The Unquiet

by John Connolly

  “It’s all right, honey,” Merrick whispered, as he left the light of the gas station and headed east once more. “Won’t be long now. Daddy’s coming.”

  Chapter XXIV

  I lost track of time. Hours became minutes, and minutes became hours. My skin itched constantly from the touch of the sacking, and the sense of impending suffocation was never far away. Occasional whispers emerged from the shadows, sometimes close by, and sometimes farther away. Once or twice I began to doze, but the tape across my mouth hindered my breathing and almost as soon as I fell asleep I would wake again, breathing heavily through my nose like a thoroughbred after a long race, my heart rate increasing, my head straining away from the pillow as I struggled to draw in more oxygen. Twice, I thought that something touched my neck before I awoke, and the contact was so cold that my skin burned. When that happened, I tried to work the burlap off, but Merrick had secured it well. By the time I heard the front door open and close, followed by the heavy, deliberate tread of footsteps upon the stairs, I was completely disoriented, but even with my senses confused I was aware of presences receding, moving away from me as the stranger approached.

  Someone entered the bedroom. I felt body heat close to me and smelled Merrick. His fingers worked at the tape around my neck, and then the sack was removed and at last I was able to see again. Small white suns exploded in my field of vision, so that for a moment Merrick ’s features were indistinguishable to me. His face was a blank visage upon which I could paste whatever demon I chose, constructing an image of all that I feared. Then the spots before my eyes began to fade, and he was once again clear to see. He looked troubled and uncomfortable, no longer as assured as he had appeared when I had first awoken to find him by my bed, and his gaze drifted to the darker corners of the room. I noticed that he no longer stood with his back to the door. Instead, he seemed to be trying to keep it in sight, as though he were afraid to leave himself vulnerable to an approach from behind.

  Merrick stared down at me, but he did not speak. He tugged at his lower lip with his left hand while he thought. There was no sign of my gun. Finally, he said: “I done something tonight that maybe I ought not to have done. It’s what it is, though, for good or ill. I got tired of waiting. Time has come to draw them out. It’s going to cause you some trouble, mark me, but you’ll get out of it. You’ll tell them what happened here, and they’ll believe you, in the end. In the meantime, word will spread, and they’ll come.”

  Then Merrick did something strange. He walked slowly to one of the bedroom closets, my gun now visible where it was tucked into his belt, and rested his left hand against its slatted door, his right drawing the Smith 10. He seemed almost to be peering through the slats, as though convinced that someone was hidden inside. When at last he opened it, he did so warily, slowly easing it open with his left hand and using the barrel of the gun to explore the spaces between the jackets, shirts, and coats hanging within.

  “You sure you live here alone?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “It don’t feel like you’re alone,” he said. There was no hint of a threat, no sense that he felt I had lied to him, only a deeper unease at something he did not understand. He closed the closet door softly and walked back to the bed.

  “I got nothing against you personally,” he said. “We’re even now. I believe you do what you think is right, but you got in my way, and I couldn’t have that. Worse, I think you’re a man who lets his conscience bother him, and conscience is just a fly buzzing in your head. It’s a nuisance, a distraction. I got no time for it. Never did.”

  He slowly raised the gun. The muzzle regarded me blackly, like an empty, unblinking eye.

  “I could kill you now. You know that. Wouldn’t cost me much more than a drop of sorrow. But I’m going to let you live.”

  I breathed out hard, unable to suppress a feeling that bordered on gratitude. I was not going to die, not at this man’s hands, not today. Merrick knew the sound for what it was.

  “That’s right, you’ll live, but you remember this, and don’t you forget it, now. I had you in a mortal grip, and I set you free. I know the kind of man you are, conscience or no conscience. You’ll be all fired up about how I came into your house, how I hurt you, humiliated you in your own bed. You’ll want to strike back, but I’m warning you that the next time I have you under the gun, I won’t waste a breath before I pull the trigger. All of this will be over soon enough, and then I’ll be gone. I’ve left you with enough to be thinking about. You save your anger. You’ll have cause enough to use it again.”

  He put away the gun and reached, once more, for his little satchel. He removed a small glass bottle and a yellow rag, then unscrewed the cap from the bottle and doused the rag with its contents. I knew the smell. It wasn’t bad, and I could almost taste the sweetness of the liquid. I shook my head, my eyes growing wider as Merrick leaned over me, the rag in his right hand, the stink of the chloroform already making my head swim. I tried to buck my body, to lash out at him with my legs, but it was no use. He gripped my hair, holding my head still, and pressed the rag against my nose.

  And the last words I heard were:

  “It’s a mercy, Mr. Parker.”

  I opened my eyes. Light streamed through the drapes. There were needles piercing my skull. I attempted to sit up, but my head felt too heavy. My hands were free, and the tape was gone from my mouth. I could taste blood upon my lips where its removal had torn the skin. I leaned over and reached for the water glass on the night table. My vision was blurred, and I almost knocked it to the floor. I waited for the room to stop spinning, and for the twin images before me to come together before I tried again. My hand closed on it and I raised it to my lips. It was full. Merrick must have refilled it, then left it within easy reach. I drank deeply, spilling water on the pillow, then lay there for a time. I closed my eyes and tried to quell the sickness that was rising. Eventually, I felt strong enough to roll across the bed until I fell on the floor. The boards were cool against my face. I crawled to the bathroom and rested my head on the toilet bowl. After a minute or two I vomited, then fell once more into a poisoned sleep on the tiles.

  The sound of the doorbell woke me. The texture of the light had changed. It must have been past noon. I stood, supporting myself against the bathroom wall until I was sure that my legs would not buckle beneath me, then staggered to the chair where I had left my clothes the night before. I pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, threw a hooded top on to ward off the cold, then tentatively walked barefoot down the stairs to the door. Through the glass, I could see three figures standing outside, and there were two unfamiliar cars in my drive. One was a Scarborough P.D. cruiser. I could tell by the colors.

  I opened the door. Conlough and Frederickson, the two detectives from Scarborough who had interviewed Merrick, were on my doorstep, along with a third man whose name I did not know, but whose face I remembered from Merrick’s interrogation. It was the man who had been talking to the FBI man, Pender. Behind them, Ben Ronson, one of the Scarborough cops, leaned against his cruiser. Usually, Ben and I would exchange a few words if we passed each other on the road, but now his face was still and without expression.

  “Mr. Parker,” said Conlough. “Mind if we come in? You remember Detective Frederickson? We have a few questions we’d like to ask you.” He indicated the third man. “This here is Detective Hansen from the state police over in Gray. I guess you could say he’s in charge.”

  Hansen was a fit-looking man with very black hair and a dark shadow across his cheeks and chin that spoke of too many years of using an electric razor. His eyes were more green than blue, and his posture, relaxed yet poised, suggested a wildcat about to spring on easy prey. He was wearing a nicely cut dark blue jacket. His shirt was very white, and his dark blue tie was striped with gold.

  I stepped back and allowed them to enter. I noticed that none of them turned their backs on me. Outside, Ronson’s hand had drifted casually toward his gun.

  “Kitchen okay
?” I said.

  “Sure,” said Conlough. “After you.”

  They followed me to the kitchen. I sat down at the breakfast table. Ordinarily, I would have remained standing so as not to give them any advantage, but I still felt weak and uncertain on my legs.

  “You don’t look so good,” said Frederickson.

  “I had a bad night.”

  “Want to tell us about it?”

  “You want to tell me why you’re here first?”

  But I knew. Merrick.

  Conlough took a seat across from me while the others stayed standing. “Look,” he said, “we can clear all of this up here and now if you’ll just be straight with us. Otherwise”-he glanced meaningfully in Hansen’s direction-“it could get awkward.”

  I should have asked for a lawyer, but a lawyer would have meant a trip there and then to the Scarborough P.D., or maybe to Gray, or even Augusta. A lawyer would have meant hours in a cell or an interrogation room, and I wasn’t sure that I was well enough to face that yet. I was going to need a lawyer eventually, but for now I was in my own home, at my own kitchen table, and I wasn’t about to leave unless I absolutely had to.

  “Frank Merrick broke into my home last night,” I said. “He cuffed me to my bed”-I showed them the marks on my wrists-“then he gagged me, blindfolded me, and took my gun. I don’t know how long he left me like that. When he came back, he told me that he’d done something that he shouldn’t have, then chloroformed me. When I came to, the cuffs and tape were gone. So was Merrick. I think he still has my gun.”

  Hansen leaned back against the kitchen counter. His arms were folded across his body.

  “That’s quite a story,” he said.

  “What gun did he take?” asked Conlough.

  “Smith amp;Wesson, ten millimeter.”

  “What load?”

  “Cor-Bon. One-eighty grams.”

  “Kinda tame for a ten,” said Hansen. “You worried about the frame cracking?”

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  “You’re kidding, right? The hell does that matter now?”

  Hansen shrugged.

  “Just asking.”

  “It’s a myth. You happy?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “You got the ammo box for the Cor-Bons?” asked Conlough.

  I knew where this was headed. I suppose I knew from the moment I saw the three detectives on my doorstep and, had I not felt so sick, I might almost have admired the circularity of what I suspected Merrick had done. He had used the gun on someone, but he had kept the weapon. If the bullet could be retrieved, then it could be compared with the box of rounds in my possession. It mirrored exactly the manner in which he had been linked to the killing of Barton Riddick in Virginia. Bullet matching might have been discredited but, as he had promised, he had still managed to do enough to land me in a lot of trouble. It was Merrick ’s little joke at my expense. I did not know how they had traced it back to me so quickly, but I suspected that had been Merrick ’s doing as well.

  “I’m going to have to call a lawyer,” I said. “I’m not answering any more questions.”

  “You got something to hide?” asked Hansen. He tried to smile, but it was an unpleasant thing, like a crack in old marble. “Why you getting all lawyered up now? Relax. We’re just talking here.”

  “Really, is that what we’re doing? If it’s all the same to you, I don’t care much for your conversation.”

  I looked at Conlough. He shrugged.

  “Lawyer it is, then,” he said.

  “Am I under arrest?” I asked.

  “Not yet,” said Hansen. “But we can take that road, if you want to. So: arrest, or conversation?”

  He gave me a cop stare, filled with false amusement and the certainty that he was in control.

  “I don’t think we’ve met before,” I said. “I’m sure I would have remembered, just to make sure that I didn’t have the pleasure again.”

  Conlough coughed into his hand, and turned his face to the wall. Hansen’s expression didn’t change.

  “I’m a new arrival,” said Hansen. “I’ve been around some, though, done my time in the big cities-just like you, I guess, so your reputation doesn’t mean shit to me. Maybe up here, with your war stories and the blood on your hands, you seem like a big shot, but I don’t care much for men who take the law into their own hands. They represent a failure in the system, a flaw in the works. In your case, I intend to repair that flaw. This is the first step.”

  “It’s not polite to disrespect a man in his own home,” I said.

  “That’s why we’re all going to leave now, so that I can continue disrespecting you someplace else.”

  He waved his fingers, indicating that I should stand. Everything about his attitude toward me spoke of utter contempt, and there was nothing that I could do but take it, for the present. If I reacted further, I would lose my temper, and I didn’t want to give Hansen the satisfaction of putting the cuffs on me.

  I shook my head and stood, then put on an old pair of sneakers that I always kept by the kitchen door.

  “Let’s go, then,” I said.

  “You want to lean against the wall there first?” said Hansen.

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” I replied.

  “Yeah, I’m a regular joker,” said Hansen. “You and me both. You know what to do.”

  I stood with my legs spread and my hands flat against the wall while Hansen patted me down. When he was happy that I wasn’t concealing assorted weaponry, he stepped back, and I followed him from the house, Conlough and Frederickson behind me. Outside, Ben Ronson already had the back door of the cruiser open for me. I heard a dog barking. Walter was racing across the field dividing my property from the Johnsons’. Bob Johnson was some ways behind Walter, but I could see the expression of concern on his face. As the dog drew nearer, I felt the cops tense around me. Ronson’s hand went to his gun again.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “He’s friendly.”

  Walter sensed that the men in the yard had no love for him. He paused at a gap in the trees overlooking the front yard and barked uncertainly, then slowly walked toward me, his tail wagging gently but his ears flat against his head. I looked at Conlough, and he nodded his okay. I went to Walter and rubbed his head.

  “You have to stay with Bob and Shirley for a while, puppy,” I said. He pressed his head against my chest and closed his eyes. Bob was now standing where Walter had been minutes before. He knew better than to ask if everything was okay. I grabbed Walter by the collar and took him over to Bob, Hansen watching me all the way.

  “Will you take care of him for a few hours?” I asked.

  “It’s no trouble,” he replied. He was a small, spry man, his eyes alert behind his spectacles. I looked down at the dog, and while I patted him one more time I quietly asked Bob to call the Black Point Inn. I gave him the number of the room in which Angel and Louis were staying, and told him to inform them that a man named Merrick had paid me a visit.

  “Sure. Anything else I can do for you?”

  I looked around at the four cops.

  “You know, Bob, I really don’t think so.”

  With that, I got in the back of the black-and-white, and Ronson drove me to the Scarborough P.D.

  Chapter XXV

  They kept me in the interrogation room at Scarborough P.D. headquarters while we waited for Aimee Price to arrive, and once again I felt myself following in Merrick’s footsteps. Hansen had wanted to take me to Gray, but Wallace MacArthur, who had come in when he heard that I was being questioned, lobbied on my behalf. I could hear him through the door vouching for me, urging Hansen to hold off the big dogs for a while. I was inexpressibly grateful to him, not so much for saving me an unpleasant trip to Gray with Hansen, but for being willing to step up to the plate when he must have had his own doubts.

  Nothing had changed in the room since Merrick had occupied this seat. Even the childish doodles on the whiteboard were the same. I wasn’t cuffed,
and Conlough had given me a cup of coffee and a stale doughnut. My head still hurt, but I was gradually waking up to the fact that I had probably said too much back in the house. I still didn’t know what Merrick had done, but I was pretty certain that someone was dead because of it. In the meantime, I realized that I had effectively admitted my gun had been used in the commission of a crime. If Hansen decided to play hardball and charge me, I could find myself behind bars with little hope of making bail. At the very least, he could hold me for days, leaving Merrick to wreak havoc with the Smith 10.

  After an hour alone with my thoughts, the door of the interrogation room opened, and Aimee Price was admitted. She was wearing a black skirt and jacket, and a white blouse. Her briefcase was shiny and made of expensive leather. She looked all business. I, by contrast, looked terrible, and she told me so.

  “Do you have any idea what’s happening?” I asked.

  “All I know is that they’re investigating a shooting. One fatality. Male. Clearly, they think you may be able to help them with some details.”

  “Like how I shot him.”

  “Bet you’re glad you held on to my card now,” she said.

  “I think it brought me bad luck.”

  “You want to tell me how much?”

  I went through everything with her, from Merrick ’s arrival at the house to Ronson putting me in the back of the cruiser. I left nothing out, apart from the voices. Aimee didn’t need to hear about that.

  “How dumb are you?” she said when I was done. “Children know better than to answer a cop’s questions without a lawyer being present.”

  “I was tired. My head was hurting.” I realized how pathetic I sounded.