“Interesting that he should have stayed so close to Gilead.” Caratunk was only about thirty miles south of Gilead.
“I don’t think he ever left the state again once he got here,” said Christian. “When I interviewed him, he described Gilead as a kind of Eden. He had all the usual arguments at his fingertips: that children had a greater sexual awareness than we gave them credit for; that other societies and cultures looked more favorably on the union of children and adults; that the relationships at Gilead were loving, reciprocal ones. I hear variations on those themes all the time. With Dubus, though, I got the sense that he knew they were all a smoke screen. He understands what he is, and he enjoys it. There was never any hope that he might be rehabilitated. Now we just try to keep him under control, and use him to discover more about the nature of men like him. In that sense, he’s been useful to us.”
“And the dead babies?”
“He blamed the women for that, although he wouldn’t name any names.”
“Did you believe him?”
“Not for a moment. He was the dominant male figure in the community. If he didn’t himself wield the weapon that killed those children, then he gave the order for their killing. But as I’ve said, those were different times, and you don’t have to go very far back to find similar tales of the children of adulterous or incestuous relationships who conveniently die.
“Nevertheless, Dubus was still lucky to escape with his life when the people over in Jackman discovered what had been going on there. They might have had their suspicions, but when the bodies of the children were found, well, that changed everything. A lot of the buildings in the settlement were put to ruin. Only a couple were left standing, along with the shell of a half-completed church. Even those might be gone by now. I couldn’t say. I haven’t been up there in a long time, not since I was a student.”
There was a knock on his office door. The receptionist entered with a sheaf of messages and a cup of coffee for Christian.
“How would I get to talk to Mason Dubus?” I asked.
Christian took a huge draft of his coffee as he stood, his mind already moving on to other, more pressing matters, like bullish senators who valued votes over results.
“I can make a call to his probation officer,” he said, as he showed me out. “There shouldn’t be any problem with arranging a visit.”
When I got outside, the police car was gone. So too was the Nissan, but I saw it minutes later as I drove back to Scarborough. It was parked outside a doughnut shop, and through the window I thought I could see the children eating pink-and-yellow pastries from a box. The woman’s back was to me. Her shoulders were hunched, and I thought she might have been crying.
I had one more house call to make that day. I had been thinking about the tattoo that Andy Kellog had mentioned, and of Joe Long’s view that it might indicate someone who had served in the military, perhaps in an airborne division. I knew from experience that it was hard to track down that kind of information. The bulk of files pertaining to service records were kept at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, but even if I did have a way to gain access to its database, which would be difficult to begin with, the access would be useless without some clue as to the possible identity of the man in question. If I had some suspicions, then it was possible that I could find someone to pull the 201 file, but it would mean calling in favors from outside, and I wasn’t ready to do that yet. The Veterans Administration was also tight with information, and there weren’t many people willing to risk a federal job with a pension by slipping files under the table to an investigator.
Ronald Straydeer was a Penobscot Indian from Oldtown who had served with the K-9 Corps during the Vietnam War. He lived out by Scarborough Downs, beside a bullet-shaped trailer that had once been home to a man named Billy Purdue but now served as a halfway house for the assorted drifters, ne’er-do-wells, and former comrades in arms who found their way to Ronald’s door. He had been invalided out of the service, injured in the chest and left arm by an exploding tire on the day he left Nam. I was never sure what had hurt him more: the injuries he received, or the fact that he had been forced to leave his German shepherd, Elsa, behind as “surplus equipment.” He was convinced that the Vietnamese had eaten Elsa. I think he hated that about them more than the fact that they kept shooting at him when he was in uniform.
I knew that Ronald had a contact, a National Service officer named Tom Hyland who worked with the Disabled American Veterans, and who had helped Ronald to file his claim for benefits through the Veterans Administration. Hyland had handled power of attorney for Ronald when he was trying to maneuver his way through the system, and Ronald always spoke highly of him. I had met him once, when he and Ronald were catching up over chowder at the Lobster Shack by Two Lights State Park. Ronald had introduced him to me as an “honorable man,” the highest praise that I had ever heard him accord to another human being.
In his capacity as NSO, Hyland would have access to the records of any veteran who had ever filed for benefits through the VA, including those who might have served with an airborne unit and who had enlisted from an address in the state of Maine, or who were claiming benefits here. In turn, the DAV worked with other service groups like the Vietnam Veterans of America, the American Legion, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. If I could convince Ronald to tap Hyland, and Hyland in turn was willing to do me a good turn, then I might be able to come up with a potential shortlist.
It was almost dark when I got to Ronald’s place, and the front door was open. Ronald was sitting in his living room in front of the TV, surrounded by cans of beer, some full but most empty. There was a DVD of Hendrix in concert playing on the TV, the sound turned down very low. On the couch across from him sat a man who looked younger than Ronald, but infinitely more worn. For his age, Ronald Straydeer was in good condition, with only a hint of gray to his short dark hair, and a frame that had held off the onset of late-middle-age spread through hard physical labor. He was a big man, but his friend was bigger still, his hair hanging down in curls of yellow and brown, his face grizzled with a three-day growth. He was also fried to the gills, and the smell of pot in the air made my head swim. Ronald seemed to be a little more together, but it was only a matter of time before he succumbed to the fumes.
“Man,” said his buddy, “lucky you weren’t the cops.”
“Helps if you lock the door,” I said, “or even just close it. Makes it harder for them to enter.”
Ronald’s friend nodded sagely. “That is so right,” he said. “Soooo right.”
“This is my friend Stewart,” said Ronald. “I served with his father. Stewart here fought in the Gulf first time around. We were talking about old times.”
“Fuckin’ A,” said Stewart. He raised his beer. “Here’s to old times.”
Ronald offered me a beer, but I declined. He popped the tab on another Silver Bullet and almost drained it before letting it part from his lips.
“What can I do for you?” he asked.
“I’m looking for someone,” I said. “He might have been in the service. He’s got a tattoo of an eagle on his right arm, and a taste for children. I thought that if it didn’t ring any bells for you, you might be able to ask around, or put in a word with your NSO friend, Hyland. This guy is bad news, Ronald. I wouldn’t be asking otherwise.”
Ronald considered the question. Stewart’s eyes narrowed as he tried to concentrate on what was being said.
“A man who likes children wouldn’t go around advertising it,” said Ronald. “I don’t recall hearing about anyone who might have those tendencies. The eagle tattoo could narrow it down some. How do you know about it?”
“One of the children saw it on his arm. The man was masked. It’s the only clue I have to his identity.”
“Did the kid get a look at the years?”
“Years?”
“Years of service. If he served, even if he just cleaned out latrines, he’d have added his years.”
>
I didn’t recall Andy Kellog mentioning any numbers tattooed beneath the eagle. I made a note to ask Aimee Price to check it with him.
“And if there are no years?”
“Then he probably didn’t serve,” said Ronald simply. “The tattoo’s just for show.”
“Will you ask around anyway?”
“I’ll do that. Tom might know something. He’s pretty straight but, you know, if there are kids involved . . .”
By now, Stewart had stood and was browsing Ronald’s shelves, bopping gently to the barely heard sound of Hendrix, a fresh joint clasped between his lips. He found a photograph and turned to address Ronald. It was a picture of Ronald in uniform squatting beside Elsa.
“Hey, Ron, man, was this your dog?” asked Stewart.
Ronald didn’t even have to turn around to know what Stewart had found.
“Yes,” he said. “That’s Elsa.”
“Nice dog. It’s a damn shame what happened to her.” He waved the photograph at me. “You know, they ate his dog, man. They ate his dog.”
“I heard,” I said.
“I mean,” he continued, “what kind of fucking people eat a man’s dog?” A tear appeared in his eye and rolled down his cheek. “It’s all just one big damned shame.”
And it was.
20
Merrick had told the police that he was mostly sleeping in his car, but they didn’t believe him, and I didn’t either. That was why Angel had been detailed to follow him when he was released from jail. According to Angel, Merrick had picked up a cab at the rank beside the bus station, then had checked into a motel out by the Maine Mall before closing his drapes and, apparently, going to sleep. There was no sign of his red car at the motel, though, and when, after six hours, Merrick had still not made an appearance, Angel had taken it upon himself to find out what was going on. He had bought a takeout pizza, carried it into the motel, and knocked on the door of Merrick’s room. When there was no reply, he broke into the room, only to find Merrick gone. There was a police cruiser at the motel too, probably dispatched for the same reason Angel had been, but the cop had enjoyed no more luck than Angel.
“He knew that someone might put a tail on him,” Angel said, as he and Louis sat in my kitchen, Walter, now returned once more from the care of the Johnsons, sniffing at Angel’s feet and chewing on the ends of his laces. “There must have been three or four different ways out of the place. That was probably why he chose it.”
I wasn’t too surprised. Wherever Merrick had been holed up prior to his arrest, it wasn’t at a shoppers’ motel. I called Matt Mayberry to see if he had turned up anything useful.
“I’ve been kind of busy, otherwise I’d have called you myself,” Matt said when I eventually got through to him. He told me that he had concentrated his initial search on tax assessors’ offices in the city of Portland and its immediate vicinity, before expanding it to a sixty-mile radius. “I’ve found two so far. One is in Saco, but it’s still tied up in litigation after nearly four years. Apparently, the city published a pending sale notice for its tax liens on some middle-aged man’s property while he was receiving treatment for cancer, then without notice allegedly prematurely conducted a sealed-bid sale. Get this, though: when he refused to leave the property upon his release from the hospital they sent in a SWAT team to remove him forcibly. The man didn’t even have hair! The hell is up with you people in Maine? The whole business is making its way through Superior Court at the moment, but it’s moving at the pace of an arthritic tortoise. I’ve got copies of pretrial memoranda if you want to see them but they won’t tell you much.”
“How is Eldritch involved in it?”
“He’s the owner of record, as trustee. I ran a couple of additional searches on him, though, and I’ve found his name attached to various property sales as far west as California, but they’re all old references and when I followed them up title had passed on again. The Maine sales are the most recent by a long shot, and, well, they don’t follow the pattern of the others.”
“In what way?”
“Well, I couldn’t swear to this, but it looks like at least part of Eldritch’s business lies, or lay, in sourcing properties for individuals or companies who didn’t want their names attached as owners. But, like I told you, most of the references I can find are prehistoric, which leads me to guess that Eldritch has since moved on to other things, or he’s just not doing it as much, or he’s simply learned to hide his tracks better. Some of these properties have a paper trail after them like you wouldn’t believe, which could be a way of disguising the fact that, despite a blizzard of additional sales and transfers, de facto ownership of the premises in question remained the same. That’s just a suspicion, though, and it would take a whole team of experts with a lot of time on their hands to prove it.
“The Saco sale looks like an error of judgment. Maybe Eldritch was instructed to find a property for a client, this one looked like a steal, then it all went to hell in a handcart because the city mishandled the whole business. It was probably just crossed wires, but the result was that Eldritch got caught up in the kind of legal quagmire that he seems to have spent so much time and effort trying to avoid.
“Which brings us to the second property, purchased within weeks of black flags rising over the Saco sale. It’s near some place called Welchville. You ever hear of it?”
“Vaguely. I think it’s somewhere between Mechanic Falls and Oxford.”
“Whatever. I couldn’t even find it on a regular map.”
“It’s not the kind of place that people put on regular maps. There’s not a whole lot there. Hell, there’s not a whole lot in Mechanic Falls, and Welchville makes it look like a metropolis.”
“Well, remind me to search someplace else for my retirement home. Anyhow, I found it eventually. The property is on Sevenoaks Road, close by Willow Brook. Doesn’t look like there’s much else nearby, which fits with what you just told me, so it shouldn’t be hard to find. Number eleven-eighty. Don’t know what happened to numbers one to eleven-seventy nine, but I guess they’re out there somewhere. Those two properties are it for Maine so far. If you want me to widen the search it’s going to take more time than I have, so I’ll have to pass it on to someone else and he may not work for free like I do.”
I told Matt I’d let him know, but the Welchville property sounded like a good place to start. Welchville was close enough to Portland to make the city and its surrounds easily accessible, and far enough away to offer privacy, even a bolt-hole if necessary. People in places like Welchville and Mechanic Falls didn’t go sticking their noses into other folk’s business, not unless someone gave them a reason to do it.
The daylight was gone, but that suited us. It seemed wiser to approach the Welchville house under cover of night. If Merrick was there, then there was some chance that he might not see us coming. But I was also interested in the timing of Eldritch’s purchase of the house. Merrick had been in jail when the house was bought, and was a long way from his eventual release, which meant either that Eldritch was planning very far ahead or the house was purchased for another purpose entirely. According to Matt, Eldritch was still the owner of record, but I couldn’t see him spending much time in Welchville, which posed the question: who had been using the house for the last four years?
We took the Mustang, heading away from the coast, skirting Auburn and Lewiston until we left the bigger towns behind and entered rural Maine, even though it was within close reach of the state’s largest city. Portland might have begun to sprawl, swallowing up smaller communities and threatening the identity of others, but out here the city could have been hundreds of miles away. It was another world of narrow roads and scattered houses, of small towns with empty streets, the quiet disturbed only by the rumble of passing trucks and the occasional car, and even they grew less and less frequent as we traveled farther west. Occasionally, a line of streetlights would appear, illuminating a stretch of road that was seemingly identical to all the rest yet, so
mehow, merited an individual touch courtesy of the county.
“Why?” asked Angel.
“Why what?” I said.
“Why would anyone live out here?”
We had barely left 495, and already he was feeling anxious for city lights. He was sitting in the backseat, his arms folded like a sulky child.
“Not everyone wants to live in a city.”
“I do.”
“Equally, not everyone wants to live close to people like you.”
Route 121 wound its lazy way through Minot and Hackett Mills, then Mechanic Falls itself, before intersecting with 26. There was less than a mile to go. Beside me, Louis removed a Glock from the folds of his coat. From behind, I heard the telltale sound of a round being chambered. If there was someone living on Sevenoaks Road, whether Merrick or an unknown other, we didn’t expect him to be pleased to see us.
The house lay some way back from the road so that it remained invisible until we had almost passed it. I caught sight of it in the rearview: a simple, single-story dwelling, with a central door and two windows at either side of it. It was neither excessively run-down nor unusually well kept. It was simply . . . there.
We drove on for a time, following the upward slope of the road until I was certain that the sound of the engine would have faded from the hearing of anyone in the house. We stopped and waited. No other cars passed us on the road. Finally, I made a U-turn and allowed the car to coast back down the hill, then braked while the house was still out of sight. I pulled in to the side of the road, and we covered the rest of the distance on foot.
The Charlie Parker Collection 2 Page 75