The Grave - An Oxrun Station Novel (Oxrun Station Novels) Read online

  "Fred? You there, Fred?"

  Borg grunted and gestured vaguely toward the wreck, out toward the hills to the north. "Tourists," he said; and from the tone Josh knew that was a condemnation in itself. "Damned fools must've been up at the mines. Seems they came down looks like a zillion miles an hour and missed the turn to the pike." He shook his head in saddened disgust. "Best I can tell from what was left, they were young, too. Don't think I have to go up there to see what they were doing. Just dumb speeding is all that happened. Dumb, stupid, half-assed speeding."

  A half-dozen automobiles appeared at the intersection simultaneously, and as Borg popped a whistle between his teeth to sort out the confusion and wave on the rubberneckers, Josh wandered away, up the center of the tarmac along the path the car had taken. Absently, he fumbled in his jacket pocket and pulled out a short-stemmed pipe that had never seen a flake of tobacco. With the rough-sided bowl mouth down, he bit on the stem and chewed it thoughtfully, every few paces glancing up to imagine the car sweeping out of the forest like a hornet from its nest.

  Five minutes later he knew what was bothering the police—there were no skid marks; it was as though the driver had deliberately rammed into the tree, no sign at all he had tried to dodge it.

  He shuddered and returned to his car, waited until Borg had a free moment to join him.

  "Yeah," Borg said, seeing the expression on his face. "Pretty sick, if you ask me."

  "Drinking?"

  Borg shrugged.

  "How about drugs? Wouldn't be the first time around here, you know."

  "Couldn't tell you, Josh. They were all dead and smashed when we got here. Got a call there was an accident out this way, but by the time everything got moving . . ." and he waved a hand wearily.

  Beneath the driver's door Josh could see a pool of dark, viscous liquid; he hoped it was oil. "How many were there?"

  Borg looked down at him and grinned. "You working for the Herald now, Josh?"

  He shrugged, embarrassed. "Nope. Just nosy, that's all."

  "Yeah, well, this one you'd like, pal, believe me."

  One evening just over two years ago, Borg had come to Josh, asking if he could locate a one-of-a-kind photograph of his wife's mother. He had taken part of a short vacation in Seattle to locate it, had taken no payment for it after he'd returned, and Alice Borg had become his friend for life. She did not understand, or pretended not to understand, that there were still some things he liked doing for fun.

  "Yessir," Borg said, rubbing his hands together as though he were chilled, "you'd love this one, pal, absolutely."

  "Well, are you going to tell me, or am I going to have to guess?"

  Borg cleared his throat and pointed. "There were five people in that car there, Josh. Every one of them was killed on the spot. Two got tossed through the windshield, landed fifty yards into them bushes back there; one got dumped out the other door and broke her neck hitting the ground; one got smacked against the dash, nothing left of his face."

  Josh felt slightly nauseated, but swallowed hard to keep it down. "You said five. That's only four."

  "Yeah. Seems to me, friend, one of them got himself away."

  Josh stared at the glass and slivers of metal, pieces of the car's interior strewn over the road and its shoulder, at the wrenched and fire-blackened metal, at the finally successful work of the tow truck's personnel, and he shook his head emphatically. "No, Fred. That's just not possible."

  "Maybe," the policeman said, "but we got parts that don't exactly match up with what we got."

  "What?" He looked up at the tall man, astonished, though he wasn't at all sure he wanted to hear it.

  With a brusque nod Borg indicated a small, dark plastic bag lying near the rear wheel of the last ambulance. The attendants had just placed a much larger one inside, and one of them was reaching down for what was left. "That's an arm in there, Josh," Borg told him, waving at the attendant to go ahead into town. "Now I got a good look at all the others that were in there, they have all their arms and legs . . . or what's left of them, that is. That one there, my friend, belongs to somebody we don't know about yet."

  He looked to the trees, to his hands, to the dim reflection of the ambulance's red light spinning over his hood. When he was able to look back, Borg nodded.

  I suppose, Josh thought, it was just remotely possible. Shock, trauma, the miracle of escaping the death his friends had suffered. The body can do strange things when it's violently attacked; maybe this guy was thrown clear after the amputation, didn't know what he was doing. "Well," he said finally, "he couldn't have gotten all that far, right? I mean, he had to have more done to him than just losing an arm, right?"

  "Wish I knew."

  The other patrolman called out, then, holding in his right hand the station wagon's mike. Borg muttered something Josh didn't catch and lumbered away, nodding all right all right I'm coming already as he crossed the road and stepped gingerly around a gleaming ribbon of chrome.

  The second ambulance left.

  Josh hugged himself as the tow truck finally wrenched the sedan off the willow stump, the chain rattling over the winch, particles of rust flaking to the ground. One of the men, his coveralls slicked with grease and perspiration, wiped his hands on a rag and joined the policemen, nodding, laughing once at something the younger cop said, then punched Borg's shoulder lightly and returned to the truck. A moment later it backfired, gained traction, and trundled onto the pike. As the sedan straightened out behind it, a hubcap fell off; it didn't roll, it didn't spin—it just lay there on the black.

  Nosy, he thought then. Ghoul. I should get back in the car and go home is what I should do. Go to the office and take Fel up on all her invitations. That's what the hell I should do, goddamnit.

  Instead, when Borg came back, he pulled out his pipe and, with one finger wrapped around the bowl, he used the stem as a pointer. "They came right down here, right?" He didn't look up. "They didn't try to stop—unless the brakes weren't working—they just took off and did that tree in. Doors fly open, windshield blows all to hell, you have bodies squashed all over the place. Right? Am I right, or am I right?"

  Borg spun his whistle around on its leather strap, the silver blurring to white in the sun. "I said the same thing to Karl over there. I must've said it a hundred times. He thinks I'm crazy."

  "Karl," Josh said, "is a goddamned idiot."

  "You don't even know him." The protest was halfhearted.

  "I don't have to. I know what I see, Fred. What I don't see is a guy walking away from this thing."

  "Yeah."

  "Anyway, if he did, there has to be blood, doesn't there? He must have been bleeding like a pig."

  Borg nodded, ran a hand over sandy hair that was thinning and coarse. "Trouble is, Karl and I have been all over this place, Josh. We didn't see a thing. The only body we found . . . the only bodies we found were right there where I told you before."

  Josh shaded his eyes, inhaled, blew out the breath as slowly as he could. "Fred, I will say it again—a man, or a woman, is not going to be in that wreck, lose an arm, and walk away. Or at the very least, Fred, walk away without leaving a trail of blood, for god's sake!"

  "Yeah," Fred said. "Tell me about it."

  Chapter 4

  The drive back to the village was something more than a little unpleasant. Though he ordered himself several times to think about other things—Mrs. Thames, for example, and her damned hand plow—he could not help an occasional guilty glance to the verge of the two-lane road, to the heavy concentration of trees beyond, could not help straining to catch a glimpse of a telltale gleam of fresh blood, or the unquestionable sprawl of a mangled body at the base of one of the high stone walls that encircled an estate. It was ridiculous, and he knew it, and he once almost drove off the road because his mind wouldn't connect to his hands on the driving.

  At one point, nearly a mile in from Cross Valley, his throat contracted suddenly and his mouth filled with cotton when he spotted a gla
re of red in a thicket of high weeds. The Buick swerved as he braked, bucked when he slammed the gears into reverse and backed up swiftly. He rubbed a hand on the seat beside him, prayed he would see the police station wagon in the rearview mirror. Then he slid over to the opposite door, rolled down the window, and looked out. Cursed, laughed weakly, and returned to the wheel. It had been a sign, a small one, tipped by winter onto its side and weathered almost to the point of disintegration. On it, however, were the dull remnants of the words KRAYLIN CLINIC, lettered in a stubborn red that had thus far resisted the seasons. He had no idea what it meant, had no wish to investigate; he only drove a little faster, alternately swearing at himself and stealing swift glances at the speedometer's warnings.

  A vacation, he decided then, thinking of Seattle and Alice Borg's mother. What he needed, obviously, was a break in his admittedly sporadic routine. How else could he explain his sudden nervousness? It wasn't as if this were the first accident he had ever come across, nor would it be the last. While he'd been in the Air Force he had seen two jet fighters splatter themselves in flames over the length of a runway, had seen the charred remains of the pilot inside. That was certainly much worse than a car wrapped around a tree. Definitely much worse.

  But he could not shake the image of a one-armed man staggering through the trees, slowly bleeding to death.

  That was the kind of mystery he wanted no part of at all.

  At last, and none too soon, the trees fell away and the Station's heart was revealed.

  The park and its tall, wrought-iron fencing appeared on his left, stopped at Park Street, was replaced by the library and its roof-high arched windows facing the pike. The next street was Centre and he turned left, an immediate right, and nearly sideswiped a motorcycle in a hasty U-turn that put him directly in front of his office. He sat for a moment, listening to the engine cooling. An arm and no body. He rubbed the side of his nose hard, yanked on his cap, shook his head, and snatched the keys from the ignition. Then, with a deep breath, he looked to his right and smiled.

  The plate glass display window had been washed only that morning, and still shimmered brightly over dark patches unevaporated on the pavement. There was nothing on the ledge inside but two broad-leaved plants in brown-and-white pots that completely masked the office beyond. But the quietly gold Miller's Mysteries in a crescent just above the center had always been sufficient to bring several outsiders through the door during a typical day, if only to discover exactly what he was selling. Most of these people listened to Felicity's spiel politely enough and left somewhat bemused, sometimes no further enlightened; others thought she was kidding and wanted to know where the camera was hidden; and there were a handful a month, seldom more than a half dozen, who called within a day or so with something for him to find.

  Directly past the door was a broad area carefully defined by a multi-shaded brown hook rug upon which were arranged a quartet of club chairs in deep brown leather studded with gold, two small cocktail tables, and four ashtray stands in brass. There were no magazines, no colorful brochures, no price lists or catalogues to browse through or pick from. The walls held prints of Turner and O'Keeffe, movie posters, pen-and-inks and watercolors of the Oxrun Station a century earlier when the elms and chestnuts on Centre Street were still young and the road itself was wider and cobblestoned. It was not, then, a place for waiting, or a haven to pass the time while someone else in the family was wandering around shopping.

  Past the rug and the chairs and also touched with artwork was a seven-foot walnut partition, open in the center and through which could be seen Felicity's desk, always neat, always with a clear glass vase and a single rose in the right-hand corner. His own workspace was kept deliberately out of sight to the left, a virtually clichéd contrast to the rest of the office's orderliness.

  Felicity was waiting for him when he came in, a handful of pink message slips in her hand. Her hair was auburn and tightly curled, rounding her face more than necessary and accenting her huge eyes: her cardigan was buttoned to just below her breasts, her plain tan skirt hovering in folds about the center of her knees.

  "Oh, Jesus," she said in disgust as he passed her and sat down. He looked to his boots and jeans and grimaced at the mud and the leaves and a few strips of grass. His knees were damp. The front of his shirt almost as filthy. He toed open the bottom drawer of his desk and hooked his heels on its edge. "That does it, Miller, I quit."

  "No you don't," he said. "I'll clean it up later."

  Her sour expression caught his tired lie, but all he could do was lift his hands to his shoulders and give her a shrug.

  She grunted, then stepped back to lean against her own desk, left hand cupping right elbow, while she stared down at the messages. "They found an arm without a body out there on Cross Valley," she said flatly. She pointed to her cheek.

  "I know." He took out his handkerchief, spat on a corner, and scrubbed at his face, just below his left eye. The cloth came away black. He dropped it in the wastebasket with a long silent whistle.

  Fel looked to the ceiling, back to snare his gaze. "Damnit, Miller, how the hell did you find that out?"

  He grinned at her unashamed. "I was there, m'dear. The question is, how did you manage to get the news so soon? Fred Borg was still out there when I left."

  "I have a friend at the hospital," she said smugly. "He's one of the drivers. Called not twenty minutes ago with all the gory details." The right corner of her mouth curled almost to a sneer. "You going to look for it?"

  "What?"

  "The body. You going to track it down so they can sew it back on?"

  "Come on, Fel, that isn't very funny." He thought of the sedan, the wind, the robin, the sudden cold. No, he thought; it wasn't funny at all.

  "No skin off my nose," she muttered. Then she shook the messages at him to get back his attention. "Mrs. Hampton called just after you left. She's the one who's rebuilding the Toal mansion out there on the Pike?" She waited; he gave her no response. "She wants to know if you can get her a Victrola. She also wants to know if you can get her the dog that goes with it."

  He cupped one hand to his cheek and leaned his elbow on the desk blotter. "Hell, no. She could find that in a dozen antique or collectors' catalogues."

  "Good. That's what I told her." She stopped, frowned, tilted her head slightly. "You all right, Josh?"

  "Yeah, Sort of. No, not really." He told her what had happened out in the valley, from his failure to come up with a clue to the plow, to the robin the wind had battered and left on his car, to the accident at the intersection and what he had seen there . . . and what he had not. "It has not been, dear Fel, the bestest of days." He nodded toward the slips before she could respond. "Go ahead. What else?"

  "You sure you'll make it?"

  He couldn't help a smile. She may use just a shade too much make-up, and she may not know how to drape her figure, and her typing wasn't perfect and her manner not at all, but when her voice softened and her eyes began to glitter as though about to cry, he knew he would kill if anyone tried to get her from him.

  "Yes indeed," he told her. "I'll make it." He reached for a cigarette from the humidor on the desk.

  "You smoke too much."

  He snatched his hand back and wiped it against his jacket. Started. Pushed away from the chair and took the jacket off, dropping it on the floor in the middle of the desk-well. On his back and across his chest he could feel grains of dirt, a blade of weed or two, and he rolled his shoulders, arched his back to give him some comfort.

  "You finished?"

  He nodded.

  "Okay. Frederick Thousman wants a first edition of The Roman Hat Mystery," She held up a palm to forestall interruption. "I told him. I told him. I also told him you'd strangle him if he got to it before you." While he laughed, she reached around behind her and picked up a thin, long package wrapped in brown paper. Tapped it once against her midriff and handed it to him. Inside was an angled pewter spoon whose handle was five inches long, its b
owl deep and engraved with oak leaves and holly. It was lidded, the lid perforated where age had not clogged the tiny holes. "Sandy McLeod found this in that dead orchard in the field on the other side of Mainland. I gave him fifty for it and told him he could quit work in the bookstore and come work for us. He refused on the grounds that Iris and Paul would collapse without him."

  Josh lifted it carefully from its shredded paper nest and held it high to the light, turned it, blew on it while dusting over it with one thumb. "Teaspoon. So what?"

  "Mrs. Hampton might want it. It would keep her off our backs."

  He replaced the spoon with care and dropped the box into his drawer. He seldom dealt with antiques such as that, and he had little knowledge of their worth beyond a layman's overview. That sort of thing he left to Felicity and the warren of catalogues she kept on a shelf along the rear wall. "You might as well write her about it. It looks ugly as sin."

  "What would you know about sin?" Fel said. "Dale Blake dropped by. She wants to know if you can get her some sheet music from The Blackbirds of 1929, whatever the hell that is. Was it a radio show or something?"

  "Nope. An all-black review of that very same year," he told her, interested for the first time since coming in the door. "Sheet music she wants?"

  Felicity nodded.

  "Sounds like fun." More, it sounded like the task that had gotten him started.

  "I don't know," she said doubtfully. "I don't mean to knock your friends, Josh, but can she afford it? That's going to take time, and a lot of expense if you have to traipse all over the city, if not the East."

  Dale Blake was the owner-operator of Bartlett's Toys, and he had known her since childhood, though they had never been all that close. He had been to her wedding to Vic Blake, and had been at the funeral of their adopted son, Jaimie, killed in a drowning accident in the park pond only the autumn before. Curious, he thought then, remembering the service; Dale was one of those women who seemed somehow better, almost relieved, when all of it was done and the last clod of dirt filled in the grave. Not that she was glad, of course; it was just one of those reactions that intrigued and bemused him. People, he'd long since decided, were worse than a jigsaw puzzle with ten pieces missing—every time you think you've got them, they hit you with a blank you can't fill in no matter how much you extrapolate from the picture around them. He laughed suddenly, and shook Fel's questioning glance off with a wave of his hand. A mixed metaphor . . . a mangled metaphor like that was prime ammunition for someone like her. Let it pass, Josh; she has ammunition enough.