Mercier led me into the same book-lined room in which we had sat the previous week, the rhombus of sun now replaced by a thin trickle of moonlight. The bug was gone, probably already devoured by something bigger and meaner than it could ever be. There were no coffee cups brought this time. Jack Mercier wasn't offering me his hospitality. His eyes were red rimmed and he had shaved himself badly, so that patches of bristle remained under his chin and below his nostrils. Even his white dress shirt looked wrinkled, and sweat patches showed beneath his armpits when he took off his jacket. His bow tie was slightly crooked, and despite his cologne I thought I detected a sour smell.
I walked straight to the photograph of Mercier and Ober with Beck and Epstein, and removed it from the wall. I threw it to him and he caught it awkwardly in his arms. “What haven't you told me?” I said, as the door opened and Ober entered. He closed it behind him and both of us looked at Mercier.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Mr. Mercier, what were the four of you doing that could have drawn these people down on you? How do you think Grace became involved?”
He recoiled visibly at the question.
“And why did you hire me, because you must have known who was responsible for her death?”
He didn't say anything at first, just sat down heavily in an armchair across from me and put his head in his hands. “Did you know that Curtis Peltier was dead?” he asked me, in tones so soft they were almost inaudible.
I felt an ache in my stomach and leaned back against the table to steady myself.
“Nobody told me.”
“He was only found this evening. He'd been dead for days. I was going to call you as soon as my guests left.”
“How did he die?”
“Somebody broke into his house, tortured him, then slit his arms in his bathtub.”
He looked up at me, his eyes demanding pity and understanding. In that instant, I almost struck Jack Mercier.
“He never knew, did he?” I said. “He didn't know anything about the Fellowship, about Beck or Epstein. The only thing that mattered to him was his daughter, and he gave her everything he could. I saw the way he lived. He had a big house that he couldn't keep clean, and he lived in his kitchen. Do you even know where your kitchen is, Mr. Mercier?”
He smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. There was no compassion in it, no kindness. I doubted if any voter had ever seen Jack Mercier smile like that. “My daughter, Mr. Parker,” he growled. “Grace was my child.”
“You're deluded, Mr. Mercier.” I couldn't keep the disgust from my voice.
“I stayed out of her life because that was what we all agreed, but I was always concerned for her. When she applied to the scholarship fund, I saw a chance to help her. Hell, I'd have given her the money even if she'd wanted to take surfing at Malibu Tech. She intended to study religious movements in the state during the last fifty years, and one in particular. I encouraged her to do that in order to have her near me while she studied the books in my collection. It was my fault, my mistake.
“Because we didn't know about the link, not then,” he said, and the weight of his guilt fell upon him like an executioner's blade.
“What link?”
Behind us, Warren Ober coughed. “I have to advise you, Jack, not to say anything more in Mr. Parker's presence.” He was using his best, five-hundred-dollar-per-hour voice. As far as Ober was concerned, Grace's death was immaterial. All that mattered was ensuring that Jack Mercier's guilt remained private, not public.
The gun was in my hand before I even knew it. Through a red haze I saw Ober backing away and then the muzzle of the gun was buried in the soft flesh beneath his chin. “You say one more word,” I whispered, “and I won't be held responsible for my actions.”
Despite the fear in his eyes, Ober spat the next six words. “You are a thug, Mr. Parker,” he said.
“So are you, Mr. Ober,” I replied. “The only difference is that you're better paid than I am.”
“Stop!”
It was the voice of an emperor, a voice used to being obeyed. I didn't disappoint it. I removed the gun from Ober's chin and put it away.
“Safety was on,” I told him. “Can't be too careful.”
Ober adjusted his bow tie and started calculating the man-hours required to ruin me in court.
Mercier poured himself a brandy and another for Ober. He waved the decanter at me, but I declined. He handed Ober a glass, took a long sip from his own, then resumed his seat and began talking as if nothing had happened.
“Did Curtis tell you about our respective familial connections to the Aroostook Baptists?”
I nodded. Behind me, a cloud passed over the moon and the light that had shone into the room was suddenly lost in its shadow.
“They were lost for thirty-seven years, until now,” he said softly. “I believe that the man responsible for their deaths is still alive.”
The first hint that Faulkner was alive had come in March, and it arrived from an unlikely source. A Faulkner Apocalypse was offered for auction, and Jack Mercier had acquired it, just as he had successfully acquired the twelve other extant examples of Faulkner's work. While he spoke, he removed one from his cabinet and handed it to me.
Faulkner had the talent of a medieval illuminator, using decorated letters interweaved with fantastic animals to begin each chapter. The ink was iron gall, the same mix of tannins and iron sulfate used in medieval times. Each chapter contained illustrations drawn from ornate works similar to the Cloisters Apocalypse, images of judgment, punishment, and torment executed in a detail that bordered on the sadistic.
“This was the first Apocalypse, inspired by Cranach, and the illustrations and calligraphy are consistent throughout,” explained Mercier. “Other Faulkner Apocalypses are influenced by later illustrators, such as Meidner and Grosz, and the script is correspondingly more modern, although in some ways equally beautiful.”
But the thirteenth Apocalypse acquired by Mercier was different. An adhesive had been used on the pages before stitching because the weight of the paper was lighter than before and the binder appeared to have experienced some difficulty in applying the stitches. Mercier, a bibliophile, had spotted traces of the adhesive shortly after his purchase and had sent the book to be examined by a specialist. The calligraphy and brush strokes on the illustrations were authentic-Faulkner had created the Apocalypse, without doubt-but the adhesive was of a type that had been in production for less than a decade and had been used in the original construction of the book and not during any later repairs.
Faulkner, it seemed, was alive, or at least he had been until comparatively recently, and if he could be found then an answer to the riddle of the disappearance of the Aroostook Baptists might at last be within reach.
“To be honest, my interest was in the books, not the people,” said Mercier, an admission that hardened my growing dislike for him. “My familial connections to Faulkner's flock added an extra frisson, but nothing more. I found the nature of his work fascinating.”
It was the source of the thirteenth Apocalypse that led Mercier to the Fellowship; it emerged, after investigation, that it had been sold through a firm of third-rate Waterville lawyers by Carter Paragon, to cover his gambling debts. But rather than pounce on Paragon, Mercier decided to wait and put pressure on his organization by other means. He found Epstein, who had already suspected that the Fellowship was far more dangerous than it appeared and was willing to be the nominal challenger of its tax-exempt status. He found Alison Beck, who had witnessed the killing of her husband years before and who was now pressing for the case to be reopened and a full investigation made into a possible link to the Fellowship, based on threats received from its minions in the months before David Beck's death. If Mercier could tear apart the front that was the Fellowship, then what was behind it might at last be revealed.