The trembling in his hands spread to the rest of his body. He was like an upright spring, vibrating with fear and anger. Above his head, a raven settled on a branch. It opened its beak and emitted a single mocking caw, as though chiding the man below for his weakness.
It would do Haight no good to enter that interview room in his current state. I didn’t know how he might react if they began to question him harshly, as I had no doubt they would, despite Aimee’s injunctions against doing so. She would try to stop the interview if they went too far, and she might even succeed, but the inevitable result would be that they would leave wondering if Randall Haight had anything else to hide. We should have coached him, and Aimee had acknowledged as much when she told me that he had at last agreed to talk with the police, but Haight had clammed up immediately after, and declined to consult further with her. Aimee had expressed her concern that, despite his promises, he might not show up for the interview at all. It was an achievement that he had made it this far. Now he just had to be calmed down a little.
‘Let’s take a walk,’ I said. ‘We’ll get some air.’
He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and together we walked along Park Street.
‘You should remember something, Randall. You haven’t done anything wrong here. In fact, you’re a victim in this. Someone is tormenting you about your past, but whatever you may have done as a child, you’ve paid the price for it. You made the amends that the law required of you, and you’ve tried to be the best man that you can be since then. That’s all any of us can do. Aimee and I are not going to let you be railroaded in there, but you can help yourself by looking upon the interview as a way of gaining an advantage. Once you tell the police what’s been happening to you, it will be in their interests as much as yours to find whoever is responsible, because they’ll make some of the connections that I did. They’ll wonder if the individual who is bothering you is also involved in the disappearance of Anna Kore. They’ll take those envelopes, and those photos, and that disc, and they’ll analyze them in a detail that’s beyond my capacities. In the meantime, Aimee and I are still going to be working for you, because just as there are steps the police can take that I can’t, so too there are things I can do that they, for various reasons, cannot. All you have to do is go in there and tell the truth.’
Haight kicked at a fallen acorn, and missed. He sighed, as if that somehow represented the story of his life.
‘It’ll get out, though, won’t it? It’s not a secret as soon as more than one person knows it.’ He sounded like a little boy.
‘It may get out, eventually. When that happens, we’ll help you with it. It won’t be easy in the immediate aftermath, but I think you may be surprised at how many friends you have in Pastor’s Bay. Do you go to church?’
‘Not regularly. Baptist when I do.’
‘If your past does start to come out, then that’s the place where you can own up to it publicly. I don’t mean this in a cynical way – well, not entirely – but nothing makes a congregation happier than a sinner who acknowledges his failings and asks for forgiveness. You’ll have to rebuild your reputation, and your place in the community may change, but you’ll still have a place. In the meantime, we’ll have people looking out for you, just in case.’
A school bus went by, loaded down with little kids on an outing. Two of them waved to us. I waved back, and the whole bus joined in. As they disappeared toward the highway, Haight said, ‘I still don’t have an alibi for the time of Anna Kore’s disappearance.’
‘Randall, half of Pastor’s Bay doesn’t have an alibi for the time of her disappearance. You’ve been watching too many old reruns of
‘Does that mean they might throw everything out there and expose me?’
‘The opposite, I think. They’ll retreat for a time, and perhaps try to cover their tracks, but in doing so they’ll draw more attention to themselves.’
‘You sound pretty certain of that.’
I sounded more certain than I actually was about most of what I had told Haight, but my sole purpose that morning was to ensure that he presented himself in the most positive light to the law-enforcement personnel in the meeting room. But about the psychology of Haight’s stalker – and he
And that was when it struck me, and its impact was so forceful that I stopped in my tracks. I had been so distracted by other details – Anna Kore, the messages about Chief Allan, the connection to Tommy Morris down in Boston – that I had failed to make one very simple leap: Where did the pleasure in tormenting Randall Haight lie? He did most of his work from home, and made trips to clients only when necessary. He had almost no social life that I could discern, but what public interaction he did have revolved entirely around Pastor’s Bay.
I was suddenly certain that whoever was taunting Randall Haight lived or worked in Pastor’s Bay.
‘What is it?’ said Randall.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Just a thought. We should be getting back now.’
He nodded, resigned, but he was less troubled than he had been, and I thought that we might just get through this and come out ahead. He didn’t stop to gather himself one final time as we entered the building, but held himself upright and walked, calmly and confidently, toward the meeting room, there to face his past, and alter his future.
25
Dempsey drove through the environs of Pastor’s Bay. He had a map on the passenger seat of the car, but he rarely consulted it. He had already examined the area on Google and felt sure of where he was going. Dempsey had a prodigious memory for photographs, figures, and the minutest detail of conversations. He rarely let it show, though, for he had spent too long surrounded by men who might find such a talent troubling enough to seek its annihilation.
He and Ryan had woken that morning to find Tommy gone from his room, and the car absent from the lot. Dempsey had scribbled a note informing Tommy that they had left to seek out breakfast, and slipped it under his door. The massive lipidic woman was gone from reception, replaced by a sinewy string bean of a man with dazzlingly bright false teeth who informed them of the presence of a diner about a quarter of a mile west of the motel. Some of the clouds had cleared to leave swatches of blue sky, but it still felt unseasonably cold and there was a wind that blew straight into their faces as they walked. They took a corner booth in the diner, and Ryan ordered the biggest breakfast on the menu, while Dempsey stuck with coffee and a bagel. He’d never been much for eating first thing in the morning, and his stomach didn’t feel right. He read the house newspaper while Ryan ate, but it was out of Bangor and contained nothing of relevance to them. The papers were full of the midterm elections; Dempsey had almost forgotten that they were happening, so lost was he in their own difficulties. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d voted. He felt guilty about it. It seemed to him another aspect of his abandonment of control, of being subject to the plans and motivations of others. He made a promise to himself to start voting again if he lived. It seemed a modest, attainable ambition in the long term. Voting, that was, not living. For now, staying alive was strictly a day-to-day business.
Ryan excused himself and headed to the men’s room. A police patrol car cruised by, but Dempsey didn’t turn his head to follow its progress. He took in the other customers in the diner. They were mostly older people, and the waitress seemed to know them all by name. Dempsey reckoned that Ryan was the youngest person in the place by at least a decade or more. He closed his eyes and thought about how good it would be just to sit here for a couple of hours surrounded by friends, with no obligations for the day other than to shoot the breeze and plan for the next meal. He didn’t have to imagine what it would be like to be old. He already felt old, and mortality seemed closer to
