She folded her arms on the roof of her car and laid her forehead against them.
“I don’t want this to drag on,” she said, her voice slightly muffled by her posture. “I want things to go back to the way they were. Do what you have to do, talk to whomever, but make it stop. Please. I don’t even know where my ex-husband lives anymore, but he used to do some work for a company called A-Secure, and he probably still does. They install security systems in businesses and homes. A friend of Jerry’s, Raymon Lang, does a lot of the maintenance on the systems, and he used to put business Jerry’s way. You’ll probably find Jerry through A-Secure.”
“Merrick thinks that you and your ex-husband might have spoken about your father sometime in the past.”
“Well, of course we did, but Jerry doesn’t know anything about what happened to him. I can tell you that for sure. The only person Jerry Legere ever cared about was himself. I think he believed that my father would turn up dead somewhere and he could start spending the money that would come to me.”
“Was your father wealthy?”
“There’s a good six-figure sum still tied up in probate, so, yes, I suppose you could say that he was comfortable. Then there’s the house. Jerry wanted me to sell it, but obviously I couldn’t because it wasn’t mine to sell. In the end, Jerry just got tired of waiting, and of me. It was mutual, though. Jerry wasn’t exactly a great catch.”
“One last thing,” I said. “Did you ever hear your father mention something about a ‘project,’ or
‘the Project’?”
“No, never.”
“Have you any idea what that might mean?”
“None.”
She raised her head and got into her car. I stayed behind her all the way to her office, then remained there until it was time for her to collect Jenna. The principal escorted the girl to the door of the school, and Rebecca spent a little while talking to him, presumably to explain why Jenna would not be in class for a while, then I followed them both back to the house. Rebecca parked in the drive and kept the car doors locked while I checked every room. I went back to the front door and indicated that everything was okay. Once she was inside, I sat in the kitchen and watched while she put together a list of her father’s friends and colleagues. It wasn’t very long. Some, she said, were dead, and others she could not remember. I asked her to let me know if she thought of any additions, and she assured me that she would. I told her that I would deal with the issue of extra protection that evening and would call her with the details before she went to bed that night. With that, I left her. I heard her turning the key in the lock behind me, and a series of electronic beeps as she entered the alarm code to secure the house. Already, the daylight had departed. The waves broke on the shore as I walked to my car. Usually, I found it restful, but not now. There was an element missing, something out of kilter, and the late-afternoon air carried the scent of burning upon it. I turned to the water, for the smell was coming off the sea, as though a distant ship were aflame. I looked for its glow upon the horizon, but there was only the rhythmic pulse of the lighthouse, the movement of a ferry upon the bay, and the lit rooms in the houses on the islands beyond. Everything spoke of calm and routine, and yet I could not shake my sense of unease as I made my way home. Two Shape without form, shade without colour
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men…
—T. S. ELIOT, “THE HOLLOW MEN”