The Night Church Part 29

When the back door of the van was opened slightly, a shaft of yellow light leaked out. The door opened all the way. "Come," said a pleasantly modulated voice.

Although the door was locked behind them, this luxurious interior hardly seemed a prison. Jonathan sat back in one of the deep leather seats. "I can't grasp this." His voice was like ashes.

"I know."

The van had no windows, and the walls were covered with padding. There was a well-stocked bar, complete with ice, gla.s.ses, potato chips, and pretzels.

"Don't eat or drink any of that stuff, Jonathan."

"Of course not." He slumped forward, bowed his head into his hands. She sat down in the seat beside him and put her arm around him.

The van started off. Patricia experienced what seemed an almost primordial urge to escape, as if she had been trapped in a cave-in or locked in a coffin.

The van gathered speed, driving on deep into the night.

Chapter Nineteen.

MIKE HAD TO exhume Franklin Apple's coffin. The way the Night Church operated there could be anything in there-or anybody. He might not like it, but he had to go through the whole official drill to make it happen.

It was late afternoon before he could make all the bu-reaucracies involved agree. Finally the paperwork was com-plete and Mike sat waiting in his old Dodge at the entrance to All Souls Cemetery. Night was coming, he was tired and uncomfortable, and he wished he could go home. He rubbed his palms along his cheeks, which itched like fire. Either he had shaved sloppily at his office or he was allergic to the cologne Mary had given him. His whole face was sensitive. Too bad. He liked the cologne a lot. Time to change, probably. The older you get the more allergic you become. Allergic to life, finally. Then you pack it in.

It had been a rotten day, beginning when he woke up at eight on the couch in his office feeling like he had been cared for by a Mack truck, and proceeding through contact with a smarmy a.s.sistant DA who could not understand why Apple should be exhumed on so "minor" a matter as an alias, and going from there to miserable dealings with the Board of Health and the Cemeteries Department, getting the exhuma-tion order initialed by the right department heads.

It had started raining just before dawn and hadn't stopped all day. The graveyard was going to be a mess.

Mike considered himself a careful, patient detective. He had learned that cases were cracked either by persistence or luck, and he was not the lucky type. He was no longer even close to buying the fact that "Mr. Apple" was dead. No way was a coincidence like that going to happen. No way. Especially since his real name was very prob-ably t.i.tus.

Mike was pretty sure he was going to turn up a load of cinder blocks or bricks, or maybe just a coffin full of sand. It was no big deal to get a burial like that done. The Dexter Funeral Home over on Metro Avenue did fakeouts for the Mafia all the time. Two thousand bucks could get a box of bricks buried, priest's honorarium included.

Mike carried the exhumation order in his breast pocket behind his cigars. Being a high-cla.s.s dump, All Souls did not like cops and exhumations even a little bit. To avoid being ordered off the property you had to be sure every i i was dotted and every was dotted and every t t crossed. crossed.

While he was waiting, Mike took some more time to work on his own emotional state.

He had been crazy last night after being in that house. Crazy with fear. After a few hours on the couch in his office he had realized that he was going to have to break this case. He might have to confront the Devil himself to do it, but he was by G.o.d going to expose the Night Church.

That didn't change his fear, though. It was with sick dread that he had called Mary at nine, pleaded that an emergency had kept him out all night, then told her to expect him home for dinner. As nerve-racking as staying there would be, not doing so was too obvious a tip-off. And he dared not arrange for a backup team out on the street. He might be making his arrangements with the Night Church.

He wasn't looking forward to the night ahead. No way was he going to sleep.

He hit his hands against the steering wheel. This case was so d.a.m.n complicated. It would be nice just to be able to walk people in on charges right now. But what charges, and which people? Christ, what a mess.

What better cover for a woman like Mary than being married to a police official?

Sweet lady. Supposed to have loved him. Maybe she did, who knew? It sure as h.e.l.l didn't matter to him.

A nasty taste came into his mouth just thinking about last night. He shook his head, fighting the images.

Mike intended to sift this case exceedingly fine.

Another car pulled up. The Department of Health ob-server and the Queens County coroner-or, as Mike could see through the window of the battered green city-issue Dodge, coroness. A fine, robust specimen of a woman too, and visibly p.i.s.sed off about gravedigging in the rain. The two of them got out of their jalopy and came over to Mike's. They knew their protocol, at least. When you are working with a detective inspector who is fool enough to get out and wallow in the mud, you d.a.m.n well come to him because you know he is a man obsessed. Inspectors are not even sup-posed to work cases. Their job is managing detectives.

"Inspector Banion?"

"Yours truly."

The Health Department type leaned into the car, his popeyes wet with fatigue, his breath a mixture of C&C Cola and streetcorner hot dog. These guys did a tough job, chasing down rats and sick dogs, sc.r.a.ping s.h.i.+t off floors, examining corpses for signs of contagion. "I'm Inspector Ryan," he said. "This is Doctor Phillips."

Mike unlocked his doors. "Come on in. The gravediggers are late."

The two of them piled into the police car. "Sorry about the rain," Mike said.

"As long as they can dig." The coroness was younger than she looked.

"This your first exhumation?"

"My first in a rainstorm."

"Maybe you're lucky. The wet'll hold down the stink."

Silence followed this remark. The bureaucrats were here because the law required their presence. But they were also human beings, and they must be curious about why such a high official was supervising an emergency exhumation in the middle of a rainy afternoon. They were going to stay curious. Mike wasn't going to repeat one word about this case to outsiders. He might be talking to the Night Church.

He looked across at a forlorn paper sign tied to the iron gate.

GROWING SEASON, JUNE 1-NOVEMBER 1. FRESH FLOWERS ONLY. ARTIFICIALSWILL BE REMOVED.

A high-toned cemetery.

In keeping with its image it was full of the most amazing monuments. For fifty years the Mafia had been burying here. The more murderous the sonofab.i.t.c.h, the more elaborate the grave. Buddy DiMaestro had a G.o.dd.a.m.n twelve-foot angel with a sword in its hand over his grave. Who was it supposed to scare, G.o.d?

Beth was also here, off in the Irish section of the bone-yard. Not a huge monument, but he kept it clean.

He came out here Sundays to talk to her. There had always been s.p.a.ce in that plot for Mike.

A rumbling behind his car announced the arrival of the gravediggers and their trenching tool. Good they had it; they would abandon this job if their only tools were picks and shovels. They were grim-faced, these three sanitation-department employees. These men spent most of their time at the city indigent graveyard on Hart's Island. Mike had been out there occasionally, fussing over the grid map in an effort to locate the remains of one unfortunate soul or an-other. It was a bleak place, with a mocking view of the waters of Long Island Sound, gay with sailboats and sun. The men who worked there looked like moles.

Mike started his car and began leading the procession into the cemetery. He stopped at the office and showed a tight-faced manager his EO. "You got it," was all the manager said. He held out a book for Mike to sign. Then there was a disclaimer form, and certifications for the two bureaucrats. They read their forms carefully and applied their precise bureaucratic signatures.

The little procession got underway again, moving down a wet, abandoned road, almost a path. On both sides opulent monuments loomed like watchers from the pages of some dangerous old romance.

Mike soon stopped his car. The trencher ground its gears and the three sanitmen piled down from the cab. "Let's start digging," Mike said. Then he added in an undertone, "There's three fifths of Chivas in my trunk for you guys, so drawing this gig isn't a total wipeout."

There was an immediate lift in their mood. One of them smiled, another gave a satisfied grunt. "That's gonna feel good, man," the third and most articulate said. They set about their labor with something close to gusto. From inside the car the two bureaucrats watched grimly. They had done most of their work; they were afraid that they were going to be cheated.

Mike had been in the business too long to do that to city employees. "Listen," he said as he got back into the car, "you folks want your fees in cash or goods? I got scotch in the trunk or three nickels apiece in my wallet. Take your choice."

"Our fees always come in cash," the coroness said. "We aren't allowed to take goods." Mike counted her out three fives.

The health inspector took liquor.

Outside the trenching tool started up with a roar and began digging away.

So everybody was happy, everybody was willing to work. Most times Mike wouldn't have given these people anything, and nothing would have been expected, but in the wet of a miserable afternoon it was only fair.

He and the two officials sat in the car while the gravedig-gers did their business, cursing and using their tool like a weapon, spattering mud over the gravestone, a simple but expensive piece of Carrara marble engraved with FRANKLIN APPLE, DECEMBER 11, 1894-JULY 12, 1983. Not even an R.I.P. The trenching tool, a small tractor with a device on it like a huge chain saw, rattled and swayed, its teeth crunch-ing down into the earth. In fifteen minutes a goodly hill of soil had piled up beside it.

At last the men went to work with shovels. Normally on an exhumation this was when you came speeding up in your car, jumped out, and peered down into the grave. Not this time. Mike had learned respect for the Night Church. Best to a.s.sume it was always right next to him. The coroness, for example.

Or one of the gravediggers. Or the a.s.sistant DA who had given him a hard time.

"Yo," one of the men called from inside the grave.

"Let's go, folks, this is what we came for."

They got out into drifting mist. Mud oozed under Mike's feet, sucking at his overshoes. He huddled deep into his trenchcoat, his old snap-brim faithfully keeping his bald spot safe from the elements.

At the bottom of the grave was a steel coffin cover. At least the funeral home had done a good job, and buried what it had said it would bury. Many a dearly beloved got prayed over in steel and mahogany but went down in pine; it was a popular ripoff.

The wind moaned in the trees, and rain steamed on the car headlights that illuminated the scene. In the depths of the grave the steel gleamed in the flashlight glare. "Pull the d.a.m.n thing off, boys," Mike said.

They got a rope through the hooks on the sides of the heavy coffin cover and raised it on their winch.

Now the coffin itself lay exposed, clean and gunmetal gray, with raindrops beading on its polished surface.

"Go ahead," Mike said. His witnesses stood beneath umbrellas on the far side of the grave, which was the windward side. If there was a ripe corpse in there they were going to want to move upwind with Mike in a hurry.

The coffin was locked, and n.o.body had the key. Mike thought of it lying in Mr. Apple's living room. One by one the screws holding the locking mechanism were removed. When the last of them came out there was a hermetic hiss. That had been one well-sealed coffin. "It's ripe," the coroness called.

"Come around here. It doesn't smell so bad." The umbrellas bobbed in the mist and soon the two officials were beside Mike. "Okay, open it up."

The gravediggers started to lift the lid. They hesitated, dug their feet in as if it was heavier than it should be, then heaved it back.

The coroness screamed. The Health Department inspec-tor made a sharp sound between his teeth. Mike knew that this moment was going to haunt him for the rest of his life. He had just encountered his worst murder. He was more than a little surprised; he had expected either cinder blocks or Mr. t.i.tus, alias Apple.

The spectacle before him was the kind of thing every homicide professional secretly dreads, the one so bad it gets past all your defenses. You know you will be spending nights with it from now on, seeing that frozen scream again and again, hearing the awful ripping sound the fingernails made when they popped out of the coffin lid.

"I'm sorry," Mike said into the silence. Down in the grave one of the diggers covered his face with mud-gloved hands. Another looked up toward Mike, or perhaps past him toward G.o.d. Or maybe just to see a little sky. "Hold it, guys, I'm comin' down." Mike descended their ladder, slipping once on a muddy rung.

The grave had the same sweet smell that had come from the foxholes of the dead in Korea. Foul sweet.

"Poor b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Coulda at least knocked him out." Mike tried to see the face, but the car lights didn't penetrate that far. He fumbled for his penlight.

"No s.h.i.+t, man," one of the diggers said. "I wish I hadn't seen this." His voice was awed to softness. A lot of people who work with human death do not fulfill the common mythology and become hard. They become very kind. Suf-fering respects itself.

The victim's fingers had been hooked into the coffin lid so tightly that the whole corpse had at first risen up, then fallen back as the fingernails came loose. Black stains covered the shredded rayon upholstery.

Blood from those scratching, clawing fingers.

With just the penlight there was no way to distinguish features.

"Get the big flash from the back of my car," Mike called up to the bureaucrats. In the meantime he played his pen-light into the coffin. The mess it revealed told exactly what it was like to die at the bottom of your own grave. It was very, very hard. The eyes, bulging open, had sunk to black holes; the mouth, spread in a last, anguished gasp, was all teeth and bitten, shredded lips. The corpse was so new that all the suffering was still there, in the eloquence and humanity of the frozen scream.

Policemen get good at pretending to be hard, but inside they slowly transform through the years, until the cruelty of human beings begins to seem a monstrous defect in the species, more pitiful than bad. They start seeing criminals and victims alike as cogs in a great wheel of human failure. Need and greed grind them all to pulp, weak and strong, good and bad.

"Cops and clowns are sad men," Harry Goodwin once had said deep into a bottle of Chivas, "and priests are better off dead." Mike recalled his own laughter. But now he didn't feel any of the irony or sadness of the remark. After last night he could feel only one powerful emotion-fear. And this new horror added to it in a particularly ugly way. Mike could imagine himself dying slowly at the bottom of a grave.

The health officer came scrambling down with the flash-light, but Mike had had enough. Let the homicide boys identify the poor sucker, that's what they were paid for.

"I'm gonna call this G.o.dd.a.m.n mess in," Mike said to the people around him. "Anybody wanna throw up, just do it outside of where people are gonna have to walk. All h.e.l.l's gonna break loose around here in a few minutes."

Mike didn't know of a ten code for burial alive, so he talked it. "This is Inspector Banion. Location: All Souls Cemetery, Roadway W-3, Gravesite E-144. I have a DOA buried alive. Please respond with a homicide workup."

The radio crackled back acknowledgment. Mike sat star-ing at the hand holding the microphone. Old hand. Age spotted, especially on the back. Busted thumbnail from that bout trying to repair Mary's hairdryer. The tears he had felt coming pa.s.sed down his cheeks just about on schedule. He wiped them away fast, trying to replace this big, nameless feeling with something he could understand and cope with, like anger or outrage. Whoever the poor devil was, he did not deserve to die like that.

Sirens rose. Fast work. New York City cops are the best in the world at getting through traffic.

Especially with the new hee-haw sirens making counterpoint to the old-fas.h.i.+oned waiters some of the EMS meatwagons still use. Mike could count the cars by their sirens. Six squad cars. A large segment of the precinct was turning out. The Banion legend was still very much alive, at least. And this particular discovery would not do it any damage.

Mike got out of his car and stood in the rain as Max and his lady sergeant trotted up. Their faces were as gray as the afternoon light. "h.e.l.lo, Inspector. You sure it's not Apple?"

"Looks like a younger man in there."

"Any ID?"

"Wearing a cheap doubleknit suit. I didn't look in the pockets." He paused a moment, too stunned to talk.

His heart almost exploded in his chest. "Oh, holy G.o.d, I must be gettin' old! I know know that suit!" that suit!"

Max started to say something but Mike was running back to the grave, to the place where that poor jerk was buried. He clambered down and grabbed the flashlight from the health inspector, who gave it up gratefully. He looked sick. The gravediggers were huddled at the edge of the hole, s.h.i.+vering. The coroness was off vomiting.

Terry. You poor, innocent man. Terry.

"Max," he shouted in rage and sorrow, "call in a revised bulletin on Terry Quist. Change the G.o.dd.a.m.n thing from missing person to homicide."

Max turned and disappeared past the edge of the grave. Mike looked down at his friend, looked long and hard. And he vowed vengeance.

Another man might have wanted to be alone at this point, or at least to spend some appreciable time in a bar, but Mike Banion went from being frightened to being downright mad. He was going to get get the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who had done this no matter what it took. And no matter who they had on their side. If he had to face Satan himself to do it, he d.a.m.n well would. the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who had done this no matter what it took. And no matter who they had on their side. If he had to face Satan himself to do it, he d.a.m.n well would.

The Night Church might be monstrous and terrifying, but this cruel murder showed it was also full of the petty viciousness of any criminal organization. Mike could under-stand that. He could feel contempt for it.

He'd like to find some cop who was a member of the thing and detail him to go down and bag poor Terry's body.

Police vehicles kept arriving. There were a dozen of them here, with men hurrying to the just-searchlit graveside with their equipment, cameras, and crime scene tapes, and all the other paraphernalia that modern detection techniques im-pose on police officers. Mike returned to his car, tossing away the stale cigar stub as he went. Once inside he lit a fresh one, glorying in the warm, aromatic smoke. A fresh cigar is a nice thing when you're all twisted up inside. It can untwist you like nothing else on this earth.