V
In the worst of all men there is a little bit of good that can destroy them.
William Rose (1914-1987)
36
I spent a long night at the Pastor’s Bay Police Department. The local doctor, an elderly gentleman who looked as if he’d graduated from medical school with Hippocrates himself, took a quick look at me and decided that I was suffering from a burst eardrum and a mild concussion. I might have disputed the use of the word ‘mild,’ but it didn’t seem worth the effort. I was advised not to sleep for a while, but as there were lots of questions being asked, and only a limited number of living people available to answer them, sleep wasn’t really an option. So night became morning, and still the questions came. To some I had answers, and to others I had none.
Sometimes I just lied.
At first light, the New Hampshire state police started digging in the garden of Randall Haight’s former residence, alerted by a call from Carroll, the details of which were confirmed by me while I tried to deal with inquiries about an entirely different set of corpses. It didn’t take them long to reach the blocks. Beneath them were Randall Haight and his mother. Decomposition of the bodies in the cool, damp soil had been slowed by saponification. When they were revealed, the Haights’ remains were coated in a waxy adipocere formed from the bodies’ proteins and fats. They resembled insects frozen in their pupal stage.
Then the records arrived from North Dakota, and it was remarked how alike William Lagenheimer and Lonnie Midas had been, even as boys.
I never learned the real name of the FBI man who had been known as Martin Dempsey to Tommy Morris and his associates. Within hours, he was gone from Pastor’s Bay, and in the reports that followed he would be referred to only as an ‘undercover operative.’ He left me with more lies to tell. I told Walsh that I did not know the identities of the two men who had intervened to save Dempsey from Oweny Farrell’s men. In the confusion of all that had occurred, and all that was still happening, I don’t think he cared. It might also have been the case that Engel, who drifted in to listen for a time then drifted out again, knew or suspected the answer to the question already, and took the view that the truth would only complicate an already troublesome situation. Dempsey was alive only because of Louis’s and Angel’s intervention, and the one thing that could have made Engel’s life worse at that moment was the presence of a dead FBI man in Pastor’s Bay.
Finally, a temporary halt was called to the questions. The doctor came back and examined me again. He gave me some more painkillers and told me that it was probably okay for me to sleep now. I told him that I was going to sleep anyway, whether he thought it was advisable or not, because I couldn’t stay awake any longer, and if I never woke up again I wouldn’t be sorry. If Engel hadn’t followed him into the room, I’d have curled up on the floor right there and then with my jacket for a pillow. Instead, I drew on the last of my energy to keep my head clear.
Engel bore the weary expression of a man who had held on to his stocks for a little too long, and had watched them plummet just as he had hoped to cash them in. All that he had left was junk. Tommy Morris was dead, and all his knowledge had died with him. Engel’s undercover man was out of the game, and was a prime candidate for an extended period of therapy. If my head hadn’t been aching so badly I might almost have felt sorry for Engel, but, as it was, his undercover agent was one of the reasons that my head was aching to begin with. Since he was no longer around to blame, I was happy to let Engel carry the can.
‘Hell of a mess to clean up,’ I said.
‘I’ve had a lot of practice,’ he replied, then added, ‘You’re lucky to be alive.’
‘I’ve had a lot of practice too.’
Engel took a notebook from his pocket and opened it to a blank page. He laid a gold fountain pen beside it.
‘I’ve finished the initial debriefing of Martin Dempsey,’ he said.
‘I hope you took his gun away. I don’t think he’s too sure about where it should be pointed.’
‘He’s been deep for a long time. To be good at it, you have to subsume your old self in a new identity. It can be hard to restore it again, but I’m confident that he will.’
‘Is that part of your speech for the press conference? It sounds trite enough.’
‘You could always sue the federal government for the injuries you’ve received.’
‘I’ll add them to the list,’ I said. ‘The FBI already owes me a family.’
In what probably passed for a gesture of contrition, Engel closed his notebook without having written a word.
‘Six men died in that initial confrontation: five at the scene, and one more on his way to the hospital. Francis Ryan was killed by Dempsey before the real shooting began, and Dempsey says that he also fatally wounded one of his attackers. You didn’t have a weapon. Tommy Morris died at the hands of Farrell’s killers. That leaves three men unaccounted for. Dempsey says that he didn’t see anyone else clearly, but he was aware of figures in the forest who might have taken down the remaining shooters. You have anything to add to that?’
‘Nothing except my grateful thanks to those involved.’
‘I figured you’d say that. You tell your hired gunmen to stay out of the state for a time. I’d also advise them against visiting bars in Dorchester, Somerville, and Charlestown. You never know how word spreads in these cases.’
‘Which raises an interesting question,’ I said. ‘How did Tommy Morris find out about Randall Haight, or Lonny Midas as we now know him? Somebody leaked the substance of the interview with him, otherwise Morris and your confused operative wouldn’t have ended up pummeling him in a chair. Were you responsible? Was it a calculated gamble to make Tommy trust Dempsey more?’
‘It wasn’t us,’ said Engel.
‘You’re sure?’
‘I have no reason to lie to you. The operation is ended.’
‘That’s not good enough. Somebody in that room told. Either deliberately or inadvertently, the information about Randall Haight’s confession was leaked to Morris. I didn’t do it. Aimee didn’t do it. That makes it someone on your side: one of the cops or agents in that room, or someone else who was subsequently made aware of what had been said.’
‘Well, the answer to that question may emerge in the next stage of the investigation, namely: Who killed Midas and the last gunman? They were both shot with the same weapon, left at the scene. It was an unregistered firearm, but we’re going to run ballistics matches on it. I have to ask: Were your dubious angels responsible?’
‘No.’
‘They wouldn’t lie to you?’
‘No, they wouldn’t. They also prefer not to leave guns lying around. They’re evidence, whatever way you look at it.’
‘Maybe Farrell sent a backup, just to be sure,’ said Engel. ‘We’ll ask around. For now, an operation that started half a decade ago is nothing but dust: years of effort for no result. Maybe if you weren’t such a lone wolf we could have got to Lonny Midas in time to use him as bait. We could have been waiting for Morris when he came.’
‘You’re forgetting that you had an agent in place all the time. It seems kind of harsh to put the blame on my shoulders when all Dempsey had to do was pick up a phone.’
‘Morris kept him out of the loop on this, right until the end.’
‘Maybe he didn’t trust him so much after all.’
‘We’ll never know.’
‘Right. And Anna Kore is still missing. You forgot to mention her, but then she was never a major concern of yours, was she?’
‘We’re going to search Randall Haight’s property – my mistake,
