The Charlie Parker Collection 2

by John Connolly

  I turned and looked back toward the house. Todd was talking with Harmon’s children. All three were watching me. I recalled a remark of Christian’s that a pedophile might prey on the children of others yet never make any approaches to his own children, that his family might remain entirely unaware of his urges, allowing him to preserve the image of a loving father and husband, an image that was, in a sense, simultaneously both the truth and a lie. When I had spoken to Christian, it was Daniel Clay whom I had in mind, but I had been wrong. Rebecca Clay knew exactly what her father was, but there were other children who did not. There might have been many men with tattoos of eagles on their right arms, even men who had abused children, but the links between Lang and Harmon and Clay, however tentative, could not be denied. How did it happen? I wondered. How did Lang and Harmon come to recognize something in each other, a similar weakness, a hunger that they both shared? When did they decide to approach Clay, using his access to target those who were particularly vulnerable, or those who might not be believed if they made allegations of abuse? Did Harmon bring up that drunken night when Clay had allowed him to abuse Rebecca as leverage against the psychiatrist, for Harmon had been the other man in the house on the night that Daniel Clay, for the first and last time, had shared his daughter with another, and had drunkenly allowed pictures to be taken of the encounter. If those were used carefully, Harmon could have destroyed Clay with them while making sure that his hands were clean. Even an anonymous mailing to the cops or the Board of Licensure would have been enough.

  Or did Clay even have to be blackmailed? Did they share the evidence of their abuse with him? Was that how he fed his own hunger in those years after he ceased to torment his own daughter, as she grew older, before the reemergence of those old urges that Rebecca saw in his face as her own child began to bloom?

  I turned back to Harmon. His expression had changed. It was the face of a man who was calculating the odds, assessing his degree of risk and exposure.

  “Mr. Parker,” he said, “I asked you a question.”

  I ignored him. “How did you do it?” I continued. “What brought you together, you and Lang, and Caswell and Legere? Bad luck? Mutual admiration? What was it? Then, after Clay disappeared, your supply dried up, didn’t it? That was when you had to look elsewhere, and that brought you into contact with Demarcian and his friends in Boston, and maybe Mason Dubus too, or had you paid him a visit long before then, you and Clay both? Did you worship at his feet? Did you tell him about your Project: the systematic abuse of the most vulnerable children, the ones who were troubled, or whose stories were less likely to be believed, all targeted through Clay’s inside knowledge?”

  “You be careful, now,” said Harmon. “You be real careful.”

  “I saw a photograph,” I said. “It was in Lang’s trailer. It was a picture of a man abusing a little girl. I know who that girl was. The photo’s not much to go on, but it will be a start. I’ll bet the cops have all sorts of ways to compare a picture of a tattoo with an actual mark on skin.”

  Harmon smiled. It was an ugly, malicious thing, like the opening of a wound upon his face.

  “You ever find out what happened to Daniel Clay, Mr. Parker?” he said. “I always had my suspicions about his disappearance, but I never spoke them aloud out of respect for his daughter. Who knows what might turn up if I started poking around in corners? I might find pictures too, and maybe I might recognize the little girl in them as well. If I looked hard enough, I might even recognize one of her abusers. Her father was a distinctive-looking man, all skin and bone. I discover something like that and I might have to turn it in to the proper authorities. After all, that little girl would be a woman by now, a woman with troubles and torments of her own. She might need help, or counseling. All kinds of things might come out, all kinds. You start digging, Mr. Parker, and there’s no telling what skeletons could be exposed.”

  I heard footsteps behind me, and a young man’s voice said: “Everything okay here, Dad?”

  “Everything’s fine, son,” said Harmon. “Mr. Parker’s about to leave. I’d ask him to stay for lunch, but I know he has things to do. He’s a busy man. He has a lot to think about.”

  I didn’t say anything more. I walked away, leaving Harmon and his son behind. His daughter was gone, but a figure stood at one of the upper windows, staring down at us all. It was Mrs. Harmon. She was wearing a green dress and her nails were red against the white of the drape she held back from the glass. Todd followed me through the house to make sure that I left. I was almost at the front door when Mrs. Harmon appeared on the landing above my head. She smiled emptily at me, seemingly lost in a pharmaceutical haze, but the smile didn’t extend farther than her lips and her eyes were full of unspeakable things.

  VII

  and what i want to know is

  how do you like your blueeyed boy

  Mister Death

  e e cummings, Buffalo Bill’s

  defunct

  Epilogue

  For a few days, nothing more happened. Life went back to much the way it had been. Angel and Louis returned to New York. I walked Walter, and took calls from people who wanted to hire my services. I turned them down. I was tired, and there was a bad taste in my mouth of which I could not rid myself. Even the house was still and quiet, as though watchful presences were waiting to see what would transpire.

  The initial letter was not entirely unexpected. It informed me that my gun was being held as evidence in the commission of a crime, and might possibly be returned to me at a later date. I didn’t care. I didn’t want it back, not now.

  The next two letters arrived almost simultaneously by special delivery. The first, from the office of the chief of the state police, informed me that an application had been made to the District Court for the suspension of my private investigator’s license with immediate effect on the grounds of fraud and deceit in connection with my work, and the uttering of false statements. The application had been filed by the state police. The court had granted an interim temporary suspension, and a full hearing would follow in due course, at which I would be given the opportunity to defend myself.

  The second letter was also from the office of the chief of the state police, notifying me that my concealed weapons permit was being revoked pending the outcome of the hearing, and that I should return it, along with any other relevant documentation, to his office. After all that had happened, and after all that I had done, things had fallen apart in the aftermath of a case in which I had not even fired a weapon.

  I spent the days that followed the receipt of the letters away from my house. I traveled to Vermont with Walter and passed two days with Rachel and Sam, staying at a motel a few miles from the house. The visit passed without incident and without a harsh word spoken between us. It was as if Rachel’s words when last we met had cleared the air somewhat. I told her of what had happened, about the loss of my license and my permit. She asked me what I was going to do and I told her that I did not know. Money was not a huge problem, not yet. The mortgage on the house was small, as most of the cost of its purchase had been covered by the cash the U.S. Postal Service had paid for my grandfather’s land and the old house upon it. There would be bills to pay, though, and I wanted to continue to help Rachel with Sam. She told me not to worry too much about it, although she understood why it was important to me. When I was about to leave, Rachel held me close and kissed me softly on the mouth, and I tasted her, and she tasted me.

  The following evening, there was a dinner at Natasha’s for June Fitzpatrick. Joel Harmon wasn’t present. There were just some of June’s friends, and Phil Isaacson, the Press Herald’s art critic, and a couple of other people that I knew by reputation. I hadn’t wanted to attend, but June had insisted, and in the end it turned out to be a pretty nice evening. I left them after a couple of hours with bottles of wine to finish and desserts to be ordered.

  A harsh wind was blowing in off the sea. It stung my cheeks and made my eyes water as I headed for my c
ar. I had parked on Middle Street, not far from City Hall. There were plenty of empty spaces, and I passed few people on the streets as I walked.

  Ahead of me, a man stood outside an apartment block not far from the headquarters of the Portland P.D. He was smoking a cigarette. I could see the end glow in shadows cast by the awning above the doorway. As I drew closer, he stepped into my path.

  “I came to say good-bye,” he said. “For now.”

  The Collector was dressed as he was always dressed, in a dark coat that had seen better days, beneath which was a navy jacket and an old-fashioned, wide-collared shirt buttoned up to the neck. He took a long, final drag on his cigarette, then flicked it away. “I hear things have gotten bad for you.”

  I didn’t want to talk to this man, whoever he truly was, but it didn’t seem like I had much choice. Anyway, I doubted that he was here just to wish me farewell. He didn’t seem like the sentimental type.

  “You’re bad luck for me,” I said. “You’ll forgive me for not shedding a tear when you go.”

  “I think you may be bad luck for me too. I’ve had to move part of my collection, I’ve lost a secure house, and Mr. Eldritch has been subject to some unwelcome publicity. He fears that it will be the death of him.”

  “Heartbreaking. He always seemed so full of life.”

  The Collector removed his tobacco and papers from his pocket and carefully rolled, then lit, another while the first still smoldered in the gutter. He appeared unable to think properly without something burning between his fingers or his lips.

  “Since you’re here, I have a question for you,” I said.

  He inhaled deeply, then blew a cloud of smoke into the night air. As he did so, he waved a hand in the air, inviting the question.

  “Why those men?” I asked. “Why the interest in this case?”

  “Equally, the same question could be asked of you,” he replied. “After all, you were not being paid to find them. Perhaps a more apt question might be: why not those men? It has always seemed to me that there are two types of people in this world: those rendered impotent by the sheer weight of evil it contains, and who refuse to act because they see no point, and those who choose their battles and fight them to the end, as they understand that to do nothing is infinitely worse than to do something and fail. Like you, I decided to pursue this investigation, and to follow it through to the end.”

  “I hope the outcome was more satisfactory for you than it was for me.”

  The Collector laughed. “You can’t be entirely surprised by what has happened to you,” he said. “You were living on borrowed time, and even your friends couldn’t protect you any longer.”

  “My friends?”

  “My mistake: your unseen friends, your secret friends. I don’t mean your lethally amusing colleagues from New York. Oh, and don’t worry about them. I have other, more worthy objects of my disaffection to pursue. I think I’ll leave them be, for now. They are making recompense for past evils, and I wouldn’t want to render you entirely bereft. No, I’m talking about those who have followed your progress quietly, the ones who have facilitated all that you have done, who have smoothed over the damage that you have left in your wake, who have leaned gently on those who would rather have seen you resting behind bars.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No, I don’t suppose that you do. You were careless this time: your lies tripped you up. There was momentum building against you, and the consequences have now become apparent. You are a curious, empathic man who has been deprived of a license to do the thing that he does best, a violent individual whose toys have been taken away. Who can say what will happen to you now?”

  “Don’t tell me that you’re one of these ‘secret friends,’ otherwise I’m in more trouble than I thought.”

  “No, I’m neither your friend nor your enemy, and I answer to a higher power.”

  “You’re deluded.”

  “Am I? Very well, then it is a delusion that we both share. I’ve just done you a favor of which you don’t yet know. Now I’ll do you one final service. You have spent years drifting from the light into the shadows and back again, moving between them in your search for answers, but the longer you spend in the darkness, the greater the chance that the presence within it will become aware of you, and will move against you. Soon, it will come.”

  “I’ve met things in the darkness before. They’ve gone, and I am here.”

  “This is not a ‘thing’ in the darkness,” he replied. “This is the darkness. Now, we are done.”

  He turned to walk away, sending another dying cigarette after the first. I reached out to stop him. I wanted more. I grabbed his shoulder and my hand brushed his skin—

  And I had a vision of figures writhing in torment, of others alone in desolate places, crying for that which had abandoned them. And I saw the Hollow Men, and in that instant I knew truly what they were.

  The Collector pirouetted like a dancer. My grip on him was broken with a sweep of his arm, and then I was against the wall, his fingers on my neck, my feet slowly leaving the ground as he forced me up. I tried to kick out at him and he closed the distance between us as the pressure on my neck increased, choking the life from me.

  “Don’t ever touch me,” he said. “Nobody touches me.”

  He released his hold upon me, and I slid down the wall and collapsed onto my knees, painfully drawing ragged gulps of air through my open mouth. My skin itched and burned where his fingers had gripped me, and I could smell nicotine and decay upon myself.

  “Look at you,” he said, and his words dripped with pity and contempt. “A man tormented by unanswered questions, a man without a father, without a mother, a man who has allowed two families to slip through his fingers.”

  “I had a father,” I said. “I had a mother, and I still have my family.”

  “Do you? Not for long.” Something cruel transformed his features, like a small boy who sees the opportunity to continue the torture of a dumb animal. “And as for a father and a mother, answer this: your blood type is B. See the things I know about you? Now, here’s my problem.” He leaned in close to me. “How can a child with B blood have a father who was type A and a mother who was type O? It’s quite the mystery.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “Am I? Well, then, so be it.”

  He stepped away from me. “But perhaps you have other things to occupy your time: half seen things, dead things, a child who whispers in the night and a mother who rages in the dark. Stay with them, if you wish. Live with them, in the place where they wait.”

  “Where are my wife and child?” The words flayed my damaged throat, and I hated myself for seeking answers from this vile creature. “You spoke of beings cut off from the Divine. You knew about the writing in the dust. You know. Tell me, is that what they are, lost souls? Is that what I am?”

  “Do you even have a soul?” he whispered. “As for where your wife and child dwell, they are where you keep them.”

  He squatted before me, bathing me in his stench as he spoke his final words.

  “I took him while you were at dinner, so you would have an alibi. That is my last gift to you, Mr. Parker, and my last indulgence.”

  He rose and walked away, and by the time I got to my feet he was long gone. I went to my car and drove home, and I thought about what he had said.

  Joel Harmon disappeared that night. Todd was ill and Harmon had driven himself to a town meeting in Falmouth, where he handed over a check for $25,000 as part of a drive to buy minibuses for a local school. His car was found abandoned at Wildwood Park, and he was never seen again.

  Shortly after nine the next morning, I received a telephone call. The caller didn’t identify himself, but he told me that a search warrant for my property had just been signed by Judge Hight, authorizing the state police to seek any and all unlicensed firearms. They would be at my house within the hour.

  They were led by Hansen when they came, and they went thr
ough every room. They managed to open the panel in the wall behind which I used to keep the guns I had retained, despite the suspension of my permit, but I had sealed them in oilcloths and plastic and dropped them in a marsh pond at the back of my property, anchored by a rope to a rock on the bank, so all they found was dust. They even searched the attic, but they did not stay there long, and I could see in the faces of the uniformed men who descended that they were grateful to leave that cold, dark space. Hansen did not speak to me from the time the warrant was served until the moment the search was complete. His final words to me were: “This isn’t over.”

  When they were gone, I began to empty the attic. I removed boxes and cases without even looking at their contents, casting them onto the landing before carrying them down to the patch of bare earth and stones at the end of my yard. I opened the attic window and let cold air flood in, and I wiped away the dust from the glass, cleansing it of the words that remained upon it. Then I went through the rest of the house, cleaning every surface, opening cupboards and airing rooms, until all was in order and it was as cold inside the house as it was outside.

  They are where you keep them.

  I thought that I felt their anger and their rage, or perhaps it was all inside me, and even as I purged it, it fought to survive. As the sun went down, I lit a pyre, and I watched as grief and memories ascended into the sky, forming gray smoke and charred fragments that fell into dust as the wind carried them away.

  “I am sorry,” I whispered. “I am sorry for all of the ways that I failed you. I am sorry that I was not there to save you, or to die alongside you. I am sorry that I have kept you with me for so long, trapped in my heart, bound in sorrow and remorse. I forgive you too. I forgive you for leaving me, and I forgive you for returning. I forgive you your anger, and your grief. Let this be an end to it. Let this be an end to it all.

  “You have to go now,” I said aloud to the shadows. “It’s time for you to leave.”