“You are a good man, Charlie Parker,” she whispered. “I wouldn't be with you if I didn't believe that.”
“I've done bad things. I don't want to do them any longer.”
“You did what you had to do.”
I gripped her hand tightly and felt her palm rest itself against my temple, the fingers lightly brushing my hair.
“I did more than that,” I answered.
It seemed that I was floating in a black place, with endless night above and below me, and only her hand was stopping me from falling. She understood, for her body moved closer against me and her legs wrapped around mine as if to tell me that if I was to fall, then we would fall together. Her chin burrowed into my neck and she was quiet for a time. In the silence, I could feel the weight of her thoughts.
“You don't know that the Fellowship was responsible for her death, or for anyone else's,” she said at last.
“No, I don't,” I admitted. “But I sense that Mr. Pudd is a violent man, and maybe something worse. I could feel it when he was close, when he touched me.”
“And violence begets violence,” whispered Rachel.
nodded. “I haven't fired a gun in almost a year, Rachel, not even on a range. I hadn't even held one in my hand until yesterday. But I have a sense that, if I involve myself further in this, I may be forced to use it.”
“Then walk away. Give Jack Mercier his money back and let someone else deal with it.” But even as she said it, I knew that she didn't mean it; that in a way, I was testing myself through her and she understood that.
“You know I can't do that. Marcy Becker could be in trouble, and I think someone murdered Grace Peltier and tried to cover it up. I can't let that slide.”
She moved in even closer to me, and her hand moved across the cheek and my lips. “I know you'll do what's right, and I think you'll try to avoid violence if you can.”
“And if I can't?”
But she didn't respond. After all, there was only one answer.
Outside, the traffic hummed and people slept and a sliver of moon hung in the sky like a knife slash in the heavens. And while I lay awake in the bed of the woman I loved, old Curtis Peltier sat in his kitchen, drinking hot milk in an effort to help himself sleep. He wore blue pajamas and bedroom slippers, with his tattered red robe hanging open above them. He sipped his milk, then left the glass on the table and rose to return to his bed.
I can only guess at what happened next, but in my head I can hear the back door opening, can see the shadows lengthen and move toward him. A gloved hand clasps itself over the old man's mouth while the other twists his arm up behind his back with such force that the shoulder immediately dislocates and the old man briefly loses consciousness. A second pair of hands grab his feet and they carry him up the stairs to the bathroom. There comes the sound of water gurgling and bubbling into the bath as, slowly, it fills. Curtis Peltier regains consciousness to find himself kneeling on the floor, his face against the tub. He watches the water rise and knows he is about to die.
“Where is it, Mr. Peltier?” says a detached male voice beside his ear. He cannot see the face, nor can he see the second person who stands farther back, although their shadows shift on the tiles before him.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” he replies, scared now.
“Yes, you do, Mr. Peltier. I know you do.”
“Please,” he says, just before his head is plunged into the water. He has no time to take a breath and the water enters his mouth and nostrils instantly. He struggles, but his shoulder is convulsed with pain and he can only beat futilely at the water with his left hand. They pull his head up and he gasps and splutters, coughing bathwater onto the floor.
“I'll ask you one more time, Mr. Peltier. Where is it?”
And the old man finds that he is crying now, crying with fear and pain and regret for his lost daughter, for she cannot protect him just as he could not protect her. He feels a force at his shoulder, fingers digging into the injured joint, and he loses consciousness again. When he awakens, he is in the bath, naked, and a redheaded man is hovering over him. There is a sharp pain in his arms, gradually growing dimmer and dimmer. He feels sleepy and struggles to keep his eyes open.
He looks down. There are long slashes from his wrists to his elbows and the bathwater has turned to blood. The shadows watch over him as slowly, slowly the light dies, as his life seeps away and he feels his daughter embrace him at last, carrying him away with her into the darkness.
10
IN EVERY CASE, according to Plato, the principle is to know what the investigation is about. Jack Mercier had hired me to find out the truth about Grace Peltier's death. While out at his house, I had seen Yossi Epstein, who appeared to be involved in moves against the Fellowship that were sponsored by Mercier. Yossi Epstein was now dead, and his offices had been burned to the ground. Grace Peltier had been studying the history of the Aroostook Baptists, who had since emerged from beneath a cloak of mud by the shores of St. Froid Lake. She had, for some reason, found it necessary to try to contact Carter Paragon in the course of her research, once again raising the specter of the Fellowship. Lutz, the detective who was investigating the Peltier case, was close enough to the Fellowship to haul his ass out to Waterville and warn me against irritating Paragon. If I were to connect these occurrences together and add in the figure of Mr. Pudd, the investigation now appeared to be about the Fellowship.
Rachel left early on Saturday morning to attend the continuation of her college meeting. She brought with her a small plastic bag containing Mr. Pudd's business card, which someone had promised to examine before lunch. I showered, made a pot of coffee, and then, wearing only a towel, began to work the phone. I called Walter Cole, my former partner in Homicide while I was with the NYPD, and he made some calls. From him I got the name of one of the detectives involved with the Major Case Squad investigating Epstein's death and the arson attack on his office. The detective's name was Lubitsch.
“Like the movie director,” he explained when he at last came to the phone. “Ernst, you know?”
“Any relation?”
“No, but I directed traffic a couple of times.”
“I don't think it counts.”
“You used to be a bull?”
“That's right.”
“How does the PI world pay?”
“Depends how fussy you are. There's plenty of work out there if you're prepared to follow errant husbands and wives. Most of it doesn't pay too well, so you have to do a lot of it to make ends meet. Why, don't you like being a cop?”
“Sure, I like it okay, but it pays shit. I'd make more money emptying garbage cans.”
“Different version of the same job.”
“You said it. You asking about Epstein?”
“Anything you can give.”
“I ask why?”
“Trade?”
“Sure.”
“I'm investigating the suicide of a girl who may or may not have had some contact with Epstein in the past.”
“Name?”
“Grace Peltier. CID III up in Machias, Maine, have it.”
“When did she die?”
“About two weeks ago.”
“What links her to Epstein?”
I didn't see any harm in turning up the heat under the Fellowship, if I could. Anyway, Lutz's interview with Paragon was contained in the case records.
“The Fellowship. It was one of the organizations Epstein was making moves against. Grace Peltier may have met with its figurehead, Carter Paragon, shortly before she died.”
“That it?”
“There may be more. I just got started on it. Listen, if I can help at all, I will.”