‘I guess it is,’ I said. ‘Did she have any other close friends who didn’t show for the service?’
He thought for a moment. ‘There’s a girl called Ali Wynn, younger than Grace. She came up here a couple of times and they seemed to get on well together. Grace shared an apartment with her when she was in Boston, and she used to stay with her when she traveled down to study. She’s a student at Northeastern too, but works part-time in a fancy restaurant in Harvard, the Pudding something.’
‘“Upstairs at the Pudding”?’
He nodded. ‘That’s the one.’
It was on Holyoke Street, close by Harvard Square. I added the name to my notebook.
‘Did Grace own a gun?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Positive. She hated guns.’
‘Was she seeing anybody?’
‘Not that I know of.’
He sipped his coffee and I found him watching me closely over the rim of the cup, as if my last question had caused a shift in his perception of me.
‘I recall you, you know,’ he said softly.
I felt myself flush red, and instantly I was a more than a decade and a half younger, dropping Grace Peltier off outside this same house and then driving away, grateful that I would never have to look at her or hold her again. I wondered what Peltier knew about my time with his daughter, and was surprised and embarrassed at my concern.
‘I told Jack Mercier to ask for you,’ he continued. ‘You knew Grace. I thought maybe you might help us because of that.’
‘That was a long time ago,’ I answered gently.
‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘but it seems like only yesterday to me that she was born. Her doctor was the worst doctor in the world. He couldn’t deliver milk, but somehow, despite him, she managed to come wailing into the world. Everything since then, all of the little incidents that made up her life, seem to have occurred in the blink of an eye. You look at it like that and it wasn’t so long ago, Mr. Parker. For me, in one way, she was barely here at all. Will you look into this? Will you try to find out the truth of what happened to my daughter?’
I sighed. I felt as if I was heading into deep waters just as I had begun to like the feel of the ground beneath my feet.
‘I’ll look into it,’ I said at last. ‘I can’t promise anything, but I’ll do some work on it.’
We spoke a little more of Grace and of her friends, and Peltier gave me copies of the phone records for the last couple of months, as well as Grace’s most recent bank and credit card statements, before he showed me to her bedroom. He left me alone in there. It was probably too soon for him to spend time in a room that still smelled of her, that still contained traces of her existence. I went through the drawers and closets, feeling awkward as my fingers lifted and then replaced items of clothing, the hangers in the closets chiming sadly as I patted down the jackets and coats they held. I found nothing except a shoe box containing the mementos of her romantic life: cards and letters from long-departed lovers, and ticket stubs from dates that had obviously meant something to her. There was nothing recent, and nothing of mine among them. I hadn’t expected that there would be. I checked through the books on the shelves and the medicines in the cabinet above the small sink in the corner of the room. There were no contraceptives that might have indicated a regular boyfriend and no prescription drugs that might have suggested she was suffering from depression or anxiety.
When I returned to the kitchen there was a manila file of papers lying in front of Peltier on the table. He passed it across to me. When I opened it, the file contained all of the state police reports on the death of Grace Peltier, along with a copy of the death certificate and the ME’s report. There were also photographs of Grace in the car, printed off a computer. The quality wasn’t so good, but it didn’t have to be. The wound on Grace’s head was clearly visible, and the blood on the window behind her was like the birth of a red star.
‘Where did you get these, Mr. Peltier?’ I asked, but I knew the answer almost as soon as the words were out of my mouth. Jack Mercier always got what he wanted.
‘I think you know,’ he replied. He wrote his telephone number on a small pad and tore the page out. ‘You can usually get me here, day or night. I don’t sleep much these days.’
I thanked him. Then he shook my hand and walked me to the door. He was still watching me as I climbed into the Mustang and drove away.
I parked on Congress and took the reports into Kinkos to photocopy them, a precaution that I had recently started to take with everything from tax letters to investigation notes, with the originals retained at the house and the copies put into storage in case the originals were lost or damaged. Copying was a small amount of trouble and expense to go to for the reassurance that it offered. When I had finished, I went to Coffee by Design and started to read the reports in detail. As I did, I found myself growing more and more unhappy with what they contained.
The police report listed the contents of the car, including a small quantity of cocaine found in the glove compartment and a pack of cigarettes that was lying on the dashboard. Fingerprint analysis revealed three sets of prints on the pack, only one of them belonging to Grace. The only prints on the bag of coke were Grace’s. For someone who didn’t smoke or take drugs, Grace Peltier seemed to be carrying a lot of narcotics in her car.
The certificate of death didn’t add much else to what I already knew, although one section did interest me. Section 42 of the state of Maine certificate of death requires the ME to ascribe the manner of death to one of six causes. In order, these are: ‘natural’, ‘accident’, ‘suicide’, ‘homicide’, ‘pending investigation’, and ‘could not be determined.’
The ME had not ticked ‘suicide’ as the manner of Grace Peltier’s death. She had, instead, opted for ‘pending investigation.’ In other words, she had enough doubts about the circumstances to require the state police to continue their enquiries into the death. I moved on to the ME’s own report.
The report noted Grace’s body measurements, her clothing, her physique and state of nutrition at the time of death, and her personal cleanliness. There were no signs of self-neglect indicative of mental disorder or drug dependency of any kind. The analysis of her ocular fluid found no traces of drugs or alcohol taken in the hours before her death, and urine and bile analysis also came up negative, indicating that she had not ingested drugs in the three days preceding her death either. Blood taken from a peripheral vein beneath her armpit had been combined in a tube with sodium fluoride, which reduces the microbiologic action that may increase or decrease any alcohol content in the blood after collection. Once again, it came up negative. Grace hadn’t been drinking before she died.
It’s a difficult thing to do, taking one’s own life. Most people require a little Dutch courage to help them on their way, but Grace Peltier had been clean. Despite the fact that her father said she was happy, that she had no alcohol or drugs in her system when she died, and the autopsy revealed none of the telltale signs of a disturbed, distracted personality of the type likely to attempt suicide, Grace Peltier had still apparently put a gun close to her head and shot herself.
Grace’s fatal injury had been caused by a .40 caliber bullet fired from a Smith & Wesson at a range of not more than two inches. The bullet had entered through the left temple, burning and splitting the skin and singeing Grace’s hair above the wound, and shattering the sphenoid bone. The bullet hole was slightly smaller than the diameter of the bullet, since the elastic epidermis had stretched to allow its passage and then contracted afterward. There was an abrasion collar around the hole, caused by the friction, heating, and dirt effect of the bullet, as well as surrounding bruising.
The bullet had exited above and slightly behind the right temple, fracturing the orbital roof and causing bruising around the right eye. The wound was large and everted, with an irregular stellate appearance. Its irregularity was due to the damage caused to the bullet by contact w
ith the skull, which had distorted its shape. The only blood in the car had come from Grace, and the bloodstain pattern analysis was consistent with the injury received. A ballistics examination of the recovered bullet also matched up. Chemical and scanning electron microscope analysis of skin swabs taken from Grace’s left hand revealed propellant residues, indicating that the gun had been fired by Grace. The gun was found hanging from Grace’s left hand. On the seat, beside her right hand, was a Bible.
It is an established fact that women rarely commit suicide with guns. Although there are exceptions, women don’t seem to have the same fascination with firearms as men and tend to pick less obviously violent ways to end their lives. There is a useful rule in police work: a shot woman is a murdered woman unless proved otherwise. Suicides also shoot themselves in certain sites of election: the mouth, the front of the neck, the forehead, the temple, or the chest. Discharges into the temple usually occur on the side of the dominant hand, although that is not an absolute. Grace Peltier, I knew, was right handed, yet she had elected to shoot herself in the left temple, using her left hand and holding what I assumed to be an unfamiliar weapon. According to Curtis, she didn’t even own a gun, although it was possible that she had decided to acquire one for reasons of her own.
There were three additional elements in the reports that struck me as odd. The first was that Grace Peltier’s clothes had been soaked with water when her body was found. Upon examination, the water was found to be salt water. For some reason, Grace Peltier had taken a dip in the sea fully clothed before shooting herself.
The second was that the ends of Grace’s hair had been cut shortly before, or possibly after, her death, using not a scissors but a blade. Part of her ponytail had been severed, leaving some loose hairs trapped between her shirt and her skin.
The third was not an inclusion but an omission. Curtis Peltier had told me that Grace had brought all of her thesis notes with her, but there were no notes found in the car.
The Bible was a nice touch, I thought.
I was walking back to my car when the cell phone rang.
‘Hi, it’s me,’ said Rachel’s voice.
‘Hi, you.’
Rachel Wolfe was a criminal psychologist who had once specialized in profiling. She had joined me in Louisiana as the hunt for the Traveling Man came to its end, and we had become lovers. It had not been an easy relationship: Rachel had been hurt badly both physically and emotionally in Louisiana, and I had spent a long time coming to terms with the guilt my feelings for her had provoked. We were now slowly establishing ourselves together, although she continued to live in Boston, where she was doing research and tutorial work at Harvard. The subject of her moving up to Maine had been glanced upon once or twice, but never pursued.
‘I’ve got bad news. I can’t come up next weekend. The faculty has called an emergency meeting for Friday afternoon over funding cuts, and it’s likely to pick up again on Saturday morning. I won’t be free until Saturday afternoon at the earliest. I’m really sorry.’
I found myself smiling as she spoke. Lately, talking to Rachel always made me smile. ‘Actually, that might work out okay. Louis has been talking about heading up to Boston for a weekend. If he can convince Angel to come along I can link up with them while you’re tied up in meetings, then we can spend the rest of the time together.’
Angel and Louis were, in no particular order, gay, semiretired criminals, silent partners in a number of restaurants and auto shops, a threat to decent people everywhere and possibly to the fabric of society itself, and polar opposites in just about every imaginable way, with the exception of a shared delight in mayhem and occasional homicide. They were also, not entirely coincidentally, my friends.
‘Cleopatra opens at the Wang on the fourth,’ probed Rachel. ‘I think I can probably hustle a pair of tickets.’
Rachel was a huge fan of the Boston Ballet and was trying to convert me to its joys. She was kind of succeeding, although it had led Angel to speculate unkindly on my sexuality.
‘Sure, but you owe me a couple of Pirates games when the hockey season starts.’
‘Agreed. Call me back and let me know what their plans are. I can book a table for dinner and join the three of you after my meeting. And I’ll look into those tickets. Anything else?’
‘How about lots of rampant, noisy sex?’
‘The neighbors will complain.’
‘Are they good looking?’
‘Very.’
‘Well, if they get jealous I’ll see what I can do for them.’
‘Why don’t you see what you can do for me first?’
‘Okay, but when I wear you out I may have to go elsewhere for my own pleasure.’
I couldn’t be sure, but I thought her laughter had a distinctly mocking tone as she hung up.
When I got back to the house, I called a number on Manhattan’s Upper West Side using the landline. Angel and Louis didn’t like being called on a cell phone, because – as the unfortunate Hoyt was about to learn to his cost – cell phone conversations could be monitored or traced, and Angel and Louis were the kind of individuals who sometimes dealt in delicate matters upon which the law might not smile too gently. Angel was a burglar, and a very good one, although he was now officially “resting” on the joint income he had acquired with Louis. Louis’s current career position was murkier: Louis killed people for money, or he used to. Now he sometimes killed people, but money was less of a concern for him than the moral imperative for their deaths. Bad people died at Louis’s hands, and maybe the world was a better place without them. Concepts like morality and justice got a little complicated where Louis was concerned.
The phone rang three times and then a voice with all the charm of a snake hissing at a mongoose said, ‘Yeah?’ The voice also sounded a little breathless.
‘It’s me. I see you still haven’t got to the chapter on phone etiquette in that Miss Manners book I gave you.’
‘I put that piece of shit in the trash,’ said Angel. ‘Guy who laces his shoes with string is probably still trying to sell it on Broadway.’
‘Your breathing sounds labored. Do I even want to know what I interrupted?’
‘Elevator’s busted. I heard the phone on the stairs. I was at an organ recital.’
‘What were you doing, passing around the tin cup?’
‘Funny.’
I don’t think he meant it. Louis was obviously still engaged in an unsuccessful attempt to expand Angel’s cultural horizons. You had to admire his perseverance, and his optimism.
‘How was it?’
‘Like being trapped with the phantom of the opera for two hours. My head hurts.’
‘You up for a trip to Boston?’
‘Louis is. He thinks it’s got class. Me, I like the order of New York. Boston is like the whole of Manhattan below Fourteenth Street, you know, with all them little streets that cross back over one another. It’s like the Twilight Zone down in the Village. I didn’t even like visiting when you lived there.’
‘You finished?’ I interrupted.
‘Well, I guess I am now, Mr. Fucking Impatient.’
‘I’m heading down next weekend, maybe meet Rachel for dinner late on Friday. You want to join us?’
‘Hold on.’ I heard a muffled conversation, and then a deep male voice came on the line.
‘You comin’ on to my boy?’ asked Louis.
‘Lord no,’ I replied. ‘I like to be the pretty one in my relationships, but that’s taking it a little too far.’
‘We’ll be at the Copley Plaza. You give us a call when you got a restaurant booked.’
‘Sure thing, boss. Anything else?’
‘We let you know,’ he said, then the line went dead.
It was a shame about the Miss Manners book, really.
Grace Peltier’s credit card statement revealed nothing out of the ordinary, while the telephone records indicated calls to Marcy Becker at her parents’ motel, a private number in Boston which was now disco
nnected but which I assumed to be Ali Wynn’s, and repeated calls to the Fellowship’s office in Waterville. Late that afternoon I called the Fellowship at that same number and got a recorded message asking me to choose one if I wanted to make a donation, two if I wanted to hear the recorded prayer of the day, or three to speak to an operator. I pressed three and when the operator spoke I gave my name and asked for Carter Paragon’s office. The operator told me she was putting me through to Paragon’s assistant, Miss Torrance. There was a pause and then another female voice came on the line.
‘Can I help you?’ it said, in the tone that a certain type of secretary reserves for those whom it has no intention of helping at all.
‘I’d like to speak to Mr. Paragon, please. My name is Charlie Parker. I’m a private investigator.’
‘What is it in connection with, Mr. Parker?’
‘A young woman named Grace Peltier. I believe Mr. Paragon had a meeting with her about two weeks ago.’
‘I’m sorry, the name isn’t familiar to me. No such meeting took place.’ If spiders apologized to flies before eating them, they could have managed more sincerity than this woman.
‘Would you mind checking?’
‘As I’ve told you, Mr. Parker, that meeting never took place.’
‘No, you told me that you weren’t familiar with the name, and then you told me that the meeting never took place. If you didn’t recognize the name, how could you remember whether or not any meeting took place?’
There was a pause on the end of the line, and I thought the receiver began to grow distinctly chilly in my hand. After a time, Miss Torrance spoke again. ‘I see from Mr. Paragon’s diary that a meeting was due to be held with a Grace Peltier, but she never arrived.’
‘Did she cancel the appointment?’
‘No, she simply didn’t turn up.’
‘Can I speak to Mr. Paragon, Miss Torrance?’
‘No, Mr. Parker, you cannot.’
‘Can I make an appointment to speak to Mr. Paragon?’
‘I’m sorry. Mr. Paragon is a very busy man, but I’ll tell him you called.’ She hung up before I could give her a number, so I figured that I probably wasn’t going to be hearing from Carter Paragon in the near future, or even the distant future. It seemed that I might have to pay a personal call on the Fellowship, although I guessed from Miss Torrance’s tone that a visit from me would be about as welcome as a whorehouse in Disneyland.
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