Dead Man's Song полностью

Newton nodded slowly, but he said, “Isn’t that a lot to ask of a walk in the woods?”

“Not these woods,” Crow said.

Newton glanced around. Despite the early hour, the light was gray and stained and looked like the glow from a feeble bulb ready to burn out. Shadows seemed to lurk behind every tree, crouch in every hole, hang from the long bare fingers of each branch. The twisted undergrowth was snarled around the base of the towering pines and oaks, and most of the tree trunks bulged with disease. Not one single bird offered even a distant song to diffuse the tension in the air, and the wind played a slow dirge through the trees.

“You have just succeeded,” Newton said without humor, “in scaring the living shit out of me.”

Crow nodded. “Welcome to Dark Hollow.”

(4)

Dr. Saul Weinstock poured three fingers of Glenfiddich into a chunky tumbler, quickly drank down a mouthful, then took another, his eyes widening over the rim of the glass as he drank and the gasses burned his mouth. When he set the glass down he was gasping like someone who had just been hit in the solar plexus, and the glass was nearly empty. He poured more of the Scotch into the glass, but did not take another sip just yet. As he set the bottle down he raised his hands and stared at them, watching their palsied tremble. He could no more have performed surgery with those hands than he could hover in midair. He had been barely able to tie his shoes. Then he wiped his mouth with the back of one of his hands.

His office was brightly lit, and the door was securely locked. The windows were shut and shuttered, and against each pane he’d hung flowers whose scent perfumed the air with a harsh pungency. Weinstock found the air cloying, the smell oppressive, but each morning he replaced the flowers with fresh ones. On his desk, lying next to the tumbler was a gnarled lump of metal that gleamed with an angry potential. Weinstock reached for it, as he had a dozen times since locking himself in for the evening. He curled strong fingers around the butt and picked up the weapon, slipped his index finger into the trigger guard, and exerted gentle pressure on the trigger. The hammer trembled. Weinstock squeezed harder and the hammer eased silently back, poised with intent, and then leapt forward, striking the firing pin with decisive force.

There was an empty, hollow click.

Weinstock sighed and set the gun down. Then he opened his briefcase that lay on the side table. Inside was a crisp paper bag imprinted with the nameMARLEY’S METAL SMITHING—WE MAKE BEAUTY THAT LASTS! He opened the bag and removed a small drawstring bag and upended it over the blotter. Twenty-four lumps of smooth metal dropped and bounced and rolled across the green face of the blotter. He stared at them, and drank some more of the Scotch as he watched the way the light played off the copper jackets that enclosed the rounded chunks of purest silver.

Weinstock finished his glass of whiskey, his third in the last hour, and then picked up the pistol again, opened the cylinder, and as he fed the .44 slugs into the chambers, he murmured prayers he had learned as a child, his Hebrew faulty but his prayers in desperate earnest.

(5)

They kept walking through the shadowy forest, and for a while the brush thinned out and left them with a path that was easier to follow. Once in a while they would hear bird-song, but generally the place was quiet. The temperature, though, was rising as if they were nearing a hot spring, and the humidity rose with it. For several minutes they had walked in silence, each digesting their last conversation, but then Newton picked it up as if there had been no break.

“What kind of monster?”

Crow glanced at him. “What?”

“You said Gr—I mean he was some kind of monster. Exactly what did you mean by that? A serial killer? A psychopath?”

“Maybe I shouldn’t have said it,” Crow said primly.

“A little late for that. So…when you say ‘monster’ you mean that he was some kind of real monster? Not that I buy any of that, but I’d like to hear what kind of a monster you think he was.”

“Answer your own question, Newt. The answer is right there in the facts I gave you.”

“What facts? You recognized him as the man who attacked you. Okay. You assume he was the one who killed all the other people, including your brother, Mayor Wolfe’s sister, and Val’s uncle. You assume that Oren Morse killed him because he felt indebted to Henry Guthrie, and because the first victims were fellow gentlemen of the road, to use the old expression. Those aren’t really facts. Mostly they’re suppositions.”

“Okay, get literal on me.” Crow used one hand to vault a fallen oak and then reached out to help Newton over. The path was still clear for about a quarter mile and then looked like it faded into shrubs again. “Let’s look at the circumstantial evidence, then.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the cattle on his farm. Remember what I said about him raising a herd of cattle?”