“Like find out what had happened to his daughter?”
“Yes.”
I closed my notebook. There would be other questions, but for now I was done.
“I’d still like to talk to Andy,” I said.
“I’ll make some inquiries.”
I thanked her and gave her my card.
“About Frank Merrick,” she said, as I was about to leave. “I think he did kill Riddick, and a whole lot of others too.”
“I know his reputation,” I said. “Do you believe Eldritch was wrong to intervene?”
“I don’t know why Eldritch intervened, but it wasn’t out of a concern for justice. He did some good though, even inadvertently. Bullet matching was flawed. The case against Merrick was equally flawed. If you let even one of those slip by, then the whole system falls apart, or crumbles a little more than it’s crumbling already. If Eldritch hadn’t taken the case, maybe I would have sought a pro hac vice order and taken it myself.” She smiled. “I stress ‘maybe.’”
“You wouldn’t want Frank Merrick as a client.”
“Even hearing that he’s back in Maine makes me nervous.”
“He hasn’t tried to contact you about Andy?”
“No. You have any idea where he’s staying while he’s up here?”
It was a good question, and it set off a train of thought. If Eldritch had provided Merrick with a car, and perhaps funds too, he might also have supplied a place for him to stay. If that was the case, there might be a way to find it, and perhaps discover more about both Merrick and Eldritch’s client.
I stood to leave. At the door of her office, Aimee Price said: “So Daniel Clay’s daughter is paying you to do all this?”
“No, not this,” I said. “She’s paying me to keep her safe from Merrick.”
“So why are you here?”
“For the same reason that you might have taken on Merrick’s case. There’s something wrong here. It bothers me. I’d like to find out what it is.”
She nodded. “I’ll be in touch about Andy,” she said.
Rebecca Clay called me, and I updated her on the situation with Merrick. Eldritch had informed his client that he would be unable to do anything for him until Monday, when he would petition a judge if Merrick continued to remain in custody without charge. O’Rourke wasn’t confident that any judge would allow the Scarborough cops to continue to hold him if he had already spent forty-eight hours behind bars, even allowing for the fact that the letter of the law entitled them to keep him for a further forty-eight.
“What then?” asked Rebecca.
“I’m pretty certain that he’s not going to bother you again. I saw what happened when they told him he was going to be locked up for the weekend. He’s not afraid of jail, but he is afraid of losing his freedom to search for his daughter. That freedom is now tied up with your continued well-being. I’ll serve him with the court order upon his release, but, if you’re agreeable, we’ll keep an eye on you for a day or two after he’s released, just in case.”
“I want to bring Jenna home,” she said.
“I wouldn’t advise that just yet.”
“I’m worried about her. This whole business, I think it’s affecting her.”
“Why?”
“I found pictures in her room. Drawings.”
“Drawings of what?”
“Of men, men with pale faces and no eyes. She said that she’d seen them or dreamed them, or something. I want her close to me.”
I didn’t tell Rebecca that others had seen those men too, myself included. It seemed better to let her believe for now that they were a product of her daughter’s troubled imagination, and nothing more.
“Soon,” I said. “Just give me a few more days.”
Reluctantly, she agreed.
That evening, Angel, Louis, and I had dinner at Fore Street. Louis had gone to the bar to examine the vodka options, leaving Angel and me to talk.
“You’ve lost weight,” said Angel, sniffing and snowing fragments of tissue on the table. I had no idea what he had been doing in Napa to contract a cold, but I was pretty certain that I didn’t want him to tell me. “You look good. Even your clothes look good.”
“It’s the new me. I eat well, still go to the gym, walk the dog.”
“Uh-huh. Nice clothes, eating well, going to the gym, owning a dog.” He thought for a moment.
“You sure you’re not gay?”
“I can’t be gay,” I said. “I’m very busy as it is.”
“Maybe that’s why I like you,” he said. “You’re a gay nongay.” Angel had arrived wearing one of my cast-off brown leather bomber jackets, the material so worn in places that it had faded entirely to white. His aged Wranglers had an embroidered wave pattern on the back pockets, and he was wearing a Hall and Oates T-shirt, which meant that the time in Angel land was approximately a quarter after 1981.
“Can you be a gay homophobe?” I asked.
“Sure. It’s like being a self-hating Jew, except the food is better.” Louis returned.
“I’ve been telling him how gay he is,” said Angel, as he buttered a piece of bread. A fragment of butter fell on his T-shirt. He carefully used a finger to remove it and licked the digit clean. Louis’s face remained impassive, only the slightest narrowing of his eyes indicating the depth of the emotions he was feeling.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “I don’t think you’re the right guy to front the recruitment drive.”
While we ate, we talked about Merrick, and what I had learned from Aimee Price. Earlier that day, I had put in a call to Matt Mayberry, a Realtor I knew down in Massachusetts whose company did business all over New England, asking him if there was a way he could find out about any properties in the greater Portland area with which Eldritch and Associates had been involved in recent years. It was a long shot. I had spent most of the afternoon making calls to hotels and motels, but I had drawn a blank every time I asked for Frank Merrick’s room. Still, it would be useful to know where Merrick was likely to bolt once he was released.
“You seen Rachel lately?” asked Angel.
“A few weeks back.”
“How are things between you?”
“Not so good.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Yeah.”
“You got to keep trying, you know that?”
“Thanks for the advice.”
“Maybe you should go see her, while Merrick is safe behind bars.”
I thought about it as the check arrived. I knew then that I wanted to see them both. I wanted to hold Sam, and talk to Rachel. I was tired of hearing about men who tormented children and the troubled lives they had left in their wake.
Louis began counting out bills.
“Maybe I will go to see them,” I said.
“We’ll walk your dog,” said Angel. “If he’s secretly gay like you, he won’t object.”