Harry Dolan Read Online Free PDF

water and drank half of it sitting in the car. He noticed that the door beside him was unlocked, reached absently to lock it, and then felt foolish.
    He got out of the car and waited in the dark, sipping water, getting used to the idea that he was alone, that no one was going to charge at him from out of the trees at the edge of the lot.
    The moon was high above him, three-quarters full. He let his eyes adjust and after a while he could see, off to the right, a dirt path leading up into the woods. A sign stood at the foot of the path—he couldn’t read it in the dark, but he knew what it said. MARSHALL PARK.
    Ten minutes later, he heard the sound of another car’s engine. A pair of headlights jounced along the gravel drive and a long dark Ford sedan drew up alongside the Civic.
     
     
     
    Tom Kristoll’s steps were energetic. The gravel crackled beneath his boots as he came around to where Loogan was standing.
    “This is going to work,” Kristoll said. “I was right about it, wasn’t I? You can’t see the lot from the road.”
    “No.”
    “And nobody’s going to be around, this time of night.” He pushed a button on his watch and the face glowed in the darkness. “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “As I was heading out, I realized Laura would come home to an empty house and your car in the driveway. So I dashed off a note. Told her you and I had gone to see a late movie, maybe have a drink afterward. It’s not the best lie, but it’ll have to do.”
    Kristoll locked his car and they took the shovel and the rake and went scouting along the path. Kristoll played the beam of a flashlight over the ground ahead. When the path leveled off, they struck out into the woods and after twenty or thirty yards came to a clearing. Branches on the ground, a scattering of autumn leaves. They left the shovel and the rake and made their way back to the path. Arranged a fallen tree limb to mark the turnoff.
    They had removed the body of the thief from the study using a folding cot from Kristoll’s basement as a stretcher. They used it again to carry the body from the trunk of Kristoll’s Ford up the hill and to the clearing. It was rough going, but they took it slowly. Kristoll had covered the thief’s head and upper body with a white plastic bag. It glowed faintly in the moonlight.
    They laid the cot on the far edge of the clearing, in the space between a pair of birch trees. Loogan shrugged off his coat and dropped it on the ground. Kristoll had already picked up the rake and begun sweeping away the leaves and branches from the center of the clearing.
     
     
     
    The moon descended beneath the treetops. Stars revealed themselves. David Loogan sat on a patch of moss, his back against a tree trunk, drinking the last of a bottle of water. He listened: for voices, for footsteps, for the rhythm of an engine. He heard nothing but the sound of Kristoll’s breathing, the blade of the shovel cutting into the earth.
    They were making good progress. Kristoll had taken the lead, marking out a rectangle on the ground, carving out hunks of turf with the shovel and laying them aside, to be replaced later. After that, he and Loogan worked in shifts, piling the dirt on one side of their excavation, raking it back from the rim when the pile rose too high. Kristoll’s flashlight, tied to a tree branch with a handkerchief, illuminated the scene. The grave descended, so deep now that only Kristoll’s head and shoulders were visible above the ground.
    Loogan got up and drew on his gloves. His arms were streaked with dirt and there was dirt in his hair, and his clothes had taken on the color of dirt. Kristoll had stripped off his denim jacket and flannel shirt; his white T-shirt was black.
    Loogan stepped to the rim and Kristoll looked up. “Rest, David,” he said. “I’m good for a few more minutes.” But Loogan shook his head and Kristoll relented. They traded places: Loogan sitting on the edge, sliding down, making a step of his hands