‘A version,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘You described it as a “version.” That’s all it is. The only people who really know what went on in that barn are Randall Haight, Lonny Midas, and Selina Day, and the only one we’ve heard from is Randall Haight, who says that it wasn’t his fault, that he tried to stop the killing from happening, but Lonny Midas was too strong.’
‘Do we accept that that’s how we should think of him – as Randall Haight and not William Lagenheimer?’
‘That’s an interesting question. How does he see himself?’
‘I notice that you didn’t ask.’
‘I didn’t ask because I don’t think that it matters, for now. For your purposes, and in the eyes of his fellow citizens, he’s Randall Haight. For the most part, I imagine that’s how he thinks of himself. He’s had to accept the reality of his new identity, and whatever imagined history goes along with it, in order to survive.’
She made a note to herself on her legal pad, then let the subject go.
‘He could be telling the truth about what happened in the barn,’ she said. ‘You’re questioning details instead of substance. Randall Haight is not denying his partial culpability for the death of Selina Day.’
‘Sure, he could be telling the truth, but if I’d been involved in the death of a young girl and could shift some of the blame onto the shoulders of another, I would.’
‘No,
‘Why do you say that? I don’t believe I’m so honorable.’
‘Honor is just part of it. Self-torment is the rest.’
She said it with a smile, but it didn’t make what she had said any less sincerely meant. God preserve me, I thought, from dime-store psychologists, especially cloaked in lawyers’ garb.
‘He was fourteen,’ I said. ‘I never killed anyone when I was fourteen. If I had, I don’t know for sure how I would have reacted afterward.’
‘This is all beside the point.’
‘Is it?’
‘You know it is. Someone is taunting Randall Haight with their knowledge of what he did as a boy. At the same time, a fourteen-year-old girl has gone missing in Pastor’s Bay. The similarities are troubling.’
I saw my daughter staring up at me, and heard her asking me to find Anna Kore. I looked at my hands, and perceived the ghost of a cross made from sticks and twigs. Around my neck hung a smaller version of the same symbol: a Byzantine bronze pilgrim’s cross. Sometimes we have to be reminded of our obligations to others, even at a cost to ourselves.
‘Because,’ I said, ‘if whoever has figured out Randall Haight’s identity gave a damn about Anna Kore they’d have gone to the police with what they know: The convicted killer of a fourteen-year-old girl is living in the same town from which another fourteen-year-old girl has recently gone missing. Instead, they’re sending him pictures of barn doors and waiting to see how he responds.’
‘Part of me still thinks it could be a prelude to a blackmail attempt.’
‘Then he should go to the police.’
‘If he goes to the police, they’ll make him a suspect.’
‘Or rule him out of the investigation, if he can answer all of their questions and if he didn’t do it.’
Aimee winced at each use of the word ‘if.’
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘It’s not like you haven’t considered the possibility.’
‘Assuming it’s crossed my mind, do you really think he could have taken Anna Kore?’
‘No, not unless he’s playing a high-stakes game by involving us, in which case he’s either ridiculously clever or he’s crazy.’
‘He doesn’t strike me as either. He is smart, but if he’s crazy he’s hiding it well. What?’
I had been unable to conceal a frown of doubt.
‘Crazy would be a strong word, but he’s a man living with the knowledge that he once killed a child. He’s been forced into a new identity, and he lives in an isolated community far from his original home. I think he’s functioning under immense emotional and psychological strain. He practically hums with tension. Do you know if he’s maintained any form of contact with his family?’
‘He says that he hasn’t. We know that his father is dead. He doesn’t know where his mother is. He told me that he lived with her for a time after his release from Berlin, but felt suffocated by her presence. He also believed that, for the purposes of inhabiting his new identity, it would be better if he had no further contact with his family. That’s not unusual. He’d learned to live without them for a long time, and a lot of prisoners have trouble adjusting to familial relationships once they’re released. It would have been even harder for Randall, as officially he was no longer even a member of his own family.’
‘That was some social experiment he and Lonny Midas found themselves involved in.’
‘You disapprove?’
‘No. I just don’t fully understand the thinking behind it.’
‘We should find out more.’
‘We will.’
‘And we’ve established that he’s not crazy, but under pressure he may buckle.’
‘Agreed,’ I said, reluctantly.
‘If he goes to the police, his old life in Pastor’s Bay will be over. He doesn’t want that. He wants to stay where he is, and live out his days there. As you said, he’s done his time. The law and society have no further hold on him in that respect.’
‘So he’ll stay quiet and hope that the girl is found?’
‘That will be my advice to him, for now. Meanwhile, you’ll look into who might be sending him these images, because you understand why it matters.’
She had me in a bind. Randall Haight had committed no crime in the state of Maine of which we knew. Haight was a client of Aimee’s, and I had tentatively agreed to work for her on Haight’s behalf. I was bound by issues of client confidentiality, to a certain extent, and it offered a degree of protection against being forced by the police to reveal details about my involvement, should it come to that. But I didn’t like the situation we were in. To protect Haight, we were concealing information that might be germane to the investigation into Anna Kore’s disappearance, even though there was no evidence to suggest a direct link between Haight and the crime beyond one of geographic proximity and the similarity in the ages between two of the girls involved. It was the grayest of gray areas, and I felt that Aimee was exploiting it.
‘Does it bother you?’ asked Aimee. ‘What Randall did, does it trouble you?’
‘Of course it does.’
‘But more than it should? Do you feel a personal animosity toward him because of the loss of your own child? I have to ask that. You do understand?’
‘I understand. No, I don’t feel excessive animosity toward him. He killed a child when he was a child himself, and I get the feeling he’s a bit of a creep, although I can’t say why. You know that I could walk out of here, right? Nothing to which I’ve agreed in this office is binding.’
‘I know that. I also know that you won’t walk.’
‘If you’re right, do you want to try telling me why?’
‘Because there’s another child involved. Because Anna Kore is out there somewhere, and she may still be alive. As long as there’s hope for her, you won’t walk away. I know that you’re uneasy about not going to the police. I’ll work on Randall to see if I can get him to change his mind about coming forward voluntarily, but if you can find one firm connection between what’s happening to our client and the disappearance of Anna Kore, I’ll call the cops myself, and I’ll sit on Randall until they come.’
While I wrestled with that mental image, she added, ‘Because that’s the other reason you’ll take the case: You, like I am, are wondering if there’s a possibility that the person who is taunting Randall Haight is the same person who took Anna Kore.’
I drove back to Scarborough, my eyes straining as the rain pummeled the windshield. The Mustang’s lights weren’t worth much in this kind of weather, but it hadn’t been this bad when I left earlier, and I enjoyed taking the car out when I could. It was an indulgence, but I liked to believe that I was a man of relatively few indulgences. On the seat beside me was a printout of the names of all those involved in the prosecution of the Selina Day case that Haight could recall. He was unsure of spellings in some cases, and claimed to know nothing of where those people
