‘I may be missing something here, but since when was flying the Confederate flag in downtown Portland an act of patriotism?’
‘Don’t ask me. If I could outlaw one concept, the obvious others apart, it would be fucking blind patriotism. It’s nationalism in better clothing. You know who were patriots? The Nazis, and those Japanese fucks who bombed Pearl Harbor, and the Serbs who rounded up all those men and boys and put them in holes in the ground outside Srebrenica before going back to rape their women, at least until someone tried bombing sense into them. Patriots built Auschwitz. You start believing that “my country wrong or right” shit, and it always ends up at the same place: a pit filled with bones.’
Moxie jammed another forkful of food into his mouth. To give him credit, he didn’t let his feelings get in the way of his appetite.
Parker let a few moments go by before he said:
‘I take it you didn’t offer to help Bobby in his quest for justice.’
‘No, but I could have made easy money just by telling him straight out who did it. I hear stories, some of them more believable than others, like the one about who might have been drinking in a bar on Commercial the night Billy Ocean’s truck was reduced to a burned-out shell.’
Parker looked at Moxie. Moxie looked back at him.
‘You need me to say it out loud?’ asked Moxie.
‘Not really.’
‘I think we can agree that the gentleman in question is not the kind to smile kindly on some oversized Johnny Reb wagon parked in his line of sight.’
‘Possibly not.’
‘So: Were you with him?’
‘You think I could have stopped him if I was?’
‘I’ll take that as a “yes,” then.’
‘I didn’t know he was going to blow up the truck.’
‘What did you think he was going to do, write the owner a strongly worded letter? You must have realized he was going to inflict some kind of damage.’
‘He might just have slashed the tires.’
‘If I thought you really believed that, I’d be looking for a new investigator, in case someone tried to offer you some magic beans in return for a head start.’
‘Louis’s going through a tough time. He needed to vent.’
Moxie tried to compose his features into something resembling a sympathetic expression. Tried, and failed.
‘A lot of folks have it tough, but they restrain themselves from committing acts of arson. God forbid I should accuse the Portland PD of even considering engaging in racial profiling, but if you think the cops haven’t already asked around and come up with a description of a black guy who happened to be drinking near Billy Ocean’s truck shortly before it exploded, you’re all out to sea. I hope he paid cash at the bar.’
‘He always pays cash,’ said Parker. ‘When he pays at all.’
‘I’m glad you can joke about this. Bobby Ocean and his idiot son can go fuck themselves as far as I’m concerned, and I don’t believe the police care for either of them any more than I do, but nobody wants trucks burning on the waterfront. It sends out the wrong message, which means this isn’t going to slide easily, and your friend doesn’t need that kind of attention. Rein him in. Better yet, tell him to indulge his firebug impulses down in New York, or even Jersey. Someone’s always burning shit in Jersey. He’ll blend right in.’
Parker knew Moxie was right, although he wasn’t certain that Louis could be reined in, not in his current mood. At least up here Parker could potentially keep an eye on him, and there was a limit to the amount of trouble he could cause in Maine compared to New York – or indeed, Jersey.
‘I’ll talk to him.’
‘Do that.’
Moxie closed the paper, and turned it so that the story above the fold on the front page was facing Parker.
‘You been following this?’
Parker had caught up on the discovery of the remains of a woman in Piscataquis County. Maine wasn’t immune from violent crime, and victims showed up from time to time. Perhaps it was the manner in which the body had been revealed – a thaw, a fallen tree – and its burial in a sackcloth shroud, but something about the case seemed to have captured the public imagination in the state, beyond the media’s stoking of the fire because it was a quiet time for news.
‘I don’t know any more than what I’ve read in the papers,’ said Parker.
‘I do.’
Trust Moxie. No tree fell unheard in a Maine forest, not with him around.
‘Homicide?’
‘Suspicious death for now. No obvious signs of external injury.’
That in itself was unusual. So many forms of sudden death left marks, even on semi-skeletonized remains. A bullet might bequeath a hole, a knife a scratch mark on a rib or sternum. Strangulation fractured small bones in the neck. Drugs were subtler, but even their presence was registered. Bone marrow retained toxins, and the hair and nails recorded exposure to narcotics. The body found ways to memorialize its end.
Parker knew that Moxie wouldn’t have brought up the subject of the woman if he didn’t have information he wanted to share.
‘But?’
‘The autopsy suggests she gave birth shortly before she died, and late in the final trimester. Something to do with the position of the pelvic bones, but the police also believe they may have found the placenta and umbilical cord in the same state of semi-preservation as the body.’
‘How long after she gave birth was she put in the ground?’
‘Hard to say, but no more than a day or two. Could be even less. The presence of the cord and placenta suggests it might have been hours.’
‘Did your contact give you an estimate on her age?’
‘Mid-twenties.’
‘So not a teenager.’
This might have been the twenty-first century, but it was still depressing to Parker how many teenage girls felt compelled to hide their pregnancies out of shame, or fear of parental anger, until the time came to give birth, alone and unattended, with the worst potential consequences for both mother and child.
‘No,’ said Moxie, ‘although adulthood is no guarantee against having a baby away from a hospital or home, either intentionally or by accident.’
‘Then where’s the child?’
‘If it died, then presumably it would have been interred with the mother. It might have survived.’
‘Unless it’s buried somewhere nearby,’ said Parker.
‘Why bury it away from its mother?’
‘Or was taken by animals.’
‘Then why not feed on the mother too?’
‘You want to go into that over breakfast?’ An infant body, Parker knew, would be easier to consume.
‘I’m not hearing anything about animal damage to the mother’s body,’ said Moxie.
‘So the mother dies,’ said Parker, ‘either from complications arising out of childbirth or at the hands of another, and the baby is kept by whoever put the mother in the ground?’
‘Or dropped off somewhere: a hospital, a charity.’
Sooner or later the police would start chasing down records of abandoned infants. A more exact estimate of when the young woman had died would help, but abandonments weren’t so common anymore. For the moment, though, they’d be operating on the assumption of infant remains buried in proximity to those of the mother.
Parker sat back from his food and signaled for more coffee. It came, and he waited until both their mugs were refilled before he spoke again.
‘So why does this interest you?’ he asked.
‘The state police are keeping some details back.’
It was not uncommon for the police to hold off on revealing evidence found at a scene, especially anything that might be known only to someone intimately connected with a crime, particularly the individual responsible for its commission. It was a way for the police to test for false confessions and accusations, as well as weed out time wasters and the insane.
‘And you know what these details are?’
‘Correct, although only one of them is relevant to me.’
Parker waited.
‘It’s a Star of David – not carved into the fallen tree by the grave, but on another nearby, facing it.’