. Just… make something up,”
and he bounces the phone back in its cradle.

Bill
O’Donnell is sitting in a tiny room which is filled with tools, cleaning
equipment and a plethora of smells – oil, bleach,
paint
.
The paint smell makes him feel nauseous and he thinks of Ryan. The only
remaining piece of store cupboard realty is taken up by a child-sized chair
which creaks under his weight. He just sits there. The door is all the way open
and heavy footsteps pound towards the room as the school bell sounds. Newton
appears, fresh snowfall melting on his shoulders and head.

“Where is
the body?” Newton says. It’s the first time he’s called the boy a body but not
the first time he’s thought it. In fact, he’d thought it from the start if he
was honest with himself. But honesty and denial had butted against one another
for too long.

Classroom
doors can be heard opening and the muffled cheerful clamor of children zigzags
the corridors above them.

“How
would I know that?”

“How
would you know that? You tell me. What did you do with Ryan’s body? You take it
out in the woods? You bury it out there?”

“You dug up
my garden.”

“We’ll
dig up the entire National Forest if we have to but you could make it a hell of
a lot easier on yourself if you just tell me where it is.”

“This is
harassment, sir,” Bill O’Donnell says, and he stands up suddenly and faces
Newton. “Do you have no respect? Do you know what you’ve done to me?”

Newton
takes a step forward and bends down into O’Donnell’s face and their noses
almost touch.

“You
killed him. I know that. And you’re going to tell me where the body is. Right
here and now. Let’s go, you son of a bitch. Game’s over.”

O’Donnell
stands and finds himself toe to toe with Newton.

“You get
satisfaction from harassing a grieving grandparent? That it? Shame on you, sir.
Shame on you.”

“You
killed that boy,” Newton says, but his previously gusting words are a breeze
now.

“I didn’t
kill nobody,” O’Donnell says. “Thing is, you can’t handle the fact that you
ain’t done your job. You ain’t found the boy. You ain’t done nothing but come
at me.”

“And I’ll
keep coming till it kills me,” Newton says.

O’Donnell’s
eyes linger on Newton’s and then he sits down.

“I wish I
could tell you more. I really do. Fact is, we both know Ryan is dead. Fact is,
neither of us knows where he is. Fact is, you’ve gotten nowhere with this. You
ain’t even looking no more. Be honest. Fact is, you’ve tried your best to pin
this on me. And for what? What you got against me? I’m also a victim in this.
Can’t you see that? Ryan was my grandson. My flesh and blood. You think I
could’ve killed my own grandson? You got children of your own? You could kill
them? You don’t know me. You’re clutching at straws. After all this time you’re
still clutching at straws. Well, I ain’t having no part of it no more. I’m done
answering questions. I’m done being harassed. I want to get on with my life
best I can. It’s not easy but I take it a day at a time. Sure, I have guilt.
But it ain’t the kind of guilt comes with taking another’s life. It’s the guilt
says I might have been able to stop Ryan being taken in the first place. The
kind that says I should’ve been there for him. I wasn’t, though. And that guilt
will live with me forever. I carry it around like an overcoat on a sunny day.
So with respect, detective, I’m done with helping you. You go on and get on
with your life. Look at you. Just look at you.”

It’s a
while before Newton speaks. His eyes are heavy with fatigue. His jacket has
stains on it. He smells sour.

“You
killed him” is all he says, and he draws the words from his shoes but they die
off in the traveling. They are to be the last three words he will ever say to
Bill O’Donnell.

Newton
doesn’t hear the last words O’Donnell will ever say to him as he is already
down the end of the corridor when they are said. O’Donnell just says, “I know
where Ryan is buried but I didn’t kill him.”

McNeely
noticed that Ward’s left leg was set to jiggling.

“You go,”
she said. “I’d like to stay. That okay?” The question was directed at a nurse,
who was injecting something into a tube that ran into the back of Newton’s
hand. The nurse nodded.

“You his
wife?” The nurse said.

“His wife
is on the way here. I’m a colleague.”

“Strictly
speaking it should be next of kin only,” the nurse said, and Mallory and Jen
walked into the room.

“We’re
his family,” Mallory said.

Jen had
been crying. She said, “Oh my…”

“How is
he? Is he going to be okay?” Mallory said, his voice a little shaky.

“He needs
rest,” the nurse said.

“But he’s
going to be okay, right?” Mallory said.

“He’s
poorly but he’s going to be okay,” the nurse said. “And it’s getting a bit
crowded in here.”

“We’re
his family,” Mallory said, and he glared at Ward and McNeely.

“We’re
going,” Ward said, and he stood and saw the look of anger swelling in McNeely’s
face. He gestured with his head for McNeely to go with him.

Ward
turned to Jen and said, “Tell him… when he wakes up tell him I’ve gone to bring
Ryan back.”

Jen
nodded. Mallory just gawked at Ward with his mouth working an unformed
sentence. Ward put his hat on and stood at the bottom of the bed where Newton
slept. The man in the bed lay like a toppled statue.

“And tell
him… just tell him to take it easy, okay?” He took McNeely’s arm and led her
away.

“I saved
his life and goddamn Mallory—”

“It’s
okay. You go home and get some rest.”

“That son
of a bitch—” McNeely said, and she punched the air in front of her.

“I know
it but it don’t do no good to let him get to you.”

McNeely
just growled and she walked away from Ward and he stood there and watched her
and he could hear her grumbling as she walked. He turned and headed towards his
car.

The cold
was intense. Tiny ice crystals fell from the sky, seemingly jewels shaved from
stars, and they blew in his face and stuck to his beard. It was still light but
only just. The helicopter would be here soon and they had to move quickly.

He knew the
chopper wouldn’t fly if this weather got worse. He knew that he had limited
time to get to the burial site before it was completely covered under a
significant snowfall. He knew they had to go now to stand any chance of getting
the job done before springtime. The job of getting Ryan’s body back. And he
knew that Newton needed the little boy.

He called
the station. Poynter picked up. Asked for news on Newton. Ward told him he was
stable. He would be okay. Then Ward checked with Poynter if they’d got all the
equipment ready. They had. They would be navigated by John White, who was still
sitting in the interview room at the station.

John
White still hadn’t said a word and now the helicopter’s rotor blades whupped
like thunder and everything on the ground below them began to shrink. Packham,
the medical examiner, was there, sitting with Poynter. They were behind Ward,
who sat beside John White. John White pointed to a region of the National
Forest on a map and Ward leaned over to the pilot and indicated where John
White had pointed. The pilot nodded and then the nose of the helicopter dipped
and Ward’s stomach did a roll as they gathered speed. The pilot had told them
he would have to fly low due to the weather and that had set Ward’s nerves on
edge. He had never gotten used to flying, even though he had done it dozens of
times during his military service.

Ward
turned to John White and asked, “Did your grandfather tell you anything about
how Ryan got out here?” John White shook his head.

The town
was soon behind them and it became a cluster of twinkling lights and stretched
out in front was a gathering tide of white upon green upon white. In the
distance the
white mountain
peaks stood like ancient
pyramids and the trees seemed as ghosts migrating in parallax motion. They
followed the interstate for ten minutes and then the pilot caressed the
helicopter on a gentle curve rightwards and then all they could see when they
looked down was forest and snapshots of a long narrow lake. In places the trees
seemed smaller and greener where the forest had been scorched in years
previous.

The pilot
glanced around at Ward and Ward opened up a second map and passed that to John
White. John White studied the map for a minute and then he again indicated a
point on it and Ward showed the pilot, who looked at his navigation system and
made a small correction left and then he straightened. Less than five minutes
later John White said his first words.

“It’s
here,” he said, and his voice was gentle and almost inaudible under the helicopter’s
rotors. “Sure looks different up above it.”

Ward gave
the pilot the signal of an inverted thumb and the pilot cast his head around,
looking at the landscape below. He banked right and they turned a wide circle
in the air.

Ward
asked, “That look okay down there?”

They
circled again and then the helicopter leveled off and began to descend.

“The
ground will sure be hard,” John White said as they unloaded the equipment from
the helicopter.

They
unloaded pickaxes as well as spades. Picks for the top layer of earth and
spades for the finer work further down.

“It
gets any colder we’re going to need ice axes,” Poynter said.

Packham
had his own case and he was the last out of the helicopter.

The pilot
said to Ward, “I’ll be back in two hours and if you’re not here you freeze to
death in the forest,” and Ward knew that wasn’t negotiable. Anyone crazy enough
to fly one of those things deserved the final say. Anyone crazy enough to fly
one of those things was crazy enough to make good on such a threat.

Once they
had all their equipment lugged onto their backs Ward said, “Which way?” and
John White studied the trees around him and then started walking east and he
led them from the clearing where they had landed and off into dense pine forest
and they began to climb upwards. The engines of the helicopter whined but the
sound was muffled already by the trees and they didn’t see it take off. Ward
checked his watch.

Ward was
stripped down to his shirt already and he cast his hat onto his discarded
clothes and wiped the sweat from his forehead and then swung again. And again.
John White was right, the ground was hard, but they had already gotten down a
foot. Poynter was willing but not as strong as Ward so Ward took most of the
work while the others danced on the spot trying to keep warm. The medical
examiner’s face had started to take on a bluish hue.

They had
cleared a rectangular perimeter of rocks that John White said he had recently
put there so that he could mark the exact spot in case the vegetation got ideas
of hiding the grave.

Ward
stood and stretched his back and steam almost hissed off his body and then he
threw the pickax to the ground and picked up the spade and removed the soil
that he had just chopped up. The strapping on his hand had worked loose so he
unraveled it and tossed it to one side and he gingerly clenched his fist a few
times.

Then John
White removed his own coat and he picked up another spade and he climbed into
the shallow pit and he started to ease the spade into the soil carefully.

“Like
this,” he said to Ward and Ward nodded and knew the body wouldn’t be much
deeper. He stepped aside and let John White carry on working with the spade.

Fifteen
minutes later John White stopped. He went down on his knees and started to
scrape away the soil with his hands, slowly revealing the small shape of the
boy’s body wrapped in a sheet.

Packham
was both amazed and delighted.

“It’s
like a mummy,” he said, and he smiled to himself but nobody else was smiling.

The
wrappings on the body had been toughened by some substance or substances known
only, for now at least, to Bill O’Donnell and the sheet traced the contours of
the small bundle so that you could tell it was a body.

They
didn’t unwrap it. Ward thought of Newton and thought the parcel that he lifted
now, with the help of Poynter and John White, was a get-well gift to him.

The
remaining hint of light was moving elsewhere now and they needed flashlights on
their journey back to where they could hear
the whup
of the helicopter’s rotors. Ward hoped the pilot would give them time to get
there.

The
wrapped boy was on a stretcher now and they loaded him onto the helicopter.
John White touched him. He’d never been this close to his brother. Ward placed
his hand on John’s shoulder and smiled.

Ward
said, “Thank you.”

“Do you
think he can come back here?” John White asked.

“Well, I
don’t know that,” Ward said. “I guess there are regulations on burying people
in the forest.”

“Okay,” John
White said. “Will you find out?”

Ward
said, “I’ll do my best.”