Read the Excerpt: From the Dust by David Swinson
1: The Birdhouse
It began here. A small town in upstate New York, bisected by the Erie Canal, where the days were short and the nights long because sleep was hard to find. Acres of rich farmland surrounded the edge of town. The corn was always tall, and the smell of fresh manure lingered in the air. Not a foul odor, something more warm and earthy. Felt like the beginning of growth. My father would also help enrich a tiny portion of the soil. He wanted a green burial. His body would naturally decompose to feed the small Eastern Red Cedar I planted behind his headstone.
The interim pastor of our dad’s church, Simon Guerre, conducted the burial ceremony. Pastor Simon had inherited the congregation after the previous pastor took ill, and he would remain in place
until a new one was hired. Only a handful of people attended the funeral—neighbors and friends my dad got to know over the years, including William Finn, the chief of police for the eight officers, one sergeant, and lone investigator of that small town. He was chief for life and about my age, maybe a couple of years older. He had known my dad for a while and had always been there for him and my younger brother, Tommy, when needed. No relatives showed up. Most of them were either too old, too dead, or too alienated by my father after the great divorce.
Tommy couldn’t make it either. He tried, but his agoraphobia got in the way. It was difficult for him, so I gave him credit for trying. It was my father’s death that brought me here, but my brother’s condition and need for company that made me stay. Not like it was a new start—I wasn’t running away from anything. It was just something I felt I had to do, especially since I could no longer keep my head in the game with the investigations I had to work. That was my only regret: leaving and not working my last two cases through. I left them open, probably soon to be cold.
After I retired from DC’s Metropolitan Police Department, I packed my life and what I didn’t need for day-to-day living and had it stored just outside the District of Columbia, in Virginia. It was a six-hour drive from here. A lot of years of life packed away in that storage unit. I moved into the guest room on the second floor of my dad’s home and surrounded myself with those life mementos that brought me comfort: the photograph I took of my wife, Elena, on our wedding day; another taken during the last vacation we had together; and, on the nightstand next to the side of the bed where I slept, the
urn that contained Elena’s ashes.
Death used to be my life, my career, and then it became something personal after Elena’s death, much like my older sister’s accidental death that occurred when we were kids. You looked at it differently when it involved a loved one. I was thankful that Elena, my sister Dani, and my father’s death had not been homicides. There was an odd sense of comfort in that.
My dad’s home had been built in 1850: a barn-red, two-story farmhouse, with an unattached barn that he converted into a two-car garage and workshop. The property comprised just over one and a half acres of land—not much, but edged by trees. A refuge. He knew it was where he would die. When it was his time, he just went. Never woke up. Isn’t that how we’d all like to go?
In his original living will, he advised that he wanted to be cremated but not until after the seventh day. He wanted his body kept in the morgue until that time. He believed that the mind stayed active long after death. For how long he obviously didn’t know, but all his research suggested that the brain was still going through something after everything else in the body had stopped. So, one week to be safe. Why the hell would you want to stay trapped in your head, I had asked him, with your body in a cold morgue? (Not that he’d feel the cold, but still.) What if this brain-activity business were true and you found yourself stuck in one helluva nightmare? What was the point? You’re not going to come back, so why not go for the ashes as soon as possible?
Obviously, he told me, no one could ever know until that time came, but he didn’t want to take a chance on anything having to do with matters of the soul. He later decided, for reasons I’ll never know, that he didn’t want to be cremated; he wanted a green burial instead. I don’t know. He was a tough son of a bitch, and even tougher to figure out.
Tommy sat on an old rickety rocking chair. It creaked with every rock forward. He was drinking an orange soda out of the bottle. We were on the back deck. Bill Finn was with us. He was on his way to the station but had stopped by to drop off a nice cut of venison tenderloin from a buck he had butchered over the weekend. Bill was a devoted hunter, and the venison was his way of welcoming me to the community. I was sitting on a rattan sectional, sipping coffee. Bill was on a matching rattan chair. The deck overlooked the half-acre of green pasture surrounded by trees. A cozy view. A view I wasn’t much used to having.
It was early afternoon, with a comfortably warm breeze. Spring was one of my favorite seasons. Summer was an enemy, mostly because I hated the humidity. It could get humid here too, but nothing like DC. Humidity in a large city was different than anywhere else. Far less tolerable—for me, anyway.
Tommy shot us a half-smile and said, “I haven’t grilled in a while,” like his mind had finally caught up to the conversation we’d had earlier about the meat.
“Well, now you got yourself a reason to,” Bill responded.
“Yeah, Dad said more than once how you were a grill master.”
Tommy looked at me, almost like he was about to smile, but then changed his mind. Looked like he might cry instead.
“Looks like you have some mowing to do,” Bill jumped in and said, as if he sensed the same thing.
“I can’t remember the last time I mowed,” I said.
“We have a zero-turn,” Tommy advised, and I imagined his large but fit body frame, and his shiny bald head, on the mower zigzagging along the pasture.
“Those are fun. Slip a cold one in the cup holder and off you go,” Bill said. He finished the remaining coffee in his cup and straightened up in his chair. “I should go.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
“See you another time, Tom. Don’t wait too long on those tenderloins.”
“I won’t, Chief. Probably tomorrow.”
I walked him around the house to his marked Expedition.
Before he opened the door I said, “By the way, my brother said you had a homicide a couple of weeks ago.”
“Yeah. We only had two other homicides in three years. One was domestic and the other one a shooting at our local bar, the Birdhouse. That place is a damn thorn in my side. Both murders were easy closures. This one I’m not so sure about. The body was dumped at the bank of the canal off 31. Appeared to have been dragged from the road. Looks like it might be drug related.”
“Birdhouse? Haven’t heard of that spot.”
“Don’t go there. I’ve tried to get the place shut down, but no luck. Lot of the town’s trouble comes through there, especially drugs.”
“You have a big drug problem here?”
“What town doesn’t?”
“True,” I agreed with a nod.
“Our investigator retired a while ago and we just promoted an officer to his position. He’s solid, but he’s still a rookie investigator.”
“A good homicide will break him in. Didn’t you work a few at NYPD back in the day?”
“That I did, brother. But that was years ago.”
“Like riding a bike, though.”
“But I’m dangerous on a bike. I always fall and hurt myself.”
He opened the car door, stepped in.
I said, “All right then, be safe.”
“Always.”
Bill Finn gave me an upward nod, closed the door, started the car, and pulled away. I watched as he slowly made his way down the long driveway toward the road. Our driveway was obstructed by a line of large trees, but I could see his car between the tree trunks, moving slowly and turning left onto the road.
My mind pivoted to the homicide because that was in my nature. I wondered why the body had been dragged to the bank, not dumped in the water. I should have asked. In the water, it would have been harder to find. Or maybe just as easy to find, depending on how deep the canal was, how fast the current ran, and whether the killer had thought to weigh down the body. I shrugged it off after a couple of seconds and made my way back to the deck. I didn’t have to worry about such matters anymore.
2: The Pastor
I’ve always been a light sleeper, and so the noise outside woke me. I picked up my iPhone to check the time.
0137 hours. I had it set to show military time.
I got out of bed to look out the window. I had a view of part of the garage and most of the driveway in front. I saw Tommy standing in front of the garage waiting for the door to slide open. He was fully dressed. He entered after it opened. A moment later I heard the car door slam. Our dad had his car parked in there. The car started. The headlights beamed light out of the garage.
What the hell?
It was only a few seconds later when Tommy drove our dad’s older model Ford Explorer out and slowly made his way down the driveway toward the road. From this vantage point I couldn’t see the end
of the driveway, or the road. The trees were tall, their big limbs thick with leaves. The car disappeared. I couldn’t even see the headlights. I stood there for a while, until exhaustion overwhelmed me. I didn’t know what to think. Was his agoraphobia all made up? I mean, what the fuck. I returned to bed.
Sleep did not come easily. It hadn’t since I retired.
Tommy was still sleeping when I woke up. I had two cups of coffee, then decided to hit the Wegmans in Canandaigua. It was the place to go for groceries around here. It was about 15 minutes from the house. I used to go to the one in upper Northwest, DC. Tommy told me that Wegmans had originally started as a fruit-and-vegetable cart in Rochester, which was about 40 minutes from town.
“The founders were brothers, like us.” Tommy smiled like a kid.
Going to the grocery store had always been something I enjoyed doing. Elena didn’t like to. If I had not been there, she would have probably had everything delivered.
I still found myself instinctively grabbing at snacks she loved, like Triscuits, Colby-Jack cheese, or jumbo blueberries. Tommy wanted to grill asparagus with the venison, so I went to the vegetable section after almost taking the blueberries.
I grabbed a bundle.
“Graham Sanderson,” a familiar voice said behind me.
I turned to see Pastor Simon. He was holding a plastic shopping basket that contained three apples in a clear bag.
“Nice to run into you here, Graham.”
“How are you, Pastor?”
He held up the basket, smiled, and said, “Just got started here, and saw you. How are you and your brother doing?”
“Doing well, thank you.”
“Are you getting settled in?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Again, I’m so sorry for your loss. Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“I appreciate that, and I will.”
“I know your father was a regular at church before I got there, and your brother attends online, but what about you? Do you join your brother for the sermon online?”
“Afraid not, Pastor. It’s not for me anymore.”
“Anymore?”
“It’s just not for me.”
“I understand. It shouldn’t be about guilt anyway, so I apologize if I made you uncomfortable.”
“You didn’t,” I smiled.
“Well, good to see you. Say hi to your brother for me—and let me know if you ever need to talk. I specialize in grief counseling. I’ll leave it at that.”
“Thank you, Pastor. Good to see you, too. I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Off to the bread section now. You take care.”
“You too. Have a good one.”
The image of Tommy driving the car down the driveway popped into my head.
“Oh, by the way, Pastor—”
He stopped and turned back toward me.
“I was just wondering …I mean, I know my brother was seeing the previous pastor for online counseling, so I was just curious if he’s doing that with you now.”
“Is there something you’re concerned about?” he asked as though he sensed it.
“I just know my father’s passing has been hard on him.”
“We do have online sessions once a week. You should talk to Tommy about that. And remember, I’m here for you too.”
“Appreciate that.”
“You take care, Graham.”
Pastor Simon gave a friendly smile and walked away. He seemed pleasant enough, and I felt a little bad that I’d been short with him about attending his church. Elena got me into going regularly, but after she passed away, I got angry at the God she said she had faith in. Dad didn’t go to church until later in life, and he had never forced his beliefs on us. Our mother, on the other hand, was Jewish, and she didpress her beliefs on us. I guess they never took root, because I knew that Tommy had streamed the church service online for years.
I liked driving around here. Long winding roads, farms surrounding small towns, and most of those with a Main Street. Some homes seemed sad, though. Falling apart. Others were grand old structures that have probably been standing for more than a hundred years.
Tommy insisted on taking care of the groceries when I got back. Everything had its proper place, and I wasn’t about to disturb that. When he was done, he returned to his comfortably cluttered room. He kept the door shut. Dad told me he felt safe in his room, so I never questioned Tommy about it. For some reason I didn’t even ask him about taking the car out last night. I must have been afraid of the answer. Damn, I gave up my life to be here with him, and now I had doubts. Had he been lying to our dad all this time too? All the childhood trauma and the psychiatrists and therapy that followed. I knew all that was true, but the agoraphobia? I would have to talk to him soon.
The extra time I had on my hands was new to me, and something I had to get used to. Work had been my life—more so after Elena’s death. I kept myself busy working cases, even assisting other detectives with theirs, until I burned myself out. I had to find other things to occupy myself with here. Sitting around and having nothing to do allowed too much time with my thoughts.
I heard a loud thump. Sounded like it came from upstairs. Then I heard Tommy yell, “Damn!”
I walked upstairs, thinking something must have fallen. His door was closed, so I knocked.
“Yeah,” he said like he was irritated.
I opened the door and stepped in. He was standing in front of a wall to the left of his desk. There was a fist-sized hole in the drywall. I noticed drywall dust on his fist.
“Why’d you put your fist through the wall?”
“Don’t worry,” he said calmly and without regret. “I know how to fix that.”
I stood there hoping he’d answer my question, but he just turned and sat back down at his desk.
“What’s going on, Tommy?”
“No worries, G. Damn customer just pissed the hell out of me. I’ll patch it up later.”
“You need to talk?”
“Naw, I need to get back to work.” He smiled oddly.
I had never seen him do something like that before. He turned back to his computer screen as though I wasn’t there. Before I could respond, he glanced over his shoulder toward the window overlooking the front of the house and said, “Someone’s here.”
Seconds later, the doorbell rang.
“You mind getting that? I have to work.”
“No problem.”
I closed his door and walked downstairs.
It was Bill Finn, dressed in his police uniform. I mentally shook off what had happened.
“Hey, Bill. Two times in two days. I feel honored.”
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything.”
“Not at all. Come on in.”
“I only have a minute. I would have called, but I figured this was something I’d rather do in person.”
“Sounds serious.”
“It is. I could really use your help.”
Discover the Book
The chief of the town’s small police jurisdiction, who is also a family friend, asks for Graham’s assistance. Graham’s instincts immediately kick in and he soon discovers there’s more to the area—the people, its brutally quiet, sophisticated hierarchies—than he or his family ever knew.
By clicking 'Sign Up,' I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
