by Paul Heald
The conversation flowed easily, and when Vanessa finally asked Stanley what he did for a living, she seemed genuinely intrigued by his career and the strange turn of events that had taken him to Los Angeles. He described his trip to Mallorca as a much-needed vacation. She herself had been a primary school teacher until her marriage to a banker brought two children, now teenagers in a boarding school.
“They’re just over in Herefordshire, though, home on weekends and all that.” She took a sip of her wine. “It’s quite a nice place, boys and girls together, none of the discipline nonsense that you read about in politicians’ memoirs.” Then her eyes dropped to the gold ring on his left hand. “Do you have any children?”
He paused. He could tell a long sad story and turn the meal into the sort of pity party that he had avoided for months, or he could lie and push the evening in a different direction. Was there no middle ground?
“A daughter,” he responded, his voice strong and inviting no expression of condolence. “I lost her and my wife a while ago.” He managed a stoic grimace. “Not a great topic of conversation, I’m afraid.”
Thank God for the English, he thought when she immediately changed the subject and described in detail how she had come to choose Port de Sóller and to buy the villa where she was staying. No other nationality is so capable of ignoring emotion and sailing on to calmer waters without a glance behind them. And by the end of the evening, he realized he had even scored points with her by sparing her the details of his loss. After a friendly tussle over the bill, she let him pay, and they headed back through the narrow streets of the village and up the hill to their twin villas.
The conversation petered out in the dark of the lampless path, but silence seemed an appropriate companion for chirping crickets and the occasional echo of the surf from the harbor below. About halfway up, Vanessa stumbled on a cobblestone and grabbed Stanley’s shoulder for support. Her hand lingered, and then slid down his arm and took a firm grip on his hand where it remained comfortably for the rest of their walk. She really was lovely, and he had to fight the impulse to tell her so.
The path to Vanessa’s door came first, barely visible in the moonlight as they crested the hill.
“Would you like to come in for a drink?” she asked.
He could barely see the expression on her face, but in his mind’s eye it was confident and inviting. Her hand was still touching his, and her fingers pressed his palm as she adjusted her hand and turned toward him.
He had wondered during the lovely stroll what he would do when they arrived. The connection between them at dinner had been genuine, and they were both free to spend the night wherever they wanted. When he remembered her later, it would be with undeniable lust, but there in the darkness he just wanted the night to end perfectly, with no fumbling over birth control or worries about his lack of recent experience. He was almost ready, but not quite.
“I’m completely wiped out,” he replied in an exhausted voice. “Could I see you tomorrow?”
“Of course,” she said as she planted a moist kiss on his cheek and then headed to her door, “and we’ll see to those sandals.”
He heard the door click shut and stood quietly for a moment looking over the village. It was enough to have been seen and heard and felt.
XX.
CONVERSATION
Father Thorsten Carter felt like he was making definite progress with Miriam Rodgers. In theory, he should not be wooing a parishioner, but she hadn’t set foot inside St. James for more than a year, and surely there was some sort of statute of limitations working in his favor. And even if his bishop might prefer that he bring her back into the fold instead of dating her, his own theology had never held that attending St. James, or any other church, for that matter, was a prerequisite for salvation. Thankfully, the theft of Miriam’s father’s papers had turned out to be a blessing, as she had plunged herself into the mystery and had even been poking around her childhood home and questioning her mother.
“I know that my dad was a chaplain during Vietnam.” She sat with Thor outside a downtown Clarkeston café, sipping a cappuccino. “I don’t remember him saying much. I got the impression that he found his time in the service to be pretty boring. On the mantel there’s a picture of him in uniform in the middle of a bunch of officers, but that’s about all I know.”
Thor wasn’t sure where she was headed with the story, but she suggested some governmental conspiracy might be at work. Who else but the feds, she had asked, would drive around a fake UPS van and steal her father’s stuff? She thought that James Murphy’s renewed interest in the disappearance of Diana Cavendish and Jacob Granville was logically connected to the theft.
“Anyway, my father spent most of his life in Clarkeston, so I figure that if he made any influential friends or enemies, it would have to have been when he was away at school or during the war.” She flipped the top off her coffee and sprinkled in a no-cal sweetener. “My dad went to Clarkeston College undergrad but left to go to Harvard Divinity School after. My mom didn’t go to Boston with him, but they got married after he graduated and got drafted. She was with him in Washington, DC, where he was posted to the chaplain’s office in the Pentagon. I suppose the Harvard degree or someone he met there got him the job.”
“And he never talked about his years there?”
“Neither of them did,” she replied with a shake of her head. “But my mom was happy to talk about it now. Apparently, she found it pretty exciting. The war was far away and no one he worked with was personally heading off to shoot at the Viet Cong. He ministered to a group of young officers during his time there and apparently made some good friends. I don’t remember ever meeting any of them, but Clarkeston is the back of beyond and I doubt they were holding reunions here.”
“That’s not a whole lot to go on,” Thor said.
“That’s not all, though. When I asked my mom for some names, she took down that photo I mentioned, and written on the back of the picture were the names of about half the officers in it. I was able to track down quite a few of them on the Internet. Most are retired, but a couple of them are still working in the federal government. Almost all of them, even the retired ones, seem to be really well connected. This was an ambitious little group that my dad was hanging out with.”
“So, he could have met someone there who still has some influence.” Thor did not want to come right out and accuse Miriam’s father of pulling strings, but the implication could not be avoided. “Someone who could have helped him protect Jacob Granville.”
“Look,” she explained unapologetically, “my dad was absolutely convinced of Jacob’s innocence. He would have had no qualms whatsoever about enlisting an old friend to help him.”
“All right,” replied Thor, “I get that. It’s not too much of a stretch to imagine a connection, but your dad’s been dead for a couple years. Why would anyone suddenly be interested in his stuff?”
“Well, if someone used their influence to help my dad with Jacob, they might be worried that his papers could expose them.”
“I suppose,” the young priest said doubtfully, “but how did the thief learn about the papers in the first place or find out who had them?” He shook his head. “I don’t like coincidences any more than you do, but even if your father had an anonymous friend helping Granville escape, I can’t see this person suddenly materializing in Clarkeston five years later and ripping off James Murphy.”
She seemed loathe to concede the point, and he wondered whether her paranoia was getting the best of her. “I don’t know, but my father was one crafty son of a bitch and if his friends are half as tenacious as he was, then anything is possible.”
She smiled and took a sip from her drink. “When I was a kid, the vestry was considering withdrawing its support for a community soup kitchen that was serving lunch every day to a lot of illegal immigrants. About half of the budget came from St. James, so it was a pretty big deal. My dad went along with the conservatives until the very end, when
he announced that when the soup kitchen closed down, it would be reopened at St. James so that the church could better monitor who was receiving food.” She gave a delighted laugh. “The thought of having a crowd of poor people eating in their church every day got them rethinking their position pretty quick, and that’s how Papa saved the day.” She sighed and looked at Thor wistfully. “God, I really miss him sometimes.”
Thor appreciated her tale and what it said about his predecessor, but he couldn’t help thinking that Miriam might not be so forthcoming if she learned anything that put her father in a bad light. And if the old priest had helped cover the tracks of a murderer, then the glare of that light might get pretty harsh indeed.
* * *
The following Sunday, Thor’s own level of suspicion ratcheted up after a short conversation with Porter Johnson, Clarkeston’s sheriff and one of his least spiritual parishioners. Before the service, he had seen Johnson emerging from a Bible-study group and decided to ask about the stolen papers. Although the primary victim of the theft had been James Murphy, the papers had been entrusted to the priest and it would hardly be remarkable for him to show some concern as to their whereabouts. Johnson, however, made little effort to hide his annoyance with the question.
“I don’t comment about ongoing investigations with anyone outside the department,” he explained as he walked toward the coffee stand in the fellowship hall.
“Of course not,” Thor swung in beside him, “but Ms. Rodgers has been asking me about them and since it’s my fault they ended up in Murphy’s house, I wanted to ask when you thought they might be returned.”
“Are you kidding me?” The police officer’s contempt was barely concealed. “It’s just a bunch of papers. Believe it or not, we actually get some serious crime around here. Between the crackheads in the projects and the meth-heads in the trailer parks, we’ve got real policing to do. I can’t put a man on a few missing boxes of paper.” He offered a patronizing smile. “Even if they were owned by a priest.”
“But have you discovered anything at all? Murphy’s a reporter—maybe he could use the newspaper to try and flush out whoever broke in? You admitted that you’re short handed.”
“Look,” the sheriff lowered his voice and put a hand on Thor’s shoulder. “We don’t need any help from nosy priests or journalists.” He gave a little squeeze. “Take my advice and just drop it. Forget you ever heard about those boxes, okay?”
At that moment, a young woman with a bulletin in her hand timidly approached with a question. Johnson greeted her by name, offered Thor a dismissive pat on the back, and turned to get his coffee. The priest watched him carefully as he walked away, struck by the power of his rolling, proprietary stride.
* * *
Stanley Hopkins wore his new sandals to spy on Pub Wellington’s Wednesday night English expat darts league. He and Vanessa had spent a relaxing morning poking through the shops and open-air market in Port de Sóller, ostensibly looking for sandals, but mostly enjoying each other’s company and the balmy perfection of the coastal climate. He insisted on buying her lunch in return for her help with both language issues and questions of style, and he was quite certain that she would have consented to join him again for dinner, too, if he had not needed to make contact with Reggie, a.k.a. [email protected], and ask him how he had come about certain pictures of Diana Cavendish. He had dated no one in California since Angela’s accident, but somehow the distance and exotic locale had prompted a good bit of flirting with the attractive divorcée.
He had several photocopied images of Jacob Granville in his pocket as he entered the cave-like bar, and if Reggie were really the Georgian hiding after murdering his girlfriend, then the professor would withdraw discreetly and call Melanie Wilkerson in Atlanta. He was no action hero, and he would be happy just to identify the missing person and then spend some time exploring the island.
Stanley ordered a beer at the bar and sat down in the corner waiting for the dart teams to arrive. He had no idea how many people to expect. There were four boards tucked into a far corner of the bar, so he guessed that all eight teams in the league would be in action, but whether the Dartyrs of Doom or the Flights of Fancy consisted of two or ten people, he had no clue. It was also unclear to which particular team Reggie belonged, so he intended to wait for all the matches to begin before asking anyone any questions. Before his drink was half-empty, a small group of English speakers had found their way to the bar to order drinks before pulling their dart cases out of their pockets and making a few practice throws at the bristle boards. Apparently, the sport required only minimal warming up, because the competition was in full force by the time Stanley had bought his second beer.
He adopted the guise of a fellow darter who wanted more information about the league and had discovered Reggie on the schedule web page. He found a website on his phone devoted to darts and learned enough to avoid detection as a novice, as long as he didn’t have to actually throw. He watched the group unobtrusively as he educated himself. If Reggie were there, then he was definitely not an alter ego of Jacob Granville, as no one in the pub resembled the picture of the young American.
After thirty minutes, a middle-aged man shook hands with his opponents and his partner, put his darts in a small leather case, and approached the bar. While the man waited for his drink, Stanley came over and introduced himself.
“Excuse me,” he said, “is Reggie here? I was hoping he could tell me a little about the darts league.”
“Not tonight, or I would have won the first round. We usually play together.”
“So, you’re his partner?”
“Not partners, per se.” A wisp of a smile curled around the lips of the tan, sandy-haired Englishman. “But we do throw darts together a good bit.”
“That’s what I meant!” Stanley blurted out. “I found the league online and it listed Reggie as the contact person.”
“Reggie Wilkins is the organizer, for sure, but I might be able to help you out. Reg lives way up on the Alfabia Ridge and only comes down about once a week to go shopping and play some darts.” He leaned against the bar and took a sip of his Spanish whiskey with a grimace. “Reg couldn’t make it today. What do you want to know?”
Stanley longed to show him the pictures of Jacob Granville but settled for a short conversation on the logistics of finding a teammate and joining the league. He quickly exhausted his slim knowledge of the sport. He was about to excuse himself, and hoped that an Internet search of Reggie Wilkins and Port de Sóller would generate a business or home address, when something clicked in his memory.
“You said that Reggie lives on the Alfabia Ridge. Isn’t there a hiking trail up there?”
“A famous one, in fact.” He nodded, and Stanley mentally thanked the editors of his Lonely Planet Mallorca. “There’s a road that runs right along the old pilgrim’s way and Reg’s house is toward the end. Amazing view up there. It’s a wonder he ever comes down to the village at all.”
When the darter turned down the offer of another drink, Stanley finished his beer, thanked his new acquaintance, and started the long walk back to his villa, eager to see what the Internet might reveal about Reggie Wilkins, darting czar of eastern Mallorca.
On the way home, he stuck his head in at El Langustino, hoping that Vanessa might be dining there again. He did not find her, but the smells wafting out of the kitchen seduced him on their own and led him to the back patio, where he decided the inconvenience of surfing on his phone was more than offset by the chance for more boquerones and a plate of marinated cuttlefish.
Combining Reggie’s full name with the village and island revealed that he ran a data-storage-and-retrieval business that seemed to extend well beyond Mallorca. His business web page was vague, repeatedly referring to “solving the server space problems of data-intensive businesses” without spelling out precisely how one took advantage of his service. Stanley then turned his attention to the Alfabia Ridge, where Reggie lived. Here, he had more luck, findin
g several hiking websites that provided detailed descriptions of the route, which wound its way up and over the ridge of mountains on the east coast of the island. The trail started in Sóller, a small sister village of Port de Sóller in the foothills, and ended at a monastery in the interior of the island, about thirty miles away. The stony trail had been a pilgrim path for centuries.
One of the hiking sites included images from the official Spanish survey map of the island, and Stanley could see a thin road that paralleled the trail about three-quarters of the way to the top before it spurred to the south and dead-ended. He magnified the image on the screen with a deft parting of his fingers and could visualize where the house would be. Google Maps showed no concentration of residences on the ridge, just a reference to a single finca. Stanley put down his phone, looked out over the harbor, and popped a tangy little anchovy in his mouth. He could see no reason not to pay the elusive Reggie and his stacks of porn-clogged servers a visit the next day.
XXI.
PAPER
James Murphy sat down slowly at the kitchen table and tossed a manila envelope down on the chipped Formica surface. Later, he would read the lawyer’s letter again, carefully parsing each phrase and trying to feel some essence of Sondra in the formal legal language, but for now it sat like a bomb on the table, partially exploded, a concussive wallop to his gut and the promise of more frightful devastation still to come. His wife had taken the steps necessary to obtain a legal separation, requesting a division of their assets, with or without his cooperation. His first reflex was to toss the papers—he’d give her everything and show who the magnanimous, loving spouse really was. His next impulse was to pound the table in anger, but without someone in front of him to push against he stalled, slumped in his chair, and stared out the window.