Authors: John Connolly
‘No, this guy’s got it. Just get the door open, please.’
‘I’m on it.’
He hurried back to the truck while Tony stayed alongside the detective, ready to leap in and save him should a stone on the ground cause the chair to wobble. When they reached the truck, Parker had to stretch to get in the back. He couldn’t help but give a small groan of pain, which led each of the Fulcis to lend a hand, almost propelling him headfirst into the bench seat.
‘We got him now,’ Tony told the nurse.
He radiated reassurance, as if their possession of her patient could not possibly be a cause for concern. The strange development, Parker thought, was that the nurse now looked as though she might be falling slightly in love with one or both of the Fulcis, or it could just have been shock. Whatever it was, she kept staring at them as they drove away. Parker wouldn’t have been surprised if she had waved a white handkerchief in farewell.
He couldn’t recall ever being in their truck before, and wasn’t sure that he ever wanted to again. Paulie drove with a hunched intensity: not particularly quickly, and not unduly slowly, but with the single-minded implacability of a tank commander advancing on a retreating foe. Other vehicles didn’t linger long in his way, preferring to take their chances in adjoining lanes, or even on the curb. Paulie did stop for red lights, but appeared to take them very personally, and glowered in their direction until they were terrorized into changing.
‘We bought you grapes,’ said Tony.
He gestured to a Whole Foods bag on the floor beside Parker.
‘That’s kind.’
Tony waited, grinning encouragingly.
‘Right,’ said Parker. He could see where this was going. He dipped into the bag and popped one of the grapes into his mouth. He grimaced. He thought about spitting it out, but somehow managed to force it down.
‘Guys, those are olives.’
Paulie punched his brother on the arm.
‘I fucking told you!’ he said.
‘You don’t like olives?’ Tony asked, rubbing his arm while hoping to salvage something from the situation.
‘It was just that I was kind of expecting a grape.’
‘You see?’ said Paulie to his brother. ‘You fucking idiot.’
‘I never been in Whole Foods before,’ said Tony. ‘I didn’t recognize nothing there.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Parker. ‘It’s the thought that counts.’
Tony wasn’t to be comforted. He stared out of the window and didn’t speak. Paulie put on some music. It was a Carpenters’ compilation. He patted his brother’s shoulder.
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘I shouldn’t have gotten angry with you.’
‘Only Yesterday’ began playing. Tony cheered up some.
Parker vowed, someday, to kill Angel and Louis for this.
Angel and Louis were waiting for them at Dysart’s Truck Stop and Restaurant on the outskirts of Bangor. Dysart’s had been around since the 1940s, and counted as a Maine institution. It also housed the city’s Greyhound bus station, so the whole place was busy, although not so busy that the arrival of the Fulcis and their truck didn’t attract attention. The world could have been ending, and people would still have stopped screaming for long enough to pause and stare at them.
Angel and Louis were sitting across from each other in a booth at the back. Parker still had his crutch as he advanced on them. Tony had insisted: ‘You know, just until you’re sure you can walk again.’
‘I’m not crippled,’ Parker told him.
‘Man, that’s what all crips say,’ Tony replied. ‘And I don’t think you’re allowed to call them crips no more.’
‘I didn’t call them crips. You did.’
Tony shrugged and gave his brother the eye, as if to say that he wasn’t about to argue with a sick man, but, well, you know …
‘You mind moving to the other side?’ Parker asked Angel as he reached the booth. ‘It’s less uncomfortable if I can stretch out.’
Tony and Paulie took the booth across from them and started studying the menu.
Angel moved. He gestured at the crutch on his way past.
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s called a crutch.’
‘I know what it’s called. You need it?’
‘Just to shove up your ass for having me collected by the Hardy Boys over there. If I’d known, I’d have asked for a second crutch to use on your friend too.’
‘They wanted to help,’ said Louis. He was keeping a straight face, but it was clearly a struggle.
Parker slid into the booth.
‘They fed me an olive disguised as a grape.’
‘It’s an easy mistake to make,’ said Angel.
‘I hate olives.’
‘Man, you’re touchy today.’
Parker let out a long breath.
‘Yeah, I am touchy. If only I had a reason.’
A waitress came over. Parker ordered some dry toast and a decaf coffee. Angel and Louis asked for refills. The Fulcis opted for a pair of club sandwiches. Each.
‘So what do you want to do now?’ said Louis.
‘I can’t drive for a couple of days. I’d appreciate a ride to Vermont. I want to see Sam.’
‘Did you speak to Rachel?’ asked Louis.
‘From the hospital. She said Sam was okay – a bit shaken up, but that’s all.’
‘You know,’ said Louis, ‘I’m sure Tony and Paulie would be glad to act as chauffeurs.’
‘Don’t even joke about it. Seriously.’
‘In that case, we’re happy to help,’ said Angel, acting as peacemaker. ‘What about where you’re going to stay? You don’t want to go back to Boreas, right?’
‘Boreas is still in the cards,’ said Parker. ‘After that, I may go home.’
‘Back to Scarborough?’
‘Yes.’
‘You sure?’ said Angel. ‘There’s an apartment for rent across the hall from the one we got in Portland.’
‘Why are you still holding on to that?’
‘We’re starting to like Portland. We might move permanently.’
‘I’ll tell the city fathers. I’m sure they’ll be pleased, once they’ve had a chance to sell their homes. Look, you don’t have to stay in Portland for me. I’m okay. In fact, I’m better than okay.’
Angel thought that there might be some truth to what Parker said. The distance that he had maintained since the shooting, the sense of his being at arm’s length from what was going on around him, had lessened. He looked tired and drawn, and he was grumpy as a dying wasp, but he exuded a sense of purpose.
‘Scarborough is still a mess,’ said Angel.
‘I know.’
As he’d told Walsh, he had been back to pick up some things before moving to Brook House. A medical orderly had wheeled him inside, and Parker had been forced to point out what he needed, or shout instructions from the bottom of the stairs. Someone had come in – probably at the instigation of Angel and Louis – to clean up the blood, but damage remained to the doors and walls in the kitchen, the hallway, and his office. He hadn’t lingered. He wasn’t prepared to spend longer in his home than necessary, not then: the sense of intrusion, of violation, was too strong.
But he was ready now.
‘You know,’ said Louis, ‘Paulie and Tony, they’re pretty good with their hands. Let them go in while we’re in Vermont, see what they can do. They love you. You’re like a god to them. You ask, and give them long enough, they’ll turn it into your own palace.’
Parker had to admit that it wasn’t a bad idea – not the palace part, but the rest. When he put it to the Fulcis, they reacted as though he were doing them a huge favor, and their genuine delight made him feel bad. They even tried to refuse payment for any work that they did on the house, but he wasn’t about to be made to feel like a charity case, or more of a charity case than he already felt himself to be.
‘That’s a done deal, then,’ said Angel. ‘We go to Vermont, they head to Scarborough.’
Parker’s coffee and toast came, along with the Fulcis’ food.
‘So,’ said Parker, ‘tell me about your dinner with Walsh.’
46
M
arie Demers sat at the old mahogany dining table in Isha Winter’s home. The wood was a deep brown, and polished to within an inch of its life. Demers couldn’t see a mark on it, and she doubted if it was used more than once or twice a year. It would seat ten people comfortably, twelve at a squeeze, and she could picture it set for Thanksgiving or Hanukkah. She doubted if those holidays would be celebrated this year, not after what had happened to Ruth Winter. Demers already felt bad for intruding on Isha’s grief.
Ruth’s death had set in train a complicated series of negotiations about Amanda Winter’s future, although all involved, whether state or family, agreed on a number of important issues: that the girl’s grandmother loved her very much, but was too old to take care of the child alone; nevertheless, it would be good for Amanda to be close to her grandmother, and to remain in the area where she had grown up and was attending school; and suitable foster parents should be found as a matter of urgency.
Those parents might already have presented themselves, it seemed, for Amanda was currently staying with the Frobergs, a couple in their early forties with two children of their own, a boy and a girl, respectively a year older and a year younger than Amanda. They lived only five minutes from Isha’s house. It helped that Isha approved of them, and Amanda was already friendly with their kids from school. While the whole process was still in its early stages, signals from the Maine Department of Health and Human Services were favorable.
Isha Winter arrived from the kitchen, carrying a tray containing a pot of coffee, cups, cream, sugar, and three plates, the topmost of which was dominated by a massive cake of some kind. She had declined Demers’s offer of help with her preparations. This was her domain, but it also struck Demers that the old woman might be anxious to show just how strong and independent she remained, as if to further enhance the case for her granddaughter’s continued presence in the town – not that Demers would have any say in what was going to happen, although if anyone did ask, she would have no compunction about remarking on Isha’s continued vitality, which was remarkable for a woman in her nineties.
They had met a number of times before, the first during the investigation into Thomas Engel, when Demers had visited Isha to ask if she recalled him. Isha didn’t, but that was not surprising: from what the Human Rights Section had been able to piece together from fragmentary evidence about Lubsko, Engel only arrived when there was killing to be done. When he came to Lubsko for the final time, chaos had already erupted, with guards turning on guards. Isha, initially alerted to what was happening by the sound of gunfire, and then confirmed in her fears by the sight of her parents lying dead outside their hut, was already trying to hide herself.
Their second meeting had occurred after Isha finally became aware of Bruno Perlman’s death. She recalled him as an intense man who had wanted to record their conversation, and whose questioning bordered on the insensitive, particularly for an old woman who lived every day with the memory of what happened at Lubsko yet, like some who have been through great trauma, endure only by refusing to speak of it aloud, as if to do so would be to give it substance, and return them to the reality of it. But Isha felt some obligation to help this man who was clearly so haunted by his family’s past. She could tell him little that he did not already know, though, for she had not been at the camp when his relatives died. Eventually her daughter had returned home and, seeing how upset her mother was being made by the interview, terminated it as gently, yet as forcefully, as she could.
Demers and Isha had then met briefly at Ruth’s funeral, and now Demers was sitting in Isha’s home, with what she hoped might be a sliver of connective tissue between Ruth’s murder and the man who called himself Marcus Baulman.
Isha set the tray down on the table, and carefully placed cork mats on the mahogany before adding the cups and plates. She poured the coffee, and allowed Demers to add her own cream and sugar.
‘You will have some babka?’ she said, although Demers felt that it was more an order than a question.
‘I’d love a piece,’ she said, and Isha cut her a slice as thick as her arm, and a smaller portion for herself.
Demers tried it. God, it was good – not that she knew babka from bupkis, but this really was fantastic. It was crumbly and chocolaty, with a hint of familiar essence to it.
‘What do you think?’ asked Isha.
She had not yet touched her own slice. Her attention was fixed entirely on her visitor. Had Demers expressed dissatisfaction, even just through an absence of enthusiasm, she was certain that Isha would have been unable to eat, and might never have prepared her babka again. But there was no cause for Demers to feign enthusiasm. She thought she might actually weep, the cake was so good.
‘It’s wonderful. Are those nuts I’m tasting?’
‘Are you allergic?’
‘No, not at all. I just can’t figure out what nut it is.’
Only then did Isha take a bite of her own cake.
‘No nuts,’ she said.
‘Seriously?’
‘Mascarpone cheese. Others use cream cheese, but mascarpone is better. It gives the dough that flavor. Before you leave, I must write down the recipe for you.’
Good luck with that, thought Demers. She wasn’t a bad cook, but baking was too much like science – or alchemy – for her liking. It required the kind of precision that she instinctively applied to her work, but when she got home, she preferred to be a little more relaxed in her culinary endeavors.
‘How is Amanda doing?’ she asked.
Isha finished her own mouthful before answering.
‘Good and bad,’ she said. ‘She has nightmares, and her condition, her syndrome, has worsened again. They say that maybe she should talk to a therapist.’
‘It might help.’
‘But I am here for her. I will always listen to her.’
‘And that’s good,’ said Demers. ‘She needs that stability. But the circumstances in which her mother died were particularly awful. Amanda saw her mother’s body, and her killer, and was assaulted by him in turn. She’s still just a child, and if she receives the help that she needs now, it’ll ease the burden later.’
‘You’re right, of course,’ said Isha. ‘Yes, a therapist. I will tell them.’
She used her fork to cut away another piece of babka. They spoke of the ongoing investigation into her daughter’s death. Just as the police had done, Demers asked if Isha could think of any reason why Bruno Perlman might have wished to contact her daughter, but she could not.