Crawford started as someone tapped him on the shoulder. “You all set here, Chief? We’re getting some people in to start cleaning up the animals. Wish we could find Bugsy, he’d be the guy for this.”
Crawford stared at the man for a moment, returning to the present. “Sure, get whoever you need. No police, though, I want everyone looking for Greymore.” As the officer walked away Crawford felt a familiar feeling creeping over him. It was a feeling he was used to. Doubt. He had felt it first when he had seen the same marks on Greymore’s body as those on the girl. The medical examiners were unable to identify them. That was why they couldn’t be included in the report to the press. Crawford had personally seen to that. Now here they were again, seventeen years later on another dead person, just a few hundred feet from where he had found Greymore and the Larsen girl. What could have made those marks? He went back to his car and slumped heavily into the driver’s seat. Making sure nobody was around, he reached over and opened his glove compartment. He would push aside the doubt the same way he had been for all these years. The way he had to when he woke up sweating, heart pounding, knowing something was missing but not wanting to know. He unscrewed the cap and drank deeply from the bottle.
(87)
Ortiz slammed the door to the empty police station and collapsed in his desk chair. He felt trapped. Choices. Right and wrong. Guilt and innocence. He had already violated police protocol once by calling a warning to Greymore. What next? Crawford wanted him to call out an APB, deputize volunteers and perform a blanket search for Greymore. Crawford was clearly losing it, but to disobey a direct order would likely spell the end of his career. To follow orders would go against a cop’s best friend: his gut. Ortiz relied heavily on his instincts and was rarely misled. Right now, his gut was telling him Greymore was not killing people and that there was a lot more going on in Haven than even Crawford knew about. He thought of his career, the risks of what he was contemplating, an innocent man’s life, the safety of his town. He glanced at the clock. Crawford would expect action. Decision time. He stood slowly and walked toward the radio desk. He stopped to fill himself a cup of water from the cooler, taking a sip as he reached the radio. With no further hesitation, he poured the cup of water onto the back of the radio. There were no sparks, just a faint crackle before the box went silent.
Ortiz felt surprisingly calm as he pulled the fuse from the cruiser that powered the car radio. With his penknife, he broke the filament and replaced the fuse. Radio silence. Through no fault of his own, or so he could claim, he was unable to call in the APB and organize the search. Plausible deniability. His alternatives were to try to find Crawford or begin the search himself. Perfectly justifiable to consider driving around Haven looking for Crawford as a waste of time. Plausible deniability. His flimsy alibi in place, he set out to find Greymore himself.
On his way through town, Ortiz’s attention was drawn to the gathering clouds. The heat was still unbearable and they had watched these cloud formations come and go with no rain before. The trees were deathly still, as was the town. Everyone was either over at the fairgrounds or hunkering indoors waiting for rain, or simply afraid to venture out. He pulled into the hospital lot, and with a final dubious glance at the sky, headed in to see Joe Cummings. The elevator ride was endless; more waiting. With a nod he breezed past the desk and stepped quietly into Cummings’ room. Christ, what a mess. The parts of his face not bandaged were a dark rainbow of bruises. His swollen eyes fluttered open as Ortiz moved toward his bedside. “Sorry to bother you, Mr. Cummings, I was hoping I could ask you a few questions?”
What might have once been a smile, now a disturbing grimace, crossed Joe’s face. “Not a problem, Officer Ortiz, my afternoon is open.”
Ortiz hesitated. He had to play this right. “Please call me Robert. I’m here on my own time, not on official police business.” He removed his hat, as if that would confirm it.
Cummings eyed him for a moment, nodding. “Alright, Robert, what can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for Greymore…”
“That sure sounds like official police business to me, unless you were planning on catching a movie together?”
Ortiz quickly realized Cummings was not one to be played. His friendship with Greymore was too important. Once again following his gut, Ortiz plunged ahead. “Right now, Chief Crawford is at Doris Lovell’s house. She’s dead, Joe. Her, and a bunch of her cats. Mutilated. Crawford sent me to get Greymore. Dead or alive. But it doesn’t feel right. I need your help…” Cummings closed his eyes. After a few minutes Ortiz thought he had fallen asleep, probably still sedated. He turned to leave.
“Paul is innocent. I can’t prove it, but I know it. If we don’t start with that as a fact, this conversation is over.”
“That’s why I’m here, Joe.”
“This is going to sound crazy, but it’s something about the lake. Paul thought there was something in there, and he had these marks all over…”
“Wait. What marks? There was nothing in the report.”
Joe sighed, shaking his head. “Who wrote the report? Anyway, the marks looked like bee stings, only bigger, and lots of them in a straight line. Paul was out of his head after he was caught, but he kept saying ‘Stay away from the lake, it might still be alive.’ There’s something in there, isn’t there? Find Paul, make sure he’s safe.”
Ortiz could see the agony in Joe’s eyes, even through the mask of bruises on his face. “I’ll find him, Joe. That’s a promise. After that, I don’t know what happens, but I’ll find him.”
Back in the cruiser Ortiz hesitated. Now what? He’d basically cut himself off from any official resources by disobeying orders. He was on his own. It’s something about the lake. Ortiz closed his eyes, calling up the incidents since Greymore returned. Tony DeMarcy last seen in a canoe floating around on the lake. Bugsy’s gun found on the shore. The Sheehan kid and his dog ripped apart. The Peroit girl’s baby taken by what she called a monster. Jenkins. Now the Lovell woman. All six tied to the lake.
The thing that made Ortiz a good cop was his mind. He had an innate sixth sense that allowed him to take seemingly unrelated or insignificant events and find the connection. To him, it was like one of those old maze puzzles where you slid the pieces up and down and across until you got them in the right place. Jumbled, they made no sense but laid out properly, they formed a picture. Another piece slid into the right place when Ortiz remembered the papers in Bugsy’s truck. All of the data pointed to less roadkill around the lake, this year and back in ’61. Unless Greymore had an appetite for killing squirrels and possum, there was something in the lake killing them. And sometimes bigger prey. Ortiz started the car and pulled out of the hospital parking lot. He needed to talk to Greymore, to see what he remembered about the marks on his body the night he was arrested. But first he had another hunch to follow up on. He had to be sure. He headed back to the station to break a few more rules.