The Burning Soul

by John Connolly

  ‘We could, but what would be the fun in that?’

  ‘You have a strange idea of fun. Since the first option isn’t a runner, and you don’t seem keen on the second, what’s left?’

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ I said.

  ‘Really?’ She searched my face. ‘Okay, you’re right: I don’t. I really, really don’t.’

  The receptionist called through to let us know that Engel and company were in the lobby. We left the conference room, Aimee to greet the main players and show them through, and I to wait outside for Randall Haight. While I was there, I sent an e-mail from my phone. There was no message, and it went to a temporary Yahoo address.

  Ten minutes later, Angel and Louis were breaking into Chief Allan’s home, and LoJacking his truck.

  Randall Haight arrived dressed just as one might have expected a small town accountant attending an unpleasant appointment to dress. He wore a blue suit undecided as to whether it was navy or not, and that even Men’s Wearhouse might have frowned upon as too conservatively cut; a white shirt that overhung his belt, as though he were slowly deflating; and a blue-and-gray striped tie with a meaningless crest just below the knot. He was perspiring, and clearly unhappy. As he lingered by his car, the driver’s door still open beside him, he seemed inclined to leap back in and make a break for the Canadian border. I could understand his reluctance to continue, and not simply because he was about to expose something hidden and shameful about himself to the hostile gaze of other men. Haight’s prior experience with the law had been so traumatic, and had altered his life so radically, that here, in this leaf-strewn parking lot, he must have been reliving those earlier encounters. He was once again the boy in trouble, the child with blood on his hands.

  I walked over to him.

  ‘How are you holding up, Randall?’

  ‘Not so good. I can’t stop my hands from shaking, and I have a pain in the pit of my stomach. I shouldn’t have come. I should never have agreed to this.’ His anxiety dipped into anger, and his voice rose. ‘I came to Ms. Price because I needed help. You and she were supposed to help me, and now I’m in worse trouble than before. I mean, you were supposed to be on my side!’

  The trembling in his hands spread to the rest of his body. He was like an upright spring, vibrating with fear and anger. Above his head, a raven settled on a branch. It opened its beak and emitted a single mocking caw, as though chiding the man below for his weakness.

  It would do Haight no good to enter that interview room in his current state. I didn’t know how he might react if they began to question him harshly, as I had no doubt they would, despite Aimee’s injunctions against doing so. She would try to stop the interview if they went too far, and she might even succeed, but the inevitable result would be that they would leave wondering if Randall Haight had anything else to hide. We should have coached him, and Aimee had acknowledged as much when she told me that he had at last agreed to talk with the police, but Haight had clammed up immediately after, and declined to consult further with her. Aimee had expressed her concern that, despite his promises, he might not show up for the interview at all. It was an achievement that he had made it this far. Now he just had to be calmed down a little.

  ‘Let’s take a walk,’ I said. ‘We’ll get some air.’

  He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and together we walked along Park Street.

  ‘You should remember something, Randall. You haven’t done anything wrong here. In fact, you’re a victim in this. Someone is tormenting you about your past, but whatever you may have done as a child, you’ve paid the price for it. You made the amends that the law required of you, and you’ve tried to be the best man that you can be since then. That’s all any of us can do. Aimee and I are not going to let you be railroaded in there, but you can help yourself by looking upon the interview as a way of gaining an advantage. Once you tell the police what’s been happening to you, it will be in their interests as much as yours to find whoever is responsible, because they’ll make some of the connections that I did. They’ll wonder if the individual who is bothering you is also involved in the disappearance of Anna Kore. They’ll take those envelopes, and those photos, and that disc, and they’ll analyze them in a detail that’s beyond my capacities. In the meantime, Aimee and I are still going to be working for you, because just as there are steps the police can take that I can’t, so too there are things I can do that they, for various reasons, cannot. All you have to do is go in there and tell the truth.’

  Haight kicked at a fallen acorn, and missed. He sighed, as if that somehow represented the story of his life.

  ‘It’ll get out, though, won’t it? It’s not a secret as soon as more than one person knows it.’ He sounded like a little boy.

  ‘It may get out, eventually. When that happens, we’ll help you with it. It won’t be easy in the immediate aftermath, but I think you may be surprised at how many friends you have in Pastor’s Bay. Do you go to church?’

  ‘Not regularly. Baptist when I do.’

  ‘If your past does start to come out, then that’s the place where you can own up to it publicly. I don’t mean this in a cynical way – well, not entirely – but nothing makes a congregation happier than a sinner who acknowledges his failings and asks for forgiveness. You’ll have to rebuild your reputation, and your place in the community may change, but you’ll still have a place. In the meantime, we’ll have people looking out for you, just in case.’

  A school bus went by, loaded down with little kids on an outing. Two of them waved to us. I waved back, and the whole bus joined in. As they disappeared toward the highway, Haight said, ‘I still don’t have an alibi for the time of Anna Kore’s disappearance.’

  ‘Randall, half of Pastor’s Bay doesn’t have an alibi for the time of her disappearance. You’ve been watching too many old reruns of Columbo. I’m not going to lie to you: Once you’ve told the police about yourself, they’re inevitably going to take a closer look at you. We’ll make sure they’re discreet about it, but their interest won’t necessarily be a negative development, because somewhere in your recent past is a moment of intersection between you and the person who has been sending these messages. That person’s position of power over you is about to come under serious threat. I’d say that, within twenty-four hours, he or she is going to start panicking.’

  ‘Does that mean they might throw everything out there and expose me?’

  ‘The opposite, I think. They’ll retreat for a time, and perhaps try to cover their tracks, but in doing so they’ll draw more attention to themselves.’

  ‘You sound pretty certain of that.’

  I sounded more certain than I actually was about most of what I had told Haight, but my sole purpose that morning was to ensure that he presented himself in the most positive light to the law-enforcement personnel in the meeting room. But about the psychology of Haight’s stalker – and he was being stalked, in a most insidious way – I believed that I was right. Part of the pleasure in tormenting an individual in the way that Haight was being goaded lies in isolating him, particularly when there is the potential for blackmail. Stalkers like watching their victims squirm. Even Internet stalkers, who may be geographically separated from their victims, get pleasure from the reaction they provoke, the anger, the desperation and, ultimately, the pleading.

  And that was when it struck me, and its impact was so forceful that I stopped in my tracks. I had been so distracted by other details – Anna Kore, the messages about Chief Allan, the connection to Tommy Morris down in Boston – that I had failed to make one very simple leap: Where did the pleasure in tormenting Randall Haight lie? He did most of his work from home, and made trips to clients only when necessary. He had almost no social life that I could discern, but what public interaction he did have revolved entirely around Pastor’s Bay.

  I was suddenly certain that whoever was taunting Randall Haight lived or worked in Pastor’s Bay.

  ‘What is it?’ said Randall.


  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just a thought. We should be getting back now.’

  He nodded, resigned, but he was less troubled than he had been, and I thought that we might just get through this and come out ahead. He didn’t stop to gather himself one final time as we entered the building, but held himself upright and walked, calmly and confidently, toward the meeting room, there to face his past, and alter his future.

  25

  Dempsey drove through the environs of Pastor’s Bay. He had a map on the passenger seat of the car, but he rarely consulted it. He had already examined the area on Google and felt sure of where he was going. Dempsey had a prodigious memory for photographs, figures, and the minutest detail of conversations. He rarely let it show, though, for he had spent too long surrounded by men who might find such a talent troubling enough to seek its annihilation.

  He and Ryan had woken that morning to find Tommy gone from his room, and the car absent from the lot. Dempsey had scribbled a note informing Tommy that they had left to seek out breakfast, and slipped it under his door. The massive lipidic woman was gone from reception, replaced by a sinewy string bean of a man with dazzlingly bright false teeth who informed them of the presence of a diner about a quarter of a mile west of the motel. Some of the clouds had cleared to leave swatches of blue sky, but it still felt unseasonably cold and there was a wind that blew straight into their faces as they walked. They took a corner booth in the diner, and Ryan ordered the biggest breakfast on the menu, while Dempsey stuck with coffee and a bagel. He’d never been much for eating first thing in the morning, and his stomach didn’t feel right. He read the house newspaper while Ryan ate, but it was out of Bangor and contained nothing of relevance to them. The papers were full of the midterm elections; Dempsey had almost forgotten that they were happening, so lost was he in their own difficulties. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d voted. He felt guilty about it. It seemed to him another aspect of his abandonment of control, of being subject to the plans and motivations of others. He made a promise to himself to start voting again if he lived. It seemed a modest, attainable ambition in the long term. Voting, that was, not living. For now, staying alive was strictly a day-to-day business.

  Ryan excused himself and headed to the men’s room. A police patrol car cruised by, but Dempsey didn’t turn his head to follow its progress. He took in the other customers in the diner. They were mostly older people, and the waitress seemed to know them all by name. Dempsey reckoned that Ryan was the youngest person in the place by at least a decade or more. He closed his eyes and thought about how good it would be just to sit here for a couple of hours surrounded by friends, with no obligations for the day other than to shoot the breeze and plan for the next meal. He didn’t have to imagine what it would be like to be old. He already felt old, and mortality seemed closer to him than it might have to even the most elderly of the diner’s aging patrons.

  When he opened his eyes again, Tommy Morris was standing before him.

  ‘You done?’ said Tommy.

  ‘Pretty much. You want something?’

  ‘No, I’m good.’

  Dempsey called for the check as Ryan appeared from the men’s room, and the waitress had it on the table before Ryan had crossed the room.

  ‘What do I owe?’ said Ryan.

  ‘I got you covered,’ said Dempsey. He took cash from his pocket and started counting bills. He was running seriously low.

  ‘Nah,’ said Ryan. ‘I got this one.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘Yeah. Makes us even for last night.’

  Tommy looked at him curiously.

  ‘We went out for a drink,’ said Ryan. He looked embarrassed. Dempsey thought he was probably wondering if they should have asked Tommy to join them while simultaneously being grateful that they hadn’t, given the tone of some of the previous night’s conversation.

  ‘Good for you,’ said Tommy. His head was bobbing slightly, and he was running his right thumb along the pads of his fingers, over and over. Dempsey thought of it as one of Tommy’s tells, the signs that he had a job in mind, that he was ready to roll. There was a light in his eyes that hadn’t been there for a while.

  The car was parked behind the diner. Tommy had led them to it, spinning the keys around his right index finger, whistling to himself.

  ‘You get that call you were expecting?’ said Dempsey.

  ‘No, not yet,’ said Tommy. ‘It’ll come, though. We got work to do until then.’

  ‘What kind of work?’ said Dempsey.

  ‘We have to boost a car,’ said Tommy.

  Which was how Dempsey came to be driving a tan Impala out of Pastor’s Bay and toward the sea. He passed Valerie Kore’s house but didn’t even glance in its direction. There was a black Chevy Suburban in the drive alongside an ancient green Toyota Tacoma, and a Sheriff’s Department cruiser was parked on the road. In the rearview, he saw the deputy turn to his in-car laptop. The cops probably ran the plate of every car that passed as a matter of routine. Dempsey wasn’t concerned. This one wouldn’t even be on the system for another hour or more.

  He turned south where the road met the ocean, and followed the coast for a time. There was no beach to be seen, just black rocks like broken, rotted teeth against which gray waves broke. Dempsey could not understand why someone would choose to live in a coastal town with no sand upon which to walk, and no beauty upon which to gaze. Here nature was a hostile force at war with itself. The wind twisted the growth of trees, and the sea ate away at the land. As he drove, Dempsey found himself wishing for the security of the city. In this place, he felt exposed in body and soul.

  The turnoff was little more than a dirt track. He put the sea behind him and followed the trail through a patch of woodland that brought the car to within sight of the Kore house. He hit the trunk release, and by the time he’d killed the engine and got out Tommy was stretching his back by the side of the road.

  ‘Comfortable?’ asked Dempsey. They had figured that one man alone in a car would attract less attention than two.

  ‘I’ll live.’

  Dempsey had Tommy’s piece in his hand. He offered it to him, and after a moment’s pause Tommy accepted it. Together they watched the back of the house from the woods but could see no sign of a further police presence. Still, Tommy had figured that there would be at least one cop inside with her.

  ‘You sure you want to do this?’ said Dempsey.

  ‘I have to talk to her,’ said Tommy, and Dempsey again saw in him the peculiar combination of fatalism and hope that afflicted those who knew their time was drawing to a close and wanted to settle their affairs before it was too late. His niece’s disappearance, appalling though it was, had given Tommy an excuse to reach out to his estranged sister, to do this one last thing for her.

  ‘Then let’s go talk,’ said Dempsey.

  He was about to move when Tommy’s hand gripped his elbow. Immediately Dempsey looked around to see who was approaching, but there was no sign of movement.

  ‘What is it?’

  Tommy seemed to be struggling to speak. His eyes were fixed on Dempsey’s face. Eventually he said, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For standing by me.’

  ‘We’ll figure out a way, Tommy. We’ll make it right.’

  ‘No,’ said Tommy. ‘No, we won’t. When the time comes, you try to stay alive. You take Francis, and whatever money is left, and you hide yourselves away. Maybe they’ll be content with my head. If they give me a chance, I’ll tell them that you’re no threat to them. No revenge, Martin. Understand?’

  Dempsey nodded. ‘I understand, Tommy.’

  The grip on his arm tightened once, and then was released.

  ‘We’ll talk no more about it,’ said Tommy.

  Using the trees as cover, and sprinting across the patches of open ground, they came to the backyard. As they drew nearer the house, Dempsey saw a woman pass by the kitchen window. Her reddish-brown hair was pulled back severely from her f
ace and tied tightly with a scrunchie. She was filling a coffeepot with water.

  Leaving Tommy against the north wall, Dempsey checked out as much of the single-story dwelling as he could without exposing himself to the deputy on the road. There were three bedrooms: one with a queen bed and woman’s clothing scattered on the chairs and floor; the second a smaller room with a double bed and walls decorated with posters of bands whose names and faces were largely unfamiliar to Dempsey; and a third room with a single bed surrounded by assorted boxes and cases. Beside it was a small window of frosted glass: the bathroom.

  On the other side, a door from the kitchen led into a big living room that ran most of the width of the house. A man in a golf shirt and chinos sat at a cheap desk reading a paperback novel. Dempsey looked around for monitoring or recording equipment but didn’t see any. Dempsey waited, and a second man appeared. He wore black pants, and a long-sleeved blue shirt. Both men wore Glock 22s at their waists.

  Not cops: FBI.

  Eventually, Valerie Kore entered the room and handed each man a cup of coffee. They thanked her, and she left. He saw her step into the hallway. She didn’t come back.

  Dempsey returned to Tommy.

  ‘Two feds watching the phone in the living room.’

  ‘Feds? You sure?’

  ‘They’re wearing Glocks. Standard issue for federal agents.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘You want to back off?’

  ‘We’ve come this far.’

  Tommy tried the kitchen door. It opened silently, and he and Dempsey moved into the house. Dempsey counted down from three with his fingers, and they burst into the living room. One of the agents was so shocked that he spilled his coffee on himself and swore, but he and his colleague raised their hands without even being told.

  ‘Tommy Morris,’ said the one in the golf shirt. ‘You gotta be kidding me.’

  Tommy told them to shut up and get down on the floor. He kept them covered while Dempsey pulled their hands behind their backs and cuffed them with plastic ties he’d picked up at Home Depot. They heard the sound of a toilet flushing. Tommy took the door, and when his sister entered the room he put his hand over her mouth. At the sight of the agents on the floor she began to struggle, but Tommy pressed the barrel of his weapon against her cheek and she grew still. Slowly, he turned her around. She recognized him, and tried to pull away.