“Do you even have a soul?” he whispered. “As for where your wife and child dwell, they are where you keep them.”
He squatted before me, bathing me in nicotine as he spoke his final words.
“I took him while you were at dinner, so you would have an alibi. That is my last gift to you, Mr. Parker, and my last indulgence.”
He rose and walked away, and by the time I got to my feet, he was long gone. I went to my car and drove home, and I thought about what he had said.
Joel Harmon disappeared that night. Todd was ill and Harmon had driven himself to a town meeting in Falmouth, where he handed over a check for $25,000 as part of a drive to buy minibuses for a local school. His car was found abandoned at Wildwood Park, and he was never seen again.
Shortly after nine the next morning, I received a telephone call. The caller didn’t identify himself, but he told me that a search warrant for my property had just been signed by Judge Hight, authorizing the state police to seek any and all unlicensed firearms. They would be at my house within the hour.
They were led by Hansen when they came, and they went through every room. They managed to open the panel in the wall behind which I used to keep the guns I had retained, despite the suspension of my permit, but I had sealed them in oilcloths and plastic and dropped them in a marsh pond at the back of my property, anchored by a rope to a rock on the bank, so all they found was dust. They even searched the attic, but they did not stay there long, and I could see in the faces of the uniformed men who descended that they were grateful to leave that cold, dark space. Hansen did not speak to me from the time the warrant was served until the moment the search was complete. His final words to me were: “This isn’t over.”
When they were gone, I began to empty the attic. I removed boxes and cases without even looking at their contents, casting them onto the landing before carrying them down to the patch of bare earth and stones at the end of my yard. I opened the attic window and let fresh air flood in, and I wiped away the dust from the glass, cleansing it of the words that remained upon it. Then I went through the rest of the house, cleaning every surface, opening cupboards and airing rooms, until all was in order and it was as cold inside the house as it was outside.
They are where you keep them.
I thought that I felt their anger and their rage, or perhaps it was all inside me, and even as I purged it, it fought to survive. As the sun went down, I lit a pyre, and I watched as grief and memories ascended into the sky, forming gray smoke and charred fragments that fell into dust as the wind carried them away.
“I am sorry,” I whispered. “I am sorry for all of the ways that I failed you. I am sorry that I was not there to save you, or to die alongside you. I am sorry that I have kept you with me for so long, trapped in my heart, bound in sorrow and remorse. I forgive you too. I forgive you for leaving me, and I forgive you for returning. I forgive you your anger, and your grief. Let this be an end to it. Let this be an end to it all.
“You have to go now,” I said aloud to the shadows. “It’s time for you to leave.”
And through the flames, I saw the marshes gleaming, and the moonlight picked out two shapes upon the water, shimmering in the heat of the fire. Then they turned away as others joined them, a host journeying onward, soul upon soul, until they were lost at last in the crashing triumph of dying waves.
That night, as though summoned by the fire, Rachel rang the doorbell of the house that we once shared, driving Walter into a frenzy when he recognized her. She said that she’d been worrying about me. We talked and ate, and drank a little too much wine. When I woke the next morning, she was sleeping beside me. I did not know if it was a beginning or an ending, and I was too afraid to ask. She left before midday, with just a kiss and words unspoken on both our lips.
And far away, a car pulled up before a nondescript house on a quiet country road. The trunk was opened, and a man was dragged from within, falling to the ground before he was forced to his feet, his eyes blindfolded, his mouth gagged, his hands tied behind his back with wire that had bitten into his wrists, causing blood to flow onto his hands, his legs bound in the same way above the ankles. He tried to remain standing, but almost collapsed as the blood began to flow through his weakened, cramped limbs. He felt hands on his legs, then the wire was clipped away from them so he could walk. He began to run then, but his legs were swept from under him, and a voice spoke a single nicotine-smelling word into his ear: “No.”
He was hauled to his feet once more and led into the house. A door was opened, and he was guided carefully down a set of wooden steps. His feet touched a stone floor. He walked for a time, until the same voice told him to stop, and he was forced to his knees. He heard something being moved, as though a board were being hefted away from something in front of him. The blindfold was undone, the gag removed, and he saw that he was in a cellar, empty apart from an old closet in one corner, its twin doors standing open to reveal the trinkets lying within, although they were too far away for his eyesight to distinguish them in the gloom.
There was a hole in the ground before him, and he thought that he smelled blood and old meat. The hole was not deep, perhaps only six or seven feet, and scattered with stones and rocks and broken slates at its base. He blinked, and for a moment it appeared that the hole was deeper, as though the base of stones was somehow suspended above a far greater abyss beneath. He felt hands moving upon his wrists, and then his watch, his treasured Patek Philippe, was being removed.
“Thief!” he said. “You’re nothing but a thief.”
“No,” said the voice. “I am a collector.”
“Then take it,” said Harmon. His voice rasped from lack of water, and he felt weak and sick from the long journey in the trunk of the car. “Just take it and let me go. I have money too. I can arrange to have it wired to anywhere you want. You can hold me until it’s in your hands, and I promise you that you’ll have as much again when I’m freed. Please, just let me go. Whatever I’ve done to you, I’m sorry.”
The voice sounded by his good ear once again. He had not yet seen the man himself. He had been struck from behind as he walked to his car, and he had awoken in the trunk. It seemed to him that they had driven for many, many hours, stopping only once for the man to refill the gas tank. Even then, they had not done so at a gas station, for he had not heard the sound of the gas pump or the noise of other cars. He guessed that his abductor had kept cans in the backseat of the vehicle so that he would not have to refuel in a public place and risk his captive making noise and attracting attention.
Now he was kneeling in a dusty basement, staring into a hole in the ground that was both shallow and deep, and a voice was saying:
“You are damned.”
“No,” said Harmon. “No, that’s not right.”
“You have been found wanting, and your life is forfeit. Your soul is forfeit.”
“No,” said Harmon, his voice rising in pitch. “It’s a mistake! You’re making a mistake.”
“There is no mistake. I know what you have done. They know.”
Harmon looked into the hole, and four figures stared back at him, their eyes dark holes against the thin, papery covering of their skulls, their mouths black and wrinkled and gaping. His hair was gripped in strong fingers and his head was drawn back, exposing his neck. He felt something cold against his skin, then the blade cut into his throat, showering blood onto the floor and into the hole, splashing on the faces of the men below.