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

  An End

  to a

  Silence

  W.H. CLARK

  Copyright © 2015 W.H. Clark

  All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the author.

  Cover Design: W.H. Clark

  Edited by Eliza Dee of Clio Editing Services

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  DEDICATION

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Summer. Montana, 1985. When seven-year-old Ryan Novak suddenly disappears from his home in a small rural town, Detective Newton picks up the case. Convinced that the boy’s grandfather - school janitor and former woodsman Bill O’Donnell - knows what happened to the boy, Newton’s growing obsession with his only suspect begins to take its toll.

  Winter. Montana, 2010. Twenty-five years later and, in the final days of Newton’s tarnished career, Bill O’Donnell is found murdered. Newton’s successor, a city-toughened young Texan detective named Ward, is the lead investigator. As Newton readies himself for retirement, Ward draws him back into the mystery he couldn’t solve. Can they find the old man’s killer and finally uncover the truth about what really happened to Ryan?

  DEDICATION

  For Trisha

  1

  1985

  The boy is still, already cold, even though a gentle summer evening breeze whispers of somewhere altogether warmer.

  2

  2010

  Detective Newton sat at the counter of the Honey Pie Diner and finished his coffee. He took a last bitter sip and then stood creakily and walked the few feet down to the other end of the counter, where the attractive woman with the vivid red hair stood ringing up a check at the cash register. Her fingers tapped at the computer screen and made a click each time one of her long, painted fingernails caught it. And he watched her, not quite peripherally, through dimming vision. She placed a Styrofoam cup on the counter.

  “And one to go.”

  “What do I owe you?” Detective Newton said. His head was cast down as he spoke, but the eyes looked up, like those of a chastised dog.

  “Well, I ain’t put my prices up since yesterday,” she said, cocking a thumb over her shoulder at the menu board, and she smiled. Her name badge said she was called Cherry.

  “Well, then,” he said.

  “Well, then,” she said, and she stopped tapping at the screen.

  He put a hand in his pocket and pulled out a tattered bill. He handed it to her and as she took it, he held her hand gently. The smile slowly faded from her face and his found some color.

  “Okay,” she said, stretching out the word.

  “I’m… sorry,” he said, and he released her hand quickly, which released her smile again. “I don’t… I just—”

  “That’s okay,” she said.

  “I was—”

  “I said it’s okay, detective,” she said.

  A fat man sitting behind Detective Newton shouted over his shoulder, “How we doing with that check?”

  Newton jerked around and looked into the pudgy face of the man who had called out and Newton’s eyes, angry dog, lingered there until the man looked away.

  “Just another asshole,” Cherry said, not quite loud enough for the man to hear. “I’d better get him off my premises.”

  Newton said, “Keep the change.”

  Cherry said, “Thanks.” And she busied herself with the cash register again and Newton picked up his coffee and left, casting a glance at the asshole as he walked past.

  She watched the detective walk out of the diner and then briefly stopped what she was doing and shook her head gently. The pudgy man turned around, but before he could say anything she said, “Check’s on its way, sir,” and under her breath, “fucker,” and the check was produced with a few more fingernail clicks.

  Outside, Newton patted his pockets vaguely with his free hand as a freezing wind blew straight through him. After a few moments he pulled out his keys, opened the door of his brown, boxy SUV, and hauled himself in, shivering. He placed the cup in the holder and then he leaned over and looked into the rearview mirror, turning it slightly for a better view of himself. He studied the old fool looking back and then he looked at the back of his hands and saw the spots of old age. He started the engine, buckled up and pulled away from the roadside, making an effort not to look back into the Honey Pie Diner at the woman with the vivid red hair who, for an excruciating moment, had been his beautiful wife of thirty years ago.

  3

  The phone rang in the station and McNeely answered it. She half stood up and looked over at Newton, who was sitting at his desk staring at the box in front of him. It stood alone on the otherwise empty surface save for a telephone, the coffee cup he had fetched back from the Honey Pie Diner, a tower of empty plastic trays, and a row of five pills of different sizes and colors set in a line. He picked up the first pill, popped it in his mouth and took a drink from the coffee cup.

  “Got a call for you,” McNeely, Westmoreland Police Department’s Crime Scene Investigations Technician, said. She got no response. Newton picked up the second pill, put that in his mouth and knocked it back with another swig of the coffee.

  “Detective Newton. You,” she said louder and Newton looked over and pointed at himself. McNeely nodded and she prodded a couple of keys on the phone keypad. Newton’s phone rang and he picked up. He swallowed.

  “Yes?” Newton said.

  “Adam. It’s Jim. How are things?”

  Newton didn’t say anything.

  “Hello?” The voice said.

  “Jim.”

  “The medical examiner, Jim.”

  “I know it,” Newton said. He changed the phone to the other ear.

  “I have something for you.”

  Newton paused for a moment, staring at the unembellished partition screen in front of him.

  “Shall I call back for a better line?” The medical examiner said.

  “No, I hear you. Have you got a ticket?”

  “A ticket?”

  “You want help with a ticket?”

  “A ticket? No, no. You misunderstand. I’ve got you a suspicious death. Just done a post mortem on an old man from Sunny Glade. He—in fact, Adam, you able to pop down and see me? This might be best in person.”

  Newton placed his hand over the mouthpiece.

  “Where’s the new guy?” he whispered loudly to McNeely. She shrugged without looking at Newton. He uncovered the mouthpiece and fiddled with his bottom lip.

  “Okay,” Newton said, and he hung up the phone. He sat there a while looking at his box. He took out a photograph and stood it up on the desk. It showed Newton and his wife, taken about thirty years ago going by the fashion. He stared at her vivid red hair done in the same style as Cherry from the diner. Then he picked it up again and put it back in the box. He scraped up the remaining three pills, tipped them into his mouth and took a big swallow of coffee, and then he stood and ambled over to the coat stand, where he took his coat and put it on. His heart missed a beat and he felt light-headed for a moment, which he put down to the two coffees he’d drunk, or maybe the pink pill.

  He held there for a few moments before saying to McNeely, “I’m heading out.”

  “You bring me something back?” she said.

  He looked at her.

  “Ain’t going there,” he said.
He turned towards the door and then he stopped, took a deep breath and held it there for a few seconds. He turned back and called to a compact man over the other side of the room.

  “Sean. We got a possible crime scene needs preserving. Over at Sunny Glade.” His voice had no color.

  “I’ll get on to patrol,” Sean, the sergeant said.

  “McNeely. Could you head on down there? You know where the new guy is?”

  McNeely shrugged.

  “Anybody have his number?” Newton said. Nobody said anything over the sound of clacking computer keys.

  4

  The new guy and Helen McNeely arrived at Sunny Glade at the same time, the new guy’s gleaming red Alfa growling to a stop and the booming rock music cutting out with the engine. A uniform from Patrol standing outside quickly discarded his cigarette and stomped it into the ground with his boot.

  McNeely made her way over to the new guy. Rock salt crunched under her feet and her breath chugged out in quick bursts.

  The new guy took a glance around. The home glowed in the winter gloom and a cloud sank down on its roof, churned around the security lights and oozed down its walls. The gardens – roses and buddleia and copper birch hedges forming a barrier between the residents and the outside world – were only hinted at beneath the dimness of the day. Shadows of a mature mini woodland - a plantation of ponderosa pine, aspen, maple and ash - protected the northern aspect from the worst of the mauling winter winds.

  “You got some serious horsepower there, detective,” McNeely said, and she stroked the hood as the new guy straightened his Italian-cut suit.

  “Just Ward,” he said as he put on his hat over his short-cropped hair.

  “And a serious hat,” she said.

  Ward smiled at her. He spoke briefly to the uniformed cop while McNeely fidgeted against the cold. Ward’s suit didn’t offer much protection from the arctic weather but he didn’t seem discomforted.

  Ward held open the door and waved McNeely in.

  “Ladies first’s what my ma taught me,” he said.

  “Obliged,” McNeely said, and she rolled her eyes but smiled.

  The receptionist, Jackie, greeted them with her usual cheery “hello,” and then her face slouched into the serious face that she reserved for her children. “Has something happened? Well, I know something has happened but what might…” Her voice trailed off as Ward interrupted with a held up hand.

  His firm Texan drawl fixed Jackie upright. “Sorry, ma’am, but could you point us to—”

  “Oh, of course. Of course,” she interrupted. “Down the corridor, past the dining room. I’ll take you. Might be easiest.”

  “Thanks, but I think we’ll be okay there, ma’am. Thank you for your help, though. The officer here will have a few words with you if that’s agreeable.” He winked at her.

  Jackie’s posture straightened. “Of course.” She preened and gave Officer Stuart half her attention, the other half on Ward.

  Ward and McNeely headed off, Ward tapping out a steady and loud clip-clopping rhythm with his black boots, which gleamed out of the bottom of his dark gray pants.

  “Wow, real cowboy boots,” McNeely said. “You really are a serious cowboy, ain’t you?”

  “Only a hundred percent, ma’am,” Ward said.

  The scene that greeted them was a serene resting place. A nice place to die, Ward thought. And then, before they could enter the room, a man appeared, blustering down the corridor.

  “I’m Felix Grainger. The manager here.” He wiped his hand on his pants before offering it to Ward, who didn’t offer his back.

  “I would like to speak to you later if that’s okay. You going anywhere?”

  “No, sir. I’m here as long as you need me. Yes, sir.”

  5

  Newton was met at the mortuary by the medical examiner, Jim Packham. Newton tried to smile a greeting and patted him on his back as they turned to head to the autopsy room. Newton could smell it right away and instinctively sniffed a couple of times as if reacquainting himself with what death smelled like.

  The old man’s naked body lay uncovered on the cadaver dissection table, his trunk bearing a Y-shaped incision from shoulders to chest which had been stitched back up raggedly. Newton glanced at the body and then turned away, trying to think of somewhere else he’d rather be but failing to think of anywhere.

  “I guess you got his clothes?” Newton asked, refocusing on the ME.

  “Bagged, tagged and photographed,” Packham said.

  “We’ll need those,” Newton said.

  “You got it, but the story isn’t in the clothes. I did the usual checks for internal injury to organs and for cardiac anomalies but neither showed anything. It was the external examination that threw up something. Here on the ankle. You see?”

  Newton squinted to see what the medical examiner was pointing at.

  “Might need your glasses,” Packham said.

  Newton reached into his inside pocket and took out his glasses, opening them slowly with his gnarled fingers.

  “See it now?”

  “A small red dot?”

  “A small red dot indeed. Entry wound. From a hypodermic needle by the looks of it. That got me itchy. That raised my interest. I took a blood sample from the inferior vena cava and sent it for testing as an urgent. Got the results back and it seems the victim had a rather large amount of morphine in his system.”

  “That could be due to his medication, right?” Newton said.

  “Well, no. Indeed no. Our deceased was not taking any morphine as pain relief. I checked. I have his medical records here if you’d like to take a look?”

  Newton wearily shook his head once and waved a hand for the ME to continue.

  “And anyway, that wouldn’t explain the entry point on his ankle. He would take the morphine in pill form if he was taking any at all. Which he wasn’t. So that’s moot. No, our customer here had a very large dose of morphine administered by someone. I’m guessing he didn’t do it himself. That kind of entry point might work for drug addicts but I wouldn’t suppose our fellow here was an addict. And there aren’t any other injection points or the telltale tracks that you find with addicts.”

  “Can we get a second blood analysis done?” Newton said.

  “That’s not for me. This guy is on his way to the State Crime Lab. He’s theirs now. But it is what I said.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Newton said.

  “Because I’ve been doing this job as many years as you’ve been doing yours.”

  Newton shifted his weight onto his other foot and involuntarily rubbed the base of his back as an old pain flared. “Anything else?”

  “He had newspaper ink on his fingers. That’s all I’ve got. Apart from that he looks like a regular old man.”

  “Okay,” Newton said, a dark pain shadowing his face.

  “Do we have a time of death?”

  “Approximately, yes we do. Between eight p.m. and twelve midnight on Sunday.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, this old guy has a story to tell. And I guess I turn that over to you to find the final pages of his tale. What are you thinking?”

  Newton was staring at an area in the far corner of the room and then he said, “I don’t know what I’m thinking, is the honest truth. I’ll give it to the new guy to figure out.”

  “Of course. You go this week?”

  Newton said, “Next week.” He automatically flicked over the tag on the old man’s toe. He stared at it for a few moments. Then he took a step back, his eyes wrenched open and the blood drained from his face. For a few seconds he forgot to breathe and then he took a big gulp of air. He mechanically clutched his back with one hand and reached into his pocket with his other, fingering around for a bottle of pills. William O’Donnell.

  “Hey. I’m guessing you know the old guy,” the medical examiner said. He touched Newton’s arm. Newton shuddered under the medical examiner’s hand. “You okay there, Adam?”

&nbs
p; Newton turned abruptly to face Packham, his head snapping around. His eyes were empty for a second and then the pupils focused on the medical examiner. He strode to the end of the table and he stared down at the face he hadn’t at first recognized.

  Then he swayed back and turned to leave.

  “I gotta go,” was the only thing he said, and he called McNeely on his cell as he left.

  Newton had left tire rubber in the parking lot of the morgue and was headed down North Dakota Avenue, a blur of buildings, trees and vehicles stretching out beside him. His foot felt heavy on the gas pedal. “Slow down there,” Ward had said on the phone just now. But his thoughts were racing ahead of him and he had found it difficult to explain it to the new guy.

  He took the turn onto Twelfth Avenue almost at a slide, his foot pumping more gas into the maneuver and his hands twitching momentarily in the opposite direction to the turn to prevent a full-blown skid. As he did so he saw, a moment too late, the woman and child crossing the road. The woman, however, had seemingly heard the revs of Newton’s engine and her senses had sharpened enough for her to pause on the other side of the road and avoid being swept to her death under the SUV’s wheels. Newton stamped down on the brakes and stopped a few yards away from the woman and child. He looked in his rearview mirror and then covered his face with his hands. He was trembling. He shook his head and tried to gather himself. This shouldn’t be happening to me, he thought. I should’ve retired three years ago when I could’ve. I don’t want this. Not now. Not this dead man.

  6

  One thing Ward had noticed right away was how tidy the room was. Two officers had sealed the room off to prevent contamination of the crime scene but first appearances suggested that the room had been cleaned. Whether that was a deliberate attempt to destroy evidence or just cleaning, Ward didn’t know. Going by the spotless environment of Sunny Glade, wasting no time in tidying a dead man’s room was consistent with the apparent obsession with cleanliness. A pity they couldn’t get rid of the smell of piss.