A black SUV paused across from the entrance to the lot, waiting for a break in the traffic. Engel was sitting in the passenger seat, with a female agent driving. Almost simultaneously, Gordon Walsh arrived with his partner, Soames.
‘Looks like the gang’s all here,’ said Allan. ‘We’re just waiting for the special guest.’
I excused myself and went in to confirm that Aimee was ready. An Olympus digital recorder was set up in the conference room, connected to a pair of external mikes. Aimee had agreed that the interview could be recorded, as long as it was made clear at the start that her client had voluntarily agreed to cooperate. She had also let it be known that she would stop the interview if she believed that her client was being badgered, or if any attempt was being made to link him, directly or indirectly, with Anna Kore’s disappearance. This was an interview, not an interrogation. Aimee was wearing a black pant suit over a plain white blouse. Her dress was serious, her face was serious, and her mood was serious. At times like these, I was reminded of how good a lawyer she really was.
I closed the door behind me to ensure that we weren’t overheard.
‘I received another text from Chief Allan’s admirer,’ I said.
‘Interesting timing. Can I see it?’
I handed her my cell phone.
‘“Cooze,”’ she said. ‘I hate that word. Any thoughts on how this fits in?’
‘Randall Haight is taunted about Selina Day, and now someone is bad-mouthing Kurt Allan. Makes you wonder how many potential blackmailers there might be in one small town.’
‘You think it’s the same person?’
‘Possibly.’
‘And if they were right about Randall—’
‘—then there might also be some truth in what’s being said about Allan.’
‘We can’t just sit him down and ask him if he’s a pedophile,’ said Aimee. ‘It wouldn’t be polite. We could let Walsh know, or Engel.’
‘We could, but what would be the fun in that?’
‘You have a strange idea of fun. Since the first option isn’t a runner, and you don’t seem keen on the second, what’s left?’
‘You don’t want to know,’ I said.
‘Really?’ She searched my face. ‘Okay, you’re right: I don’t. I really, really don’t.’
The receptionist called through to let us know that Engel and company were in the lobby. We left the conference room, Aimee to greet the main players and show them through, and I to wait outside for Randall Haight. While I was there, I sent an e-mail from my phone. There was no message, and it went to a temporary Yahoo address.
Ten minutes later, Angel and Louis were breaking into Chief Allan’s home, and LoJacking his truck.
Randall Haight arrived dressed just as one might have expected a small town accountant attending an unpleasant appointment to dress. He wore a blue suit undecided as to whether it was navy or not, and that even Men’s Wearhouse might have frowned upon as too conservatively cut; a white shirt that overhung his belt, as though he were slowly deflating; and a blue-and-gray striped tie with a meaningless crest just below the knot. He was perspiring, and clearly unhappy. As he lingered by his car, the driver’s door still open beside him, he seemed inclined to leap back in and make a break for the Canadian border. I could understand his reluctance to continue, and not simply because he was about to expose something hidden and shameful about himself to the hostile gaze of other men. Haight’s prior experience with the law had been so traumatic, and had altered his life so radically, that here, in this leaf-strewn parking lot, he must have been reliving those earlier encounters. He was once again the boy in trouble, the child with blood on his hands.
I walked over to him.
‘How are you holding up, Randall?’
‘Not so good. I can’t stop my hands from shaking, and I have a pain in the pit of my stomach. I shouldn’t have come. I should never have agreed to this.’ His anxiety dipped into anger, and his voice rose. ‘I came to Ms. Price because I needed help. You and she were supposed to help me, and now I’m in worse trouble than before. I mean, you were supposed to be on my side!’
The trembling in his hands spread to the rest of his body. He was like an upright spring, vibrating with fear and anger. Above his head, a raven settled on a branch. It opened its beak and emitted a single mocking caw, as though chiding the man below for his weakness.
It would do Haight no good to enter that interview room in his current state. I didn’t know how he might react if they began to question him harshly, as I had no doubt they would, despite Aimee’s injunctions against doing so. She would try to stop the interview if they went too far, and she might even succeed, but the inevitable result would be that they would leave wondering if Randall Haight had anything else to hide. We should have coached him, and Aimee had acknowledged as much when she told me that he had at last agreed to talk with the police, but Haight had clammed up immediately after, and declined to consult further with her. Aimee had expressed her concern that, despite his promises, he might not show up for the interview at all. It was an achievement that he had made it this far. Now he just had to be calmed down a little.
‘Let’s take a walk,’ I said. ‘We’ll get some air.’
He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and together we walked along Park Street.
‘You should remember something, Randall. You haven’t done anything wrong here. In fact, you’re a victim in this. Someone is tormenting you about your past, but whatever you may have done as a child, you’ve paid the price for it. You made the amends that the law required of you, and you’ve tried to be the best man that you can be since then. That’s all any of us can do. Aimee and I are not going to let you be railroaded in there, but you can help yourself by looking upon the interview as a way of gaining an advantage. Once you tell the police what’s been happening to you, it will be in their interests as much as yours to find whoever is responsible, because they’ll make some of the connections that I did. They’ll wonder if the individual who is bothering you is also involved in the disappearance of Anna Kore. They’ll take those envelopes, and those photos, and that disc, and they’ll analyze them in a detail that’s beyond my capacities. In the meantime, Aimee and I are still going to be working for you, because just as there are steps the police can take that I can’t, so too there are things I can do that they, for various reasons, cannot. All you have to do is go in there and tell the truth.’
Haight kicked at a fallen acorn, and missed. He sighed, as if that somehow represented the story of his life.
‘It’ll get out, though, won’t it? It’s not a secret as soon as more than one person knows it.’ He sounded like a little boy.
‘It may get out, eventually. When that happens, we’ll help you with it. It won’t be easy in the immediate aftermath, but I think you may be surprised at how many friends you have in Pastor’s Bay. Do you go to church?’
‘Not regularly. Baptist when I do.’
‘If your past does start to come out, then that’s the place where you can own up to it publicly. I don’t mean this in a cynical way – well, not entirely – but nothing makes a congregation happier than a sinner who acknowledges his failings and asks for forgiveness. You’ll have to rebuild your reputation, and your place in the community may change, but you’ll still have a place. In the meantime, we’ll have people looking out for you, just in case.’
A school bus went by, loaded down with little kids on an outing. Two of them waved to us. I waved back, and the whole bus joined in. As they disappeared toward the highway, Haight said, ‘I still don’t have an alibi for the time of Anna Kore’s disappearance.’
‘Randall, half of Pastor’s Bay doesn’t have an alibi for the time of her disappearance. You’ve been watching too many old reruns of Columbo. I’m not going to lie to you: Once you’ve told the police about yourself, they’re inevitably going to take a closer look at you. We’ll make sure they’re discreet about it, but their interest won’t necessarily be a negative development, because somewhere in your recent past is a moment of intersection between you and the person who has been sending these messages. That person’s position of power over you is about to come under serious threat. I’d say that, within twenty-four hours, he or she is going to start panicking.’
‘Does that mean they might throw everything out there and expose me?’
‘The opposite, I think. They’ll retreat for a time, and perhaps try to cover their tracks, but in doing so they’ll draw more attention to themselves.’
‘You sound pretty certain of that.’
I sounded more certain than I actually was about most of what I had told Haight, but my sole purpose that morning was to ensure that he presented himself in the most positive light to the law-enforcement personnel in the meeting room. But about the psychology of Haight’s stalker – and he was being stalked, in a most insidious way – I believed that I was right. Part of the pleasure in tormenting an individual in the way that Haight was being goaded lies in isolating him, particularly when there is the potential for blackmail. Stalkers like watching their victims squirm. Even Internet stalkers, who may be geographically separated from their victims, get pleasure from the reaction they provoke, the anger, the desperation and, ultimately, the pleading.
And that was when it struck me, and its impact was so forceful that I stopped in my tracks. I had been so distracted by other details – Anna Kore, the messages about Chief Allan, the connection to Tommy Morris down in Boston – that I had failed to make one very simple leap: Where did the pleasure in tormenting Randall Haight lie? He did most of his work from home, and made trips to clients only when necessary. He had almost no social life that I could discern, but what public interaction he did have revolved entirely around Pastor’s Bay.
I was suddenly certain that whoever was taunting Randall Haight lived or worked in Pastor’s Bay.
‘What is it?’ said Randall.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just a thought. We should be getting back now.’
He nodded, resigned, but he was less troubled than he had been, and I thought that we might just get through this and come out ahead. He didn’t stop to gather himself one final time as we entered the building, but held himself upright and walked, calmly and confidently, toward the meeting room, there to face his past, and alter his future.