The beers came. I sipped mine slowly, and Walsh did the same with his. The drunk show was over for a while.
‘The only bright spot in the day,’ said Walsh, ‘was Tommy Morris. And, yes, initially I was as surprised by the mention of his name as you are now.’
‘The feds got him?’
‘No, he got them. You’re going to love this. Tommy Morris, along with his right-hand man, a reputed boom-boom guy named Martin Dempsey, walked into the Kore house and held two agents at gunpoint while a sheriff’s deputy counted clouds outside. Tommy wanted to talk to his sister, so what’s a guy to do?’
It was routine in a missing-child case to have two officers or sometimes, if the FBI became involved, two agents staying with the family at all times. Mostly this was to offer support and help, but it also enabled the investigators to take a closer look at the dynamics of the family. Since Valerie Kore was Tommy Morris’s sister, that made her family dynamics particularly interesting.
‘Were they Engel’s agents?’
‘Yeah. They’re supposed to be liaising with the feds’ own Child Abduction Response Team, but there hasn’t been much liaising to do. In the end, they’re there primarily because of Tommy Morris and not Anna Kore.’
‘Did Valerie Kore say what passed between her and her brother?’
‘Just that Tommy was concerned for his niece’s safety and wanted to know what progress was being made. She didn’t have much to tell him. He tied her up, more for appearance’s sake than anything else, left the agents bound and gagged on the floor, then disappeared back down his rabbit hole. The car they used was stolen from a movie theater and later dumped at a strip mall, but the woman behind the counter of a knitting store saw Tommy and Dempsey being picked up. The pickup vehicle turned out to be stolen too, and we still haven’t tracked it down. We figure they left that somewhere as well, and are now on to the day’s third ride.’
‘Facing down two feds – that’s impressive.’
‘Engel didn’t think so. The two agents are halfway to Boise by now. A career in tracking potato smugglers beckons for them. On a more serious note, the news from Boston is that five of Oweny Farrell’s boys have dropped off the radar. Three of them are big hitters, and the other two are gifted novices. Engel is hoarse from screaming, and Pastor’s Bay is starting to feel like Tombstone on the night before the big gunfight.’
‘Engel is a curious man,’ I said. ‘He’s taking a big risk using the Kore case as bait to land Tommy Morris.’
‘As today’s events demonstrated.’
‘But Engel isn’t stupid.’
‘No, he isn’t.’
Walsh was watching me, waiting to see where my train of thought might lead. Either he knew something more than I did about Engel’s game or he had come to the same conclusion that I was approaching.
‘A stupid man would let Tommy Morris run wild and hope that good luck or common sense prevailed,’ I continued. ‘A smart man would make it look that way.’
Walsh still said nothing, but his left eyebrow rose encouragingly, and when I spoke again I received a short, ironic round of applause from him.
‘He has a lead on Tommy Morris,’ I said. ‘Somebody is talking to the FBI.’
29
The night sky was clear when Walsh and I at last left the bar. He had not commented further on my belief that Engel was being fed information from Boston, either from someone within Tommy Morris’s increasingly dwindling circle or from someone close to those who wanted him dead, and I knew better than to press him on the matter. Instead we had returned to the subject of Anna Kore, and I came to understand that Walsh, who had no children of his own, had adopted her disappearance as his personal cause and was becoming increasingly unhappy with Engel’s mercenary attitude toward her fate. When he had earlier baited me for being a crusader and a white knight, he was describing himself as much as he was taunting me.
He asked me what I was going to do now that Randall Haight had ‘unburdened himself of his past.’ I told him that I didn’t believe Haight’s burdens could so easily be put aside.
‘He’s angry,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘Because he believes that he has been defined by a single bad act, and he can’t escape that definition.’
‘But nobody knew what he’d done until he came to you and Aimee Price.’
‘He knew. He’s a mass of contradictions, a muddle of identities. The only thing he can be sure of about himself is that he was there when Selina Day died, and even then he disputes the extent of his involvement.’
‘He’s part of a social experiment,’ said Walsh. ‘Except nobody kept a close watch on the test subjects once they were released into the wild.’
I had found instances of other similar efforts, but not many. The schoolboy killers of the toddler James Bulger, in England, in 1993 had been given new identities upon their release, although one of them, Jon Venables, had since been sentenced to two years for possession of child pornography and was back in jail. His accomplice in the killing, Robert Thompson, had apparently remained out of trouble. The media were forbidden to reveal details of the men’s new identities. It seemed that Judge Bowens had been ahead of his time in anticipating some of the problems that Lonny Midas and William Lagenheimer might face upon their release. Unfortunately, he hadn’t factored in the psychological difficulties of adjusting to a new identity, particularly after the commission of such a crime against a child while still children themselves.
‘You seem very interested in Lonny Midas,’ I said.
‘You and I, we’ve been doing this for a long time,’ said Walsh. ‘Put a man behind bars with a grudge to nurse, and maybe he’ll find a way to get his revenge once he’s released. As soon as we receive those records from North Dakota we’ll know more about Midas, and then we can bring him in or cross him off the list. I’m not going to leave Valerie Kore twisting in the wind for years, not if I can help it. I want her daughter found, preferably alive. But there’s something hinky about this whole deal, and what Haight had to say today just confirmed it. We’re all being played here, not just Randall Haight.’
After that, he’d called for the check, although he made me cover it. Now the November darkness stretched above us, punctured by the light of dead stars. My grandfather knew a little about the night sky, and had tried to pass on that knowledge to me. From memory, I could find Aquarius and Pegasus, Pisces and Cetus, with Jupiter at their center. Soon Venus would become visible below the waning crescent moon low in the east-southeastern sky. As the month went on, it would grow both smaller and brighter, decreasing in distance even as it drew closer to the sun. The New England astronomers had promised that two meteor showers would become visible that month: the Taurids from Comet Encke, and the Lenoids from Comet Tempel-Tuttle. The Taurids would be brighter, the Leonids more plentiful. Those who witnessed them would be reminded of the ceaseless, rapid orbit of the Earth around the sun, of our planet’s motion through space, and, if they were wise enough, of their own inconsequentiality. Walsh stared up at the night sky, wavering against its immensity. The intoxication that he had wished for earlier had not become a reality, but 36 hours without sleep had worn him down, and I was resigned to an argument over his car keys.
‘She’s like one of those stars,’ he said.
‘Who is? Your wife?’
‘No, not her. That’s not what I meant. Anna Kore’s like one of those stars. She’s lost out there, and we don’t know if she’s alive or dead. We just have to hope that her light keeps shining until we can get to her.’
‘You need to go home, Walsh. You want me to drive you?’
‘Too far to drive. I’ll sleep in my car. Anyway, even if I was desperate I wouldn’t want you to drive me. I don’t want to be collateral damage when fate eventually catches up with you.’
‘You know, you’re a poetic near-drunk. I like that about you.’
‘And you’re not all bad. I’m sorry for what I said about your little girl back in Pastor’s Bay. That wasn’t right. That was – I don’t know what it was. It was desperation talking.’
‘I didn’t take it personally.’
He swayed with exhaustion. If he toppled, it would be like a building falling.
‘Anna Kore is dead,’ he said.
‘We don’t know that. If you start thinking that way, it will determine how you approach the investigation. You know that. Believing that she could still be alive is the spur.’
‘The three-hour rule, man. If they’re not found –’
‘I know the rule,’ I said. ‘We live for the exceptions.’
‘We’ve put her mother on television. We’ve made the appeals. If it’s a freak, he’d release her, or kill her. He hasn’t released her, therefore . . .’
He raised his hands, then let them fall impotently by his sides.
‘I don’t know what we’re missing,’ he continued. ‘Later, you figure it out, like that guy in South Park, fucking Captain Hindsight, and you think, yeah, that was it. You either catch it in time, and you’re the hero, or you spot it later, the big clue that should have been picked up but you only figure it out when everyone’s looking for someone to blame and the mist has cleared. Then, if you’re smart, you stay quiet. If you’re dumb and idealistic, you confess, and you get told to stay quiet. The end result is the same – a dead child – but if you open box one then nobody’s pension is put at risk.’
‘I’m driving you home,’ I said, taking his arm. ‘Come on.’
‘Get your hands off me! I don’t want to go home. My wife hates it when I come home drunk. No, she hates it when I come home maudlin drunk. Nobody likes a whiner.’
The main door to the bar opened, and our waitress came out. She had her car keys in her hand and was shrugging on her coat. She saw both of us, thought about continuing on her way and minding her own business, then reconsidered and came over to ask if everything was okay. Her name, I recalled from the check, was Tina.
‘We’re good,’ said Walsh. ‘I just need to find my car. First rule of drinking and driving: Always remember where you parked.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I reassured her. ‘He’s not driving anywhere. I’m going to put him in my car and take him to a motel.’
‘Are we dating?’ asked Walsh, throwing my line back at me. ‘’Cause I don’t remember asking you out. Go drive yourself, asshole.’
Tina stood in front of him, her hands on her hips. It clearly wasn’t the first time she’d dealt with a difficult customer, and she had no fear of Walsh or me.
‘Listen, mister,’ she said. ‘I served you tonight, and I kept serving you because I thought you’d be smarter than the other jerks who drink until their eyeballs float, because you had a badge. We don’t allow people to sleep in the lot, and right now you couldn’t drive a nail into butter. You listen to your friend and let him take you somewhere to sleep it off.’
‘He’s not my friend.’ He tried to sound affronted but just came off sulky.
‘Compared to me, he’s Jesus himself,’ said Tina. ‘Quit acting like a child and do as you’re told.’
Walsh swayed some more, and eyeballed Tina.
‘You’re mean,’ he said.