“Your streets are public streets,” I say.
“Inhabited by private people,” he counters. “And my job is to protect that privacy, by every legal means available to me. And I will do so aggressively, every chance I get.” He stands up, almost as sure a sign as taking out car keys that a meeting is over. “As I said, I will inform the families of your desire to talk to them. If they should choose to do so, they or I will contact you.”
I leave, and as I exit the building, two servants of the Keeper are standing there, watching my every move. I’ve seen one of them before, but not the other, bringing the total to four who have monitored my movements in my two brief visits here. The new servant is the largest one yet.
I’m pissed off by my meeting, so to annoy them, and perhaps to learn something, I stop before I get to my car and look around at the street, which is mostly deserted. “Can we help you, sir?” the larger one asks.
“I’m just trying to get my bearings,” I say. “I know Space Mountain is over there, so where would Pirates of the Caribbean be?”
“Sir?”
I shrug. “Never mind… it’s probably a really long line anyway. I’ll check out the Haunted House.” I start to walk down the street, looking around as if I’m taking in the sights of the town.
I glance over a couple of times at the servants, who seem unsure what to do. Soon two others approach me from the other direction. I wave toward them, continuing my walk, which has reached the outskirts of the town center, which is the beginning of the residential homes. Not surprisingly, they don’t wave back.
I’m getting a little nervous, but I’m comforted a little by the fact that it’s broad daylight out. I see a street sign marking the street that I know to be the one on which Elizabeth Barlow lived. There are a few residents around, and I call out to one of the women. “Excuse me, can you tell me which is the Barlow home?”
The woman doesn’t answer me, instead looking away, though she doesn’t seem to be particularly fearful or nervous. I see a little boy, no more than seven years old, driving a toy fire truck.
“Are you going to be a fireman when you grow up?” I ask, with one eye on the approaching servants.
The boy shakes his head. “Nope, I’m going to work in the bank.”
It seems a strange response, so I ask, “You’re going to be a banker?”
He shrugs. “I guess.”
I wonder if the wheel dictated the boy’s career choice, but I keep walking, turning a corner and seeing that two more servants are waiting for me up ahead. Turning the corner was not the smartest idea, since I now find myself in front of a vacant lot with no residents around and servants closing in from the front and back. I feel a flash of panic; my annoyance at Drummond has caused me to push this too far.
Suddenly, a car pulls up and comes to a quick stop before me. It is driven by still another servant, who gets out of the car and walks slowly over to me. I recognize him instantly from the picture as Drummond’s son; he has Drummond’s height but is in better physical shape.
I turn and see that another man has gotten out of the passenger seat and is walking over to me. Actually, he strides over, exuding a sense of superiority that is immediately apparent. He wears a robe, almost looking like a judge, except that the robe is blue, perhaps a shade lighter than navy. He is considerably smaller than all of his servants, yet he is clearly in command.
“Mr. Carpenter,” he says. It’s a statement, perhaps a greeting.
“Keeper Wallace,” I say.
“Yes. What exactly are you doing here?”
I smile through my nervousness. “Just checking out the town. It’s quite lovely.”
“I’m afraid you must leave now.”
“Why is that?”
“We are a peaceful community, and your intentions seem to be disruptive. We have little tolerance for that.” There is an extraordinary air about this man, which I think is a reflection of total security and confidence. He believes that nothing can hurt him, and he projects a serenity, even as he threatens me.
“My intention is to find out who killed two of your citizens.”
“Do not provoke more violence in the process.”
This certainly sounds like a threat, and I certainly don’t want to test whether or not it is an empty one. I also don’t want to appear to be a coward, even though that’s pretty much what I am. All I can think to do is turn and walk the two blocks back to my car and drive off, so that’s what I do, watched by my security detail every step of the way.
I head back to Findlay, which compared to Center City feels like Midtown Manhattan. The experience of being in Center City this time has left me shaken and concerned; there are things to be discovered there, but I’m at a loss how to do so.
When I get back to the house, Calvin is standing out front, petting Tara. I get out of the car and walk over to them; something about this scene worries me. “What’s going on?” I ask.
“Tara’s all right,” Calvin says. “I wanted you to know that right away.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“Go inside and get a look at small-town assholedom at work,” he says.
I move quickly to the front door and into the house. As soon as I enter I see it: A dummy is hanging from the ceiling fan in the living room, secured by a noose around his neck. The fan is operating slowly, and the dummy is eerily being dragged in a circular motion around the center of the room.
I turn and walk back outside, where Calvin and Tara are waiting for me. “I got here about five minutes ago and found it,” he says. “Tara was in the backyard. I didn’t see anybody.”
Two police cars pull up, obviously having been called by Calvin. Laurie and three officers get out and come over to us. “Where is it?” she asks.
“In the living room,” I say.
“Have you checked out the house?”
I look over at Calvin, who shakes his head. “No. I just saw it and came out.”
Laurie nods and signals to the other officers. They draw their handguns, and two of them walk around the side of the house. Laurie and the other one move cautiously inside the house, and Calvin and I wait for about ten minutes for them to come out. Finally, they do, and Laurie comes over to us.
“So what do you think?” I ask.
“I think you should call Marcus.”
• • • • •
MARCUS CLARK answers the phone when I call. He says, “Unhh.”
That is Marcus-talk for “hello,” so I say, “Marcus, this is Andy Carpenter.”
“Unhh.” Marcus uses “unhh” the way Willie Miller uses “schnell.”
“Marcus, I’m in Wisconsin working on a case, and it’s getting a little dangerous, so I really need you here, if you can make it.”
“Unhh.”
“I’m representing someone against a murder charge, and public sentiment is running against him. There’s been some violence, a firebombing…”
“Unhh.”
I’ve never had much success conversing with Marcus, and this time it’s not going any better. “Listen, Marcus, Willie Miller is going to talk to you and give you all the details. Okay?”
This time he doesn’t answer at all, so I hang up and call Willie, who has always been able to communicate with Marcus. I tell him the problem, and he agrees to get in touch with him right away. “You need me up there too?” Willie asks.
“No thanks, Marcus should be able to protect me.”
“Hey, man, don’t you think I know that? Marcus could protect you if you had the Marines after you. I’m not talking about that. Maybe I could help you out with the case, do some investigating or something. Sounds like you can use some help.”
I decline, though I appreciate the offer, and Willie promises to call me back after he talks to Marcus. If Marcus is busy, perhaps if he is invading North Korea or something, then Willie vows he will make the trip himself.
Willie is a black belt in karate, and one of the toughest people I know, but com
pared to Marcus, he is a Barbie doll. I will feel much better if Marcus can come up here, because things seem to be getting rather dangerous.
When I get off the phone with Willie, I go back into the living room, where Calvin is working. He’s been talking to a lot of kids at the school and is going over his notes. Since the kids wouldn’t speak to me at all, I’m surprised that Calvin is making progress with them, and I ask him about it.
He shrugs. “It’s possible that they got the idea I was once a roadie for Led Zeppelin and lost my leg when some crazed groupies knocked a huge amplifier onto me during a concert.”
“Amazing how these stories get started,” I say.
One of the major difficulties we will face is in making it seem possible that someone other than Jeremy committed this crime. Unfortunately, young women, and other people, are murdered all the time. It is not hard to imagine that these murders could have been random, by some passing sicko. But the fact that the bodies were then buried on Jeremy’s property changes that equation dramatically. Sickos don’t often find out who their victim’s ex-boyfriend was, and they don’t set about framing them.
We certainly must focus on Elizabeth’s other ex-boyfriend, whose very existence is in question at this point. Jeremy says that Elizabeth referred to him, though never by name, and even said on that fateful night that they were running away together. Of course, I don’t have a clue why that boyfriend would have killed Elizabeth just as they were planning to run away together. In any event, we must find him.
The fact is that if Jeremy is innocent, then these women were a threat to someone, or at least a cause of rage. If we can’t convince the jury that such a someone is likely out there, we’re finished and our client is history.
The only way we are going to pull this off is to learn all we can about the victims, a task made infinitely more difficult by the lack of access we have to their hometown. This may or may not turn out to be significant. I have to be careful not to focus too much on that town simply because its residents are so decidedly insulated and unfriendly. All evidence is that they have been that way for well over a century without having committed any murders.
Calvin and I have a ten o’clock meeting with Dave Larson, a local private investigator. Calvin had heard of him but never dealt with him directly. Laurie had given him a recommendation, though not a ringing endorsement. She said he was as good as we were likely to find in the Findlay area, while admitting that Findlay was not exactly a hotbed of private investigation.
I had pressed her with, “But he’s good? He can handle himself?” And she responded with, “Have you called Marcus yet?”
Larson turns out to be in his early forties, about five foot eight, a hundred and fifty pounds. He wears glasses and carries two pencils in his shirt pocket, and keeps saying, “You got that right.” He is the anti-Marcus.
“I do mostly insurance work, some divorce stuff,” Larson says in response to my question about his background. “It can get pretty hairy.”
“I can imagine,” I lie.
“You got that right.”
“Ever do any work in Center City?” I ask.
“A couple of minor insurance cases; I think they were both motor vehicle accidents. Never did any divorce stuff, of course.”
“Why ‘of course’?”
He seems surprised by my lack of knowledge. “Those people don’t get divorced… it’s against their religion. They get married at twenty-one, and that’s it.” He laughs. “They’re stuck for life.”
“They get married at twenty-one?” Calvin asks, probably thinking about how many failed marriages he might have if he had started that early. “What if they don’t have anyone to marry?”
Dave laughs. “That hasn’t seemed to stop them so far.”
“Do they have to get married?” I ask.
He shrugs. “You got that right.”
“Why? Who makes them?” I ask.
“I don’t know for sure, but I think that guy they call the Keeper wants ’em to, so they do.”
“Amazing,” Calvin says.
“You got that right,” Dave says. “When that guy talks, those people would suck the Kool-Aid up with a straw, you know?”
I’m continuously being surprised by things I learn about that town. I’ve heard of religions prohibiting divorce, but dictating marriage by a certain age is outside of my experience. Of course, I’ve never let a spinning wheel or a guy in a dress dictate my life choices. I’d like to have the straw concession in Center City.
I roughly outline what Dave’s responsibilities would be if he takes on this job, which is basically to follow up whatever leads we give him, and report back to us. I tell him that anything he learns is confidential, since as a member of the legal team he falls under the attorney-client privilege. He looks at me as if I’m a dope for thinking he wouldn’t already know that.
Dave accepts the job, asking for a salary far less than I would pay an investigator back home. I give him a retainer and tell him we’ll contact him when we have a specific assignment, and he seems happy with that. I’m not sure we’ll actually need him, but it’s good to have him in reserve.
Calvin and I head over to the jail to see Jeremy. I like to meet with my clients fairly frequently, though it’s more for their benefit than mine. They usually tell me all that they know early on, so these subsequent sessions are not often helpful to the defense. However, they do seem reassuring to the client even when the news is not particularly positive. It must be the security of knowing that somebody is on their side, working on their behalf.
Richard and Allie Davidson are at the jail visiting with their son when we arrive. It’s the first time I’ve seen Allie since the night her house was set on fire. She thanks me profusely for helping her son, and Richard asks if they can stay while we talk. It’s fine with Calvin and me, and fine with Jeremy, so I tell him that they can.
We spend some time answering Jeremy’s and Richard’s questions about any progress we are making. Allie is content to let her men do the talking. So far there has been very little progress, and I tell them so straight out. Jeremy is facing a very serious situation, and I’m not about to sugarcoat it.
“We need to talk to people that Elizabeth knew well,” I say. “People from Center City.”
“Are you having trouble doing that?” Richard asks.
“It would be easier to penetrate NORAD.”
“The people in that town are crazy,” Jeremy offers.
“Have you met any of them?” I ask. “I mean besides Elizabeth.”
He shakes his head. “No. Sometimes when she’d go home for a holiday, I’d ask if she wanted me to come, to meet her family, but she said no. She said I didn’t know what it was like, but that I wouldn’t be welcome. She was embarrassed about it.”
“And nobody came to visit her at school?”
He snaps his fingers. “Of course! Her sister… she came there for a weekend. Liz said it caused a big fight with her mother. I think her name is Madeline.”
I had initially talked to a teenager when I called Jane Barlow. “How old is Madeline?”
“Probably seventeen. But she’s cool. She wants to go away to school like Liz, but she’s not allowed.”
“Did Liz ever talk about any other friends… ever mention any other names?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t think so. Liz used to say that inside and outside that town were like two different worlds. But it’s not that she didn’t like the place. She was really religious; it wasn’t like anybody was twisting her arm about it.”
“Did she ever mention Keeper Wallace?”
He nods. “A couple of times. She thought he was a great man. A couple of times she went all the way home for some kind of big meeting that he led.”
“Did she ever describe those meetings?”
“No. Just that they were really important and that the whole town went.”
I have no trouble believing that, since I was first there during one of the meetings.
The streets at that time were deserted except for the ever-present servants. “Never mentioned a wheel when she was talking about her religion?”
“A wheel?” he asks, clearly having no idea what I’m talking about, so I take that as a no.
Jeremy is taken back to his cell, and his parents leave with us. Once outside, Richard asks me again about progress in the case, as if I wouldn’t have been completely forthcoming in front of Jeremy, perhaps withholding something good so as not to get Jeremy’s hopes up. He is disappointed when I have nothing to add, but expresses his full confidence in me. I wish I shared it.
Calvin and I go back to the house, and as we approach, he stops short, a stunned expression on his face. “You must be kidding,” he mutters, almost to himself.
I look ahead, and there on the front porch is one of the scariest sights I have ever seen.
Marcus.
• • • • •
I HAVE ABSOLUTELY no idea how Marcus got here. He doesn’t fly, at least not on planes, and I don’t see any evidence of a car. It’s possible he hitchhiked, but if any driver willingly picked up Marcus Clark, that person should be immediately committed and placed under twenty-four-hour suicide watch.
Marcus sitting on the porch of this peaceful house in this sedate little town gives new meaning to the word “incongruous.” He projects pure menace and power, and Calvin says, “You’d better get him inside quick.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because in two minutes, For Sale signs are going to be popping up on this street like weeds.”
“Hey, Marcus, how ya doing?” I ask. “I didn’t think you’d get here so soon.”
“Unhh,” Marcus says. His phone and in-person personalities are remarkably similar.
“This is Calvin,” I say. “Calvin, this is Marcus.”
“Hello, Marcus. Andy’s told me a lot about you,” Calvin says gently. Everybody talks gently to Marcus when they first meet him.
“Unhh,” Marcus says. He seems to have really taken to Calvin.
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