Damaged Goods: A Jack McMorrow Mystery Page 11

  “Muslims, too?”

  “Yup.”

  “Well, makes some sense, I guess,” I said. “First thing you do when you conquer someone is take away their religion and give them yours. Think of the Aztecs and the Mayans and all of the other Native Americans. Converted them right off.”

  “It also said Satanists don’t push their religion on other people. Don’t advocate violence. Obey the law. Believe in separation of church and state.”

  “Your guy must be on the Satanist fringe,” I said.

  “I know he’s gotten increasingly isolated. Probably paranoid. I mean, when you think Christian food will poison your kids. But he swears he wouldn’t stalk me. Doesn’t know anyone who would.”

  “What does he swear on?”

  “Presumably not the Bible,” Roxanne said. She sighed. “How do I get into these things?”

  “How do we get into these things?” I said.

  Roxanne turned her glass in her hand. Sophie was whinnying, galloping a toy horse. I waited, then began. “Mandi wanted to leave today,” I said softly. “Said she didn’t belong here. Wanted me to call her a cab.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Roxanne said.

  “To take her where? She can’t even walk.”

  “Where did she say she wanted to go?”

  “She said she could go to Portland. Said she has friends there.”

  “So let her go.”

  “I don’t believe her, the part about the friends,” I said. “I told her as much.”

  “Everybody has somebody,” Roxanne said. “Unless they choose not to.”

  “Why would she—”

  “She’s run away from something, Jack. Maybe she was assaulted.”

  “She seems to have taken this one in stride,” I said.

  “Well, maybe somebody betrayed her in a terrible way. But clearly something happened.”

  Sophie clucked and quacked, little sandals tucked up underneath her. She leaned down to peer inside the barn.

  “She doesn’t think she deserves to be here,” I said. “It weirds her out to be liked, to be on the receiving end of kindness.”

  “Why?” Roxanne said.

  “I don’t know.”

  We sat. Sipped. Sophie started packing all of the animals into the barn. She shut the doors and locked them. “It’s a big thunderer,” we heard her say. “You must stay inside.”

  “How did you get home today?” I said.

  “Took 17 to Union, then I went up toward Appleton, but I cut off on 105, did a little detour onto the North Union Road, circled back, went back up until I caught 220. When I got to Liberty, I stopped at the top of this hill and I looked back. There was nobody.”

  I nodded. Sipped my beer. We were quiet for a moment. “So the Wiltons have no idea where their kids are?”

  “No. If and when we establish visitation, it’ll be at the office,” Roxanne said.

  “What do you do? Beam them back and forth?”

  “We pick them up.”

  “Easy enough to follow you back,” I said.

  “If they do that, they really lose them.”

  “If you know.”

  “We keep the parents in the office, gives us time to get the kids on their way.”

  “More than the parents to worry about,” I said. “There’s the rest of the coven.”

  “Covens are witches and all that. It’s different.”

  “How?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s just that Satanists go way, way back. Witches are more recent.”

  “Huh,” I said. “Well, maybe you’ll be staying home by then.”

  Roxanne shrugged.

  “I made six hundred today. The crack-heads-on-the-Maine-coast story for the Times.”

  “That’s a start.”

  “As long as the tragedy and calamity keep coming, we’re home free,” I said.

  On the grass, Sophie was unloading the barn, shaking it upside down to get the animals out. “They’re stuck,” she said.

  “I’ll help you,” Roxanne said, and she swung her legs down, fished for her sandals, and went down the steps. I got up and was about to follow when the phone rang. I went inside, grabbed it off the counter. Said hello.

  “Mr. McMorrow?” A man’s voice.

  “Yes.”

  “Listen, I’m a friend of Mandi’s.”

  Chapter 18

  I didn’t reply. Checked the Caller-ID. Didn’t recognize the number.

  “Well, I heard she got hurt and I just wanted to talk to her, see how’s she’s doing.”

  “Who is this?”

  A hesitation, just a millisecond. “This is Alex Warren.”

  “How did you get this number, Alex?”

  “The hospital. I went over there, ’cause I heard she had this accident, you know what I mean? I got worried. Hadn’t seen her around town, hadn’t been at the apartment, she wasn’t answering her cell.”

  “The hospital gave you this number?”

  “I said I was Mandi’s cousin.”

  “But you’re not.”

  “They wouldn’t tell me anything if I said I was just a friend.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I was in town and somebody said this ambulance came and everything, and then I really started to be concerned. I mean, an ambulance. That could be a lot of things, you know what I’m saying?”

  “Yeah, Alex,” I said. “I think I do.”

  He wanted me to pass along a message. Standing there in the kitchen, I said, “Hey, Alex, I’ve got to run. Listen, buddy, I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear from you. I’m gonna be in Galway tomorrow. How ’bout we meet up, you can give me your card or whatever. I’ll get it to her. She’s a little under the weather, probably not up for visitors.”

  “But she’s okay?”

  “Well, okay is probably generous. She’s fair.”

  “Well, what happened? She get sick?”

  “How ’bout I tell you about it tomorrow. I’ve got to drop by the apartment, get some stuff for her. Eight o’clock, I’ll be there.”

  “How will I know you?” he said.

  “I’ll be the one waiting for you,” I said.

  I hung up and went outside, down to the lawn where Roxanne and Sophie were setting up the farmyard. “It’s sunny now,” Sophie said, putting the horses inside a paddock made of plastic fences.

  “Good, honey,” I said.

  “Who was on the phone?” Roxanne said.

  “Friend of Mandi’s,” I said.

  “I’m Mandi’s friend,” Sophie said.

  “I know,” I said. “But I guess she has another one.”

  “Was he a boy or a girl,” Sophie said.

  “A boy,” I said, and met Roxanne’s eyes, looking up from the pigs and goats.

  “What was his name?” she said.

  “He said his name was Alex Warren. He wants to come see Mandi. He said he was worried about her.”

  “Does he know where she is?” Roxanne said.

  “No, that’s why he called.”

  “Is he going to bring Mandi some flowers?” Sophie said.

  “I don’t know, honey. I’m going to meet him in Galway and we’ll talk about it.”

  “When?” Roxanne said.

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “Maybe someone else should meet him,” Roxanne said. “Maybe Detective Raven.”

  “I know what a raven is,” Sophie said, putting a cow in the hayloft. “It’s a big black bird. Daddy and I see them flying when we go for our hikes. They say, ‘cronk, cronk.’”

  “Yes, they do,” I said.

  “Maybe Detective Raven should talk to Mandi’s friend,” Roxanne said again.

  “I’ll think about it,” I said.

  “His name is Alice? That’s a silly name for a boy,” Sophie said.

  “He said that was his name, honey,” I said. “But maybe it isn’t.”

  After dinner, while Roxanne was giving Sophie her bath, I left the house, locking the
door behind me. I walked down the road a quarter mile, watching the woods, listening for cars. Then I turned around and walked back up the road to Clair’s, saw the lights on in the barn. I stepped in and heard Vivaldi, “The Four Seasons,” the summer part. Clair saw me from the workshop and came out. We walked back out to the road, turned under the big silver maples that marked the entrance to his farm, and started toward my house.

  I told Clair about the call. I told him about my conversation with Mandi, the marriage proposal. Clair and I had no secrets.

  He didn’t answer for a minute, processing the way he did. As we walked, a chipmunk dashed across the road in front of us and disappeared into the brush. A shadow passed and I looked up, saw a kestrel. The hunter and the hunted. I knew which one I wanted to be.

  “Lots of people say that, ‘know what I mean.’ They say ‘like’ all the time, too. Could be a coincidence,” Clair said.

  “Wasn’t his name, either,” I said. “I could tell by the way he pronounced it. It wasn’t something he’d been saying his whole life.”

  “Her line of work, she probably meets a lot of guys don’t use their real names.”

  “Yup.”

  “How you gonna know if this is Roger?”

  “Instinct,” I said.

  “Now there’s a plan.”

  “Wait until I tell you Plan B.”

  “Why not have the police meet you there, too?”

  “Blows her cover,” I said. “She could go to jail, if he decides to testify.”

  “To get even,” he said.

  “The suitor scorned.”

  “Interesting how closely love and violence are intertwined,” Clair said.

  “All about control,” I said.

  “Can’t back you up,” Clair said. “Would leave the flank unprotected.”

  “I know. You stay with Mandi and Sophie.”

  “Supposed to rain the next three days. Won’t be cutting wood, not that you need inclement weather to keep you out of the woods.”

  “I’ve been busy,” I said.

  “Collecting strays,” Clair said.

  ‘You’re the one with a house like Dr. Doolittle.”

  Clair smiled. We walked, coming up on my house, the car and truck parked in front of the garage, the shades on the roadside drawn.

  “Thanks for taking her in,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “No problem.”

  “What do you think of her?” I said.

  “Very likeable, the part you can see,” Clair said.

  “And the part you can’t?”

  “Hard to tell, Jack. It’s dark in there. Very dark.”

  Roxanne didn’t want me to go. I said I’d just get a look at him, see if he fit Roger’s description. If he was five-three and blond, I’d know he was some other stalker.

  “What if it is him?” Roxanne said, the two of us in bed, legs intertwined, her hand on my chest.

  “Then I’ll have a choice.”

  “Call the police—“

  “—or give him a stern lecture.”

  Roxanne was quiet, her chest rising and falling with her breath. The miracle of her every breath. “They still have a case if she won’t testify,” she said. “Domestic assault doesn’t require the victim’s testimony.”

  “I know.”

  “And you still won’t just turn him in?”

  I didn’t answer for a moment. I could see her staring up at the skylight, the falling dusk.

  “She said she might want to stay in Galway, stop moving around.”

  “And she’d have to leave?” Roxanne said.

  “If she’s arrested for prostitution. How could she stay if she’s known as the town whore?”

  “But Jack, how can she stay if this guy is loose?”

  “It’s a tough one,” I said.

  “I’m beginning to wonder what isn’t,” Roxanne said. “The little Wilton boy started asking for his mother. Last night he cried for three hours, wanting to go home.”

  “To be starved and beaten with a belt.”

  “The devil you know,” Roxanne said.

  In the half light, I felt her thinking. “I want you to promise me something, Jack,” she said.

  “What?”

  “I want you to wait for him outside, on the sidewalk. I want you to talk to him in public, a restaurant. I want you to come home in one piece.”

  “I promise,” I said.

  She turned her head. “All of it?” she said.

  “Every bit.”

  She looked at me closely, like it could be a trick.

  “I promise,” I said. “Cross your heart.”

  I ran my finger across her chest, the flat part between her breasts. She took my hand in hers and held it tight. I smiled. I knew she didn’t.

  I was there at 7:30. It was raw, the way it often is on the coast, the cool ocean rising to meet the falling rain and mixing into something that just hangs, a dense and pervading dampness like the clouds have fallen to earth. I drove past Mandi’s apartment, circled at the landing. The bay was out there behind the wall of rain and fog, but the boats at the far end of the moorings barely showed through the gray. From the truck, I looked out, made the circle and came slowly back up the street.

  There were two guys sitting in a pickup outside the pizza shop talking and smoking, flicking ashes through the open window tops. There was a gray-haired man sitting in a Volvo with Pennsylvania plates parked outside the Rexall. The old guy was reading a paper. I pulled into a space in front of Mandi’s door and looked in the rearview. I waited and watched. He turned the pages only occasionally, reading thoroughly, not flipping through.

  I got out. The old guy didn’t turn around. I stood on the sidewalk by the door and he didn’t look. I watched the street, and nobody seemed to notice me. At 7:45 I unlocked the entrance door and went upstairs. At the landing, I stopped and listened. Jiggled the knob. It was locked.

  I knocked twice, stepped to the side and flattened myself against the wall. I waited. Listened for any sound from inside the apartment. Nothing.

  I unlocked the door and eased inside, closing the door behind me. The apartment was stuffy, smelled faintly of cat. I looked around. The place was disassembled, but not trashed. I ran a finger over a wooden box that served as an end table.

  Dust. Raven and his forensics.

  I went to the window and eased the shade open. I looked up and down the street. Watched and waited some more. Nobody. It was 7:55.

  I went to the door and let myself out. Promises to keep. I waited a minute with the door open before stepping into the hallway. Listened.

  No breathing. No shuffle. No rubbing of clothing. Nothing but the sound of rain dripping from the roof.

  I walked slowly down the stairs and back outside. The rain was steadier now, and dense, cars passed with their lights and wipers on. There was no shelter and I pulled up the hood of my rain jacket, put my hands in my pockets. Felt my knife in one, the cold chisel from Clair’s barn in the other.

  I stood there against the brick wall, my feet dry in Bean boots but the water running off my jacket and onto my jeans. At eight-fifteen, I walked down the block, scanning the cars. Most were unoccupied. A black SUV pulled out and drove down the block toward the water as I approached. A new Mercedes convertible took its place, a young guy inside, New York plates.

  Did Roger have that kind of money? How big was his boat? I walked past, looked him over. He was thirtyish, tanned and neatly shaved, handsome in a cologne sort of way. He was on the phone. He didn’t look shy.

  I crossed the street. The guy in the Volvo was reading the classified ads. The personals? Companions? I kept going, didn’t see much more. Crossed back and got in the truck. Backed out and started up the block. I stopped at the red light, watched the cars pull up behind me. Four in line: a little Ford pickup, the color of rust. A minivan, white with a headlight out. The Volvo, the older man finished with his paper. The black SUV, which had looped back from the dead-end at the
harbor.

  The light changed. I took a right, started out of town past the big Victorians, the captains’ houses, relics survived to see the new money come in. The pickup followed closely, a young kid alone. The minivan behind him. The Volvo took the right, too, but then turned and parked again. The SUV brought up the rear.

  I did the speed limit out of town, following Route 137 to the east. The coast money quickly fell away, the houses merely serviceable, the boats, not in the harbor, but sitting on trailers, waiting for the weekend.

  The pickup turned into a driveway. The van followed me but in no hurry, the SUV in the distance behind it. I sped up and the van did, too. I slowed and it caught up, the SUV behind it. I braked, trying to draw the van in closer but it stayed back.

  We drove on, the three of us, prudently spaced. And then, three miles out of town, where the road climbed a grade and there were oak woods on both sides, I signaled and swung left onto a two-lane back road. A hundred yards in, there was a dirt road to the left. I slowed, signaled again, waited, and turned.

  The van was gone. The SUV had stayed with me. Another hundred yards into the woods, the dirt road started to narrow. I braked hard, put the truck in reverse, turned, and slammed it into the grass and brush.

  I sat and waited. Waited some more.

  The SUV rolled slowly by. A black Tahoe, pretty new, with Massachusetts plates. The guy at the wheel wore a gray sweatshirt, the hood up. I counted to twenty and pulled out. Went left and followed.

  I saw him up ahead, brake lights flashing in the rain. The road turned, dipped to a ravine and crossed a culvert. I drove across, started up the other side, the truck’s tires grabbing in the mud. At the top of the rise, the road widened.

  And there he was.

  The road had ended with a rough turnaround, a chain slung between two pine trees blocking entrance to the remaining path. A sign wired to the chain said “No Trespasing” in orange spray paint. The SUV was backing up, jockeying to turn around. I stopped the truck. He saw me and stopped, too. I swung the truck sideways to block the road.

  I got out. The SUV’s brake lights went out and the door opened. A man swung down from the seat. Tall, long-limbed, wearing jeans and running shoes. I walked toward him, hands in my jacket pockets, in the right, the chisel, in the left my phone and Swiss-Army knife. Blade out.