“After the story in the paper about Armes disappearing,” Harry said, “I kept waiting for a correction, but none was printed, and that’s when I began to realize that the odd goingson at Callan’s weren’t just odd but probably criminal, as well and that the cops were part of it.”
“Paula Parkins was torn apart too,” Sam said.
Harry nodded. “Supposedly by her Dobermans.”
“Dobermans?” Tessa asked.
At the laundry Sam had told her that her sister was one of many curious suicides and accidental deaths, but he had not gone into any details about the others. Now he quickly told her about Parkins.
“Not her own dogs,” Tessa agreed. “She was savaged by whatever killed Armes. And the people tonight at Cove Lodge.”
This was the first that Harry Talbot had heard about the murders at Cove Lodge. Sam had to explain about that and about how he and Tessa had met at the laundry.
A strange expression settled on Harry’s prematurely aged face. To Tessa, he said, “Uh … you didn’t see these things at the motel? Not even a glimpse?”
“Only the foot of one of them, through the crack under the door.”
Harry started to speak, stopped, and sat in thoughtful silence.
He knows something, Sam thought. More than we do.
For some reason Harry was not ready to share what he knew, for he returned his scrutiny to the notebook on his lap and said, “Two days after Paula Parkins died, there was one body taken to Callan’s, around nine-thirty at night.”
“That would be September eleventh?” Sam asked.
“Yes.”
“There’s no record of a death certificate issued that day.”
“Nothing about it in the paper, either.”
“Go on.”
Harry said, “September fifteenth—”
“Steve Heinz, Laura Dalcoe. He supposedly killed her, then took his own life,” Sam said. “Lovers’ quarrel, we’re to believe.”
“Another quick cremation,” Harry noted. “And three nights later, on the eighteenth, two more bodies delivered to Callan’s shortly after one in the morning, just as I was about to go to bed.”
“No public record of those, either,” Sam said.
“Two more out-of-towners who drove off the interstate for a visit or just dinner?” Tessa wondered. “Or maybe someone from another part of the county, passing on the county road along the edge of town?”
“Could even have been locals,” Harry said. “I mean, there’re always a few people around who haven’t lived here a long time, newcomers who rent instead of own their houses, don’t have many ties to the community, so if you wanted to cover their murders, you could maybe concoct an acceptable story about them moving away suddenly, for a new job, whatever, and their neighbors might buy it.”
If their neighbors weren’t already “converted” and participating in the cover-up, Sam thought.
“Then September twenty-third,” Harry said. “That would have been your sister’s body, Tessa.”
“Yes.”
“By then I knew I had to tell someone what I’d seen. Someone in authority. But who? I didn’t trust anyone local because I’d watched the cops bring in some of those bodies that were never reported in the newspaper. County Sheriff. He’d believe Watkins before he’d believe me, wouldn’t he? Hell, everyone thinks a cripple is a little strange anyway—strange in the head, I mean—they equate physical disabilities with mental disabilities at least a little, at least subconsciously. So they’d be predisposed not to believe me. And admittedly it is a wild story, all these bodies, secret cremations… .” He paused. His face clouded. “The fact that I’m a decorated veteran wouldn’t have made me any more believable. That was a long time ago, ancient history for some of them. In fact … no doubt they’d hold the war against me in a way. Post-Vietnam stress syndrome, they’d call it. Poor old Harry finally went crackers—don’t you see?—from the war.”
Thus far Harry had been speaking matter-of-factly, without much emotion. But the words he had just spoken were like a piece of glass held against the surface of a rippled pool, revealing realms below—in his case, realms of pain, loneliness, and alienation.
Now emotion not only entered his voice but, a few times, made it crack “And I’ve got to say, part of the reason I didn’t try to tell anyone what I’d seen was because … I was afraid. I didn’t know what the hell was going on. I couldn’t be sure how big the stakes were. I didn’t know if they’d silence me, feed me to the furnace at Callan’s one night. You’d think that having lost so much I’d be reckless now, unconcerned about losing more, about dying, but that’s not the way it is, not at all. Life’s probably more precious to me than to men who’re whole and healthy. This broken body slowed me down so much that I’ve spent the last twenty years out of the whirl of activity in which most of you exist, and I’ve had time to really see the world, the beauty and intricacy of it. In the end my disabilities have led me to appreciate and love life more. So I was afraid they’d come for me, kill me, and I hesitated to tell anyone what I’d seen. God help me, if I’d spoken out, if I’d gotten in touch with the Bureau sooner, maybe some people might have been saved. Maybe … your sister would’ve been saved.”