Page 40 of Whistle
“Detail work.”
“Taking out the humerus in the upper arms, the radius and ulna in the forearm. Tibia and fibula in the legs. That and the rib cage were the biggies. Didn’t bother much with the little stuff. All the bones in the fingers were still there. And I have to say, very meticulously done. Must have had some very fine equipment. Maybe a Dremel.”
“Why would somebody do that, Marty?”
“That, my friend, is your area. Something else. Those two missing people you’ve been trying to find?”
“Yeah. Angus Tanner and Walter Hillman.”
“You know whether either one of them had a tattoo?”
Harry didn’t have to think. He knew the answer. “Tanner’s wife said he’s got an eagle on his back. Served briefly in the Gulf War.”
“There you go.”
Harry sighed. He wasn’t sure how he felt about this. He wasn’t going to find Tanner alive, but at least he’d found him. And, while there was still nothing to directly connect Walter’s disappearance to Angus Tanner’s, it certainly didn’t seem to bode well for the other man. He wasn’t looking forward to the visit he was going to have to pay to the Tanner family.
“I’ve got some more to do here,” Marty said, “but I at least wanted to give you that much.”
Harry thanked him and dropped the Nokia phone back in his pocket. He went back to Nancy’s cruiser.
“Tanner,” he said.
Nancy nodded. “Figured it’d be him or Hillman.”
“Yeah.”
“I talked to a woman from that place.” Nancy pointed to a house about fifty yards up the road. “She was driving to work, had to give her permission to go around the barrier to get into town. Nice Audi.”
“Anything?”
Nancy shook her head. “Didn’t see anything. She and her husband had that place built last year, nice house. Moved up from Boston. Both lawyers.”
“They must love living near that guy.” Harry tipped his head toward Crohn’s yard full of junk.
“All she said she heard was a train whistle,” Nancy said. “Woke her up around two. Since when is there a line around here?”
Twelve
Edwin Nabler was settling into Lucknow just fine, thank you very much.
It always took a little bit of time to acclimatize to a new place. Over the last six decades—or was it seven, or maybe five, it was hard to say—he’d set up shop in a number of locales. There was Des Moines, which was nice until it wasn’t. How long was he there, again? Two years, three? Something like that. And he had nice memories from Bradenton. Lots of retirees down there in Florida. Old guys looking for something to do. Even the geezers who’d traded a good-sized house in Rhode Island or Pennsylvania or Massachusetts for a cramped mobile home would find a way to set up a loop of track, maybe even a couple of sidings, in a bedroom that barely offered enough room to change your mind.
But, as charming as it was in Florida—the weather was, of course, much preferable to Des Moines, or the period he spent in Denver—Edwin chose not to stay that long. Less than two years. Not particularly challenging. Those folks were already in God’s Waiting Room. They’d moved down there because they knew the end was near, that the land of palm trees and hurricanes was the last place they were going to wake up in the morning until the day came that they didn’t. What kind of surprises could he really throw at them? What tragedy—big or small—would have the kind of impact he was looking for?
Philadelphia had its moments, no doubt about that. Hung out his shingle next to an ice-cream shop, which was good for bringing in the kids and their parents. But damned if he didn’t gain ten pounds in the time he was there, and ice cream wasn’t even something he’d thought he liked.
Sometimes he simply grew weary of a location; other times he felt an urgency to move on. There had been occasions when the locals started to get an inkling of what might be happening, who might be responsible. When all rational explanations had been exhausted, they considered the irrational, and that pointed them in Edwin’s direction. Then he’d pack up and slip away into the night.
So now here he was in Lucknow, which seemed to be as good a place as any. Who knew how long he might stay? He’d met the local chief of police this morning, and while it was the briefest of interactions, Edwin did not get the sense this was a man he needed to be concerned about. He knew what the chief’s current preoccupation was, and had little doubt he was out of his league when it came to solving crimes. After all, if he was any kind of policeman, why would he still be here in Podunk?
Yes, Lucknow seemed perfect to Edwin. He’d set up his own coffee machine—he’d brought a cup to that sad sack Gavin this morning—but he’d have to spend more time in that diner, not counting the few furtive visits he’d made, in and out so fast no one noticed. And he would want to get to know his fellow shopkeepers. Make himself known to the local business improvement association. Find out if there were any upcoming street fests when he could set up a display on the sidewalk. He’d heard talk about one coming up very soon.
He had always lived in his shop, regardless of which city he’d set up in. Threw down a mattress in the back to curl up on when he needed to recharge, but the truth was he didn’t sleep much. Didsome of his best work at night, in fact. He liked to be busy. Since arriving in Lucknow, he’d worked pretty much around the clock.
Although, if he was honest with himself, it was all starting to wear on him. More and more these days, his thoughts turned to the idea of retirement. If someone were to become privy to Nabler’s secrets they might have guessed him to be ageless, immortal even, but such was not the case. Everyone ran out of gas eventually. One of these days—not too soon, but again, time was all somewhat relative to Edwin—he would turn his attention to a successor, someone he could mentor, but he hadn’t reached that point quite yet.
He was in the back of the shop, where customers did not wander unless invited, working diligently on making the magic happen. If someone entered the front of the store, the door-mounted bell would alert him. With the exception of the visit by Wendell Comstock, it had been a slow morning, and Edwin didn’t want to spend the day twiddling his thumbs by the cash register. He was not worried. Pretty soon he’d have all the business he could handle. He always did.
