Christopher took the old plastic bag out of his pocket. He put it right above the sweater where the head should have been, then covered it with a pillow. Just in case. Christopher walked to the basement stairs, but before he climbed, he turned back to the little recovery bed he made for the nice man. He looked at the cookies and milk left for his real-life Santa Claus. His real imaginary friend.
Chapter 51
Something had changed. The sheriff could feel it. He had been in the Mission Street Woods since early that afternoon. He had walked the crime scene for the hundredth time when out of nowhere, it felt like the woods woke up around him. Rodents who had been hiding in holes suddenly made digging sounds. The birds flew off the branches as if someone had shot a gun that only they could hear. The temperature instantly dropped to below freezing. It felt like someone had left a window open and a draft was running through the world.
If David Olson was buried alive, then who buried him?
Because it wasn’t the trees.
The sheriff shook off the uneasy feeling and went back to his work. He walked up and down the footpath, looking for clues. Of course, the case was fifty years old, so he knew he wouldn’t find a fresh scene. No sign of abduction. No hole in the ground. No trapdoor. But maybe he would find something else. An idea. An insight. Some reasonable explanation that would allow the sheriff to put David Olson to rest in his own mind the way that Ambrose had put him to rest that morning.
But nothing came.
Except that uneasy feeling.
The sheriff passed the spot where David’s body was found. He looked at the torn earth and remembered standing next to Ambrose and Kate Reese at David’s funeral. It was only that morning, and yet it felt like it happened two years ago. Father Tom gave a beautiful eulogy. Ambrose insisted on carrying his little brother’s casket. The sheriff had to give the old man credit. He couldn’t think of a lot of men who could have been a pallbearer on two arthritic knees.
When they reached the cemetery, they walked the casket over to the grave. As Father Tom spoke, the sheriff looked out over the cemetery. He could barely hear the words “love” and “forgiveness” and “peace.” He could only think about the thousands of headstones with generations of families lying side by side. Husbands. Wives. Mothers. Fathers. Daughters. Sons. The sheriff thought about all those families. All those Christmas dinners and presents and memories. And then, he had the strangest thought.
God is a murderer.
The sheriff had no idea where it came from. There was no menace to it. No malice. Nothing sacrilegious. It was just a thought that drifted there quietly like the clouds that had gathered above the cemetery. One cloud was shaped like a hand. Another like a hammer. And one looked like a man with a long beard.
God is a murderer.
The sheriff had arrested murderers before. Some begged that they were innocent or cursed him or screamed that it was all a misunderstanding. Some just sat there, still as statues, calm and sometimes covered in their victim’s blood. They were the truly frightening ones. Except of course the worst of them. The one woman who killed her own daughter. The girl with the painted nails. Not with a knife or a gun. But with neglect.
If God were arrested for murder, what would the people do with Him?
The sheriff looked out over the graves and thought about the girl with the painted nails. Hers was the last funeral he had attended before David Olson’s. The sheriff was the only person at the girl’s funeral other than the priest. The sheriff couldn’t bear to have the girl laid to rest in the plain pine casket that the city provided. So, he cashed out some of his savings and bought her the best he could afford on an honest cop’s salary. When the funeral was over, he drove home and sat in his apartment. He wanted to pick up the phone and call his mother, but she had passed years ago. He wanted to take his father out for a drink, but his father was gone, too, along with his aunt, who died right after his high school graduation. The sheriff was an only child. He was the only one in his