The second message was from June Fitzpatrick, confirming our dinner at Joel Harmon’s house the following night. I had almost forgotten about Harmon. It might be a wasted evening. Then again, I still knew next to nothing about Daniel Clay, apart from what his daughter had told me and the little extra that I had found out from June. I would drive down to the Commonwealth early the next morning, see what I could wring out of Eldritch and Associates, and try to fit in a conversation with Rebecca Clay’s ex-husband before Harmon’s dinner. I remained aware that a clock was ticking, slowly counting down the minutes to Merrick’s promised return and what was certain to be an escalation of his campaign of intimidation against Daniel Clay’s daughter.
Rebecca Clay sat in her employer’s washroom and wiped away her tears. She had just spoken to her daughter on the phone. Jenna had told her that she missed her already. Rebecca had told her that she missed her too, but she knew that sending her away was the right thing to do.
The night before, she had walked into Jenna’s bedroom to make sure that she had packed everything that she needed for her trip. Jenna was downstairs reading. From her daughter’s bedroom window, Rebecca could see the man named Jackie sitting in his car, probably listening to the radio, judging by the slight glow that came from the dashboard, illuminating his features. His presence made her feel a little better. She had also briefly met the other two men, the massive brothers who gazed adoringly at Jackie, hanging on his every word. Although big, they did not fill her with the same sense of assurance as Jackie did. They were intimidating, though, she had to give them that. One of her neighbors had been so disturbed by their presence that she had called the police. The cop who drove by in response had taken one look at the pair, recognized them for who they were, and immediately driven away without exchanging a single word with either of them. Nobody had seen a cop in the vicinity since.
All in Jenna’s room was neat and in its place, because that was the kind of girl her daughter was. Rebecca looked down at the little desk that Jenna used for homework, and for her painting and drawing. She had clearly been working on something quite recently, a sketch of some kind, for a pack of colored pencils lay open beside a couple of sheets of paper. Rebecca picked up one of the sheets. It was a drawing of their house, and two figures stood beside it. They were dressed in long tan coats, and their faces were pale, so pale that her daughter had used a white wax crayon to accentuate it, as though the paper itself was not sufficient to convey the depth of their pallor. Their eyes and mouths were black circles, draining light and air from the world. The same figures appeared in each of the drawings. They looked like shadows given form, and the fact that her daughter was imagining such beings had made Rebecca shudder. Perhaps Jenna had been more disturbed by the actions of the man named Merrick than she had pretended to be, and this was some manifestation of that fear.
Rebecca had gone downstairs to Jenna and shown her the drawings.
“Who are they supposed to be, honey?” she said, but Jenna had merely shrugged.
“I dunno.”
“I mean, are they supposed to be ghosts? They look like ghosts.”
Jemma had shaken her head. “No, I saw them.”
“You saw them? How? How could you have seen something like this?”
She had knelt beside her daughter, genuinely troubled by what she was hearing.
“Because they’re real,” Jenna had replied. She had looked puzzled for a moment, then had corrected herself. “No, I think they’re real. It’s hard to explain. You know, it’s like when there’s a little fog, and it makes everything fuzzy, but you can’t see what’s making it fuzzy. Then I took a nap this evening after packing, and it was almost like I dreamed them, but I was awake because I was drawing them at the same time that I saw them. It was like I woke up with them still in my mind, and I had to put their images down on paper, and when I looked out the window they were there, except—” She had paused.
“Except what? Tell me, Jenna.”
The girl had looked uncomfortable. “Except I could only see them if I didn’t look directly at them. I know it makes no sense, Mom, but they were there and also not there.” She took the drawing from her mother. “I think they’re kind of cool.”
“They were here, Jenna?”
Jenna had nodded. “They were outside. What did you think I meant?”
Rebecca’s hand went to her mouth. She felt ill. Jenna rose and hugged her and kissed her on the cheek.
“Don’t worry, Mom. It was probably just some weird mind thing. If it helps, I didn’t feel scared or anything. They don’t mean us any harm.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do. I kind of heard them, in my head, while I was sleeping or waking or whatever it was I was doing. They weren’t interested in us.”
Then, for the first time, Jenna had looked thoughtful, as though she had only just begun to understand how truly odd her words sounded.
Rebecca tried to stop her voice from trembling when she spoke. “Honey, who are they?”
The question distracted Jenna. She giggled. “That’s the weirdest part of all. I woke knowing who they were, like sometimes I’ll have a painting and a title in my head, both at the same time, and I won’t know where they came from. I made this first drawing, and I knew who those figures were almost before the pencil touched the paper.”
She held the drawing up before her, both admiring it and yet slightly concerned at what she had created.
“They’re the Hollow Men.”
7
I had strawberries and coffee for breakfast. There was a Delgados CD, Universal Audio, in the stereo, and I let it play while I ate. Walter fooled around in the garden, relieved himself in the bushes, then came back inside and fell asleep in his basket.
When I was done eating, I spread the list of Daniel Clay’s former associates on the kitchen table, and added “Eldritch” to the bottom. Then I worked out a rough order in which to approach them all, starting with those who were local yet farthest from town. I began to make calls to arrange appointments, but the first three were washouts. The people in question had moved, or were dead, or in the case of a third man, a former professor of Clay’s who had retired to Bar Harbor, was suffering from such severe Alzheimer’s that, according to his daughter-in-law, he no longer even recognized his own children.
I had better luck, of a sort, with the fourth name, an accountant named Edward Haver. He had died a decade earlier, but his wife, Celine, said that she wouldn’t mind talking about Clay, even over the phone, particularly when I explained that I had been hired by Clay’s daughter. She told me that she had always liked Dan, and had never found him to be anything other than good company. She and her husband had attended his wife’s funeral, back when Rebecca was only four or five. His wife had died of cancer. Then, twenty years later, her own husband had succumbed to a form of the same illness, and Daniel Clay had attended that funeral. For a time, she admitted, she thought that there might have been a chance that they would get together, for they had similar tastes and she liked Rebecca, but it seemed that Clay had become used to living without a partner.
“And then he vanished,” she concluded.
I was about to press her about the circumstances of his disappearance, but in the end I didn’t have to.
“I know what people said about him, but that wasn’t Dan, not the Dan that I knew,” she said. “He cared about the children he counseled, maybe too much. You could see it in his face when he spoke about them.”
“He talked about his cases with you?”
“He never mentioned names, but sometimes he’d tell me about what a child had been through: beatings, neglect, and, well, you know, other things too. It was clear that it troubled him. He couldn’t bear to see a child hurt. I think that brought him into conflict with people sometimes.”
“What kind of people?”
“Other professionals, doctors who didn’t always see things the way that he did. There was one man named—oh, what was it ag
ain? I’ve seen his name somewhere recently— Christian! That’s it: Dr. Robert Christian, over at the Midlake Center. He and Dan were always disagreeing about things in papers that they wrote, or at conferences. I guess it was a small field that they worked in, so they were forever encountering each other and arguing over how best to deal with the children who came to them.”
“You seem to have a good memory for events that were sometime in the past, Mrs. Haver.” I tried not to make it sound like I was doubting her, or that I was suspicious in any way, although I felt a little of both.
“I liked Dan a lot, and we shared parts of our life over the years.” I could almost see her smiling sadly. “He rarely got angry, but I can still remember the look that used to come over his face when the subject of Robert Christian was raised. They were competing, in a way. Dan and Dr. Christian were both involved in evaluating allegations of child abuse, but each had a very different approach. I think Dan was a little less cautious than Dr. Christian, that’s all. He was inclined to believe the child from the start, on the grounds that his priority was the protection of children from harm. I admired that about him. He had a crusading impulse, and you don’t see that kind of devotion much anymore. Dr. Christian didn’t see his calling in the same way. Dan said Robert Christian was too skeptical, that he confused objectivity with distrust. Then there was some trouble. Dan gave an evaluation that turned out to be wrong, and a man died, but I guess you probably know about all that already. Afterward, I think, Dan was offered fewer evaluations, or maybe they stopped altogether.”
“Do you remember the name of the man who died?
“I think it was a German name. Muller, perhaps? Yes, I’m almost sure that was the name. I would imagine that the boy involved must be in his late teens by now. I can’t imagine what his life has been like, knowing that his allegations led to his father’s death.”
I wrote down the name Muller and drew a line connecting it to Dr. Robert Christian.
“Then, of course, the rumors started,” she said.
“The rumors of abuse?”
“That’s right.”
“Did he discuss them with you?”
“No, we weren’t really seeing much of each other by that time. After the death of Mr. Muller, Daniel became less sociable. Don’t get me wrong: he was never what you might call a party animal, but he would attend dinners, and sometimes he would come over here for a coffee or a glass of wine. That all stopped after the Muller incident. It did something to his confidence, and I can only imagine that the allegations of abuse shattered it entirely.”
“You didn’t believe them?”
“I saw how committed he was to his work. I could never believe the things some people said about Dan. It sounds like a cliché, but his problem was that he cared too much. He wanted to protect them all, but he couldn’t, in the end.”
I thanked her, and she told me to call her anytime. Before she hung up, she gave me some names of people to whom I might talk, but they were all on Rebecca’s list. Still, she was helpful, which was more than could be said for the next two people I called. One was a lawyer named Elwin Stark, who had acted for Clay as well as being his friend. I knew Stark to see around town. He was tall and unctuous, and favored the kind of dark striped suits beloved of old-style mobsters and upmarket antiques dealers. It was true to say that he wasn’t the pro bono kind when it came to legal matters, and he seemed to apply the same principle to telephone conversations for which he wasn’t being paid. It was Stark who had dealt with the paperwork surrounding the declaration of Clay’s death.
“He’s gone,” Stark told me, after his secretary had left me hanging in the ether for a good fifteen minutes, then advised me that Stark wouldn’t have time to see me in person but might, just might, have two minutes free during which he could squeeze in a brief word on the phone. “There’s nothing more to be said about it.”
“His daughter is having trouble with someone who disagrees. He doesn’t seem willing to accept that Clay is dead.”
“Well, his daughter has a piece of paper that says otherwise. What do you want me to tell you? I knew Daniel. I went fishing with him a couple of times a year. He was a good guy. A bit intense, maybe, but that came with the territory.”
“Did he ever speak about his work with you?”
“Nope. I’m a business lawyer. That kid shit depresses me.”
“Do you still act for Rebecca Clay?”
“I did that one thing as a favor for her. I didn’t expect to be chased up by a PI for doing it, so you can safely say that I won’t be doing her any more favors. Look, I know all about you, Parker. Even talking to you makes me uneasy. No good can come from a lengthy conversation with you, so I’m ending this one now.”
And he did.
The next conversation, with an M.D. named Philip Caussure, was even shorter. Caussure was Clay’s former physician. It seemed like Clay had a lot of relationships that blended the personal with the professional.
“I have nothing to say,” said Caussure. “Please don’t bother me again.”
Then he hung up too. It seemed like a sign. I made one more call, but this time it was to secure an appointment with Dr. Robert Christian.
The Midlake Center was a short drive from where I used to live, just off the Gorham Road. It stood in a tree-shrouded lot, and looked like any other anonymous office building. It could have housed a lawyer’s office or a realtor’s. Instead, it was a place for children who had suffered abuse or neglect, or who had made such allegations, or who were having those claims made on their behalf by others. Inside the main door was a waiting area painted in bright yellow and orange, with books for children of various ages lying on tables, and a play area in one corner, trucks and dolls and packets of Crayolas lying on its foam matting. There was also a rack of information leaflets on the wall, slightly higher than a small child could reach, containing contact details for the local Sexual Assault Response Team and various social services.
The secretary behind the desk took my name and made a call. A minute or two later, a small, spry man with white hair and a neatly trimmed beard appeared at the door connecting the reception area to the clinic. He was probably in his early fifties, and dressed in chinos and an open-collared shirt. His handshake was firm, but he seemed a little cautious. He led me to his office, which was furnished in yellow pine and dominated by shelves of books and reports. I thanked him for seeing me at such short notice, and he shrugged.
“Curiosity,” he said. “It’s a long time since anyone has mentioned Daniel Clay to me, at least outside this branch of the medical community.” He leaned forward in his chair. “Just so we’re clear, I’ll be straight with you if you’re straight with me. Clay and I disagreed on certain matters. I don’t think he cared much for me. I didn’t care much for him. Professionally, most people believed that his heart was in the right place, for what it’s worth, at least until the rumors began circulating, but that element needed to be balanced by objectivity, which I don’t think Daniel Clay had in sufficient quantities for his opinions to be taken seriously.”
“I heard that you’d clashed,” I said. “That’s why I’m here. His daughter hired me. Someone has been asking about her father. She’s worried.”
“So now you’re going back over the trail, trying to find out why someone should be concerned about him so many years after his disappearance?”
“Something like that.”
“Am I under suspicion?” He smiled.
“Should you be?”
“There were certainly times when I would cheerfully have strangled him. He had a way of getting under my skin, both personally and professionally.”
“Would you care to explain?”
“Well, I guess to understand him, and what happened prior to his disappearance, you need to know something about what we do here. We perform medical examinations and psychological evaluations in cases where there are allegations of abuse of children, whether that abuse is physical or sexual, emotional or t
he result of neglect. A call comes through to Central Intake in Augusta. It’s referred to a supervisor, screened, then a decision is made on whether or not to send out a social worker. Sometimes that call may have originated with local law enforcement, or Child Protection Services. It may have come from a school, a parent, a neighbor, even from the child in question. The child is then referred to us for evaluation. We’re the main provider for this service in the state. When Daniel Clay first started performing evaluations, we were still finding our feet a little. Hell, everyone was. Now, things are a little better organized. We can do everything in this one building: examination, evaluation, initial counseling, interviewing of the child and the alleged perpetrator. It can all be handled here.”
“And before the center opened?”
“The child might have been examined by a doctor, then sent elsewhere for an interview and evaluation.”
“Which is where Clay came in.”
“Yes, but, again, I don’t think Daniel Clay was careful enough. It’s a delicate business, what we do, and there are no easy answers. Everyone wants a definite yes or no—the prosecutors, the judges, obviously the people directly involved, like the parents or guardians—and they’re disappointed when we can’t always give it.”
“I’m not sure that I understand,” I said. “Isn’t that why you’re here?”
The Charlie Parker Collection 2 Page 59