distant hope, his credence in the hellfire and the righteous, whimsical god who fueled it with his wrath dwindled to nothing. But he never lost faith in grandfather himself. If grandfather’s God was wrong, that did not mean grandfather himself was wrong.
On the morning of the fourth day Dyce carried grandfather’s withered body to his bedroom, dressed him in pajamas and laid him to rest under the blankets, The old man had become so frail in his final years it was like carrying a child. It was winter and Dyce had kept the heat off so the decomposition was slight, but the odor, as he cradled the body against his chest, was very strong. Dyce choked back his revulsion and forced himself to breathe deeply. If grandfather stank, then the stench was good and pure.
When all signs indicated that the old man had died peacefully in bed-as indeed he had-Dyce called the authorities and told them he had just returned from a weekend in upstate New York looking at the campus of the college he was to attend in thirteen days and had discovered his grandfather dead. Dyce waited a week after the official funeral before he set fire to the house. He knew he would not return and he could not bear the idea of anyone else living in the home where he and grandfather had loved one another.
The fire department responded more quickly than he had anticipated, saving most of the roof and the attic rafters and a portion of the porch where grandfather had sat and waited and watched for the arrival of his grandson.
It was good enough, Dyce decided. No one could live in the house and there was something comforting about the indestructibility of the stone walls that continued to stand, blackened by smoke but as solid as the earth from which they came. From a distance the house still looked whole and someday, when he had wrested his fortune from the world, Dyce could return to live again in his only inheritance.
The cemetery was empty except for the men digging a fresh grave in Section Three, and they were too far away and preoccupied to pay any attention to him. With one more look around to assure his privacy, Dyce knelt on the grass beside grandfather’s grave. A spider had spun a web from the plastic flowers that sat atop the funerary urn to the ground and the encased carcasses of two victims hung from the threads like roosting bats with their wings enfolded round them. Dyce removed the plastic flowers from the top of the urn, snapping the web, revealing the glass gallon container beneath. He would need all of it this time, he would have to take it with him, so Dyce pulled out the bottle. Dirt and some kind of moss encrusted the bottom of the container so it came up with resistance, and algae was slowly colonizing the unperceptible valleys of the glass surface, but inside the bottle and its plastic lid, which was still untouched by nature’s slow incursions after fifteen years, the liquid PMBL was still as clear as spring water with the faintest touch of blue. Like water from a glacier, Dyce thought. Like drinking water of an earlier age before pollution. Like the water in Canada, maybe. He would find out soon enough.
Holding the bottle to his chest with both arms wrapped around it, Dyce spent a moment alone with grandfather. At first it was hard to concentrate; there were so many things on his mind. They were chasing him and they were so close. He didn’t understand how they could be so close, two of them within an hour- but they were stupid, they were gullible. He had no doubt that he could outwit them. There was only one of them he feared, the companion at the hospital of the cop he had just dealt with-but he wasn’t here and maybe he wasn’t coming. If he did come, Dyce knew what he had to do. He could ignore the others or deal with them as they came along, but that one he would have to kill.
He struggled to put such things out of his mind and to get in touch with grandfather. Eventually the peace settled over him and he could see the old man again, and smell the scent of the plain soap he used to wash his body and his hair. He could feel the gentle prickle of grandfather’s beard touching his cheek, and then the back of his neck as grandfather got behind him. He could hear the rapid panting of grandfather’s breath into his ear, he could feel grandfather pressing against him from behind, pressing and pressing until the panting stopped with a shuddering sigh.
Dyce felt a moment’s anger with grandfather for dying-no, not for dying, but for failing to come back. For leaving Dyce alone and without hope. But the moment passed and he left grandfather as he always did, with love and longing.
He positioned the plastic flowers atop the urn and then placed a stone atop the grave marker before leaving, clutching the bottle carefully in both hands.
This time he took a different route out of the cemetery and passed his father’s grave. Dyce had not visited the grave in many years and it took him a moment to find it. Dysen had not been buried near his wife nor the plot that would become grandfather’s a decade later. Grandfather had seen to it that Dysen was planted in the ground as far from the Cohens as possible. Dyce stood by the far edge of the cemetery where the weeds protected themselves from the mower while growing tall next to the border fence. Cobwebs proliferated between the fence rails, and the whine of automobile tires could be heard from the nearby road.
Although he tried, Dyce could remember little of his father. Nothing came back to him except the smell of liquor on hot breath, and a sense of fear. He could not picture his face clearly; he could not recall scenes or incidents. There was none of the vivid imagery that would come to him in his dreams-only the sense of fear. And then something else, something he had never felt before when he thought of his father. He looked up to be sure he was still alone. The grave diggers were closer now; their work was along the fence, one section away. Dyce turned his back to them to be sure they couldn’t see the tears in his eyes.
I don’t know why I’m crying, he said to his father’s grave. But it’s not for you. Not for you. For grandfather, not for you. But he stayed beside his father’s grave much longer than he had planned, weeping silently at first, then sobbing as if his chest were being tom open.
You were a monster, he cried in his mind. A monster! Grandfather told me, again and again. I know what you were. A beast without control, without love, without pity. You killed my mother, you tried to kill me, you mined our lives, grandfather had told him, like a chorus, like a litany.
I do not cry for you! I can’t even remember you. There’s nothing of you in me, I am my mother’s child, I am grandfather’s child, I am not yours!
When he left the cemetery, Dyce was alarmed at how long he had stayed. Time had seemed to fall away and he had had no idea of the hour that passed. He had been careless; he had made a mistake and for the strangest of reasons. He did not understand what had overcome him at his father’s grave, but he must not let such foolishness affect him in the future.
He headed north, leaving Minnot in the direction of 1-91, which would take him through Massachusetts and Vermont and eventually to Montreal, but he got no farther than the edge of town where Main Street connected with Route 17, the feeder road to the thru-way. A state police car was parked there, its lights flashing, and behind it a brown Dodge. A uniformed trooper was leaning over the driver’s side of the lead car in a line of six waiting to pass. The driver’s door opened and an elderly man with a beard got out in obvious puzzlement. Another trooper and a man in a business suit came slowly down the line of cars, peering into each.
Impatient drivers behind him were throwing their cars into reverse to back up and try alternate routes and Dyce joined them while the approaching trooper and suit-clad officer were still three cars away. In his mirror he saw the lead trooper wave a woman through with little more than a glance.
They are faster than I realized, Dyce thought, and the FBI man was more resistant than I would have thought possible. The important thing was not to panic and run into their net. I must hide for a time, and to do that I will need a few things.
The town center was clean of police. They will be close to the highways, he thought, trying to keep me in, not on the inside trying to flush me into the net.
Dyce drove to a supermarket and walked quickly but without too much haste through the aisles. He wouldn’t need much; it shouldn’t be more than a few days and he could live on very little. There was a hardware store in the same lot so it would be one-stop shopping.
A stock boy glanced up at him as he passed and Dyce felt his breath jerk in his chest. The boy was perfect, not really a boy but a young man, and his features were everything Dyce needed. Dyce made a brief detour to the pharmaceutical aisle for an impulse purchase before checking out.
The farmer’s tractor was gone by the time Dyce returned, which was a good sign. Dyce would not have to waste any more time dealing with him and if he returned tomorrow, he would be excellent cover. Dyce needed all the time he could muster now because the police officer was large and heavy but he could no longer be allowed to stay in the corn and recover in his own good time.
The extension ladder he had purchased at the hardware store had a rope and pulley, which allowed it to be levered to its full length. The pulley helped in lifting the cop up the ladder, too, but it was still very difficult and took
