The black car was another matter. It was neither a dream, nor a reality. It was as if, for a brief moment, something that resided in a blind spot of my vision had drifted into sight, that a slight alteration of perception had permitted me to see that which usually existed unseen. And, for reasons that I did not fully understand, I believed that the car, real or imagined, did not represent a direct threat. Its purpose was more indistinct, its symbolism more ambiguous. Still, the thought that the Scarborough PD would be watching the house provided an added consolation, even if I thought it unlikely that police officers would be reporting sightings of a battered black Coupe de Ville.
There was also the matter of Roger Bowen. No good could come of a confrontation with him, but I was curious to see him, maybe to dig around a little and see what I could come up with. Most of all I felt a convergence of events, of which Elliot Norton’s case was a distinct yet linked part. I’m not a great believer in coincidence. I have found in the past that what passes for coincidence is usually life’s way of telling you that you’re not paying enough attention.
“He thinks the dead talk to him,” I said at last. “He thinks that there are deformed angels hovering above Thomaston prison. That’s what he wanted me to see.”
“And did you see them?”
I looked at her. She wasn’t smiling.
“I saw ravens,” I answered. “Scores of huge ravens. And before you consider making me sleep in the spare room, I wasn’t the only one that saw them.”
“I don’t doubt you,” said Rachel. “Nothing you could tell me about that old man would surprise me. Even locked up he gives me the creeps.”
“I don’t have to go away,” I told her. “I can stay here.”
“I don’t want you to stay here,” she replied. “That wasn’t what I meant. Give it to me straight: are we at risk?”
I thought about it. “I don’t think so. In the end, nothing’s going to happen until his lawyers appeal the bail decision. After that, we’ll have to reconsider. For now, the Scarborough PD’s guardian angel role is just a safeguard, although they may need a little unofficial backup.”
She opened her mouth to raise some fresh objection, but I covered her lips gently with my hand. Her eyes narrowed in reproach.
“Look, it’s as much for my sake as yours. If it comes it won’t be conspicuous or obtrusive, but I’ll sleep a little easier for it.”
I lifted my hand slightly from her mouth and prepared myself for the tirade. Her lips parted and I pressed my hand down again. She let out a resigned sigh, her shoulders sagging in defeat. This time, I took my hand away completely and kissed her on the lips. She didn’t respond at first, then I felt her lips part and her tongue move cautiously against mine. Her mouth opened wider, and I moved against her.
“Are you using sex to get what you want?” she asked, her breath catching a little as my hand brushed the inside of her thigh.
I raised my eyebrows in a poor imitation of hurt.
“Of course not,” I assured her. “I’m a man. Sex is what I want.”
I could taste her laughter on my tongue as we gently began the slow dance together.
In blackness I awoke. There was no car waiting, yet the road seemed newly empty.
I left the bedroom and walked softly down to the kitchen. I could no longer sleep. When I reached the final steps, I saw that Walt was sitting in the doorway to the living room. His ears were erect and his tail was beating slowly on the floor. He looked at me once, then returned his attention to the room beyond. When I scratched at his ear, he didn’t respond. Instead, his eyes remained fixed on a patch of darkness in the corner, denied light by the thick drapes but darker yet than it should have been, like a hole torn between worlds.
Something in that darkness had drawn the dog close to it.
I found the only weapon to hand-the letter opener on the coatstand-and palmed it, then stepped into the room, conscious of my nakedness.
“Who’s there?” I asked. At my feet, Walt let out a little whine, but it was more excitement than fear. I moved closer to the darkness.
And a hand emerged.
It was a woman’s hand, very white. Three horizontal wounds had been torn upon it so deeply that I could see the exposed bones in the fingers. The wounds were old, gray brown within, and the skin had hardened around them. There was no blood. The hand extended farther, palm facing out, fingers raised,
stop
and I knew that these wounds were only the first, that she had lifted up her hands against the blade but it had made its way to her face and her body despite them, and there were more cuts like this upon her, made unto death and beyond.
please
I stopped.
Who are you?
you’re looking for me
Cassie?
i felt you looking for me
Where are you?
lost
What can you see?
nothing
dark
Who did this to you? Who is he?
not one
many in one
Then I heard a whispering begin, and other voices joined with her own.
cassie let me speak let me talk to him cassie will he help us does he know cassie does he know my name cassie can he tell me my name cassie cassie can he take me away from here cassie i want to go home please i’m lost cassie please i want to go home
please
Cassie, who are they?
i don’t know
i can’t see them
but they’re all here
he put us all here
Then, from behind me, a hand touched my bare shoulder, and Rachel was beside me, her breasts against my back, the feel of the sheets cool against my skin. The voices were fading, barely audible, yet desperate and insistent.
please
And in her sleep, Rachel’s brow furrowed and she whispered softly:
“Please.”
8
I FLEW OUT of the Portland Jetport the next morning. It was early Sunday and the roads were still quiet when Rachel dropped me at the door of the terminal building. I had already called Wallace MacArthur to confirm that I was leaving and had passed on my cell phone and hotel numbers to him. Rachel had arranged a date for him with a friend of hers named Mary Mason, who lived out at Pine Point. Rachel knew her from the local Audubon Society and figured that she and Wallace would probably get along pretty well. Wallace had taken the trouble to check out her photo through the BMV and had professed himself pleased with his prospective mate.
“She looks good,” he told me.
“Yeah, well don’t get too cocky. She hasn’t seen you yet.”
“What’s not to love?”
“You have a pretty healthy self-image, Wallace. In anyone else it would come across as smugness, but you manage to pull it off.”
There was a noticeable pause before he asked:
“Seriously?”
Rachel leaned across and kissed me on the lips. I held her head close to mine.
“You take care of yourself,” she said.
“You too. You got your cell phone?”
She dutifully raised her phone from her bag.
“And you’re going to leave it on?”
She nodded.
“All the time?”
Pursed lips. Shrug. Reluctant nod.
“I’ll be calling to check.”
She punched me on the arm. “Go get on your plane. There are flight attendants waiting to be charmed.”
“Seriously?” I said, and instantly wondered if I had more in common with Wallace MacArthur than was really healthy.
She smiled. “Yep. You need all the practice you can get.”
Louis once told me that the New South was like the Old South, except everybody was ten pounds heavier. He was probably kind of bitter, and he certainly wasn’t a fan of South Carolina, often considered the most redneck state in the South after Mississippi and Alabama, although it had managed its racial affairs in a slightly more developed way. When Harvey Gantt became the first black student to go to Clemson College in South Carolina, the legislature, rather than opting for blockades and guns, grudgingly accepted that the time for change had come. Still, it was in Orangeburg, South Carolina, in 1968 that three black students were killed during demonstrations outside the whites-only All Star Bowling Alley; anyone over forty in South Carolina had probably gone to a segregated school; and there were still those who believed that the Confederate flag should fly over the state capitol in Columbia. Now they were naming lakes after Strom Thurmond, as if segregation had never happened.