The Wrath of Angels

‘And I guess it’s different, right? Different from “not hunting animals”.’

‘That’s right.’

‘You weren’t just kidding either.’

‘No, I wasn’t.’

The smile came again, a little uneasier this time. ‘I’ve read about you in the newspapers, and on the Internet. What happened to your wife and child – I just don’t know what to say.’

Susan and Jennifer were gone, taken from me by a man who thought that, by spilling their blood, he could fill the emptiness inside himself. The subject of them frequently came up with new clients. I had come to realize that whatever was said came with the best of intentions, and people needed to mention it, more for their own sakes than for mine.

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘I heard – I don’t know if it’s true – that you have another daughter now.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Does she live with you? I mean, are you still, you know . . .’

‘No, she lives with her mother in Vermont. I see her as often as I can.’

‘I hope you don’t think that I was prying. I’m not a stalker. I just wanted to find out as much as I could about you before I started sharing my father’s secrets with you. I know some cops in the County,’ – nobody in Maine ever referred to it as Aroostook County, just ‘the County’ – ‘and I was tempted to ask them about you as well. I figured they might be able to tell me more than I could find online. In the end, I decided it would be better to say nothing and just see what you were like in person.’

‘And how’s that working out?’

‘Okay, I guess. I thought you’d be taller.’

‘I get that a lot. Better than “I thought you’d be slimmer,” or “I thought you’d have more hair.”’

She rolled her eyes. ‘And they say women are vain. Are you fishing for compliments, Mr Parker?’

‘No. I figure that pond is all fished out.’ I let a few seconds elapse. ‘Why did you decide not to ask the police about me?’

‘I think you know the answer already.’

‘Because you didn’t want anyone to wonder why you might need the services of a private investigator?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Lots of people hire investigators, for lots of reasons. Cheating husbands—’

‘I’m not married anymore. And, for the record, I cheated on him.’

I raised an eyebrow.

‘Are you shocked?’ she asked.

‘No, I just wish he’d had my card. Business is business.’

It made her laugh.

‘He was a jerk. Worse than a jerk. He deserved it. So why else do people hire you?’ she said.

‘Insurance fraud, missing persons, background checks.’

‘It sounds dull.’

‘It’s safe, for the most part.’

‘But not all the time. Not for the kind of investigation that ends up with your name in the papers, the kind that ends with people dying.’

‘No, but sometimes investigations start out as one thing and mutate into another, usually because someone tells lies right from the start.’

‘The client?’

‘It’s been known to happen.’

‘I won’t lie to you, Mr Parker.’

‘That’s reassuring to hear, unless that itself was a lie.’

‘My, the world has taken its toll on your idealism, hasn’t it?’

‘I’m still idealistic. I just keep it safe behind a carapace of skepticism.’

‘And I don’t want you to hunt anyone down either. At least, I don’t think so. Not in that sense, anyway. Ernie may disagree with me on that one.’

‘Did Mr Scollay try to dissuade you from coming here?’ I asked.

‘How did you know that?’

‘A trick of the trade. He’s not very good at hiding his feelings. Most honest men aren’t.’

‘He believed that we should keep quiet about what we knew. The damage was done, in his view. He didn’t want his brother’s memory besmirched in any way, or my father’s either.’

‘But you didn’t agree.’

‘A crime was committed, Mr Parker. Maybe more than one.’

‘Once again, why not go to the police?’

‘If everyone went to the police, you’d be a full-time bartender and a part-time private investigator.’

‘Or no private investigator at all.’

Ernie Scollay was returning from the men’s room. He removed his baseball cap as he walked and ran his fingers back through his thick white hair. If I was conscious of a tension between him and Marielle, I was more conscious of the fact that Ernie was frightened. So was Marielle, but she hid it better. Ernie Scollay: the last of the honest men, but not so honest that he didn’t want to keep his brother’s secrets hidden. He glanced at Marielle and me, trying to ascertain if we had been discussing anything that we shouldn’t have while he was absent.

‘Where were we?’ he asked.

‘At the clearing,’ I said.

Paul and Harlan looked to the clearing. The buck lay dead at their feet, but the fear it had emanated was still with them. Harlan tightened his grip on his rifle; there were four bullets left in his magazine, and Paul had the same. Something had spooked the buck, perhaps drawn by the smell of its blood, and they didn’t want to face a bear with their hands hanging or, God forbid, a mountain lion, because they’d both heard stories about the possible return of big cats to the state. Nobody had seen one for certain for the best part of twenty years, but they didn’t want to be the first.

They stepped around the remains of the buck and advanced on the open space. It was only as they drew nearer that they smelled it: dampness, and rotting vegetation. A body of still black water lay before them, so dark that it was more pitch than liquid, with the promise of a viscosity to match. Staring into it, Harlan caught only the barest reflection of his own face. The water appeared to absorb more protons than it should have, sucking in the beams of their flashlights and what little illumination filtered through the branches above, allowing almost nothing of it to escape. Harlan took a step back as he felt his sense of balance faltering, and he bumped into Paul, who was standing directly behind him. The shock caused him to teeter, and for a moment he was about to fall into the pool. The ground seemed to tilt beneath his feet. His rifle fell to the ground and he raised his arms instinctively and flapped them at the air, like a bird striving to escape a predator. Then Paul’s hands were on his torso, pulling him back, and Harlan found a tree against which to lean, circling its trunk with his arms in a desperate lover’s embrace.

‘I thought I was going in,’ he said. ‘I thought I was going to drown.’

No, not drown: suffocate, or worse, for just because he was certain that no living thing moved through its depths (Certain? Certain how? Certain north was north, and east was east? But such certainties did not apply in this place; of that, at least, he was convinced.), it did not mean that the pool was empty. It stank of malevolence, of the possibility that something more than the sucking power of its mass might drag you down if you fell into it. Harlan was suddenly aware of the silence of this place. He was conscious too that night was coming on quickly: he could see no stars in the sky, and the damn compass was gone all to hell. They could be stuck out here, and he didn’t want that to happen, not one damn little bit.

‘We ought to leave,’ said Harlan. ‘This place feels wrong.’

He realized that Paul had not spoken since they found the pool. His friend stood with his back to him, the muzzle of his gun now pointing at the ground.

‘You hear me?’ said Harlan. ‘I think we should get out of here. It’s bad. This whole damned place is—’

‘Look,’ said Paul. He stepped to one side and shined his flashlight across the expanse of the pool, and Harlan saw it.