The Night Strangers - Chris Bohjalian [101]
“Garnet,” she whispered, “how?” She didn’t know what she meant by the word, she wasn’t precisely sure what she was asking. But then the presence of the skull and the night and the idea that a body had been buried in their house all came crashing down upon her and she batted the jawbone out of her sister’s hand as if it were some sort of violent animal and dragged the girl as fast as she could up the stairs, screaming all the way for their mother.
The state trooper who arrived in the middle of the night was a slim young woman with short dark hair and an aquiline nose. Her badge said C. PAYNE. She knew all about Chip Linton, and not merely that he was that pilot. Emily had the distinct sense that she was aware that he had spent the night before at the hospital. The trooper acted surprised when Emily told her, but she wasn’t much of a thespian.
“Tomorrow morning the state will send a team from Concord,” she said matter-of-factly, referring to the State Police’s Major Crime Unit. Her voice was pleasant but laconic: Emily recognized a trace of a Yankee drawl. The trooper was leaning against the kitchen counter, explaining to Chip and her what was next, while the girls sat wrapped in a blanket on the living room couch. It was evident that they weren’t going to let their parents out of their sight, and Emily presumed that the two of them would be sleeping tonight with Chip and her in the queen-size bed in the master bedroom.
“The mobile crime lab will search for any remaining bones and probably nose around the basement—especially behind that door—for anything that might have been a murder weapon. Even a big rock,” she said.
“This house seems to be filled with them,” Emily observed.
The trooper smiled at the small, dark joke and said, “I guess you mean murder weapons and not big rocks.”
“Yes.”
“You want to be more specific?”
Emily looked at Chip to see if he wanted to answer, but he remained silent. And so she described the crowbar, the knife, and the ax.
“And you really found them hidden around the house?” the trooper asked.
“We did.”
“Well, be sure to give them to the investigators tomorrow. And I know you’ve probably handled them a bunch, but try not to handle them anymore. Okay?”
“No problem there.”
“That Tansy Dunmore was quite a piece of work.”
“That’s what I hear,” Emily agreed.
The trooper turned to Chip. “So, you took down that door,” she said.
“I did.”
“Why?”
He shrugged and smiled. “Same reason men climb mountains, I guess. Because it was there.”
“And you never found any bones in the dirt on the other side?”
“I did not.”
“Okay.” Then she peered through the doorway into the living room at the twins. “Really, there’s nothing more to be scared of,” she told the girls. “It’s just a skull. We all have one. You’re not in any danger.”
Her daughters were staring at the woman, their faces a little blank. Emily couldn’t imagine what they were thinking. “Whose body was buried down there?” she asked, lowering her voice, though she feared that her girls could still hear her. “Do you have any idea at all?”
“My guess? And it’s just a guess from growing up around here. But I’d say it was Sawyer Dunmore. We’ll see if there are any open homicides or missing persons going back a long while. But my money would be on Sawyer. He killed himself years and years ago, and became the sort of ghost story we’d all tell each other at sleepover parties and Girl Scout campouts.”
“You were a Girl Scout?” Emily asked.
The trooper grinned a little sheepishly. “I guess I’ve always liked uniforms.”
“I was, too.”
“There you go,” she said. “You probably had your share of ghost stories founded on nothing.”
“Well,” Emily said, “this was something.”
“Yes and no. I mean, it’s real and it’s scary. But it’s all explicable. Everything you’re going through is explicable and,