She walked over to the corner and absentmindedly scratched her dog behind the ear. The dog barked at me again, just to disabuse me of any notions I might have had about joining in.
“Joel Harmon is one.”
“The banker?”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“I know of him,” I said.
Joel Harmon was the retired president of IBP, the Investment Bank of Portland. He was one of those credited with rejuvenating the Old Port during the eighties, and his picture still appeared in newspapers whenever the city threw a celebration of something or other, usually with his wife on one arm and a crowd of slavering admirers surrounding them, all aroused by the lingering smell of fresh dollar bills. His popularity could fairly be ascribed to his wealth, his power, and the attraction those two elements generally arouse in those with significantly less of either. It was whispered that he had an “eye for the ladies,” even though his looks came pretty far down on the list of his attributes, probably somewhere between “can carry a tune” and “cooks spaghetti.” I’d seen him around, but we’d never been introduced.
“He and Daniel Clay were friends. I believe they might have met at college. I know that Joel bought a couple of Clay’s paintings after he died, and was given others as gifts during his lifetime. I suppose he passed Clay’s test of suitability. Clay was very particular about those to whom he sold or gave his work. I can’t imagine why.”
“You really didn’t like his paintings, did you?”
“Or him, I guess. He made me uneasy. There was something peculiarly joyless about him. Joel Harmon is having a dinner party in his house later this week, by the way. They’re a pretty regular occurrence, and I have a standing invitation anytime I wish to attend. I’ve put some interesting artists his way. He’s a good customer.”
“Are you asking me to be your date?”
“No, I’m offering to be yours.”
“I’m flattered.”
“You should be. Perhaps you’ll get to see some of Clay’s paintings. Just try not to offend Joel too grievously, there’s a dear. I have bills to pay.”
I assured June that I would be on my best behavior. She didn’t look impressed.
4
I drove back to Scarborough and dumped the Saturn, instantly feeling ten years younger in the Mustang, or at least ten years less mature, which wasn’t the same thing at all. I called Rebecca to confirm that she was still planning to leave at the agreed time, then asked her to get someone to walk her to her car. She was due to look at a vacant storefront on Longfellow Square, so I waited for her in the parking lot behind Joe’s Smoke Shop. There were fifteen or sixteen cars parked there, none of them occupied. I found a space that allowed me a view of Congress and the square, bought a grilled chicken sandwich with green peppers at Joe’s sandwich counter, then ate in the car while I waited for Rebecca to arrive. A couple of homeless guys with shopping carts stood smoking in the alley beside the lot. Neither of them matched the description of the man who was following Rebecca.
She called me when she was passing the bus depot at St. John, and I told her to park in front of the building she was visiting. The woman who was trying to rent the first-floor space was waiting outside for her when she arrived. The two of them entered together and the door closed safely behind them. The windows were large and clean and I could see both of them clearly from where I sat.
I didn’t notice the squat man until he went through an odd routine while lighting a cigarette. He seemed to have appeared from out of nowhere to take up a spot on one of the metal crash barriers outside the lot. He was holding a cigarette vertically between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and rotating it gently, probably to get a smoother draw, and his attention was entirely fixed on the women across the street. Still, there was something sensual about the motion of his fingers, a product, perhaps, of the way he was staring so intently at Rebecca Clay through the window of the store. After a time he slid the cigarette slowly into his mouth, wetting it against his lips for a moment before applying a match to the tip. Then, instead of simply throwing the match away, or blowing it out, he held it between the same thumb and forefinger as before and allowed the flame to burn down toward the tips of his fingers. I waited for him to discard it as the pain increased, but he did not. When the end of the match was no longer visible, he released his grip upon it and allowed it to fall into the palm of his hand, where it burned into blackness against his skin. He turned his hand, allowing the charred wood to fall upon the ground. I clicked off a picture of him on the little digital camera that I kept in the car. As I did so, he looked around, seemingly aware now that the attention of another was fixed upon him in turn. I slid down farther in my seat, but I had caught a glimpse of his face, and had seen the three parallel scars on his forehead of which Rebecca had spoken. When I looked back he appeared to be gone, but I sensed that he had merely retreated into the shade offered by Joe’s building, for I saw a wisp of smoke carried out upon the street by a stray breeze.
Rebecca emerged from the store, carrying some papers. The other woman was beside her, talking and smiling. I called Rebecca on her cell and told her to keep smiling as she listened.
“Turn your back to Joe’s Smoke Shop,” I said. I didn’t want the watcher to see her reaction when I told her that I had spotted him. “Your fan is over at Joe’s. Don’t look in that direction. I want you to cross the street and go into Cunningham Books. Just act casual, like you have some time to kill. Stay there until I come and get you, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. She sounded only a little frightened. To her credit, she did not pause or even betray any emotion by a change of expression. She shook hands with her client, glanced left, then right, and proceeded to cross casually to the bookstore. She walked straight inside, as though that had been her intention all along. I got out of my car and headed quickly to the front of Joe’s. There was nobody outside. Only the butt of a cigarette and the fragmented remains of a match indicated that the squat man had ever been there. The tip had been squeezed flat. Something told me that it might well have been glowing redly when the fingers were applied to it. I could almost smell the scorching of skin.
I looked around and saw him. He had crossed Congress and was walking toward the center of town. He turned right onto Park, and I lost sight of him. I figured that his car was probably there and he would wait for Rebecca to leave the bookstore before either following her or approaching her again.
I walked to the corner of Park and risked a glance down the street. The squat man was at the door of the red Ford, his head down. I stayed low and used the parked cars to approach him from the opposite side of the street. I had my .38 in a holster at my belt—it was a little more discreet than my big Smith 10 for work like this—but I was reluctant to show it. If I was forced to confront the watcher with a gun in my hand, then whatever chance I had of reasoning with him would evaporate and the situation would deteriorate before I had even begun to understand its nature. I had an image of this man burning himself, and the apparent ease with which he had done it. It suggested an individual who had a considerable tolerance for pain, and such tolerance was usually hard-earned. A face-to-face with him would have to be delicately handled.
A Grand Cherokee turned down Park, an archetypal soccer mom at the wheel, and as it passed I slipped behind it and approached the Ford from the driver’s side. I could make out the outline of his quiff and the big folds of muscle at the back of his neck as he sat at the wheel, fumes already emerging from the exhaust. His hands rested on the steering wheel, the fingers of the left tapping a rhythm upon the plastic. The right hand was roughly bandaged. Bloodstains showed through the fabric. At last, I let him see me approach. I kept my arms out and my fingers splayed slightly, but I was ready to scuttle for cover if his hands left the wheel. The problem for me was that once I got close enough to talk to him, there would be nowhere for me to run. I was relying on the fact that there were people around, and the hope that he would see no percent
age in reacting with hostility until he heard what I had to say.
“How you doing?” I said.
He peered lazily at me, as though it were all that he could do just to rouse himself enough to respond. He had another cigarette between his lips, and a blue pack of American Spirit rested on top of the dashboard in front of him.
“Fine,” he said. “Just fine.”
He raised his right hand to his mouth, drawing on the cigarette so that the tip glowed brightly. He looked away from me and stared through the windshield.
“Thought someone was paying me mind,” he said. “I see you got a gun.”
The bulge of the .38 was barely visible beneath my jacket, unless someone knew what he was looking for.
“Can’t be too careful,” I said.
“You don’t need to worry about me. I don’t carry a gun. I got no call for one.”
“I guess you’re just a gentle soul.”
“Nah, I can’t claim that. The woman hire you?”
“She’s concerned.”
“She has no cause to be. If she tells me what I want to know, I’ll be on my way.”
“And if she doesn’t, or if she can’t?”
“Well, that’s two different things, ain’t it? One can’t be helped, and one can.”
His fingers shifted from the wheel. Instantly, I was reaching for the gun at my waist.
“Whoa, whoa!” he said. He held his hands up in mock surrender. “I done told you, I got no gun.”
I kept my hand close to the butt of the pistol. “I’d still prefer it if your hands stayed where I can see them.”
He shrugged exaggeratedly, then allowed his palms to rest against the top of the wheel.
“Do you have a name?” I asked.
“I have lots of names.”
“That’s very mysterious of you. Try one and see how it fits.”
He seemed to give the issue some thought.
“Merrick,” he said at last, and something in his face and his voice told me that this was as much as I was likely to get from him where names were concerned.
“Why are you bothering Rebecca Clay?”
“I ain’t bothering her. I just want her to be straight with me.”
“About what?”
“About her father.”
“Her father’s dead.”
“He ain’t dead. She got him declared dead, but that don’t mean nothing. You show me the worms crawling in the sockets of his eyes, then I’ll believe he’s dead.”
“Why are you so interested in him?”
“I got my reasons.”
“Try sharing them.”
His fingers tightened on the wheel. There was a small india ink tattoo on the knuckle of his left middle finger. It was a crude blue cross, a jailhouse mark.
“I don’t think so. I don’t like strangers questioning me about my business.”
“Well, then you’ll know just how Ms. Clay feels.”
His teeth worried at the inside of his lower lip. He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead. I could feel the tension building up inside him. I had allowed my hand to drift to the butt of my gun, and my own forefinger was now extended above the trigger guard, ready to slip into place if necessary. Then the tightness released itself from Merrick’s body. I heard him exhale, and he seemed to grow smaller and less threatening.
“You ask her about the Project,” he said softly. “You see what she says.”
“What is the ‘Project’?”
He shook his head.
“Ask her, then come back to me. Maybe y’ought to talk to her ex-husband too, while you’re about it.”
I didn’t even know that Rebecca Clay had been married. I was only aware that she hadn’t married the father of her child. Some investigator I was.
“Why would I do that?”
“A husband and wife, they share things. Secret things. You talk to him, and it could be you’ll spare me the trouble of talking to him myself. I’ll be around. You won’t have to come looking for me, because I’ll find you. You got two days to make her tell me what she knows, then I lose my patience with y’all.”
I gestured at his wounded hand.
“It seems to me like you lost your patience once already.”
He looked at the bandaged limb and stretched the fingers, as if testing the pain in the wounds.
“That was a mistake,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to strike out like that. I’m being sorely tested by her, but I don’t mean to do her harm.”
Maybe he believed that was true, but I didn’t. There was a rage inside Merrick. It pulsed redly, animating his eyes and keeping every muscle and sinew in his body taut with barely suppressed emotion. Merrick might not mean to hurt a woman, might not set out to do it, but the blood on his hand said all that needed to be said about his capacity to control his impulses.
“I lost my temper, is all,” he continued. “I need her to tell me what she knows. It’s important to me.” He drew on his cigarette again. “And since we’re getting all friendly here, you didn’t give me your name.”
“It’s Parker.”
“What are you, a private cop?”
“You want to see my license?”
“No, a piece of a paper won’t tell me nothing that I don’t already know. I don’t want trouble from you, sir. I’ve come here with business to conduct, business of a personal nature. Maybe you can make that little lady see reason so I can conclude it and be on my way. I hope so, I surely do, because if you can’t, then you’re no good to either of us. You’ll just be in my path, and I might have to do something about that.”
He still had not looked at me again. His eyes were fixed on a small photograph that hung from the rearview mirror. It was a picture of a girl with dark hair, perhaps Jenna Clay’s age or a little older, the image encased in plastic to protect it. A cheap crucifix dangled beside it.
“Who is she?” I asked.
“That doesn’t concern you.”
“Nice-looking kid. How old is she?”
He didn’t reply, but I had clearly struck a nerve. This time, though, there was no anger, just a kind of disengagement.
“If you told me something of why you’re here, then maybe I could help you,” I persisted.
“Like I told you, sir, my business is personal.”
“Then I guess we’ve nothing left to discuss,” I said. “But you need to stay away from my client.” The warning sounded hollow and unnecessary. Somehow, the balance had shifted.
“I won’t trouble her no more, least of all, not until you talk to me again.” He reached down and turned the ignition key, no longer intimidated by the gun, if he had ever really been in the first place. “But here’s two warnings for you in return. The first is that when you start asking about the Project, you’d best keep a keen eye in your head because the others are going to hear about it and they won’t like it that people are looking into it. They won’t like it one little bit.”
“What others?”
The engine roared as he hit the gas.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” he said.
“And the second warning?”
He raised his left hand and clenched it into a fist, so that the tattoo stood out starkly against the white of his knuckle.
“Don’t interfere. You do, and I’ll leave you for dead. Mark me now, boy.”
He pulled away from the curb, the exhaust pumping thick blue smoke into the clear fall air. Before it was entirely engulfed by fumes, I caught a glimpse of his license plate.
Merrick. Now, I thought, we’ll see what we can find out about you in the next two days.
I walked back to the bookstore. Rebecca Clay was seated in a corner, flicking through an old magazine.
“Did you find him?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She flinched. “What happened?”
“We talked, and he went away. For now.”
“What does that mean, ‘for now’? I hired you to get rid of him, to make him lea
ve me alone permanently.”
Her voice was steadily rising, but there was a tremor beneath it. I walked her from the store.
“Ms Clay,” I said, “I told you that a warning might not be enough. This man has agreed to stay away from you until I make some inquiries. I don’t know enough about him to trust him entirely, so I’d suggest that, for the moment, we continue to take every precaution. I have people whom I can call so there will always be someone watching over you while I try to find out more about him, if that will make you rest any easier.”
“Fine. I think I’ll send Jenna away for a while, though, until this is all over.”
“That’s a good idea. Does the name Merrick mean anything to you, Miss Clay?”
We had reached her car.
“No, I don’t believe so,” she said.
“That’s our friend’s name, or that’s what he told me. He had a photograph of a little girl in his car. It might have been his daughter. I was wondering if she was one of your father’s patients, assuming she shared his surname.”
“My father didn’t discuss his patients with me. I mean, not by name. If she was referred to him by the state, then there might be a record of her somewhere, I guess, but you’ll have trouble getting anyone to confirm it. It would be breach of confidentiality.”
“What about your father’s patient records?”
“My father’s files were placed with the court after his disappearance. I remember that there was an attempt to get an order authorizing some of his colleagues to examine them, but it failed. Access can only be obtained through an in camera review, and they’re rare. The judges have been reluctant to grant them in order to protect the privacy of the patients.”
It seemed time to broach the subject of her father and the accusations made against him.
“This is a difficult question for me to ask, Miss Clay,” I began.
She waited. She knew what was coming, but she wanted to hear me say it aloud.
“Do you believe that your father abused the children in his care?”
“No,” she said firmly. “My father didn’t abuse any of those children.”