The Church of Dead Girls (27 page)

The news that Harry Martini had nothing to do with Meg's disappearance took longer to circulate than the news that he was a suspect. When he returned to school around two o'clock the same afternoon, several students who encountered him in the hall panicked and ran the other way. This response was not confined to the school. Questions were asked at the school board meeting, the PTA, and the city council. Were the children safe with Harry as principal? There was talk that he might be suspended, though I think this was exaggerated. Clearly, he would have been in less trouble had he confessed at the beginning to spending his time with a lady from Utica. Then, the next week, when Harry's supposed involvement with the disappearances was beginning to be forgotten, his wife filed for divorce.

This incident with Harry was one of many. I know for a fact that Paul Leimbach and two other members of the Friends of Sharon Malloy visited Make Waves and talked with Jaime Rose. Cookie said it was perfectly friendly, but who knows? Indeed, it was more significant that they were seen going into Make Waves than what came of it. Just as it was more significant that Donald Malloy and several others were seen going into Harry's office. Once people were suspected, and there were also others, it was hard to get them unsuspected. And everyone still remembered that they had been suspects long after the whole business was over.

But it was even more complicated. As I've said, I received a certain attention as a single middle-aged man who appeared to have an interest in adolescent girls. Well, I felt glad when Harry was suspected because it drew attention away from me. To be sure, I felt guilty about this. I have never liked Harry. He is silly and officious and he struts like a rooster, but the fact that I was glad he was suffering, that people were looking in his direction and not in mine, made me feel terrible. And I'm convinced that others, secretly, felt the same way.

Two other incidents should be briefly mentioned. On Monday morning, November 6, Tom Schneider showed up at police headquarters and asked to be arrested. Schneider owned a Mobil station at the edge of town. He claimed to be a pervert and wanted to be put in jail, though he said he had nothing to do with the disappearances of Sharon and Meg. But it was clear he expected to be blamed. Schneider said he'd had sex with his two children, both in their early teens. He said that his wife knew and that he was confessing because she had threatened to report him if he didn't. He said she also suspected him of having something to do with Sharon Malloy and Meg Shiller, but he swore he'd had nothing to do with them.

Ryan talked to Schneider's wife and two children. He talked to Schneider's neighbors and family doctor, and the result was that Schneider was charged with a number of counts of incest and sexual abuse. He was in jail for several days, then released on bail. Apparently he hired someone to run the Mobil station and he himself received permission to stay in Utica or Rome—I'm not sure which—until the trial date. Even though there was no evidence, people suggested he might also have been involved with Sharon and Meg. A week after Schneider was charged, someone smashed the windows of his gas station and knocked over one of the pumps. The next day the man whom Schneider had hired to run the station put plywood over the windows and closed the station. Not long after, someone wrote “Sex Maniac” on the plywood with red spray paint. No one bothered to remove it.

The second incident concerned Billy Perkins, a local drunk who lived on a small check from the Veterans Administration. Two days after Schneider turned himself in, Perkins showed up at police headquarters. He was frightened. He had been drunk on Halloween night. Several young men told him that he had probably killed Meg Shiller but Billy had no memory one way or the other. Once he had killed a dog when he had been drunk and this still haunted him. Billy asked to be locked up. He was afraid if he went out on the streets he would be beaten, even killed, by the Friends of Sharon Malloy.

My cousin was one of two policemen assigned to discover Billy's whereabouts on Halloween. They learned that he had bought a bottle of Old Duke at the liquor store around six in the evening. They talked to the two men he shared it with, who had bought two more. His landlord, Pat O'Shay, said Billy had returned to his room around midnight. He had been singing military songs. The landlord told Chuck that Billy often did this. On Halloween night the landlord had asked Billy to shut up. Billy had been apologetic and went quickly to bed.

Pat O'Shay said, “He's a wreck but he's a nice guy.”

Billy agreed to go into a treatment center in Syracuse. He had been there before, but maybe this time would be different. Actually, Ryan wanted to get Billy out of town. It was clear that Billy had nothing to do with Sharon or Meg, but in the eyes of some people he was still a potential suspect and he might be in danger. It was the suspicion again, the fact that people were frightened and were eager to find someone to blame for the disappearances. But now I have gotten too far ahead of myself.

W
hen Ryan came upon the snow-covered body of Houari Chihani, he could imagine what had happened. He could see that someone had used a baseball bat on the Citroën and he knew that earlier in the evening Hark and his cronies had been playing mailbox baseball out in the country. Ryan guessed the Citroën had been hit about thirty times. He felt a swelling of rage toward Hark and he wanted to smash him and his friends as they had smashed the little red car.

Irving Powell stood in the driveway. “Can I go now?” he asked. He had put the chocolate Lab on a leash and he held Chihani's beret in his left hand. Sticking from under Powell's overcoat were blue striped pajama bottoms. He was a man in his fifties who had lived in the neighborhood all his life.

“Of course not,” snapped Ryan, “you're part of a murder investigation.” Then he relented. “Go home, put some clothes on, then come back right away. And leave your dog at home.”

John Farulli was on the desk. Ryan told him that it looked like Chihani had been murdered. Ryan knew that Chief Schmidt would be called and all the police machinery set in motion. The street would be sealed off. People would be questioned and arrest warrants prepared. And because nearly every cop in the county was searching for Meg Shiller, Ryan would be shorthanded.

Soon the police began to arrive. In the hours that followed, three Halloween masks were found: a black mask with a moustache, a broken Mickey Mouse mask, and a green grasshopper mask. A Mets baseball cap turned up, as well as Chihani's cane. The police also collected six Budweiser bottles, two half full. The snow in the yard was crisscrossed with footprints. The neighbors across the street—Mrs. Morotti and James Pejewski—said they had called the police the previous evening. They described how some men had smashed the Citroën with baseball bats. They were unable to identify Jeb Hendricks's Chevy Blazer precisely but said it was a red four-wheel-drive vehicle.

“It didn't have a windshield,” said James Pejewski. “I couldn't get over it. Those guys must have been cold.”

There were about ten policemen involved in talking to neighbors and searching Chihani's yard. Mrs. Morotti made them coffee. “Be careful,” she kept saying, “it's very hot.”

Franklin Moore arrived just as two attendants were lifting Chihani's body onto a stretcher. The ambulance would take him to Potterville for the county coroner to do the autopsy. Like Ryan and the other policemen, Franklin had been up all night but he had managed to shave. While the policemen looked gray, with circles under their eyes, Franklin looked fresh and eager. He wore his old sheepskin coat and his striped scarf.

“How's Sadie?” asked Ryan.

“I just drove her to school. She's all right—a little dazed. What happened here?”

They were standing by the ambulance sipping coffee from blue ceramic mugs. Mrs. Morotti had said a dozen times that she wanted all her mugs back and she even put a policeman, Henry Swender, in charge of retrieving them.

“Hark Powers showed up here with his friends and smashed up Chihani's Citroën,” said Ryan. “Chihani probably came out to protest, and so they smashed him up as well.”

“Have they been arrested?” asked Franklin. He was already taking notes.

“They're not going anywhere,” said Ryan. “I'll get them soon.” It occurred to Ryan that Chihani's murder gave him even more reason to pick up Aaron and the members of IIR. He could question them about Hark and Meg Shiller at the same time.

Just then a white panel truck from Channel 9 in Syracuse turned the corner onto Maple Street, followed by a truck from Channel 5. Both were driving fast.

“You're going to be well covered,” said Franklin. “They're all here because of Meg.”

Ryan was already walking toward a police car. “Schmidt can deal with it,” he said over his shoulder. “I can't stand talking to those people.”

—

Ryan felt certain he knew who had been with Hark and that the red four-wheel-drive vehicle was a Chevy Blazer belonging to Jeb Hendricks. Ryan sent two men to Midas Muffler to arrest him. Then he sent two more to Henderson's Plumbing and Heating for Ernie Corelli and two more to Knox Consolidated to arrest Jimmy Feldman. He also asked that Aaron be brought into headquarters, along with Barry, Harriet, Leon, and Jesse and Shannon Levine. He made it clear that none of the IIR members were being picked up because of Meg's disappearance, which wasn't quite true.

As for Hark, Ryan drove over to Jack Morris Ford to get him. He didn't think to take anyone along. People were busy and Ryan didn't want to make extra trouble. Anyway, he wanted to clear up this business before the state police interfered.

It had stopped snowing and the sun was out. Ryan doubted there would be snow left on the ground by evening, except maybe in a few places under the trees. Right now the snow seemed to be steaming as he drove across town. It was bright and he put on his sunglasses. As he often did, he took a detour down Hamilton Street—it was only two blocks out of his way—to drive past the house where Janice McNeal had lived: a small two-story red brick house with a white porch. Janice had been murdered exactly two years ago. The anniversary had been two weeks earlier, October 16. Ryan had sat by himself in his living room listening to Billie Holiday and getting drunk on Jack Daniel's. He'd had a fire in the fireplace. All the next day he had cursed himself for being a sentimental idiot, but he didn't mind being sentimental.

Janice's house had stood empty for a year. Then it had been bought by an engineer from Kingston who had a wife and three young children. As Ryan drove by, he saw there was already a snow fort in the front yard and two blue plastic sleds. He glanced up at what had been Janice's bedroom window and saw orange paper pumpkins on each of the windowpanes. He and Janice had had sex in every room in the house, including the attic and the basement. They had even done it in the backyard. And that was probably true of other men as well. Ryan knew for a fact that she sometimes had two lovers in a single day. Heck, she had probably had half a dozen. He banged his fist on the steering wheel, inadvertently honking the horn. He told himself that he wouldn't drive down Hamilton Street again. It was something he had told himself before. In his rearview mirror he watched the house and the blue plastic sleds get smaller.

He thought again about who had killed her. Given Janice's appetite, it could have been anyone. The person didn't have to live in Aurelius. He could live in Potterville, Norwich, even someplace else. Ryan didn't believe she had been killed by a woman. She'd been killed by one of her lovers. Maybe he killed her out of jealousy. Ryan stopped himself. It didn't need to be jealousy. It might have been one of many other reasons. But if Ryan himself had killed her—and he had felt like it after she told him she was sick to death of him—jealousy would have been his reason. He also thought of her missing hand and how a mannequin's hand had been found in Sharon Malloy's backpack. Would Meg's clothes be returned as well? And would there be a hand?

Ryan reached Jack Morris's Ford dealership shortly after nine-thirty. He parked back by the garage and got out, leaving his Escort unlocked. Although he carried a pistol and handcuffs, he didn't think of them. Shep McDonald was sweeping the snow off the new cars in the lot. From the garage came the sound of metal hitting metal and the occasional buzz of a power tool. Ryan walked toward the open double doors, trying not to step in the slush, even though his shoes were already wet from Chihani's front yard. Several people stopped to look at him but they didn't speak. They recognized him and by the way he looked they knew he hadn't come to have his car fixed.

Hark was working on the turbocharger of Pete Roberts's blue '92 Mustang, which had conked out the week before between Aurelius and Clinton. He was leaning over the front fender, which he had covered with a green pad to protect the finish. His back was to Ryan. As Ryan walked across the garage, several men lay down their tools to watch. No one knew about Chihani but they knew that Hark had been out with his friends the previous night and there must have been trouble because when Hark had showed up in the morning, hungover and sullen, he had a black eye.

As the garage became silent, Hark realized something was wrong. He turned around. He was wearing blue coveralls with “Jack Morris Ford” written across the breast pocket. His dark blond hair hung loose, parted in the middle and covering his ears. His left cheek was swollen and discolored around the eye. He had a red bruise on his forehead.

Hark didn't say anything but his eyes got wider. He was holding a socket wrench in one hand and an orange cloth in the other. Ryan was still about twenty feet away. Hark abruptly dropped the wrench, which hit the concrete floor with a clang, and sprinted toward a door in the back.

Later, in Bud's Tavern, Jerry Golding said, “Old Ryan followed him but he didn't run. Maybe he walked a little faster. He looked like a small locomotive. Purposeful.”

Hark's Ford pickup was parked in the back. When Ryan walked out the door into the lot, he saw Hark standing by the driver's door, frantically going through the pockets of his coveralls. Then he stopped. His keys were in his regular clothes in his locker. Hark glanced back at Ryan. His shoulders sagged and he leaned forward against the cab of the pickup as Ryan approached.

After a moment Hark tried to summon up some fierceness. He spun around and jabbed a thumb toward his face. “See what he did to me?” he shouted. “The fucking Arab!”

Ryan didn't say anything, just kept walking. A few men had come out of the garage. Hark's face grew uncertain. He had his fists raised and he dropped them.

“Chihani's dead,” said Ryan when he was a few feet away.

“You're lying.”

“You got him with the baseball bat.”

Hark's expression changed from defiance to surprise to fear. He pressed his hands to his chest. His hands were greasy and left black prints on his coveralls. He closed his eyes and hunched forward. A harsh honking noise came from his throat, like a motor that wouldn't start.

Ryan looked at him. When Ryan had moved to Aurelius in 1977, Hark had been six years old. Ryan remembered how Hark's hair had been almost white at the time, not much darker than Barry Sanders's. Ryan put an arm around Hark and patted his shoulder. They stood like that as about five men watched from the garage. Then Ryan led Hark across the parking lot to where his Escort was parked. Later, when he was asked why he hadn't put handcuffs on Hark, Ryan said he had forgotten to, then he said he hadn't wanted to embarrass him.

—

By the time Ryan got Hark back to police headquarters, Jeb Hendricks, Ernie Corelli, and Jimmy Feldman were giving their statements. They said it had been Hark's idea to drive over to the Arab's house. They themselves had wanted to return to Bud's Tavern. Jeb said he'd tried to stop Hark when he attacked Chihani with the baseball bat. Ernie said he tried to stop Hark, too, but in fact he didn't remember anything after they had gotten back from chasing Jesse and Shannon. Jimmy didn't remember much either but he also had a black eye and he explained in detail how Chihani had attacked him almost for no reason. After all, he hadn't been swinging any baseball bat. And he didn't have any grudge against the Arab either. Live and let live was his motto.

Hark gave a statement. It didn't occur to him not to. He felt so defeated that even though his memory was foggy he didn't see any point in hiding anything. He didn't know why he had decided to bust up the Arab's car. It seemed like a good idea at the time. He remembered swinging the bat and hitting the Arab; he knew he hadn't meant to kill him. He was sure of that. He kept saying he was sorry. When he heard Meg Shiller had disappeared, he kept saying, “Shit, oh shit.”

Barry and Leon were questioned about the previous night. Barry's mother came with him and wouldn't let Barry speak without interrupting him and saying what Barry meant and how the other members of the IIR had taken advantage of him. She said she had known all along that Hark wasn't any good but that Aaron wasn't any good either. She said she felt awful about Meg Shiller.

Again and again Barry asked, “But what about Professor Chihani?”

His mother said, “Never mind about him.”

But to Barry, Chihani's death seemed worse than Meg's disappearance. Barry saw Professor Chihani all the time, and while he felt bad about Meg Shiller, he couldn't quite remember who she was.

Leon knew nothing about Meg Shiller. All he could think about was Chihani. “They killed him?” he kept asking. “But why? What had he done?” He didn't want to talk about Meg. He didn't see the point of it. He thought of the papers that Chihani had been writing and how they would go unfinished. “What a shame,” he said. “Think of the work.”

Jesse and Shannon admitted to smashing the windshield of Jeb's Blazer. They had hacked around for a while afterward, they said. They had a couple of beers and got home before midnight. Yes, they heard the police knocking on their door earlier in the morning, but they wanted to sleep. They knew nothing about Meg. When they learned that Chihani had been killed, they got angry.

“What the hell he ever do to them?” said Jesse.

“The assholes,” said his brother.

Then Jesse began to sob and his brother put his arm around him. Ryan found himself staring at their blond goatees and blond ponytails. Their emotion surprised him and he asked himself why it should surprise him. Later he told Franklin that he didn't know diddly-squat about anybody. “You expect a person to do one thing and he does the opposite.” Around noon, Ryan sent the brothers home.

Harriet Malcomb was reluctant to say where she had been until she heard about Meg.

“But why would I have had anything to do with her?” she asked. She, too, was shocked by Chihani's death. “You can't protect anyone, can you?” she told Ryan. “You can't protect the teachers and you can't protect the children.”