Flowering Judas(100)

On the other side of the little cluster of depressed-looking buildings—even the fast-food places looked depressed, Gregor had no idea why—there was semi-open country, and what looked like a river. Gregor was sure it had been there before. He just hadn’t paid much attention to it. Side roads went off to their right, but not, obviously, to their left, where the river was. They passed a big roadhouse place with a deep parking lot fronting the street and bright yellow awnings all across its single-story storefront façade. There was a sign close to the road, hand lettered in bright red marker against a white background. It read: BIKERS WELCOME.

“Has that always been there?” Gregor asked.

“It was there the last time we came through here,” Tony said. “You don’t pay attention much, do you?”

Gregor wanted to say he didn’t pay much attention in the dark, or couldn’t see in it, or something, but he let it go. This was not the time to start worrying about getting old. The dam was not too far ahead of them. In the sunlight and good weather, it was easy enough to see. The police cars were lined up along a little road that went off to the right just past it.

Gregor leaned forward. There were a lot of police cars. There was an EMT vehicle. There was a fire engine. Why was there a fire engine?

Tony Bolero slowed down and began to glide into the choked side road. He was stopped almost immediately by a uniformed patrol officer.

“Oh,” the officer said, looking into the front seat. “It’s Mr. Demarkian. Come right in and try to park out of the way so that we’ve got a clear shot at getting some of these vehicles out. Commissioner Androcoelho wants to see you right away.”

Tony pulled off to the side and parked. Gregor got out of the front passenger seat and looked around. The center of activity was across the road and in the direction of the water, just on the other side of the dam from town. Gregor saw a lot of uniforms milling around, and the top of what looked like a big black pickup truck.

He left Tony with the car and walked across the road, looking around as he went. A hundred feet or so further down the road there was a derelict building, its paint almost entirely sheered off by wind and weather, its windows broken. He wondered what had been there once, and why it wasn’t there anymore.

Gregor got to the other side of the road. The big black pickup truck was in a deep ditch, sitting sideways precariously on the grass. There were so many uniformed officers around it, it was impossible to see what was going on.

Gregor went down the embankment. Howard Androcoelho was there, pacing back and forth on the other side of the vehicle, near the water. He was talking on a cell phone.

Gregor caught his eye. Howard Androcoelho said something else and then snapped the cell phone closed.

“Mr. Demarkian, Mr. Demarkian. I’m glad you got here.”

“What happened?”

Howard Androcoelho waved toward the pickup truck. “Both dead,” he said, “and really dead. Shot through three or four times apiece.”

Gregor looked back at the truck. Now that he knew what to look for, he could see that there were people in it, people sitting at odd angles, one slumped against a side door, the other collapsed forward onto the dashboard.

He left Howard Androcoelho and moved toward the truck. The closer he got, the more obvious it was that the two people inside it were dead. Officers moved out of the way for him. Gregor got right up next to the windshield and looked inside.

“It’s awful,” Howard Androcoelho said, right at his elbow, causing Gregor to nearly jump out of his skin. “It’s awful. Nothing like this ever happens in Mattatuck. It’s not a Mattatuck kind of thing.”

Gregor thought about the story about the pharmacist who had killed his wife and children and then himself. Then he looked back through the windshield again. There was a man and a woman. He was sure he’d never seen the man before. The woman looked vaguely familiar.

“Who are they?” he asked.

“Althy Michaelman and the current boyfriend,” Howard said. “Mike something. We’ll look it up. Althy always has boyfriends. She always did. We went to high school together. Her mother had ambitions, before she got pregnant. That’s why Althy was Althy. Althea.”

Gregor stared at her a little longer. She didn’t look like an Althea. She didn’t look like a woman who always “had boyfriends.” “She looks familiar,” he said. “Have I met her?”

“I think so, once or twice,” Howard said. “She has the trailer next to the Morton trailer out at the trailer park. She was there the first day we went out to look it over.”

“Was she,” Gregor said. “What about the man? Did he live there, too?”