* * *
Paul felt like a burglar.
You’re not here to steal anything, he told himself. Just your son’s body. If there is a body. And that belongs to you.
Nevertheless, as he poked through the house, undeterred by the Thorps’ right to privacy, he felt like a thief.
By 1:45 he and Sam had searched upstairs and down, through the bedrooms and baths and closets, through the living room and den and dining room and kitchen. There was no corpse.
In the kitchen Paul opened the cellar door and switched on the light. “Down there. We should have looked down there first. It’s the most likely place.”
“Even if Rya’s story is true,” Sam said, “this isn’t easy for me. This prying around. These people are old friends.”
“It isn’t my style either.”
“I feel like such a shit.”
“it’s almost finished.”
They descended the stairs.
The first basement room was a well-used work center. The nearer end contained two stainless-steel sinks, an electric washer-dryer, a pair of wicker clothes baskets, a table large enough for folding freshly laundered towels, and shelves on which stood bottles of bleach, bottles of spot removers, and boxes of detergents. At the other end of the room there was a workbench equipped with vises and all of the other tools that Bob Thorp needed to tie flies. He was an enthusiastic and dedicated fly fisherman who enjoyed creating his own “bait”; but he also sold between two and three hundred pieces of his handiwork every year, more than enough to make his hobby a very profitable one.
Sam peered into the shadow cavity beneath the stairs and then searched the cupboards beside the washer-dryer.
No corpse. No blood. Nothing.
Paul’s stomach burned and gurgled as if he had swallowed a glassful of acid.
He looked in the cabinets above and below the workbench, flinching each time he opened a door.
Nothing.
The second basement room, less than half the size of the first,
was used entirely for food storage. Two walls were covered with floor-to-ceiling shelves; and these were lined with store-bought as well as home-canned fruits and vegetables. A large, chest-style freezer stood against the far wall.
“In there or nowhere,” Sam said.
Paul went to the freezer.
He lifted the lid.
Sam stepped in beside him.
Frigid air rushed over them. Streams of ghostly vapor snaked into the room and were dissipated by the warmer air.
The freezer contained two or three dozen plastic-wrapped and labeled packages of meat. These bundles weren’t stacked for optimum use of the space-and to Paul at least, that looked rather odd. Furthermore, they hadn’t been arranged according to size or weight or similarity of contents. They were merely dumped together every which way. They appeared to have been thrown into the freezer in great haste.
Paul took a five-pound beef roast from the chest and dropped it on the floor. Then a ten-pound package of bacon. Another five-pound beef roast. Another roast. More bacon. A twenty-pound box of pork chops
The dead boy had been placed in the bottom of the freezer, his arms on his chest and his knees drawn up; and the packages of meat had been used to conceal him. His nostrils were caked with blood. An icy, ruby crust of blood sealed his lips and masked his chin. He stared up at them with milky, frozen eyes that were as opaque as heavy cataracts.
“Oh . . . no. No. Oh, Jesus,” Sam murmured. He swung away from the freezer and ran. In the other room he turned on a faucet; the water splashed loudly.
Paul heard him gagging and puking violently into one of the stainless-steel sinks.
Strangely, he was now in full control of his emotions. When he saw his dead son, his intense anger and despair and grief were at once transformed into a deep compassion, into a tenderness that was beyond description.
“Mark,” he said softly. “It’s okay. Okay now. i’m here. I’m here with you now. You aren’t alone anymore.”
He took the remaining packages of meat from the freezer, one at a time, slowly excavating the grave.
As Paul removed the last bundle from atop the body, Sam came to the doorway. “Paul? I’ll . – . go upstairs. Use the phone. Call . . the state police.”