The Wolf in Winter (2014)

by John Connolly

  I let it go.

  'The money is the other thing,' I said.

  'How come?' said Macy. She was interested now. I could see it in her eyes. A lot of detectives wouldn't have cared much to have a snoop question a neat, closed case, but Macy wasn't one of them. I doubted if she had ever been that kind of cop, and whatever happened out on Sanctuary had done nothing to change her. If anything, it had simply strengthened that aspect of her character. She hadn't told me much about what had occurred on the island beyond what was already in the offcial record, and I hadn't pressed her on it, but I'd heard stories. Sanctuary was a strange place, even by the standards of this part of the world, and some of the bodies from that night had never been found.

  'Jude went to a lot of trouble to collect it,' I said. 'It seems that he was worried about his daughter. Her name was Annie: ex-junkie, trying to go straight, living in a shelter up in Bangor. He was trying to reestablish a relationship with her when she disappeared. He was worried about her. The money was to help him search for her. In fact, I think he might even have hoped to hire me with the cash.'

  'What would it have bought him?' said Nix. 'A couple of hours?'

  'I'd have given him a discount.'

  'Even so.'

  'Yeah.'

  Nix took another hit on his beer. 'Well, chances are that whoever slept in the basement and cherry-picked Jude's possessions also took the money. I don't think they'd have gone to the trouble of trying to stage it as a suicide, though. A homeless person would have been more likely to use fsts or a blade. It wouldn't have taken much to put Jude down. He wasn't a strong guy.'

  'It still doesn't explain,' I said, 'why a man who has gone to the trouble of calling in his debts, and who is concerned about his daughter, should end it all in a basement and leave her to whatever trouble she was in. And as you said, Jude wasn't a strong man. A breeze could have lifted him off the street. A big man, or two big men, could have held him for long enough to hoist him up on a chair, put a rope around his neck and kick the chair out from under him. They'd have left marks on his body, I guess. Couldn't not have.'

  I was thinking aloud now. Macy set aside her beer unfnished.

  'You got a couple of minutes?' she said to me.

  'Sure.'

  'You want to head down to Rosie's, I'll join you there for one more. I got some laundry to pick up along the way.'

  Nix decided to stay in Ruski's for another beer. He knew better than to tag along, regardless of any history between Macy and me. If she chose to share more about Jude's death with a PI, then that was her business. He didn't want, or need, to know.

  I did cover his tab, though, including his drink for the road. He sighed theatrically as I left.

  'And I bet you won't even call,' he said. 'I just feel so . . . used.'

  13

  Harry and Erin Dixon were deep in discussion when they heard the car approach.

  'We have to leave,' said Erin.

  'And go where?' said Harry.

  'I don't know. Anywhere. We could promise not to tell if they just let us go and didn't follow.'

  Harry tried not to laugh, but he couldn't stop himself. The idea that Prosperous had survived for so long just by allowing those who were uncomfortable with its edicts to leave was so preposterous as to be beyond belief. Erin, of all people, should have known that. They had hunted her father, Charlie Hutton, for years, and they had never given up. He had been clever and lucky. He was also been a teller at the bank, so he didn't leave with his pockets empty, for he raided the town's discretionary fund before he ran. The money bought him time, and some room to maneuver. It allowed him to set himself up with a new identity and a new life, but Harry was sure that he spent his days fearing every knock on the door and searching the faces on the street for the gaze that lingered too long.

  Charlie hadn't been afraid that they'd set the police on him. That wasn't the way Prosperous worked. Anyway, the money that he stole didn't offcially exist, and the fund was used for purposes about which it was better that the law knew nothing. What had always stayed with Harry was that Erin's father had never told. He could have gone to the police and tried to explain the nature of Prosperous, but it was so fantastic that he would have risked being dismissed as a madman. Even if they had chosen to believe him, there were no bodies to which he could point, no shallow graves to be dug up and bones to be exhumed. Harry wondered how deep you'd have to go to fnd the victims of Prosperous, if anything of them truly remained at all. Any searchers would have given up long before they frst struck rock, and some of the bodies probably lay even deeper than that. And then there was the fact that rarely did it happen more than once in every twenty or thirty years, and those responsible kept the secret of it to themselves. To descry any kind of pattern would be almost impossible, and the names of those who had been taken were forgotten as soon as they were below ground. In many cases, they had never been known at all.

  But there was another probable reason why Erin's father had remained silent, a deeper reason: he was bound to Prosperous, and one didn't slough off one's loyalties to a place so old, and so strange, with any ease. He stayed loyal to the town even as he sought to put as much distance between him and it as possible, how he could not deny the truth of it, even if he wanted no further part.

  But the town learned from what had happened with Charlie, and steps were taken to ensure that it wouldn't occur so easily again. It kept a close watch on its inhabitants in the guise of caring for their well-being, and it bound them together with bonds of matrimony, of familial and business loyalties, and of fear.

  'You want to be like your father?' said Harry, once his laughter had ceased. He hadn't cared much for the sound of it. It held a distressingly lunatic tone. 'You want to be hunted all your life?'

  'No,' she said softly. 'But I don't want to stay here either.'

  But Harry wasn't listening to her. He was on a roll now.

  'And he had money. We have nothing. You don't think they're watching our spending habits, our patterns of deposits and withdrawals? They know, or at least they suspect. We're vulnerable, and that means they're concerned about how we might act. No, we have no choice. We have to wait this out. We have to hope that our situation improves. When it does, we can start putting money away. We can plan, just like Charlie must have done. You don't leave Prosperous on a whim. You don't—'

  And then there came the sound of a car. Lights washed over the house, and the words died in Harry Dixon's mouth.

  14

  Rosie's wasn't too dissimilar from Ruski's, but your chances of getting a seat in Rosie's were greater than in Ruski's simply because Rosie's had more chairs. I didn't want another beer so I ordered coffee instead, and watched the cars go by on Fore Street. Music was playing, a song that I thought I recognized, something about seas of charity and unchosen exiles. I called Rachel while I waited, and she put me on to Sam. We chatted for a while about events in elementary school, which seemed to involve a lot of painting, and a certain amount of argument with a boy named Harry.

  'His mom and dad named him after Harry Potter,' Sam explained. She didn't sound as though she approved. A whole generation of adults who had dressed up as wizards when they should have known better now seemed destined to infict whimsy on their offspring. I wasn't a big fan of whimsy. Whimsical people were the type who got run over by cars without anybody really noticing or caring that much beyond the damage to the vehicle, which was usually minimal anyway, whimsical folk being kind of lighter than most.

  'He draws lightning on his forehead,' said Sam.

  'Does he?' I said.

  'Yeah. He says it's real, but it comes off when you rub hard.'

  I decided not to ask how she knew this, although I was pretty certain that however she'd discovered it, the boy named Harry had been an unwilling participant in the experiment. Talk moved on to the trip to Florida she was taking the following weekend, where she and Rachel would join Rachel's parents in their new winter vacation home. Rachel's current boyfr
iend Jeff wouldn't be going along with them, Sam informed me.

  'Oh,' I said, keeping my voice as neutral as possible. I didn't like Jeff, but it didn't matter. Jeff liked himself enough for both of us.

  'Daddy!' said Sam. 'You don't have to pretend you're sad.'

  Jesus.

  'Are you sure you're just in elementary school?' I said. 'You're not studying psychology on the side?'

  'Mom knows psycottagy,' said Sam.

  'Yes, she does.' Not enough of it to avoid dating a jackass like Jeff, but solving other people's problems was often easier than taking care of your own. I considered sharing that insight with Rachel, but decided against it. Maybe I was learning at last that discretion was the better part of valor. 'Just put your mom back on. I'll see you when you get back.'

  'Bye. Love you,' said Sam, and my heart broke a little.

  'Bye, hon. Love you too.'

  I chatted with Rachel for a minute or two more. She seemed happy. That was good. I wanted her to be happy. If she was happy, Sam would be happy. I just wished Rachel could be happy with someone other than Jeff. It refected badly on her good taste, but then there were those who might have said the same about her time with me.

  'What are you working on?' asked Rachel.

  'Nothing much. Process serving. Errant husbands.'

  'Is that all? It won't keep you from mischief for long.'

  'Well, there's this thing with a homeless guy too. He hanged himself, and I can't fgure out why.'

  'I'll bet he didn't pay you in advance.'

  'You know, it's funny you should say that, but someone in this city might have the money that he would have used to pay me.'

  'Do I need to tell you to be careful?'

  'No, but it always helps.'

  'I doubt that, but for the sake of your daughter . . .'

  'I'll be careful.'

  'You in a bar?'

  'Rosie's.'

  'Ah. A date?'

  Macy arrived. She had some photocopied pages in one hand and a mug in the other. Like me, she had sought coffee.

  'No, I wouldn't say that.'

  Rachel laughed. 'No, you wouldn't, would you? Go on, get lost.'

  I hung up. Macy had been hanging back in an effort to give me privacy. Now she stepped forward and laid the papers on the table as she sat.

  'You can read,' she said, 'but I'm not leaving them with you, okay?'

  'Understood.'

  It was the ME's report on Jude's body. I could probably have bargained a look at it from the ME's offce, but this saved me the trouble of a trip to Augusta.

  The rope used in the hanging was cotton, with a running knot placed over the occipital region. Rope fbers and remnants had been found on a table nearby, along with marks in the wood consistent with the cutting action of a sharp knife.

  'Did you fnd a knife at the scene?' I asked Macy.

  'No, but it could have been with the other possessions that were taken.'

  'I guess.'

  Rigor mortis and postmortem staining on both legs, distal portion of upper limbs, and area of waist above the belt line. Both eyes partially open; conjunctiva congested and cornea hazy. Mouth partially open, tongue protruding.

  I moved on to the ligature mark. The ME found that it encircled the whole neck apart from a small gap beneath the knot, consistent with the drag weight of the body. The ligature ran backward, upward and toward the occipital region. The ligature marks were slightly wider on the left of the neck than the right, but only by about a ffth of an inch. Dissection of the neck revealed no evidence of fracture of the thyroid cartilage or hyoid bone, as is often the case in forced strangulation, which seemed to rule out the possibility that Jude had been attacked. Likewise, there was no extravasion – forced fow – of blood in the neck tissues. The ME had concluded that the cause of death was asphyxia due to suicidal hanging by ligature.

  The only other noteworthy inclusion in the report was a list of bruises, scars and abrasions to Jude's body. They were considerable enough to make me wince. As if to compound the issue, Macy slid another sheet of paper across the table. It was a color copy, and the quality wasn't great. This was a small mercy, given what the two photographs on it revealed about the battering that Jude had taken over the years. Falls, fghts, beatings: all were recorded on a map of skin and fesh, and all concealed beneath the trappings of a thrift-shop dandy. Anyone who was dumb enough to imagine that life on the streets of Portland was some kind of state-funded outdoor vacation just needed one look at the picture of Jude's torso and limbs to be set straight.

  'The ME says some are recent, but most are pretty old,' said Macy. 'One or two might have been received in the hours prior to his death. These ones here are interesting.'

  She pointed with her fnger to marks on Jude's upper right and left arms.

  'What are they?'

  Macy handed over a fnal sheet. She had a fair for the dramatic. The pictures showed enlargements of the marks.

  'They look like grips,' I said, 'as though someone held him hard from behind.'

  'That's what I thought,' said Macy. 'But it doesn't mean they're connected to his death. This was a man who took knocks on a regular basis.'

  'You going to ask around?'

  'I wasn't until you showed up. Look, I still think he took his own life, but I'll admit that you've raised enough questions to make me wonder again about why he did it. Might be useful if we could fnd the contents of his pack, though, or better still, talk to whoever made that call. You never know what we might learn.'

  'You try asking around?'

  'Nix did, as best he could. If anybody knew anything, they were keeping quiet. But if I came across a dead man, and then rifed his belongings and stole what little money he had, I'd probably keep quiet about it too.'

  Macy gathered up the photocopies and fnished her coffee.

  'So, you doing much pro bono work these days?'

  'No, but I hear it's good for the soul.'

  'Which is why you'll keep on this – for the good of your soul, and the fact that you think you might owe Jude some hours?'

  'Whatever I owe him, it's not hours,' I said.

  'You still have my number?'

  'Yes.'

  'Good. I thought you might have lost it, seeing as how you never called and all.'

  'I'm sorry about that.'

  'Don't be. It was a good dinner, and you did pay for it.'

  'It was, but I still should have called. I don't know why I didn't.'

  'I do,' she said. 'The same things that stopped me from calling you. Life. Death.'

  She stood.

  'You know how to fnd me,' she said. 'I'd appreciate a heads-up if you learn anything.'

  'Done,' I said.

  She turned back briefy as she walked away.

  'It was good seeing you again.'

  'And you,' I said.

  I watched her go. A couple of other guys did too. Damn.

  15

  Morland sat on one side of the kitchen table, Hayley Conyer to his right. Harry and Erin sat on the other side, facing them. The Dixons had never entertained Hayley in their home before. They had never entertained her anywhere. Neither had they ever set foot in her house. They had heard that it was beautiful and ornate, if gloomy. Erin was secretly pleased that, while their own home might not have been anything special, it wasn't lacking in cheer. The kitchen was bright, and the living room that connected to it was even brighter. There was a shadow over all of it now, though. Hayley Conyer seemed to have brought something of the night in with her.

  'You have a lovely home,' she said, in the manner of one who was surprised at how far the little people could stretch a nickel, but still wouldn't want to live like them.

  'Thank you,' said Erin.

  She had made coffee. She had a vague recollection that Hayley Conyer preferred tea, but she deliberately hadn't offered her any. She wasn't even sure that there was tea in the house. If there was, it had been there for so long that nobody would want to drink it. />
  'I noticed that the paint on your windows is faking,' said Morland. 'You ought to do something with it before it gets much worse.'

  Harry's smile didn't waver. It was a test. Everything was a test now, and the only thing that mattered in a test was not failing.

  'I was waiting for winter to pass,' he said. 'It's hard to paint a window frame when your hands are shaking with cold. You're liable to end up with windows that you can't see much out of.'