and put them in the glass by his bed. He dropped in the tablet of Efferdent to wash away his sins. The hissing of the water was soothing to him like the rain on the roof during a thunderstorm. The thunder would clap and David would open his bedroom door.
“Ambrose, can I sleep in your bed?”
“It’s just thunder.”
“I had a nightmare.”
“Another one? Okay. Climb in.”
“Thanks!”
Ambrose remembered the smile on David’s face. Those missing front teeth. He looked so relieved to be climbing into bed with his big brother. He used that old baseball glove as a pillow.
“Ambrose…let’s go to the woods tomorrow.”
“Go to bed, David.”
“I want to show you something.”
“I’m seventeen. I’m not going to the woods like a little kid.”
“Please. It’s something special.”
“Fine. What is it?”
“I can’t tell you, or they’ll hear me. You have to see it for yourself. Please!”
“Fine. I’ll go with you. Now go to sleep.”
But he never did. No matter how much David begged him. Because he didn’t want to encourage more of his crazy shit. He had no idea what David did out there. He had no idea what happened in those woods. But someone did. Someone put a tape recording of a baby crying on his porch and took his little brother away.
And someone buried his little brother alive.
A primal rage took the old man. A young, inexhaustible anger came back to him like an old song on the radio. He saw the faces of the newspapermen who accused him of murdering his own brother. The classmates who avoided him. The enemy’s armies that shot at him. His mother on her deathbed saying David was coming home. His father on his deathbed saying nothing because the cancer ravaged his brain worse than his own denial. He saw the doctor who said his wife was dead. The judge who told him he could no longer take care of himself. The gum-snapping bureaucrat who finally took his license. The government that couldn’t solve the refugee problem in the Middle East. And the God who let all of this happen for a reason all His own.
They all took on one face.
The person who buried his brother alive.
Ambrose took a deep breath of it. Then, he exhaled and stared at the ceiling through the clouds in his eyes. He was done crying. He was done feeling sorry for himself. He was done being a feeble old man who was just waiting to be blind before waiting to die. He was being kept alive for a reason. And he wasn’t going to waste it. He was going to figure out what happened to his brother if it was the last thing he ever did.
Which he was almost certain it would be.
Chapter 38
Who murdered David Olson?
That’s what the sheriff thought as he drove through the Fort Pitt Tunnel until the blizzard almost took his tires off the bridge. He had never seen snow like this in his life. Two days with no signs of stopping. It was like the earth was angry at them or God Himself really needed some Head & Shoulders for all that dandruff. There were droughts in Africa, a crisis in the Middle East, and Western Pennsylvania was throwing its hat in the ring to become the next North Pole.
What the hell was going on?
The sheriff pulled in front of the precinct and parked. He looked up at the old, grey building where he spent his eager twenties and less than eager thirties. The grey building where he put a lot of bad people behind bars and where a lot of innocent people lay lifeless on a cold metal table in the coroner’s office.
Innocent people like David Olson.
The sheriff got the call an hour before. His buddy Carl had run the DNA off the books as a favor. The hair from the baby book matched the DNA of the body found in the woods. The skeleton belonged to David Olson. The sheriff hoped that the final proof might give some comfort to Ambrose. He had seen grown men cry before, but there was something about Ambrose that got him behind the throat. Something about seeing this old war veteran cry through the gauze over his eyes that would never heal.
“Did he suffer? Were any of his bones broken?” Ambrose asked.
“No, sir.”
“Was he hurt…in other ways?”
“Other than the manner of death, there was no sign of foul play, Mr. Olson.”