I must have flinched.
“Too much information, I know. But we were really talking. Like we used to. Like nobody else understands us like we understand each other. But now it’s like he’s lost in his own head.”
“Sometimes he just finds it hard to be happy,” I said. “He feels guilty. After all he’s seen—the wars, the people who didn’t make it.”
“Survivor’s guilt?” Marta said. “Shouldn’t I be the one feeling like that?”
I looked at her.
“Should you?”
“Maybe not,” Marta said. “The survivor part, yes. The guilt? Not as much. I went through my own sort of hell with Nigel.”
“Okay,” I said. “But you weren’t in a war. A really horrible, pointless war.”
“They’re all pointless,” she said. “Nigel fought in the Falklands. I mean, really. You want to talk about pointless. But Louis, I say, ‘Babe, you okay?’ A couple of times he looked at me like he forgot I was even there.”
“Louis has some very deep and dark places where he goes sometimes,” I said. “When we first met, I was in Sanctuary for a story and he was pretty spooky. People in town were afraid of him.”
Marta frowned, said, “But I’m here for him now. I mean, I’m here forever if he wants me to be.”
“Are you?”
There was a rustle in the grass by the truck and Marta said, “What’s that?”
I looked out at the dimly lit road, waited. It crossed the road fifty feet in front of the truck.
“A fox,” I said.
“Christ. Snakes aren’t looking so bad.”
We sat some more, Marta waiting me out.
“I think you’re hazardous,” I said.
“Me?”
“The people around you. The people who might be following you.”
“They won’t,” Marta said.
“What if they do?”
“You guys can handle it.”
“What if we don’t want to handle it. I have a seven-year-old and a wife. They don’t carry guns.”
“You do.”
“But I don’t like it.”
“Clair does,” she said.
“He’s different.”
“Louis does.”
“He’s different in the same way,” I said.
There was a pause in the conversation. Then Marta, facing the windshield, said, “What’s your real problem with me?”
I looked out at the road, which was deserted, for now. Considered how candid to be with her. But if Louis was pulling away . . .
“I don’t trust you,” I said. “I can’t help it. I don’t believe your story about the money or the robbery.”
“It was in the news,” Marta said.
I shook my head. “Story was full of holes. And I talk to people for a living. I figure your story is about sixty percent true.”
“Which part do you think isn’t?” Marta said.
“An important part. I think somebody’s hunting for you and that money.”
“What you don’t get, Jack, is that for some people, that’s not much money at all.”
“My guess is that for these people, it’s not the amount. It’s the principle.”
She suddenly smiled, patted my arm.
“I understand. But Louis said you and Clair have his back. If I stay here, I just need for you to have mine, too. Me and Louis, we’re a package.”
I didn’t answer, and after a moment she reached for the key, started the motor. Digital screens came alive across the dash, bathing us in a green alien glow. I popped the door, slipped out into the road. Without looking at me, Marta put the car in gear and it moved away slowly, the exhaust emitting a barely audible throb, the red lights receding.
Half the package had spoken.
We were sitting on the couch, a Chardonnay and a Ballantine ale on our respective laps. Roxanne’s bare feet were tucked under my legs for warmth, her brown eyes glittering in the candlelight like onyx.
“At least this guy with the comic books, it’s obvious,” I said. “He’s sick. She’s dangerous.”
“As opposed to a guy who cuts people’s heads open with a hatchet?”
“Yeah. Arriving here totally out of nowhere, running away from some heinous crime. Dragging around all this money, stolen at least once.”
We both drank.
“I think Louis feels responsible for her,” Roxanne said. “Him leaving for the war is part of the reason she ended up where she did. And the abuse from this guy.”
“I don’t know. I just think if she was trying to pick my brain about how Louis ticks, it was for her sake, not his.”
We sat. She took another sip of wine and watched the woodstove. A log collapsed into a mound of fiery coals. The heated metal ticked.
“There was something more,” Roxanne said. “You away tomorrow?”
“Yeah. MDI and Ledge Harbor. I’ve got to nail this story down before somebody else gets it.”
Roxanne watched as I got up, opened the stove door, slipped another log in.
“I know you hate guns,” I said. “But these guys, Russians or whatever—you’d hate them more.”
She looked at me.
“The Mossberg pump is in the safe, in the closet. There are two handguns. The Glock nine-millimeter and that old twenty-two long-barrel. That’s the one with the hard trigger pull. It’s in the back of the mudroom cabinet, up high.”
Roxanne hesitated, finally said, “Okay.”
“All that money. She’s got to be hiding out. Waiting for things to cool down. But these guys, they have long memories.”
“Or it’s like this,” she said. “In this horrible way, Marta escapes a very bad abusive relationship. Then she reunites with Louis, her one true love. The money is like her divorce settlement. And besides, why leave it behind for murderers? Maybe this new life for Marta is the only good thing to come of all of it.”
I took it all in.
“Maybe,” I said, “and maybe not. I’ll put a full clip in the twenty-two.”
Sophie called out and Roxanne went up. I could hear the water running, Roxanne pouring a glass of water. It was a stall for Sophie, an attempt to put off the inevitable of sleep.
It reminded me of Marta’s behavior in the car. A distraction to put me off. I had this sudden flash of a female bird dragging its wing as it scurried away, luring me away from its nest. Killdeers did it. Plovers. What did they call it? Injury-feigning display.
What was Marta afraid of? That I’d persuade Louis she was a phony? Convince him to tell her to hit the road? Where would she go with her car full of cash?
I went to the study, flipped the laptop open, and searched for a few folders. I found an old list of contacts, scrolled through it to find K.D. Carlisle Looked at my watch. It was 7:40. At the Times the afternoon news meeting was long over, editors and reporters dug in.
I called.
“Foreign,” a woman answered. “Carlisle.”
“McMorrow,” I said.
“Jack,” she said. “Good to hear your voice. Like old times. You pushing the envelope, me reining you in.”
“Now I’m Vanessa’s cross to bear.”
“I count her gray hairs.”
“She’ll miss me when I’m gone,” I said.
“I miss you now. Everyone’s so damn professional.”
“Life’s too short, Carlisle. Stir things up a little.”
“We do. We just don’t get a shot at doing it.”
“Maybe I can change that for you. Who do you have in London?”
“Three reporters who were in grade school when you were on Metro,” Carlisle said.
I told her about Nigel Dean. His untimely death. The dearth of information online.
“What do you care about BVI?” Carli
sle said.
“I don’t,” I said. “I just care about my buddy, whose old girlfriend was shacked up with Dean, survived the home invasion, and arrived here with a trunk load of cash.”
“Inside job, got her payoff?”
“Or maybe she just got lucky.”
“I don’t believe in luck, and you don’t either,” Carlisle said. “This one reporter, Janie Brockway, she’s got good sources at Scotland Yard.”
“Listen to you, Mrs. Bond,” I said. “I never got north of Washington Heights.”
“Heights is all gentrified now,” Carlisle said. “Mott Haven, Hunts Point—you might still feel at home there.”
“No, I feel at home here, actually.”
“And still cranking out the crime. I remember what Jim Dwyer said about you. Send McMorrow for coffee, he comes back with three good stories and five guys who want to kick his ass.”
“It’s a gift,” I said. “You have Brockway’s email?”
“On its way, McMorrow. Tell her I sent you.”
There was a murmur as she covered the phone.
“Sorry,” Carlisle said. “What are you working on for us?”
I told her.
“The woman’s dead?”
“At the scene.”
“Jeez,” Carlisle said. “I remember something you said to me once. You were doing that story on the woman who was walking naked through Central Park because she was Eve and there were no clothes in the Garden of Eden. Before the cops came, you walked with her for about a mile, had a chat. You got back, you said, ‘Crazy people make perfect sense. They just use a different starting point.’ ”
“I’m going to the jail tomorrow, try to see him.”
“Think he’ll be lucid?” Carlisle said.
I pictured Teak, the hatchet, the blood.
“I don’t know,” I said. “In his own way he seems to think he’s making perfect sense, too.”
“The dark angel,” she said. “These stories always have an evil sibling banished to the dark side.”
Siblings? Almost two days in, I had no idea. First stop, before the jail, Down East.
Carlisle said she had to go, then jumped back in. “Another thing you said, McMorrow. ‘Dig deep enough, nothing is random.’ ”
“Cocky little pontificator, wasn’t I.”
“I used to write them down,” Carlisle said.
“Slow days in the newsroom, no doubt,” I said, and we parted. The phone was still in my hand when it buzzed.
“Mr. McMorrow.”
It took me a second.
“Barrett.”
“You’ve got to get down here. The bastards—they wrecked my mother’s apartment.”
19
k
I was outside of the building in an hour. There were a couple of marked cruisers out front, a police Malibu double-parked. I parked Roxanne’s Subaru up the block on the bridge, walked back. The door to the foyer was locked, so I texted Barrett. He came down and let me in.
“It’s sick,” Barrett said. “Who would do this?”
We got in the elevator.
“They trashed it. Pissed on the family photos. That’s why I came by after school. I’m starting to plan the funeral, the photos for the display. The frames are smashed, the photos all torn up. They smashed the glasses and plates. Poured everything from the refrigerator out on the bed.”
“God,” I said.
“I know,” Barrett said, his voice cracking. “I mean, how low can you go?”
We were out of the elevator, walking down the corridor. I could hear voices, saw a photo flash at the end of the hallway.
“Hear about a murder victim on TV and break into their apartment? I mean, really. There’s a special place in hell.”
“Despicable. Did they steal anything?”
“Hard to say, but her jewelry at least. My mom used to buy herself stuff, when they started making money. Rod wasn’t gonna buy her anything.”
“It’s all gone?”
“The whole box. It was in the bottom drawer of the dresser.”
“You told the police?”
“Yeah. The cop, Hernandez, said they’d keep an eye out at pawnshops.”
“Did your mom have any photos of her jewelry?” I said.
“I don’t know.”
We paused at the door, stepped inside.
Tingley looked up.
“Jesus, look what the cat dragged in.”
“I called him,” Barrett said. “I wanted him to see this. Let the world know what scum there is in Riverport, Maine.”
I followed him into the room, stepping over broken glass and scattered books. I stood next to Tingley as he watched an evidence tech dust the slider.
“That’s how they got in?”
“Off the record?”
“Why?”
“There’s some specifics we don’t want released.”
“Like what?” I said.
“Nope,” Tingley said.
“I can just ask Barrett. He’ll tell me. Or I can make it seem like you’re in charge.”
He looked away, shook his head in disgust.
“Okay,” Tingley said. “Climbed up on the veranda and broke the slider.”
“Nobody heard anything?”
“They lathered up a towel with grease. I’d like to keep that out. You know, grease, like for a car. They pressed the towel to the glass and hit it with a rubber mallet.”
“So they thought this out.”
“It’s sick. I mean, I’m not a violent person, but if I got ahold of these punks, I’d beat the shit out of them. Can you believe this mess?”
I could, because I was looking at it. There were newspapers and magazines strewn on the floor. Papers scattered and trampled, yellow with urine stains.
“Footprints, huh?” I said.
“I’m requesting you leave that out,” Tingley said. “We don’t want them to read that and toss their shoes.”
I nodded, looked down at the stuff, saw the logo of the shelter, the bread and the fish.
“This is the stuff from the shelter?”
“And everything else,” Barrett said. “The kitchen drawers. The lady’s underwear, the eggs from the refrigerator. Ketchup and mustard and pickles. And the stuff from the shelter. It was on the dining room table. They . . . I don’t know how to say this, but one of them defecated on my mom’s couch and used the papers from the shelter to, you know, wipe.”
“Yuck,” I said, looking at the couch, the ripped upholstery, the smear of brown on the pale gray fabric.
“She loved that couch. I helped her pick it out. We went all over the city.”
I turned to Tingley.
“I’ve heard of people hitting the houses of deceased people during funerals. I hadn’t heard of it specifically for homicide victims.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Talk about kicking somebody when they’re down. Pretty ballsy, too, considering it’s connected to a murder investigation and police, they’re gonna be paying extra attention. It’s like rubbing your nose in it.”
“Jewelry worth a lot?”
“I don’t know,” Barrett said. “Under ten thousand? That’s including the stuff that was passed down to my mom by her mom.”
“We’d prefer that not be given out to the public. These scrotes might pawn it for a hundred bucks.”
“Or sell it to be melted down,” I said. “Spent a long time in here.”
“Middle of the day, most people at work,” Tingley said. “Had the place to themselves.”
“Still, adds to the risk.”
“Yup.”
“For what?”
“Get their jollies,” he said. “I figure it for kids. Addicts aren’t gonna hang around to trash the place. They’d be acros
s town in twenty minutes turning the jewelry into cash, jamming shit into their arms.”
“Shitting on the couch?”
“I know. Pretty twisted.”
“Why would anybody do that?” I said.
Tingley eyed the wreckage, shook his head. “Off the record, why would anybody hurt the lady in the first place?”
“There’s an explanation for that,” I said. “Teak’s sick. But this?”
“Some people are crazy. Some people are assholes,” he said. “What can I say?”
He looked at me.
“I know. That’s not for the paper.”
I stood and viewed the carnage, and when Tingley’s back was turned, slipped my phone out and shot a few photos. I was putting the phone away when another guy walked in, and he and Barrett embraced.
The new guy said, “I’m sorry.”
They separated and Barrett turned to me and said, “This is Jack McMorrow. From the New York Times.”
“Travis Chenard,” the man said. “Barrett’s husband.”
We shook hands. He was a big guy, sandy-haired, ruddy cheeks, like an Aussie footballer. They were a very handsome couple.
“Good to meet you,” I said. “Unfortunate circumstances.”
“It’s totally unfair. Lindy never hurt a fly. And then it’s like the whole world turned against her. I mean, pick on somebody else, you know? One time, that’s just crazy, but stuff happens. But twice?”
He was right. This was cosmic overkill. If the first attack was madness, this was over the top. Made to seem senseless. Reckless. So much so that there had to be a reason for it, beyond picking on a murder victim. The murder itself was twisted. This was over the top.
I looked around once more. Cash, unaccounted for? The jewelry? Maybe it belonged to her ex’s family, and Rod wanted it back. Maybe there was something in here he wanted back more than Aunt Beulah’s pearls. Maybe there was something here that he’d lifted out of a house, working for the wealthy MDI set? Something that gave Lindy leverage in the divorce negotiations.
Barrett was walking toward the door, shaking a garbage bag open. I touched his arm, nodded toward the hallway. He followed.
“A question. Could there have been something in here that Rod really wanted? And he had to cover that up by wrecking the place?”
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