‘They’re with me,’ I said.
‘There’ll be questions to answer,’ said Martin.
‘Not by them,’ I said.
‘Then tell them to get out of here. That’s all I owe them.’
Without another word, Angel and Louis left us. My vision was still blurred at the edges, but my balance was improving. The pain in my ear was no longer as severe, and I could almost stand without swaying.
‘Which one of you hit me?’ I asked.
‘We all did,’ he said.
‘You worked Lonny Midas over pretty good as well.’
‘I did what I had to do. And I thought his name was Randall Haight.’
‘Randall Haight’s dead. A man named Lonny Midas killed him and took his place.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he didn’t want to be who he was anymore. Because he didn’t know who he was anymore.’
‘They’ll find him,’ he said, then corrected himself. ‘We’ll find him.’
‘Assuming he lives long enough after that beating.’
‘I did what I had to do,’ Martin repeated.
‘For what? Because you thought he had the girl, or just because Tommy Morris told you to do it?’
He thought about the question. His eyes were dull. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Is Martin even your real name?’
‘Does it matter?’
I watched him take a cell phone from his pocket and start to dial.
‘I’m going to look for Lonny,’ I said.
‘No, you stay here.’
‘Go to hell,’ I said, and started to walk away.
‘I told you to stay here,’ said Martin, and his tone made me turn back. The cell phone was now in his left hand, held awkwardly because of the pain, and a gun had taken its place in his right.
‘You’ve spent too long in the darkness, Martin,’ I said.
The gun wavered, then fell.
‘My name’s not Martin,’ he said.
‘I don’t care,’ I replied, and I left him to the shadows.
I found Lonny Midas lying in a ditch by the side of the road. His was the second body that I found. The first was that of the hunter who had run. He lay only a few feet from Midas, just beyond the tree line. Lonny had been shot through the heart at close range, the hunter in the chest and head. Not far from the hunter’s body lay a cheap, matte-finish, carbon-steel Colt Commander. The hunter’s own pistol was still in his hand.
I sat down with my back against rough bark and waited with them until the lights came from the south.
V
In the worst of all men there is a little bit of good that can destroy them.
William Rose (1914-1987)
36
I spent a long night at the Pastor’s Bay Police Department. The local doctor, an elderly gentleman who looked as if he’d graduated from medical school with Hippocrates himself, took a quick look at me and decided that I was suffering from a burst eardrum and a mild concussion. I might have disputed the use of the word ‘mild,’ but it didn’t seem worth the effort. I was advised not to sleep for a while, but as there were lots of questions being asked, and only a limited number of living people available to answer them, sleep wasn’t really an option. So night became morning, and still the questions came. To some I had answers, and to others I had none.
Sometimes I just lied.
At first light, the New Hampshire state police started digging in the garden of Randall Haight’s former residence, alerted by a call from Carroll, the details of which were confirmed by me while I tried to deal with inquiries about an entirely different set of corpses. It didn’t take them long to reach the blocks. Beneath them were Randall Haight and his mother. Decomposition of the bodies in the cool, damp soil had been slowed by saponification. When they were revealed, the Haights’ remains were coated in a waxy adipocere formed from the bodies’ proteins and fats. They resembled insects frozen in their pupal stage.
Then the records arrived from North Dakota, and it was remarked how alike William Lagenheimer and Lonnie Midas had been, even as boys.
I never learned the real name of the FBI man who had been known as Martin Dempsey to Tommy Morris and his associates. Within hours, he was gone from Pastor’s Bay, and in the reports that followed he would be referred to only as an ‘undercover operative.’ He left me with more lies to tell. I told Walsh that I did not know the identities of the two men who had intervened to save Dempsey from Oweny Farrell’s men. In the confusion of all that had occurred, and all that was still happening, I don’t think he cared. It might also have been the case that Engel, who drifted in to listen for a time then drifted out again, knew or suspected the answer to the question already, and took the view that the truth would only complicate an already troublesome situation. Dempsey was alive only because of Louis’s and Angel’s intervention, and the one thing that could have made Engel’s life worse at that moment was the presence of a dead FBI man in Pastor’s Bay.
Finally, a temporary halt was called to the questions. The doctor came back and examined me again. He gave me some more painkillers and told me that it was probably okay for me to sleep now. I told him that I was going to sleep anyway, whether he thought it was advisable or not, because I couldn’t stay awake any longer, and if I never woke up again I wouldn’t be sorry. If Engel hadn’t followed him into the room, I’d have curled up on the floor right there and then with my jacket for a pillow. Instead, I drew on the last of my energy to keep my head clear.
Engel bore the weary expression of a man who had held on to his stocks for a little too long, and had watched them plummet just as he had hoped to cash them in. All that he had left was junk. Tommy Morris was dead, and all his knowledge had died with him. Engel’s undercover man was out of the game, and was a prime candidate for an extended period of therapy. If my head hadn’t been aching so badly I might almost have felt sorry for Engel, but, as it was, his undercover agent was one of the reasons that my head was aching to begin with. Since he was no longer around to blame, I was happy to let Engel carry the can.
‘Hell of a mess to clean up,’ I said.
‘I’ve had a lot of practice,’ he replied, then added, ‘You’re lucky to be alive.’
‘I’ve had a lot of practice too.’
Engel took a notebook from his pocket and opened it to a blank page. He laid a gold fountain pen beside it.
‘I’ve finished the initial debriefing of Martin Dempsey,’ he said.
‘I hope you took his gun away. I don’t think he’s too sure about where it should be pointed.’
‘He’s been deep for a long time. To be good at it, you have to subsume your old self in a new identity. It can be hard to restore it again, but I’m confident that he will.’
‘Is that part of your speech for the press conference? It sounds trite enough.’
‘You could always sue the federal government for the injuries you’ve received.’
‘I’ll add them to the list,’ I said. ‘The FBI already owes me a family.’
In what probably passed for a gesture of contrition, Engel closed his notebook without having written a word.
‘Six men died in that initial confrontation: five at the scene, and one more on his way to the hospital. Francis Ryan was killed by Dempsey before the real shooting began, and Dempsey says that he also fatally wounded one of his attackers. You didn’t have a weapon. Tommy Morris died at the hands of Farrell’s killers. That leaves three men unaccounted for. Dempsey says that he didn’t see anyone else clearly, but he was aware of figures in the forest who might have taken down the remaining shooters. You have anything to add to that?’
‘Nothing except my grateful thanks to those involved.’
‘I figured you’d say that. You tell your hired gunmen to stay out of the state for a time. I’d also advise them against visiting bars in Dorchester, Somerville, and Charlestown. You never know how word spreads in these cases.’