12
Sometimes good things happen to those who wait. This wasn’t one of those times.
Shortly before eight p.m., after I’d been cooling my heels for so long that my feet had gone to sleep, I heard the door unlock and a massive figure entered the room. His name was Gordon Walsh, and he was primarily a homicide specialist with CID. Our paths had crossed in the past and I still hadn’t managed to alienate him entirely, which counted as a miracle on a level with the dead rising up and walking. He had previously worked out of Bangor, one of what was, until recently, three CID units in the state, but a reorganization of the division had reduced this to two, Gray and Bangor. I had heard that Walsh had transferred to Gray, and was working out of the Androscoggin DA’s office. It wasn’t too much of a burden for him to bear. He lived in Oakland, virtually equidistant from both Gray and Bangor. Pastor’s Bay fell under the authority of CID in Gray as it lay in the northern part of Knox County, although in a case like this, such territorial definitions tended to be fluid, and Gray’s complement of sixteen detectives could be supplemented by some of their peers in Bangor if necessary.
Now here was Walsh, looking like a man who has just been roused from a deep sleep in order to rescue an unloved cat from a tree. He took in my black suit, and my dark tie, and said, ‘The undertaker called. He wants his clothes back.’
‘Detective Walsh,’ I said. ‘Still field-testing the tensile strength of polyester?’
‘I’m an honest public servant. I wear what I can afford.’ He rubbed the hem of his jacket between his fingers and winced slightly.
‘Static?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘It’s the air.’
He was still leaning against the wall, and his mood didn’t seem to be improving. If anything, he was growing more and more unhappy as the seconds ticked by. Walsh wasn’t one for hiding his feelings. He probably wept at calendars with pictures of puppies, and howled at the moon when the Red Sox lost a game.
‘They send you in to soften me up?’ I said.
‘Yeah. We’re hoping you’ll respond to a mellow tone.’
‘You want a cookie? They’re good.’
‘Had one. They are good. I have to watch my weight, though. My wife wants me to live long enough to collect my pension. Not any longer than that. Just until the check has cleared.’
He detached himself from the wall before it started to crumble under the pressure and dropped into a chair at the opposite end of the small table. Outside, the man in overalls had finished working on the Crown Vic. He’d kept going even after the light faded, turning on the garage illumination so that he could finish the job. He was packing away his tools and his lights when Allan came out to talk to him. The mechanic took a pack of cigarettes from the pocket of his overalls, and he and Allan had a smoke while they circled the car, the mechanic presumably pointing out its flaws as they went. Pretty soon, I’d know how the car felt.
‘What do you think of him?’ said Walsh.
‘Allan? I don’t know anything about him.’
‘He should be someplace else instead of out here in the williwigs. He’s smart, and he’s committed. He’s been good on this Anna Kore thing so far.’
He left her name hanging like a hook. I didn’t bite, or not so hard that the hook stuck.
‘Are you the primary?’ I asked.
‘That’s right. If you dressed for a funeral, you’re too early.’
‘Who’s the DS?’
Each investigation had a primary detective who, in turn, reported to a detective sergeant who acted as supervisor.
‘Matt Prager.’
I knew Prager. He was good, even if he did have an inexplicable fondness for show tunes and musical theater. It made sense to have him and Walsh working together on the Kore case. They were two of the most senior detectives in the Maine State Police, and they generally played well with others.
‘So,’ he continued, ‘while I’m sure you’re royally aggrieved at being forced to sit here and watch the world grow dark when you could be off dispensing your own brand of justice someplace else – that, or cleaning up behind the bar you work in when times are tough and the world has temporarily tired of heroes – you should recognize that this is the center of an ongoing investigation into the disappearance of a young girl, and Allan did right to haul you in and let you steam for a while.’
‘I don’t have a problem with what he did.’
‘Good. So, back to the suit. Your client suit, I take it?’
‘On occasion.’
‘We need to know.’
‘You’ll have to call Aimee Price and put your request to her. I’m working on her behalf. I can’t tell you anything unless she clears it first.’
‘We did talk to her. She makes you seem reasonable.’
‘She’s a lawyer. They’re only reasonable on their own terms.’
‘Well, then you have that much in common. I know you: If there’s trouble, and you show up, then you’re involved. Coincidences go out the window where you’re concerned. I’ve no idea why that is, and if I were you I’d worry about it, but for now what it tells me is that your reason for being here probably intersects with the Anna Kore case at some point, and I want you to tell me exactly where that point lies.’
‘This is a circular conversation. I’m employed by Aimee Price, which means that any client information is privileged.’
‘There’s a girl’s life at stake.’
‘I understand that but—’
‘There is no “but.” It’s a child.’
His voice was raised. I heard scuffling outside the door, but nobody else entered.
‘Listen, Walsh, I want Anna Kore brought home safely just as much as you do. All I can tell you is that, as of now, I don’t believe my client had anything to do with her disappearance, and I’ve found no evidence of a connection between my inquiries on the client’s behalf and your investigation.’
‘That’s not good enough. You don’t get to make that call.’
‘My hands are tied here. Aimee’s solid, and I like and trust her, but I know that if I breach the rules of client confidentiality she’ll have me hauled over hot coals, and that’s aside from any further action her client may take. I’ll tell you again: As far as I’m aware, the client’s case is unrelated to the disappearance of Anna Kore, but I have advised the client to contact the police about the matter with which we’re dealing, just so there’s no confusion.’
‘And how did your client respond to this magnanimous gesture on your part?’
‘The client is thinking about it.’
Walsh threw up his hands.
‘Well, that’s just great. That’s set my mind right at rest. Your client is going to think about a duty to share information that may be pertinent to an ongoing investigation. Meanwhile, there’s a fourteen-year-old girl missing and, in my experience, the people who abduct fourteen-year-old girls don’t tend to have their best interests at heart. And you, you spineless son of a bitch, are shifting your moral responsibilities on to a lawyer. You’re right down at the bottom of the swamp now, Parker, mired with the weeds and the parasites. You, of all people, should know better. Have you seen the news? Have you watched Valerie Kore crying for her child? You know what she’s going through, and there’ll be worse to come if we don’t find her daughter in time. You want that on your head, a man who lost his own child, who understands—’
It was the mention of Jennifer that did it – that, and the fact that I knew Walsh was right. Immediately I was on my feet, and Walsh was on his. I heard myself shouting at him, losing control, and I wasn’t even aware of the words that I was saying. Walsh was shouting back at me, spittle flying from his mouth, his finger jabbing at my face. The door behind us opened, and Allan entered along with another older patrolman I hadn’t seen before, and in the background were faces staring at us: Mrs. Shaye; the mechanic; Walsh’s partner, Soames; two state troopers; and a pair of men in suits.
Even in my anger and self-pity, in the self-righteousness that I was using to mask my shame, I recognized one of them, and I knew that the game had taken another turn. I stepped back from Walsh, and from my own worst instincts.
‘I want a phone call,’ I said. ‘I want to call my lawyer.’
The door was locked again, and once more I was alone. I wasn’t under arrest, and I hadn’t been charged with any crime. Neither had a telephone yet materialized. It was possible that they could hold me for obstructing the course of justice, but Aimee would swat that one out of the sky with a flick of her wrist. The problem, as I simmered in the chair, was that I felt the truth of Walsh’s statement. I knew better than to behave the way that I was behaving. I knew because I carried the memory of a dead child with me wherever I went. The weight of her loss was heavy on my heart, and I would not and could not wish that pain on another person. Legally, I was within my rights to withhold what I knew about Randall Haight; morally, I was beneath contempt, for Haight’s right to privacy was subordinate to a child’s right to life.
Yet while I felt that Haight was engaged in an act of misrepresentation, a manipulation of the truth for his own ends, I still did not believe he was involved in whatever had befallen Anna Kore. At the same time, despite my assurances to Walsh, I could not be certain that his troubles and the girl’s disappearance were not connected simply because I had not yet found any evidence to link them. But if they were linked, then I could not believe that the person who was sending photographs and discs to Haight would be careless enough to leave evidence on the contents of the envelopes, or even on the envelopes themselves. Still, that was not my call to make. I didn’t have a forensics lab in my basement, and who knew what trace evidence or DNA evidence might be found if the envelopes and their contents were submitted for examination?
But I was also troubled by the man I had seen staring back at me from the doorway of Chief Allan’s office. We had never met, but I knew his face: I had watched him hovering around the outskirts of a RICO trial in Augusta earlier in the year, and while I was being interviewed in the aftermath of a smuggling operation that had made the newspapers during the summer. His name was Robert Engel, and he had the nebulous title of Deputy Supervisor of Operations in the Organized-Crime Squad of the FBI’s Boston Division. In effect, he had a roving brief, and acted as a conduit for information and resources between the New England divisions and the three units of the Organized-Crime Section at FBI headquarters in Washington – La Cosa Nostra and racketeering; Eurasian/ Middle Eastern crime; and Asian and African criminal enterprises – as well as working with the Joint Terrorism Task Forces to uncover potential sources of terrorist funding through the medium of organized criminal activity. Engel was an accomplished diplomat, carefully navigating his way through the FBI’s own cutthroat world of internecine warfare as well as its ongoing feuds with sister agencies – in particular the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. In addition, he had worked to rebuild the Bureau’s reputation in Boston following revelations of collusion between some of its agents and leading organized-crime figures in the city.
There was no apparent reason for Engel to be in a boon-docks police department during the investigation into the disappearance of a young girl. Nevertheless he was here, and his presence explained some of the odd features of the case, including the length of time it had taken for Anna Kore’s mother to make a public appeal. It suggested a conflict of views, and Engel’s presence meant that there were at least two arms of the FBI involved in the Kore investigation. Plus, if Engel was involved, then the feds either knew about organized criminal activity in Pastor’s Bay or were watching for someone at the periphery, someone with connections that extended beyond the town’s limits.
I needed to talk to Aimee, for both our sakes. It was now more important than ever that we convinced Randall Haight of the necessity of coming forward and revealing the nature of the messages that were being sent to him and the reason for them, even at the risk of disrupting his carefully safeguarded existence. It was one thing to rile the Maine State Police, and I had sound reasons for wanting to do that as little as possible. My PI’s license had been rescinded in the past for angering the MSP, and any future action taken against me might well result in its permanent forfeiture. Screwing around with the FBI was another matter entirely. The cops would have to charge me or let me go, but the feds could put me behind bars for as long as they wanted. Aimee would probably be okay, as even the FBI tended to dislike jailing lawyers without good cause. I, on the other hand, was only a PI, and while I was aware that there were those in the Bureau who were interested in me and, for reasons of their own, were prepared to give me a degree of protection, they did so out of a sense of duty rather than any great personal fondness, and they might well view a spell in a lockup, either county or one more shadowy, as a useful way of reminding me of the limits of their tolerance.
Eventually, after almost another hour had gone by, the door was unlocked. This time it was Allan who entered, and the door stayed open. Behind him, the building was relatively quiet. Engel and his acolytes, Walsh and the staties, all were elsewhere. Apart from Engel I could see only the older cop with his cap under his arm, and a pretty young woman wearing sweatpants and an old Blackbears T-shirt who seemed to have taken over from Mrs. Shaye for a time but was now putting on her coat in preparation for departure.
‘You’re free to go,’ said Allan. He didn’t look pleased about it.
‘That’s it?’