The Charlie Parker Collection 1

by John Connolly

  ‘Can’t let you go beyond here,’ he said apologetically. ‘Some of the victims are still down there, and we’re searching for other artifacts.’

  I nodded. I didn’t need to go inside. I could see all that I needed to see from where I stood. The scene had already been photographed and measured. Above holes in the mud, pieces of card had been attached to wooden spikes, detailing the nature of the remains discovered. In some cases the holes were empty, but in one corner I saw two men in blue coveralls work carefully around a piece of exposed bone. When one of them moved away, I saw the curved reach of a rib cage, like dark fingers about to clasp in prayer.

  ‘Did they all have their names around their necks?’

  The details of the names written on the wooden boards had appeared in a report in the Maine Sunday Telegram. Given the nature of the discovery, it was a wonder that the investigators had managed to keep anything at all under wraps.

  ‘Most of them. Some of the wood had rotted pretty bad, though.’ Brouchard reached into his shirt pocket and produced a piece of folded paper, which he handed to me. Typed on the page were seventeen names, presumably obtained by checking the original identities of the Baptists against the names discovered on the bodies. DNA samples were to be taken from surviving relatives, where dental records were not available. Stars beside some names indicated those for whom no positive identification had yet been made. James Jessop’s name was the next to last on the list.

  ‘Is the Jessop boy’s body still down there?’

  Brouchard looked at the list in my hand. ‘They’re taking him away today, him and his sister. He mean anything to you?’

  I didn’t reply. Another name on the page had caught my eye: Louise Faulkner, the Reverend Faulkner’s wife. Faulkner’s name, I noticed, was not on the list. Neither were those of his children.

  ‘Any idea yet how they died?’

  ‘Won’t know for certain until the autopsies are done, but all of the men and two of the women had gunshot wounds to the head or body. The others seem to have been clubbed. The Faulkner woman was probably strangled; we found additional fragments of cord around her neck. Some of the children have shattered skulls, like they were hit with a rock, or maybe a hammer. A couple have what look like gunshot wounds to the head.’ He stopped talking and looked away toward the lake. ‘I guess you know something about these people.’

  ‘A little,’ I admitted. ‘Judging by the names on this list, you have at least one suspect.’

  Brouchard nodded. ‘The preacher, Faulkner, unless somebody planted those boards to throw us off the trail and Faulkner is lying there dead with the rest of them.’

  It was a possibility, although I knew that the existence of the Apocalypse bought by Jack Mercier made it unlikely.

  ‘He killed his own wife,’ I said, more to myself than to Brouchard.

  ‘You got any idea why?’

  ‘Maybe because she objected to what he was going to do.’ The article Grace Peltier had written for Down East magazine had mentioned that Faulkner was a fundamentalist. Under fundamentalist doctrine, a wife has to submit to the authority of her husband. Argument or defiance was not permitted. I guessed also that Faulkner probably needed her admiration and her validation for all that he did. When that was withdrawn, she ceased to have any value for him.

  Brouchard was looking at me with interest now. ‘You think you know why he killed them all?’

  I thought of what Amy had told me of the Fellowship, its hatred for what it perceived as human weakness and fallibility; of Faulkner’s ornate Apocalypses, visions of the final judgment; and of the word hacked beneath James Jessop’s name on a length of dirt-encrusted wood. Sinner.

  ‘It’s just a guess, but I think they disappointed him in some way, or turned on him, so he punished them for their failings. As soon as they stood up to him they were finished, cursed for rebelling against God’s anointed one.’

  ‘That’s a pretty harsh punishment.’

  ‘I guess he was a pretty harsh kind of guy.’

  I also wondered if, in some dark place inside him, Faulkner had always known that they would fail him. That was what human beings did: they tried and failed and failed again, and they kept failing until either they got it right at last or time ran out and they had to settle for what they had. But for Faulkner, there was only one chance: when they failed it proved their worthlessness, the impossibility of their salvation. They were damned. They had always been damned, and what happened to them was of no consequence in this world or the next.

  These people had followed Faulkner to their deaths, blinded by their hopes for a new golden age, a desire for conviction, for something to believe in. Nobody had intervened. After all, this was 1963; communists were the threat, not God-fearing people who wanted to create a simpler life for themselves. Fifteen years would pass until Jim Jones and his disciples blew Congressman Leo Ryan’s face off before organizing the mass suicide of 900 followers, after which people would begin to take a different view.

  But even after Jonestown, false messiahs continued to draw adherents to them. Rock Theriault systematically tortured his followers in Ontario before tearing apart a woman named Solange Boilard with his bare hands in 1988. Jeffrey Lundgren, the leader of a breakaway Mormon sect, killed five members of the Avery family – Dennis and Cheryl Avery, and their young daughters Trina, Rebecca and Karen – in a barn in Kirtland, Ohio in April 1989 and buried their remains under earth, rocks and garbage. Nobody came looking for them until almost one year later, following a tip-off to police from a disgruntled cult member. The LeBaron family and their disciples in the breakaway Mormon Church of the Firstborn murdered almost thirty people, including an eighteen-month-old girl, in a cycle of violence which lasted from the early seventies until 1991.

  And then there was Waco, which demonstrated why law enforcement agencies have traditionally been reluctant to intervene in the affairs of religious groups. But in 1963, such incidents were almost beyond imagining; there would have been no reason to fear for the safety of the Aroostook Baptists, no need to doubt the intentions of the Reverend Faulkner, and no cause for his disciples to fear to walk with him in the valley of the shadow of death.

  The ME’s Dodge arrived while we stood silently by the lakeshore, and preparations began for the transportation of more bodies to the airfield at Presque Isle. Brouchard was tied up with the details of the removal, so I walked to the edge of the trees and watched the figures move beneath the canvas. It was approaching three o’clock and it was cool by the river. The wind blowing off the water tossed the hair of the ME’s men as they carried a body bag from the scene, strapped onto a stretcher to prevent any further damage to the bones. From the north, the hybrids sang.

  Not all of them had died here, of that I was certain. This land wasn’t even part of the parcel originally leased to them. The fields they had worked were over the rise, behind the kennels; and the houses, now long gone, were farther back still. The adults would have been killed at or near the settlement; it would have been difficult to get them to come to the place intended for their burial, harder still to control them once the slaughter started. It made sense to bury them away from the center of the community in case, at some future date, suspicion mutated into action and a search of the property took place. Safer, then, to dispose of them by the lake.

  According to Grace’s article, the community had apparently dispersed in December 1963. The evidence of the burial would have been masked by the winter snows. By the time the thaws came and the ground turned to mud, there would be little to distinguish this patch of land from any other. It was solid ground; it should not have collapsed, but it did.

  After all, they had been waiting for a long, long time.

  I closed my eyes and listened as the world faded around me, trying to imagine what it must have been like in those final minutes. The howling became muted, the noise of the cars on the road beyond transformed itself into the buzzing of flies, and amid the gentle brushing of the branches above my
head . . .

  I hear gunshots.

  There are men running, caught as they work in the fields. Two have already fallen, bloody holes gaping ragged in their backs. One of those still alive turns, a pitchfork clutched in his hands. Its center disintegrates as the shot tears through it, wood and metal entering his body simultaneously. They pursue the last one through the grass, reloading as they go. Above them, a murder of crows circles, calling loudly. The cries of the last man to die mingle with them, and then all is quiet.

  I heard a sound in the trees behind me, but when I looked there were only branches moving slightly, as if disturbed by the passage of some animal. Beyond, the green faded to black and the shapes of the trees became indistinct.

  The women are the next to die. They have been told to kneel and pray in one of the houses, to think upon the sins of the community. They hear the gunshots but do not understand their significance. The door opens and Elizabeth Jessop turns. A man is silhouetted against the evening light. He tells her to look away, to bow to the cross and beg for forgiveness.

  Elizabeth closes her eyes and begins to pray.

  Behind me the noise came again, like gentle footfalls slowly growing closer. Something was emerging from the darkness, but I did not turn.

  The children are the last to die. They sense that something is wrong, that something has happened that should not have occurred, yet they have followed the Preacher down to the lake, where the grave is already dug and the waters are still before them. They are obedient, as little ones should always be.

  They too kneel down to pray, the mud wet beneath their knees, the wooden boards heavy around their necks, the ropes burning against their skin. They have been told to hold their hands against their breasts, the thumbs crossed as they have been taught, but James Jessop reaches out and takes his sister’s hand in his own. Beside him, she starts to cry and he grips her hand tighter.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ he says.

  A shadow falls over him.

  ‘Don’t—’

  I felt a coldness in my right hand. James Jessop was standing beside me in the shade of a yellow birch tree, his small hand curled around mine. Sunlight reflected from the single clear lens of his glasses. From the covered area below, two figures emerged carrying another small bundle on a stretcher.

  ‘They’re going to take you away from here, James,’ I said.

  He nodded and moved closer to me, the presence of him chilling my leg and ribs.

  ‘It didn’t hurt none,’ he said. ‘Everything just went dark.’

  I was glad that he didn’t feel any pain. I tried to press his hand, to give him some sign, but there was nothing there, only cold air.

  He looked up at me. ‘I have to leave now.’

  ‘I know.’

  His single eye was brown, flashes of yellow at its center eclipsed by the dark moon of his pupil. I should have seen my face reflected in his eye and in the lens of his eyeglasses, but I could detect no trace of myself. It was as if I were the unreal one, the phantasm, and James Jessop who was flesh and blood, skin and bone.

  ‘He said we were bad, but I was never bad. I always did what I was told, right up to the end.’

  The chill faded from my fingers as he released my hand and began to walk back into the forest, his knees raised high so that he would not brush through the briers and the long grass. I didn’t want him to leave.

  I wanted to comfort him.

  I wanted to understand.

  I called his name. He stopped and stared back at me.

  ‘Have you seen the Summer Lady, James?’ I asked. A tear dropped onto my cheek and rolled down to the corner of my mouth. I savored it with my tongue.

  He nodded solemnly.

  ‘She’s waiting for me,’ he said. ‘She’s going to take me to the others.’

  ‘Where is she, James?’

  James Jessop raised his hand and pointed into the darkness of the forest, then turned and walked into the tangles and trees, until the shadows of the branches embraced him and I could see him no more.

  Chapter Nineteen

  As I drove down to Waterville to meet Angel and Louis, my hand tingled from the touch of a lost child. St. Froid Lake had seemed indescribably desolate. I still heard the howls of the hybrids ringing in my ears, a perpetual chorus of mourning for the dead. Pictures of flapping canvas and piles of earth, of cold water and old brown bones flashed through my mind before coalescing into a single image of James Jessop receding into the hidden reaches of the forest, where an unseen woman in a summer dress waited to take him away.

  I felt a surge of gratitude that there was somebody waiting for him at the edge of the darkness, that he would not have to make that journey alone.

  I just hoped that there was somebody waiting for each of us, in the end.

  In Waterville, I parked outside the Ames mall and waited. It was almost an hour before the black Lexus appeared, turning onto the main street and parking at its far end. I watched Angel get out and walk casually to the corner of Main and Temple, then turn into the back lot of the Fellowship’s building at the junction with the Hunan Legends Chinese restaurant when he saw that the street was clear. I locked the Mustang, met Louis, and together we walked down to Temple to join Angel. He stood in the shadows and handed us each a pair of gloves. His own hands were already concealed and holding the handle of the newly opened door.

  ‘I think I’m gonna add Waterville to the list of places I’m never gonna retire to,’ remarked Angel as we stepped into the building. ‘Along with Bogota and Bangladesh.’

  ‘I’ll break the sad news to the Chamber of Commerce,’ I told him. ‘I don’t know how they’ll cope.’

  ‘So where you planning on retiring to?’

  ‘Maybe I won’t live long enough for it to become an issue.’

  ‘Man, you sure going the right way about it,’ said Louis. ‘Grim Reaper probably got your number on speed dial.’

  We followed Angel up the thinly carpeted stairs until we arrived at a wooden door with a small plastic sign nailed to it at eye level. It read simply: The Fellowship. There was a bell on the doorframe to the right, in case anyone somehow managed to sneak in the front door without Ms. Torrance turning on them like a hungry Rottweiler. I slipped out my mini Maglite and shined it on the lock. I had taken the precaution of wrapping some duct tape around the top so that only a thin beam of light about half the size of a dime showed. Angel took a pick and a tension tool from his pocket and opened the door in five seconds flat. Inside, the lights from the street shone on a reception area with three plastic chairs, a wooden desk with a telephone and blotter on top, a filing cabinet in one corner, and some vaguely inspirational pictures on the walls featuring sunsets and doves and small children.

  Angel jiggled the lock on the filing cabinet and when it clicked, pulled open the top drawer. Using his own flashlight, he illuminated a pile of conservative and religious tracts published by the Fellowship itself and other groups of which the Fellowship presumably approved. They included The Christian Family; Other Races, Other Rules; Enemies of the People; Jewry: The Truth About the Chosen People; Killing the Future: The Reality of Abortion; and Daddy Doesn’t Love Me Anymore: Divorce and the American Family.

  ‘Look at this one,’ said Angel. ‘Natural Laws, Unnatural Acts: How Homosexuality Is Poisoning America.’

  ‘Maybe they’ve smelled your aftershave,’ I replied. ‘Anything in the other drawers?’

  Angel went through them quickly. ‘Looks like more of the same.’

  He opened the door into the main office. This was more elegantly furnished than the reception area; the desk was marginally more expensive, with a high-backed imitation leather chair behind it and a pair of couches in the same material against two of the walls, a low coffee table between them. The walls were covered with photographs of Carter Paragon at various events, usually surrounded by people who didn’t know any better than to be happy around him. The sunlight had shone directly onto these walls for a long time. Some of
the photographs had faded or turned yellow in the corners, and a coating of dust added a further element of dullness. In the corner, beneath an ornate crucifix, stood another filing cabinet, stronger and sturdier than the one in the reception area. It took Angel a couple of tries to get it open, but when he did his brow furrowed in surprise.

  ‘What is it?’ I said.

  ‘Take a look,’ he replied.

  I walked over and shined my light into the open drawer. It was empty, apart from a thick coating of dust. Angel opened the other drawers in turn, but only the bottom drawer contained anything: a bottle of whiskey and two tumblers. I closed the drawer and reopened the one above it: there was only dust, and dust that obviously had not been disturbed for a long time.

  ‘Either this is special holy dust,’ said Angel, ‘which would explain why it has to be locked up safe at night, or there’s nothing here and there never was.’

  ‘It’s just a front,’ I said. ‘The whole thing is just a front.’ Just as Amy had told me, the Waterville organization was simply a mask to fool the unwary. The other Fellowship, the one with the real power, existed elsewhere.

  ‘There must be records of some kind,’ I said.

  ‘Maybe he keeps them out at his house,’ suggested Angel.

  I looked at him. ‘You got anything better to do?’

  ‘Than burgle a guy’s house? No, not really.’ He took a closer look at the lock on the filing cabinet. ‘Tell you something else; I think someone tried to get this open before we did. There are marks around the lock. They’re small, but it was still a pretty amateur job.’

  We relocked the doors and headed downstairs. At the back door, Angel paused and checked the lock with the aid of his pocket light. ‘Back door’s been opened from outside,’ he said. ‘There are fresh scratches around the keyhole, and I didn’t make them. Guess I didn’t see them because I wasn’t looking for them.’

  There was nothing else to say. We weren’t the only people interested in finding out what was in Carter Paragon’s files, and I knew that we weren’t the only ones hunting Mr. Pudd. Lester Bargus had learned that too, in his final moments.