Haight drank the last of his water, and carefully put the cap back on. He held the empty bottle between his legs, his fingertips pressing down on the cap, as though it were a button that could cause the past to disappear, erasing all memories, all sins.
‘Lonny and I were tried as adults, and we spent eighteen years each in separate facilities, from juvenile to adult. The judge ordered that all records of the trial should be sealed, both so that we could get on with our lives upon our eventual release and for our own safety because it was said that Selina Day’s uncles were involved with the Black Liberation Army, although I don’t know how true that was. Looking back, I think it was just thrown into the mix, a way for the prosecutor to cover himself in case anything went wrong. Whatever the reasons, there was an agreement reached that we should be given new identities in the course of our incarceration, and those identities should be known only to a handful of people, but we only found that out later. I remember the judge telling us that we’d done a terrible thing, but he believed that everyone had the possibility of redemption within them, especially children. He told us we were to be given a chance to prove that, once we’d done our time.
‘After twelve years they moved us to out-of-state prisons to make the changes in identities run smoother. I was born William Lagenheimer, but I became Randall Haight between the state penitentiary in Bismarck and the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport, Vermont. After a couple of years, they moved me to Berlin, New Hampshire, where I served out the last year of my sentence. They wouldn’t tell me Lonny’s new name, and I didn’t want to know anyway. I never wanted to see him again, after all the trouble he got us into. Eventually, I came to Maine.’
Haight pointed to the photograph of the weathered barn door.
‘This was the barn in which Selina Day died,’ he said. ‘They used that picture in some of the newspapers. These others I don’t know, but this one is, or was, in Drake Creek. I still see it in my dreams.’
He looked at his lawyer, seeking her response to this second telling of his story. She tried to smile encouragingly at him, but it was more like a grimace. He turned to me. His mouth opened, and he spread his hands as if to add something to the narrative – an apology, or an explanation for why this was all in the past, and how he was different now – but he seemed to realize that there was nothing more that could be said, so he closed his mouth, and folded his arms, and remained silent while he waited to hear what we had to say.
‘So someone has found out who you are?’ I said.
‘Yes. I don’t know who, or how, but yes, that’s it.’
‘It could be a prelude to blackmail,’ said Aimee.
‘Has there been a blackmail threat?’ I asked.
‘Not yet,’ said Aimee.
I shrugged. Beside me, the light of the setting sun reflected on the lenses of Haight’s spectacles, and I could no longer see his eyes.
‘For now, it seems that Mr. Haight here has two choices,’ I said. ‘He can stay where he is and deal with the consequences if this individual chooses to make public what he or she knows, or he can leave his home and go somewhere else. Maybe he can make contact with the authorities in North Dakota and see if they will provide him with another identity, although I guess he’d have to prove that he was in some form of danger as a consequence of his potential exposure, and even then new identities aren’t handed out so easily. Look, in the end, whatever the nature of his crime, he did his time. He was a child when Selina Day was killed, not an adult. Also, if one were to be cold-blooded about it, it’s a crime that was committed a long time ago, and in another state. If his identity is revealed, there may be people in Maine who’ll react badly, but he might also be surprised by how understanding folk can be.’
‘All that is true,’ said Aimee. ‘But there’s one detail that Mr. Haight hasn’t shared with you yet. It’s where he’s living. Why don’t you tell Mr. Parker where you’ve made your home?’
And I knew that this was the bait in the trap, the detail that she had deliberately held back from me, and as Haight began to speak I felt the jaws snap shut upon me, and I understood that I would not be able to turn away from this.
‘I live two miles from Anna Kore’s house,’ said Haight. ‘I live in Pastor’s Bay.’