Cold Black Earth Read online

  “Don’t second-guess yourself. Nobody else did anything, either. They just thought somebody was cutting up wood.” He put away his pen and flipped his notebook shut. “We’ll get this guy before too long. As I was telling your brother, we’re in the process of putting together a task force to investigate these killings. ISP, Dearborn County Sheriff and Warrensburg PD are all contributing personnel. That gives us plenty of manpower to track this guy down.”

  Rachel frowned at him over her coffee cup. “You’re sure it’s Otis Ryle, are you?”

  The cops exchanged a brief look and the older one said, “Nothing’s for sure at this stage except we’ve got two people dead in close proximity. But we’re working on a strong presumption it’s Otis Ryle, yes. Sometimes the obvious is actually the case. Most times, in fact.”

  “So where is he?”

  “Good question,” said the younger cop, as they both stood up. “We don’t know. But considering you’ve had two killings within a few miles of here, I think the answer has to be, ‘Not far’. I say that not to frighten you but to make you careful. Keep your doors locked, check the car before you get in. Don’t for God’s sake pick up any hitchhikers or even stop to help somebody at the side of the road, unless it’s somebody you know personally. If you see anything suspicious, don’t investigate, don’t be a hero. Call 911 and get to a safe place. This guy’s very, very dangerous.”

  All Rachel could do was nod. Matt said, “I think we’re pretty clear on that point.”

  When the detectives had gone Rachel said, “Why did they say to check the car before I get in?”

  Matt sighed, massaging his forehead. “When they looked at the blood splatter, and the angle of the cut and all of that, it looks like Carl was attacked from behind.”

  “From behind.”

  “Yeah. It looks like the guy was sitting in the backseat of the truck and reached around and cut Carl’s throat from behind.”

  Rachel shuddered. “God, like he was hiding back there or something?”

  “That’s what it looks like. Carl had been at the tavern over there on 150 all evening. He left about midnight to drive home and Andy found him about a quarter to one. And the cops didn’t find any other tire marks at the scene, so it doesn’t look like he stopped for a breakdown or anything like that. Either somebody flagged him down, on foot, or somebody was in the car with him when he left the bar. In the backseat.”

  “Oh, Jesus.” Rachel covered her mouth with her hands.

  “Yeah. Think about that next time you get in the car.”

  Rachel was in desperate need of normality. Susan had half a dozen interviews to transcribe for her oral history, so she volunteered to help. She drove into Warrensburg, checking the backseat of the Chevy carefully before she got in, suppressing a creeping dread. She saw a sheriff’s car on the highway into town, heading north as she went south, but otherwise no sign of any massive law enforcement mobilization. The land looked barren and sterile, scoured by a bitter wind.

  I can do this, thought Rachel. If the military people can do it, if the Iraqi doctors can do it, I can do it. She had seen people whose job it was to contend with violent death get into a zone where they were able to function no matter how bad the things they saw got to be. She had never known how they did it, and she had hoped never to have to do it herself. Now she was feeling for that zone.

  I got off easy in Iraq, she thought, and this is my test.

  The wind whistled around the eaves of Susan’s house, but it was warm inside, with the radiators hissing and a pot of tea on the table and Brahms on the stereo. Rachel and Susan took turns at the laptop, straining to interpret the reedy voices coming from Susan’s recorder. It was really a one-woman job, but if it went more slowly with frequent interruptions for laughter and digressions, it also was less tedious. They had talked about Carl Holmes’s death on the phone in the morning, and it had not been mentioned again; Rachel silently blessed Susan for her restraint.

  “The hard part was being so lonesome, with Bob so far away and nobody but small children to talk to. There were days when I just went and hid in a closet and cried.” Rachel punched the Stop button on the recorder and her fingers flew over the keys. She finished the entry and said, “Boy, is that a common theme.”

  “No kidding,” said Susan from the kitchen, where she was taking brownies out of the oven. “I know men have the tough part in a war, but the women aren’t far behind. Imagine trying to function like that, your husband out there in mortal danger somewhere, and here you are trying to keep a family together, run a farm, whatever. Those women were heroes, too.”

  “Tell me about it. And these days a lot of the military people in Iraq are mothers with children at home. Try that one on for size.” Rachel punched the button. “And it was the lonesomeness that made trouble for some folks, too. When the cat’s away the mice will play, you know.”

  “Oh, yeah, this was interesting,” said Susan, bringing in the brownies. “Old Greta Swanson can still dish out the malicious gossip, seventy years later.”

  “Not me, goodness, don’t get me wrong. But it happened. Farmers didn’t get drafted, because they got an occupational exemption. A lot joined up anyway, but there was a lot that didn’t. So there was a lot of lonesome wives and a lot of healthy young farmers around to make mischief. And then when men came home there was bad blood sometimes.”

  “That would do it,” said Rachel. “Come home from the war and find out your wife had been sleeping with the guy that didn’t go? I’d be peeved, too. Come to think of it, that was pretty much what happened to me.” She bent to her typing.

  Susan waited for her to finish and shoved the brownies toward her. “Try one of these. It won’t mend a broken heart, but it’ll keep you from wasting away. Want me to take over?”

  “Sure.” Rachel yielded the chair to Susan and moved to the other side of the table, mouth full of brownie. The anecdote had hit too close to home. Suddenly stricken, she sat and ate, staring out the window at the leaden sky, determined not to tear up. She was aware of Susan shooting covert glances at her as she listened, then typed. “Don’t worry,” Rachel said. “I’m not going to cry.”

  “Cry if you want to. Nobody here’s gonna mind.” Susan finished typing and started the tape again. “I don’t think Gus Holmes ever really believed Carl was his son.”

  Susan punched the Stop button, and she and Rachel stared at each other across the table.

  “Oh, my God,” said Susan. “Is that a coincidence, or what?”

  Rachel frowned. “Go on. What did she say?”

  Susan started the tape. “Nancy had Carl just under nine months after Gus got home from the army. Some people said the baby was early, but others said it looked like a fine healthy nine-month baby. Whatever Nancy thought about it was between her and Gus, but Gus was awfully hard on that boy, and on Nancy, too. And there was a young fellow that went off to California about that time, that some said was run out of town by Gus Holmes. But nobody ever knew what the truth of the matter was.”

  “California,” said Rachel.

  Susan punched Stop. “Huh?”

  “Who went out to California about that time?”

  Susan blinked at her. “Is this a riddle? I give up.”

  “That’s too much coincidence,” Rachel said, feeling a chill creep up from her core.

  “What, for God’s sake?”

  “That’s about when he went out to California. Otis Ryle. The father.”

  “I don’t know if it means anything.”

  “I don’t either. I just thought you should know. I mean, this just keeps coming up. All of a sudden the Ryle family is everywhere.”

  “But this Mrs. Swanson didn’t remember the name of the guy that went to California, right?” Roger said.

  “No, but I went and asked my Aunt Helga about it, and she remembered it. She says she heard the gossip at the time. Gus Holmes and Otis Ryle Sr. had some kind of feud, and some said it was because Otis had been a little too familia
r with Nancy Holmes while Gus was away at the war. She’d forgotten about it until I asked, but she was pretty definite.”

  A few seconds went by in silence. “The implication being that Otis Jr. knocked off Carl because . . .” Roger let the sentence trail away.

  “I don’t know what the implication is, Roger. I don’t mean to be one of these nutcases who pesters the police with every brainstorm. I was just struck by the connection, that’s all. It’s just fucking spooky, if you’ll pardon my language. There was a connection between Ed Thomas and the Ryles, and now it turns out there was a connection between the Holmeses and the Ryles. I don’t know if it means anything, either. Maybe it just means that in a farm community everyone’s connected. I just thought whoever’s looking into this should know.”

  “You’re right. You did the right thing. I don’t mean to shoot you down. I’ll pass it on, for sure.”

  “It’s probably meaningless, I know.”

  “But maybe not.”

  “Yeah, maybe not. And if not . . .”

  “I know where you’re going.”

  “Where am I going?”

  “If Otis Ryle is going around killing people because of old family grudges, then we better be busting our asses to find out about any more old Ryle family grudges.”

  “Because they’ll tell us who he’s going to kill next.”

  “Bingo,” said Roger.

  18

  “I’m not going,” said Rachel. “I didn’t even know the man. Besides, if you think Ed’s funeral had media coverage, wait till you see this one. And they’ll be all over you.”

  Matt sighed. “I know. But I have to go. Dan’s my best friend.”

  “Give him my best. I just can’t face it, Matt.”

  Matt stood nodding slowly, necktie dangling from his fingers. This was the second time in a week Rachel had seen Matt stuffed into his suit, and she was starting to take a distinct dislike to the garment. “Come out to the house afterwards, anyway,” Matt said. “Jim’s having people in after the funeral. Just friends.”

  “Jim Holmes that we went to school with? He’s related to Carl?”

  “Nephew. You didn’t know that?”

  “I had no idea.” Holmes was a common name in the county, an Anglicization of the Swedish Holm, and they were scattered everywhere. Everyone’s connected, Rachel thought. “OK, I can do that. Yeah, that would be good.”

  Matt put on his tie and jumped in the truck and was gone. Rachel locked the door behind him, cleaned up the kitchen and then puttered around the house, tidying. She stood at the south windows in the living room looking out at the far scattered farms. How many times had she seen these fields go through their cycles, from snow cover to green peeking up through black earth to midsummer sumptuousness to harvest and back to quiescence? A finite number, less than twenty if you got down to it, and yet she had an impression of an endless idyllic childhood behind her, rooted in this familiar earth. The memory had comforted her in far places. And now it was barren and sinister, a wasteland of ice.

  She heard Billy stirring upstairs. He must have come in sometime late in the night, when she and Matt were asleep. His hours had gotten more and more eccentric, and he and Matt seldom crossed paths. Rachel wandered toward the kitchen. She had taken to fixing breakfast for Billy when he appeared, enjoying a half hour of easy companionship before he disappeared on mysterious errands. Since their shared tipple in the attic they had settled into an odd complicity.

  She heard the shower running and took her time with the breakfast; when Billy appeared she had an omelet and fresh coffee and hot buttered toast waiting for him. Billy came in with wet shining hair and two or three days’ stubble on his chin. He halted, looking at the breakfast laid out on the table, and said, “Damn, Aunt Rachel. You don’t have to do this, you know.”

  “I know. I don’t mind. Gives me something to do.”

  Billy sat down. “Well, I appreciate it. Whoa, what’s in here?”

  “Onions, peppers, Swiss cheese. You want jam or honey for the toast?”

  “Uh, jam’s fine.”

  Rachel fetched it from the refrigerator. “You growing a beard?” The whiskers coming in accented his fine cleft chin rather nicely, Rachel found.

  “Nah, just too lazy to shave. Where’s Dad?”

  “Gone to the funeral.”

  “Ah, yeah.” Billy ate in silence while Rachel poured herself a cup of coffee. “It’s fucked up, ain’t it?” Billy said. “This guy running around killing people.”

  “That’s one way to put it.”

  He shot her a sharp glance. “I’m sorry. Don’t mean to rake it all up. You feeling OK?”

  She shrugged. “Every day it gets a little better.”

  “Yeah. When Mom died, I remember it was just misery for a long time and then after a while I would wake up in the morning and think, It doesn’t hurt so much today.”

  Rachel stared at him over her coffee cup, thinking that compared to what Billy and Matt had gone through she really couldn’t complain. “So. Who was that girl that came looking for you the other night?”

  His face went blank and Rachel knew she had blown it again, stepped over the line. He chewed, eyes on his plate, and said, “Nobody special. There’s this bunch down in East Warrensburg I hang out with sometimes. I don’t know what they were doing up this way.”

  “I don’t mean to pry into your private life. Just curious. When you don’t have a lot going on in your life, you get interested in other people’s.” She smiled, trying to make light of it.

  Somewhat to her surprise he smiled back. “Lot of fish in the sea, Aunt Rachel. Just because it didn’t work out with one guy doesn’t mean it’s all over.”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Not that it’s a very big sea around here.”

  “Well, I doubt I’ll be settling here.” She watched him eat for a few seconds. “What about you? You ever think about leaving?”

  “All the time.” The glance he gave her was grave, intense. “Gotta get some money together first.”

  She waited for elaboration but it didn’t come. “Got an idea about where you’d go?”

  Billy shrugged, scraping at his plate. “I used to think about New Orleans. Friend of mine went down there for Mardi Gras one year, said it was amazing. But now there ain’t much of it left, after the hurricane. California, maybe? And Seattle’s supposed to be cool. I don’t know. Anyplace there’s jobs, I guess. It’s a big country.”

  “It sure is.” Rachel was suddenly thrilled with the possibilities. She remembered being nineteen and not believing in limits. “I could help you maybe. If money’s the only thing stopping you, I could float you a loan. I’ve got plenty saved up after the life I’ve been living.”

  That got his attention, she could see; she watched him start to take the notion seriously, maybe for the first time. But she could see it scared him a little, too. “Cool,” he said finally. “I might have to think about that.”

  That put an end to it for the moment. Billy finished his breakfast and disappeared while Rachel cleaned up. When he came down again he had on his hooded sweatshirt and denim jacket. “Gotta roll,” he said. He paused at the top of the steps, momentarily awkward, lips parted. “You’d really lend me money?” he said.

  Drying her hands, Rachel took a few steps toward him. She had been fighting off second thoughts ever since her generous impulse had carried her away, and she knew it was time to set the terms. “Sure,” she said. “But I’d want to talk about plans first. You really ought to finish school. You could go somewhere else to do that, of course. I think I’d want a commitment to go back to school, even if it wasn’t right away. But if you had a plan and needed more support than your father could give you, of course I’d be happy to help.”

  Billy nodded, frowning faintly. Then his expression eased and he said, “For an aunt you’re fuckin’ awesome, you know that?”

  Rachel had to laugh. “That’s the first time anybody’s said that to me.”
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  “Hey, believe it.” Billy grinned at her and then he was gone, out the back door.

  Rachel stood still, listening as the Dodge started up and then tore away down the drive. She was stunned at what she had felt when Billy smiled at her, dark-eyed and unshaven and moving with his feral grace: Out of the blue she had felt a pang of physical desire, sharp and explicit, the first stirring of lust she had felt for many weeks. Brutally she suppressed a vision of her nephew’s bare torso, strands of wet hair lacing his broad sinewy shoulders.

  You need to get a grip, girl, she told herself. On top of everything else, not least the utter delusion involved in reading anything into that smile, that’s incest. Rachel walked across the kitchen to the sink and stared out across the fields, then hid her face in her hands. You’re pathetic, she thought. You are forty-three and have been reduced to fantasizing about young men half your age. Young men related to you.

  After a moment Rachel took her hands from her face and heaved a great sigh, knowing she was perfectly capable of keeping a lid on her libido and acting with decorum around her nephew; all he was was the trigger. She turned away from the window and forced her mind to practical matters, meals to plan.

  Two minutes later she had to shove the cookbooks away and close her eyes again. It had shaken her. Having dodged the question throughout her long period of celibacy, Rachel now knew with certainty she was not going to be able to forgo physical love forever. Men neglected and betrayed you, but the animal inside you needed the animal inside them.

  If only, Rachel thought, you could be content with the animal part. Sometimes it was a burden to be human.

  Rachel drove east, noticing farms and their outbuildings as they passed. He’s close, she thought. He’s here somewhere, waiting for nightfall. She had grown up on this land and knew many of the people who lived in these houses, but now she was aware of how many farms could fill a few square miles, how many strangers there had always been on the fringes of her community. That small white house with a single red-painted shed in a grove of trees, half a mile to the south: Who lived there? Rachel had no idea.