Morland wrinkled his nose and peered at the photograph through the lower part of his bifocals.
‘Yes, I recall him. He came in here asking about his daughter. His name was …’
Morland tapped his fingers on his desk as he sought the name.
‘Jude,’ he said finally. ‘That was it: Jude. When I asked him if that was his first or last name, he told me it was both. Is he in trouble, or did he hire you? Being honest, he didn’t seem like the kind of fella who had money to be hiring private detectives.’
‘No, he didn’t hire me, and his troubles, whatever they were, are over now.’
‘He’s dead?’
‘He was found hanged in a basement in Portland about a week ago.’
Morland nodded.
‘I think I recall reading something about that now.’
The discovery of Jude had merited a paragraph in the Press Herald, followed by a slightly longer feature in the Maine Sunday Telegram about the pressures faced by the city’s homeless.
‘You say that he was asking about his daughter?’
‘That’s right,’ said Morland. ‘Annie Broyer. He claimed that someone at a women’s shelter in Bangor told him that she was headed up this way. Apparently she’d been offered a job here by an older couple, or that was the story he’d heard. He wanted to know if we’d seen her. He had a photograph of her, but it was old. He described her well, though, or well enough for me to be able to tell him that no young woman of that description had found her way into this town, or none that I knew of, and I know them all.’
‘And was he happy with that?’
Morland’s face bore an expression I’d seen a thousand times. I’d probably worn it myself on occasion. It was the face of a public servant who just wasn’t paid enough to deal with the unhappiness of those for whom the reality of a situation wasn’t satisfactory.
‘No, Mr Parker, he was not. He wanted me to take him to every house in Prosperous that might be occupied by an older couple and have me show them the photograph of his daughter. In fact, he went so far as to suggest we ought to search the houses of everyone over sixty, just in case they had her locked up in their home.’
‘I take it that wasn’t an option.’
Morland spread his hands helplessly.
‘He hadn’t reported his daughter missing. He didn’t even know if she was missing. He just had a feeling in his bones that something was wrong. But the more we got into it, the more apparent it became that he didn’t really know his daughter at all. That was when I discovered that she’d been living in a women’s shelter and he was homeless and they were estranged. It all got sort of messy from there.’
‘What did you do in the end?’
‘I made a copy of the photograph, put together a description of his daughter to go with it, and told him I’d ask around. But I also tried to explain to him that this wasn’t the kind of town where people took in street women they didn’t know and offered them beds in their homes. To be honest, I don’t know a whole lot of towns where anyone would behave in that way. The story just didn’t ring true. He gave me a couple of numbers for shelters and soup kitchens where a message could be left for him, and then I gave him a ride to Medway so he could catch the bus back to Bangor.’
‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘The offer of a ride to Medway wasn’t one that he could refuse.’
Morland gave me the long-suffering public servant expression again.
‘Look, it was a last resort. He said he was going to get a cup of coffee, and next thing I knew he was stopping folks on the streets to show them the picture of his daughter, and taping crappy photocopies to streetlights. I’d told him that I’d do what I could to help him, and I meant it, but I wasn’t going to have a bum – even a well-dressed bum – harassing citizens and defacing public property. I like my job, Mr Parker, and I want to keep it. Most of the time it’s easy, and even when it’s hard, it’s still kind of easy. I like this town too. I grew up here. My father was chief of police before me, and his father before him. It’s our family business, and we do it well.’
It was quite a speech. I’d have voted for him if he ran for office.
‘So you drove Jude to Medway’ – I resisted suggesting that Jude had literally been given the bum’s rush – ‘but I’ll venture that he didn’t take the hint.’
Morland puffed his cheeks.
‘He started calling my office two or three times a day, asking if there had been any progress, but there was none. Nobody here had seen his daughter. He’d been given bad information. But he wouldn’t accept that, so he came back. This time, he didn’t pay me the courtesy of a visit, just went from house to house, knocking on doors and peering in windows. Naturally, I started getting telephone calls from panicked residents because it was getting dark. He was lucky he didn’t get himself shot. I picked him up and kept him in a cell overnight. I told him I could have him charged with criminal trespass. Hell, he even ended up in the cemetery more than half an hour after sunset, like that fella in Dickens.’
‘Magwitch,’ I said.
‘That’s the one.’
‘What was he doing in the cemetery?’
‘Trying to get into the church. Don’t ask me why: we keep it locked, and visits are only by appointment. We’ve had incidents of vandalism in the past. Do you know about our church?’
I told him that I did, and I’d be curious to see it before I left, if that was possible. Morland perked up slightly at the prospect of my leaving town. He was tiring of talking about the problems of dead bums and their daughters.
‘In conclusion, the next morning I drove him back to Medway – again – and told him that if he showed his face in Prosperous one more time he would be arrested and charged, and he’d be no help to his daughter from a jail cell. That seemed to get through to him, and apart from a phone call or ten, that was pretty much the last I saw or heard of him, until now.’
‘And nobody in town knew anything about his daughter?’
‘No, sir.’
‘But why would his daughter have said that she was going to Prosperous if someone hadn’t given her reason to do so? It sounds like an odd story to make up.’
‘She might have been trying to impress the other street people. Worst case, she spoke to someone in Bangor who told her they were from Prosperous when they weren’t. It may be that this Jude was right, and something did happen to her, but if so, it didn’t happen to her here.’
Morland returned the photo of Jude, and got to his feet. We were done.
‘So you want to see the church before you go?’
‘If it’s not too much trouble,’ I said. ‘At least you won’t have to drive me to Medway after.’
Morland managed a thin smile, but said nothing. As I stood, I let my arm brush one of the photographs on the desk. I caught it before it hit the floor, and returned it to its place.
‘Your family?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
‘Good-looking boys. No girls?’
Morland gave me a peculiar look, as though I had intimated something unpleasant about him and the nature of his familial relations.
‘No, no girls,’ he said. ‘I’m happy about that, I got to say. My friends with daughters tell me they’re more trouble than boys. Girls will break your heart.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Jude’s daughter certainly broke his.’
Morland took the photograph from me and restored it to its place on his desk.
‘You had a daughter, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She died,’ I added, preempting whatever might have followed. I was used to it by now.
‘I know,’ said Morland. ‘I’m sorry. You have another little girl now, don’t you?’
I looked at him curiously, but he appeared nothing but sincere.
‘Did you read that somewhere too?’ I asked.
‘You think there’s anyone in Maine law enforcement who doesn’t know your history? This is a small-town state. Word gets around.’
That was true, but Morland still had a remarkable memory for the family histories of men he had never met before.
‘That’s right, I have another little girl,’ I conceded.
Morland seemed on the verge of saying something, then reconsidered, contenting himself with, ‘Maybe if this man Jude hadn’t walked out on his family, his daughter might not have ended up the way she did.’
Morland had a point – Jude, had he still been alive, might even have agreed with him – but I wasn’t about to point the finger at Jude’s failings as a husband and a father. I had my own guilt to bear in that regard.
‘He tried to make up for it at the end,’ I said. ‘He was just doing what any father would have done when he came looking for her in Prosperous.’
‘Is that a criticism of how he was treated by my department?’
Morland didn’t bristle, but he wasn’t far off it. ‘My department’, I noted, not ‘me’.
‘No,’ I said. ‘You just did what any chief of police would have done.’
That wasn’t quite the truth, but it was true enough. Maybe if Morland had a daughter of his own he might have behaved more compassionately; and if Jude hadn’t been a bum, and his daughter a homeless ex-junkie, Morland might have tried a little harder – just a little, but sometimes that’s all it takes. I didn’t say any of this aloud, though. It wouldn’t have helped, and I couldn’t guarantee that, in his position, and with his background, I would have behaved any differently.
We walked from his office. Morland told the receptionist that he was heading out to the chapel. She looked surprised, but said nothing.
‘This woman, Annie Broyer, you think she’s dead?’ asked Morland as we stepped outside.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I hope not.’
‘So you’re going to keep looking for her?’
‘Probably.’
‘And you’ve been hired to do this by whom?’
‘I haven’t been hired by anyone.’
‘So why are you looking for her?’
‘Because nobody else will,’ I said.
Morland took this in, then told me to follow his car.
He was still shaking his head as he pulled away.