Authors: John Connolly
He watched her as she examined the books carefully, separating them into two piles: those to be read as soon as possible, and those that could wait – perhaps indefinitely, in a couple of cases, judging by the expression of disapproval that crossed her face.
‘Are the lady and the man married?’ she asked, when she was certain that they were out of earshot.
‘No, they’re brother and sister.’
‘Oh. They
act
like they’re married.’
‘But they’re not.’
‘Because they’re brother and sister.’
‘Yes.’
‘If they weren’t brother and sister, would they get married?’
‘I don’t know. I have to say, it’s kind of a strange question.’
‘I don’t think it’s strange,’ she said.
‘Maybe not, then.’
She seemed satisfied that her father had conceded a point to her.
‘What do you want to do today?’ he asked.
‘Can we go and meet Amanda?’
He had told her about Amanda when he and Rachel were working out the details of where and when they’d meet in Bangor. He didn’t think that Sam would have minded coming to Boreas for a few days, even without the promise of another child’s presence, but it certainly added some extra appeal to the visit.
‘I’ll call her mom, just in case,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure you’d be welcome whenever you’d like to go over.’
‘Good.’ She picked a collection of old
Peanuts
cartoons from the ‘to be read’ pile. ‘I’m going to give Amanda this one.’
‘I think she’ll like it.’
‘It’s Snoopy. Everyone likes Snoopy. Do you have a pen?’
He took one from his pocket and handed it to her. Inside the cover of the book, she inscribed the words ‘To Amanda, From Sam,’ and added an ‘X.’
‘But I’ll tell her that Greg gave it to me for free,’ she concluded, when she was done.
‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘If you think honesty is the best policy, then fine. You all finished?’
She picked up her books, the most urgent piled on top of the less so. Larraine gave her a cloth bag decorated with literary characters, thanked her for coming, and hoped that she’d come back before she left. Like royalty, or General MacArthur, Sam assured her that she would return, and she and her father stepped out into the sunlight. They were heading across the street to where he’d parked the Mustang when a car pulled away from the curb and passed slowly before them, preventing them from crossing. It was a brown Cadillac Sedan de Ville with whitewall tires, its windows slightly tinted. Parker caught a glimpse of the driver, a hat pressed low on his forehead. The car wasn’t travelling fast, so he had no reason to complain about the driver’s behavior. It simply struck him that he could easily have stopped to let them cross. It was what most people in town would have done. This car, though, bore Pennsylvania plates. Parker recalled an incident when he’d been waiting for a flight at the Philadelphia airport, and a man had cut the line at the newsstand to pay for a paper and gum. When the guy at the head of the line objected, the jumper responded with the immortal words ‘Hey, welcome to Philly!’
Beside him, Sam tightened her grip on his hand. He looked down to see her face wrinkled in distaste.
‘Did you smell it?’ she said.
‘Smell what?’
‘I don’t know. Something icky.’
He sniffed the air, but detected nothing.
‘It was the car,’ said Sam.
‘Really?’
The Cadillac hadn’t been emitting any more fumes than might have been expected from a vehicle of its vintage. Actually, it had appeared to him to be well maintained.
‘Daddy, it smelled bad.’
He watched the Cadillac turn the corner, the silhouette of its driver just about visible as it headed north along Burgess Road, his head darker patch behind the colored glass.
‘If you say so. Anyway, it’s gone now.’
He checked twice before crossing, but the road was clear. They reached the far sidewalk, and headed for the municipal parking lot where he’d left his car. As the lot came into sight, Sam let go of his hand.
‘I feel sick,’ she said, and with that she released a stream of milk and French toast onto the sidewalk. All that Parker could do was hold back her hair and let it come. When she was done, he found a tissue in his pocket and used it to wipe her mouth. Her face was very pale. Even her lips seemed more bloodless than before.
‘You want to sit down?’ he asked.
She shook her head.
‘I’m okay.’
‘Where did that come from? Did you feel bad earlier?’
‘No.’
‘You think it was the French toast?’
‘No.’
He looked down at the mess on the pavement. They weren’t far from the Blackbird Bar & Grill, and the door was open. He brought her inside and sat her down at one of the booths in the bar, which was otherwise empty. Fred Amsel appeared from a back room, and Parker told him what had happened and asked for a bucket of water to clean off the sidewalk. Fred told him that he’d take care of it. He poured a Sprite for Sam, but did not add ice.
‘The sugar will help,’ he said. ‘She’s probably feeling light-headed.’
Sam sipped the soda. Fred filled a bucket, sluiced down the sidewalk, and then used a brush to wash any residue into the gutter. The color returned to Sam’s face, and she assured her father that she was happy to get in the car so they could return to the house. Parker thanked Fred for his kindness, and offered to pay for the soda, but he knew that no cash would be accepted. They got back to the car without any further incident, but he kept the windows rolled down on the ride back to Green Heron Bay.
Parker suggested that perhaps they should leave the visit to Amanda until the next day, but Sam would hear none of it.
‘I’m fine, Daddy,’ she said. ‘It was the smell that made me sick. That man in the car, he smelled bad. He smelled
real
bad …’
28
S
am seemed fully recovered by the time they returned to the house at Green Heron Bay, but Parker insisted that she take it easy for an hour before he brought her to meet Amanda Winter. She did so reluctantly, her mood improved only slightly by being given relatively unlimited access to Netflix on her father’s laptop.
While she lay on the couch watching an episode of
Cow and Chicken
, Parker went outside and thought about the brown Cadillac, and his daughter’s reaction to it. Her vomiting could have been a consequence of travel and excitement, he supposed, although Sam generally boasted the constitution of a young horse. He himself hadn’t felt any unease at the sight of the car, and he was sensitive to such things – acutely so. But he acknowledged that he had been left weakened by recent events, and none of his responses were as sure as before.
He called Gordon Walsh, but the call went straight to voicemail. He left a message with details of the car and its license plate number, and asked Walsh, as a favor, to run the vehicle through the system. He was curious, and nothing more, not yet. He checked on Sam once again, then went to his room. He worked on strengthening his grip for while before reading the
New York Times
. He must have dozed off, for when he woke, there was a message on his phone from Cory Bloom requesting that he call her, and Sam was standing at his bedroom door.
‘I’m ready,’ she said.
He didn’t bother asking her again how she was feeling. He knew that it would only annoy her. In that way, she was like her mother. As for Cory Bloom, he would return her call as soon as Sam was safely with Ruth Winter and her daughter.
‘Then let’s go,’ he said.
Parker stood with Ruth and watched their respective daughters make their way across the sand toward the rock pools that now lay exposed by the outgoing tide. The girls wore loose windbreakers and brightly colored waterproof boots. The sky was clear, and the sun gave some warmth despite the seemingly ever-present breeze. Fearless little purple sandpipers hopped among the rocks at their farthest point, where the waves still broke upon them, the winter yellow of the birds’ legs now almost entirely gone.
‘You say she was ill?’ asked Ruth.
‘French toast.’
‘That’ll do it, you eat enough of it. I’ll keep an eye on her, though – both eyes. They won’t be out of my sight. Speaking of which …’
She buttoned her coat to go and join Sam and Amanda.
‘Call me if there’s a problem,’ said Parker. ‘I won’t be far away.’
‘You going back to your house?’
‘No, I have some errands to run in town. Shouldn’t take too long.’
‘Well, maybe you’d like to join us for dinner later? Sixish?’
‘That would be great. I’ll pick up dessert.’
‘Don’t worry about it. We have enough ice cream here to start a business.’
He had a sudden impulse to kiss her cheek in farewell, although it quickly passed. It was not a manifestation of desire. She was a good-looking woman, but he felt no particular attraction to her, and saw no evidence that she felt any differently toward him. No, it would have been a gesture almost of reassurance, or an invitation to her to share with him whatever it was that was troubling her. He watched her walk after the children, and his eyes moved on to the place on her right doorpost where the mezuzah had been. Green Heron Bay and Mason Point were similar in size and geographic features. He followed the shoreline with his gaze. If he squinted, he could almost picture a body stretched upon it, like an offering from the sea.
There was no evidence that Boreas had been Bruno Perlman’s ultimate destination. Neither had Parker any reason to believe that, if Perlman had been on his way to the town, Ruth Winter was someone with whom he might have wished to speak. All he knew was that she cared enough about her faith to affix the mezuzah to her door, and if it was important to her to put it up in the first place, then she wouldn’t have taken it down again lightly.
He went to her front door to check if the mezuzah had been restored, but it had not. The hole left by the nail was still there. He lifted his right index finger and touched the space where the little vessel had once been. Epstein had once recited to him the blessing required upon fixing a mezuzah, when he was explaining to Parker the importance of such matters. His brief Internet search, after he noticed Ruth Winter had taken the mezuzah down, reminded him of it: ‘Blessed are You, Lord Our God, King of the Universe, Who sanctified us with His
mitzvot
, and commanded us to affix a mezuzah.’
Why would someone consciously choose to disobey something that she appeared to regard as a
mitzvah
, a commandment? It was possible, even likely, that some prosaic explanation might offer itself. The mezuzah could have fallen off or become damaged, in which case a scribe would have been required to make the necessary repairs. He could almost hear Ruth Winter’s previous hollow excuse for its absence: ‘
I didn’t much care for it
…’
He felt that she would lie to him again if confronted about it, and he realized that he had already convinced himself she was hiding knowledge. No, not hiding, but lying by omission, by silence. And she was frightened. He had a sense for it. It was this fear that made him want to reach out to her, as much for her daughter’s sake as for her own.
Parker left the porch and descended to the sand. Ruth had joined Sam and Amanda over at the rocks, sending the sandpipers fleeing. They stood out darkly against the sky, and he had the urge to go to them, to take his daughter by the hand and lead her away from this woman and her child.
But he did not. Instead he headed for his car. He had decided not to call Cory Bloom, but to visit her in person, since he was going to be in town anyway. He had not yet made up his mind whether to mention his concerns about Ruth Winter. By the time he reached his car, he had decided to hold his peace for now. Perhaps he would talk to Ruth after dinner.
Perhaps.
Despite her message, Cory Bloom didn’t seem particularly pleased to see Parker appear at the door of her office. He supposed that he ought to have kept a lower profile with her, but then he was used to that kind of reaction to his presence. It came with the territory, and if he started worrying about it, then he’d never have left the house. Officer Preston came out of a small kitchen carrying a cup and a muffin. She didn’t look pleased to see him either, but then her default expression was one of pained displeasure, as though someone had recently forced her to lick a succession of batteries.
‘Can I come in?’ he asked Bloom. ‘Or should I just loiter outside with intent?’
Bloom relented. Preston didn’t. He didn’t much care either way.
‘Take a seat,’ said Bloom, indicating a chair in front of her desk. ‘I’ll be right with you.’
He took the chair, but was conscious that Preston hadn’t moved from her position by the kitchen door. Bloom noticed her too, and shot a ‘Yeah, what?’ look over Parker’s shoulder, combined with spread arms. Just to amuse himself, Parker turned to Preston and mimicked the gesture and the expression. He saw himself burning in Preston’s eyes, and made a mental note not to go over thirty within the town limits for the duration of his time there. When he faced Bloom again, she was staring exasperatedly at him.
‘I can see why someone tried to shoot you,’ she said.
‘They didn’t just try. They
did
shoot me.’
‘Well, if you’ve got names, I think Officer Preston would like to shake their hand.’
She returned to the paperwork on her desk, signing her name at the bottom of series of forms and requisition orders.
‘I hope she doesn’t mind digging first,’ said Parker, and the pen froze for a moment before resuming its movements. He didn’t interrupt her, but kept his left hand down by his side, slowly clenching and unclenching his fist. He’d noticed some improvement that afternoon: he’d been able to hold the grip strengthener at full tension for longer than he’d yet managed since the shooting.
She finished writing, put the papers to one side, then leaned forward and clasped her hands on the desk before her.
‘Do you want coffee?’
‘Will Officer Preston be making it?’