‘Nice to think previous events might represent a positive learning experience for him.’
‘Nice, but unlikely.’
Louis picked up the check. Parker thanked him.
‘Don’t thank me, thank Moxie. I’m going to bill him for my expenses.’
‘Moxie,’ said Parker, ‘is going to be so pleased to see you.’
74
Since it seemed unwise to stay overlong in Dover-Foxcroft, Giller had sourced for Quayle a base from which to work: a vacation cabin in Piscataquis near Abbot, from a snowbird owner down in South Carolina, who wouldn’t ask questions so long as he was earning a little walking-around money. It made sense for Quayle to remain close to where Karis Lamb’s body had been discovered. Quayle continued to believe that if her infant had survived, it was somewhere in the region.
Quayle was in the cabin alone, because Mors was temporarily elsewhere, fulfilling their obligation to the Backers. She would return the following day, once the task was completed. Giller, meanwhile, believed he might be closing in on the child. His tone had betrayed a certain excitement when last he and Quayle spoke on the phone. A possible lead, Giller said, but a cash payment would be required. How much? Five thousand. Mors had delivered the money to Giller on her way south, her very appearance a warning that results were expected in return for the outlay.
How close was Parker to finding Karis Lamb’s child? If Parker was continuing to search, he was following different paths from Giller, because Giller assured Quayle that those to whom he had spoken were yet to be contacted by the private detective.
But Giller also provided an interesting tidbit about Parker. He and a black man named Louis, who acted as Parker’s shadow and gunman when required, were suspected of committing an arson attack on a truck in Portland. There was no proof of their involvement, and so action was unlikely, even had the will to arrest either man existed in the Portland PD, which Giller claimed was open to debate. Meanwhile the owner of the truck – one William Stonehurst, otherwise known as Billy Ocean – was very keen to establish the identity of those responsible. According to Giller, Billy Ocean was a jingoist and borderline simpleton. Either of these character flaws provided some scope for manipulation, but both combined represented usefulness on a grand scale. Quayle did not wish to antagonize the Backers by openly acting against Parker, but that did not preclude working through a third party. When Mors returned from Boston, she and Quayle would have a conversation with Mr Ocean.
And from a corner of the cabin, where no light intruded, the Pale Child regarded Quayle with unblinking eyes, and kept its secrets close to its hollow heart.
75
Ivan Giller was discovering the difficulty, if not inadvisability, of attempting to serve two masters.
Technically he had been engaged to assist the Englishman Quayle in tracking down a child now in the care of a family unrelated to the birth mother. But the middleman had also advised Giller that important people were very interested in the status of his inquiries, and any discoveries should be communicated to them before being shared with Quayle.
Which was fine, and not unusual in Giller’s line of work, particularly where his regular paymasters were concerned. But matters had grown complicated when Giller was taken aside by the woman named Mors, who instructed him to keep his mouth shut when it came to the child, and to deal only with her and Quayle. It was, Giller thought, as though she and Quayle were fully aware of the instructions he had been given; or perhaps they simply operated on an assumption of duplicity in all dealings, which struck Giller as very wise, all things considered. On the other hand, it did nothing to alleviate his concern for his own well-being once Mors and Quayle departed these shores, leaving him alone to face the displeasure of those others who had been cut out of the loop by Giller’s reticence.
The resulting dance gave Giller migraines, and – along with the slowly fading memory of the malformed child glimpsed in Portland – came between him and his sleep. With no other option, he’d come clean with Quayle about the conditions of his employment. As a result, Quayle was now permitting Giller to feed carefully filtered information back to the middleman. A reckoning might still take place once Quayle’s business was completed, but Giller could point to all he had shared while pleading ignorance about the rest.
But Giller was making progress in his search for the child. Partial information obtained from adoption agencies had enabled him to winnow away some families, and local contacts eliminated a few more, leaving him with a core of about twenty children, based on a late winter or early spring burial of the mother’s body. Now, amid light yet unrelenting rainfall, he was driving to Brunswick to meet with a woman who might be able to narrow the search still further, perhaps even to a single child.
The lead’s name was Connie White. A couple of years prior, White had been fired from her clerk’s job in Piscataquis for leaking information on bids for county contracts and soliciting bribes from contractors. Consequently, she was now filled with enough piss, bile, and vinegar to fuel ten lifetimes of resentment. Although White never dealt directly with the registration of births, which was why Giller hadn’t bothered to contact her before, one of his sources claimed White knew as much as anyone about the workings of the county. If she could screw someone over, and make a little money along the way, Connie White would be open for business.
White lived in a double-wide trailer in a small field surrounded by trees, with a stream running along its western perimeter. The whole setting might have been pretty, even bucolic, but only without the trailer, which was shitty looking and brought the whole pastoral vibe down. A big brown mongrel dog was chained to a post set into the ground not far from the door. The dog began barking and straining at the chain as soon as Giller pulled up, which in turn caused the post to wobble alarmingly in the ground. Beside the mongrel was a kennel daubed in bright red paint with the words THIS DOG WILL KILL YOU.
Giller decided to stay in his vehicle until someone arrived to deal with the dog.
The trailer door opened and a woman stepped out. She wasn’t what Giller had been expecting, although he was prepared to accept he had prejudged Connie White on the basis of the trailer, the dog, and the stories of piss, bile, and vinegar. She was slim and blond, and probably in her late forties, but looking good for it. Her jeans were blue and close-fitting, tucked into tiny yellow high tops, and she wore a blue Red Sox hoodie over a white T-shirt. She raised one hand in greeting and used the other to hush the dog by clamping its muzzle.
Giller stepped from the car, still keeping a close eye on the dog.
‘I’m Giller,’ he said.
‘Come on up. Don’t worry about Steeler here. He’s a sweetheart, as long as I tell him to be.’
Giller didn’t find this particularly reassuring, and made a mental note not to cross Connie White. The dog growled at him through White’s hand as he neared the trailer, showing sharp white teeth and pink gums. At least, Giller reasoned, it would probably be a clean bite.
White waited for him to enter the trailer before releasing the dog and following Giller inside. The exterior of the trailer belied the interior, which was as neat and clean as the woman who lived in it, although it boasted too much knit work for Giller’s liking. A large plastic bag filled with balls of yarn sat in one corner, and the table before him bore wool, needles, and the beginnings of what might have been a throw.
White saw him looking.
‘I make some money from it,’ she said. ‘Not much, but enough. Speaking of.’