The White Road

I met Detective Sergeant Wallace MacArthur of the Scarborough PD in the Panera Bread Company over by the Maine Mall. I’d had a run-in with MacArthur during the events leading up to Faulkner’s capture but we’d settled our differences over a meal at the Back Bay Grill. Admittedly, the meal had cost me the best part of two hundred bucks, including the wine MacArthur drank, although it was worth it to have him back on my side. I ordered a coffee and joined him at a booth. He was tearing apart a warm cinnamon roll with his fingers, the frosting reduced to the consistency of melted butter, and leaving stains on the personal ads in the latest issue of the Casco Bay Weekly. The personals in the CBW tended to be pretty heavy on women who wanted to cuddle in front of fires, go hiking in the depths of winter, or join experimental dance classes. None of them seemed like candidates for MacArthur, who was about as cuddly as a holly bush and didn’t like any physical activity that involved getting out of bed. Aided by the metabolism of a greyhound and his bachelor lifestyle, he had reached his late forties without being forced into the potential pitfalls of good eating and regular exercise. MacArthur’s idea of exercise was using alternate fingers to push the remote.

“Found anyone you like?” I asked.

MacArthur chewed reflectively on a chunk of roll.

“How come all these women claim they’re ‘attractive’ and ‘cute’ and ‘easygoing’?” he replied.

“I mean, I’m single. I’m out there, looking around, and I never meet women like these. I meet unattractive. I meet non-cute. I meet hard-going. If they’re so good looking and happy-go-lucky, how come they’re advertising at the back of the Casco Bay Weekly? I tell you, I think some of these women are telling lies.”

“Maybe you should try the ads farther on.”

MacArthur’s eyebrows gave a startled leap.

“The freaks? Are you kidding? I don’t even know what some of that stuff means.” He flicked discreetly to the back pages, then gave the tables nearby a quick scan to make sure no one was watching. His voice dropped to a whisper. “There’s a woman in here looking for ‘a male replacement for her shower.’ I mean, what the hell is that? I wouldn’t even know what she wanted me to do. Does she want me to fix her shower, or what?”

I looked at him. He looked back. For a man who had been a cop for over twenty years, MacArthur could come across as a little sheltered.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

“No, say it.”

“I just don’t think that woman’s for you, that’s all.”

“You’re telling me. I don’t know what’s worse: understanding what these people are looking for, or not understanding. Jesus, all I want is a normal, straightforward relationship. That’s got to exist somewhere, right?”

I wasn’t sure that there was such a thing as a normal, straightforward relationship, but I understood what he meant. He meant that Wallace MacArthur wasn’t going to be anybody’s shower replacement.

“Last I heard you were helping Al Buxton’s widow overcome her grief.” Al Buxton had been a York County deputy until he contracted some weird degenerative disease that made him look like a mummy without its bandages. His passing was mourned by pretty much nobody. Al Buxton was so unpleasant he made shingles look good.

“It didn’t last. I don’t think she had too much grief to overcome. Y’know, she told me once that she fucked his embalmer. I don’t think he even got to wash his hands, she was on him so fast.”

“Maybe she was grateful for the nice job he’d done. Al looked a whole lot better dead than he did alive. Better company, too.”

MacArthur laughed, but the action seemed to irritate his eyes. It was only then that I saw how red and swollen they were. He looked like he’d been crying. Maybe the whole single thing was getting to him more than I thought.

“What’s wrong with you? You look like Bambi’s mother just died.”

He instinctively raised his right hand to wipe at his eyes, which had begun to tear, then seemed to think better of it.

“I got Maced this morning.”

“No way. Who did it?”

“Jeff Wexler.”

“Detective Jeff Wexler? What did you do, try to ask him out? You know, that guy in the Village People wasn’t really a cop. You shouldn’t use him as a role model.”

MacArthur looked seriously unimpressed.

“You about done? I got Maced because it’s department regs: you want to carry Mace, you got to experience what it feels like to get Maced, just so you won’t be too hasty about doing it to somebody else.”

“Really? Does it work?”

“Like hell. I just want to get out there and blast some bastard in the face so I can feel better about myself. That stuff stings.”

Shocker. Mace stings. Who’d have thought?

“Someone told me you’re working for the Blythes,” said MacArthur. “That’s a pretty cold case.”

“They haven’t given up, even if the cops have.”

“That’s not fair, Charlie, and you know it.”

I raised a hand in apology. “I had Irv Blythe out at my house last night. I had to tell his wife and him that their first lead in years was false. I didn’t feel good about it. They’re in pain, Wallace: six years on and they’re still in pain every day. They’ve been forgotten. I know it’s not the cops’

fault. I know the case is cold. It’s just not cold for the Blythes.”

“You think she’s dead?” His tone told me that he had already reached his own conclusion.

“I hope she’s not.”

“There’s always hope, I guess.” He smiled crookedly. “I wouldn’t be looking at the personals if I didn’t believe that.”

“I said I was hopeful, not insanely optimistic.”

MacArthur gave me the finger. “So, you wanted to see me? Plus you got here late so I had to buy my own cinnamon roll, and these things are kind of expensive.”

“Sorry. Look, I may have to leave town for a week. Rachel doesn’t like me being overprotective and she won’t carry a gun.”

“You need someone to drop by, keep an eye on her?”

“Just until I get back.”

“It’s done.”

“Thanks.”

“This about Faulkner?”

I shrugged. “I guess.”

“His people are gone, Parker. It’s just him.”

“Maybe.”

“Anything happen to make you think otherwise?”

I shook my head. There was nothing but a feeling of unease and a belief that Faulkner would not let the annihilation of his brood slide.

“You lead a charmed life, Parker, you know that? The order from the attorney general’s office was strictly hands off: you weren’t to be pursued for obstructing the investigation, no charges against you or your buddy for the deaths in Lubec. I mean, it’s not like you killed aid workers or nothing, but still.”

“I know,” I said sharply. I wanted the subject dropped. “So, you’ll have someone stop by?”

“Sure, no problem. I’ll do it myself, when I can. You think she’d agree to a panic button?”

I thought about it. It would probably require U.N.-level diplomatic skills, but I figured Rachel might eventually come around. “Probably. You got someone in mind to install it?”

“I know a guy. Give me a call when you’ve talked to her.”

I thanked him and rose to leave. I got about three steps when his voice stopped me.

“Hey, she doesn’t have any single friends, does she?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I replied, just before the ground crumbled beneath my feet and I realized what I had let myself in for. MacArthur’s face brightened as mine fell.

“Oh, no. What am I, a dating agency?”

“Hey, come on, it’s the least you can do.”

I shook my head. “I’ll ask. I can’t promise anything.”

I left MacArthur with a smile on his face.

A smile, and lots of frosting.

For the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon I did some wrap-ups on outstanding paperwork, billed two clients, then went over my meager notes on Cassie Blythe. I had spoken to her ex-boyfriend, her closest friends, and her work colleagues, as well as to the recruitment company she had gone to visit in Bangor on the day that she had disappeared. Her car was being serviced so she had taken the bus to Bangor, leaving the Greyhound depot at the corner of Congress and St. John at about 8 A.M. According to the police reports and Sundquist’s followups, the driver recalled her and remembered exchanging a few words with her. She had spent an hour with the recruitment company in its offices at West Market Square, before browsing in BookMarcs bookstore. One of the staff remembered her asking about signed Stephen King books.

Then Cassie Blythe had disappeared. The return portion of her ticket was unused and there was no record of her using any other bus company or taking one of the commuter flights south. Her credit card and ATM card had not been used since the date of her disappearance. I was running out of people to chase down and I was getting nowhere.

It seemed like I wasn’t going to find Cassie Blythe, alive or dead.