A Song of Shadows

by John Connolly

  ‘Would they shoot you if I asked?’

  ‘Possibly. You want to tell me what all that was about?’

  Rachel wiped her nose on the back of her hand, disgusted herself by what she had done, and reached for a piece of kitchen towel.

  ‘You know how mad I am at you?’ she said.

  ‘I figured. I saw it in your face at the hospital.’

  ‘She could have been killed, Charlie! That man on the beach, she saw him die. She watched him shoot a police officer. And if that dune hadn’t collapsed, he’d probably have killed you, and her as well.’

  ‘I know.’

  She punched him on the arm.

  ‘What were you thinking, putting her at risk – and yourself?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘You what? You couldn’t stand by? You couldn’t let someone be hurt? Christ, I know all that. But Sam was there. She was your priority. She was the one you should have thought about first.’

  There was no point in telling Rachel that he had ordered Sam to stay in the house. He should have guessed that she wouldn’t stay. He was familiar enough with her nature by now. After all, it was so much like his.

  ‘You’re right,’ was all that he said.

  She stopped crying, although she still emitted small hiccupping sobs.

  ‘I can say these things to you,’ she continued, ‘but Jeff can’t – not to me, not to you, and certainly not to Sam. If anyone is going to drag you over hot coals, it’s going to be me.’

  ‘I appreciate that. Kind of.’

  She wiped her nose again, and exhaled long and slow.

  ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘I know you want to ask.’

  ‘Ask what?’ he said, with as much innocence as he could muster.

  ‘Jerk. If it’s over between Jeff and me.’

  ‘Is it over between Jeff and you?’

  ‘I think so. I’m sure you’re pleased.’

  ‘Damn. And I was just starting to like him.’

  She gave him another punch on the arm.

  ‘I hate you. You ruined my life.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sorry about that. You want some coffee?’

  ‘Tea. And you can tell those other idiots to come in now, if you like. But if I catch them gloating, I’ll ram their smiles down their throats.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to warn them. Where’s Sam?’

  ‘My mom took her out to buy some pastries when Jeff arrived, and it all started getting heated. I’ll let her know that it’s safe to return.’

  Parker set some water to boil for her tea, put some grounds in the fancy coffee machine, then went out to tell Angel and Louis that the coast was clear.

  ‘So it’s over between them?’ said Angel.

  ‘Seems to be.’

  ‘I was just starting to like him.’

  ‘That’s what I said.’

  ‘Are we allowed to gloat?’

  ‘You can try, but she did say something about ramming smiles down throats.’

  ‘That’s a “No”, then?’

  ‘I’d take it that way.’

  A silver Volvo SUV turned at the gate and came up the drive. Parker could see Rachel’s mother Joan behind the wheel, and Walter the golden retriever – once owned by Rachel and him, but now very much a Vermont dog – occupying the passenger seat beside her. Then, as the car drew closer, he caught sight of Sam sitting belted in the back. As always, his heart lifted at the sight of her, but not as high as before. He was not looking forward to talking to her about what had happened at Green Heron Bay.

  51

  Rachel’s mother was significantly more tolerant of Parker than her husband was, although it was all relative. She was civil – bordering on polite – but it was clear that Louis and Angel were an added strain on her natural good manners. They behaved impeccably, which was like saying that a bomb behaved well by not exploding.

  Sam, though, adored both of them, and even Louis tended to thaw in her presence. She chatted with them about school and TV, and scolded them halfheartedly for feeding scraps to Walter under the table. From a distance, they all looked like regular people.

  But Parker noticed that Sam didn’t say much to him. She’d hugged him upon leaving the car, and asked if he was okay, but beyond that she had devoted most of her attention to Angel and Louis, even more so than usual. It was as though she hoped to hide herself from him by pretending that he wasn’t there.

  But eventually she finished her milk and doughnut, and Parker suggested that they take a walk with Walter. Walter was more enthusiastic than Sam, but she didn’t refuse, and together they strolled around the Wolfes’ big back-yard.

  ‘How have you been?’ he asked her.

  ‘Good.’ She didn’t look at him.

  ‘I mean, after what happened at the beach. After what you saw there.’

  ‘Good.’

  Maybe, he thought, I should try bamboo slivers under her fingernails, or threaten to sabotage the cable box on the TV. He stopped and squatted before her. She peered up at him from beneath her bangs.

  ‘Sam, do you think I’m mad at you?’

  ‘No,’ she said, then offered: ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Why would I be?’

  ‘Because I followed you when I wasn’t supposed to.’

  ‘I’m not mad at you for doing that.’

  ‘Honest?’

  ‘Well, I don’t want you to do it again, but you’re safe, and I’m safe. It could have ended badly. You could have been hurt, or worse. You know that, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So maybe in future, if I tell you to do something, you might think about doing it?’

  This time, she generated a small embarrassed smile.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I do want to ask you something else about that night,’ he said.

  Now they were coming to it. He was treading carefully, but he could already sense her retreating, as though she knew what it was that troubled her father.

  ‘What do you remember?’ he said. ‘I mean, from the time that you came to the dunes. What do you recall?’

  She swallowed hard.

  ‘I saw you kneeling down, and I knew you were hurt. I saw the man with the gun, and then the police officer stood up, and the man shot her.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘He was going to shoot you.’

  ‘And were you frightened?’

  A nod.

  ‘Were you … angry?’

  A pause. Another nod.

  He saw her face again, lit by moonlight, and heard a sound like an exhalation as the dune collapsed.

  ‘Did you maybe imagine something happening to him, something that would stop him from hurting me?’

  She looked him straight in the eye.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sam, you have to understand, I’m really not mad at you. I’m just trying to understand everything that took place. It’s important.’

  ‘No,’ she repeated, more forcefully now. ‘I didn’t do anything! I don’t know what you’re talking about. Leave me alone!’

  She turned and ran, Walter at her heels. He let her go. He couldn’t have chased her anyway. He wasn’t strong enough. Now that he was down on his haunches he struggled to get back up again. Damn, that wasn’t smart. He managed to get himself upright, but his side hurt, and he limped back to the house. He should have brought the crutch from the car after all, but he still hated the thing. He didn’t want Sam to see him using it, so he’d hidden it in the trunk.

  Rachel emerged from the back door of the house and walked toward him.

  ‘You’re pale,’ she said. ‘You need to sit down.’

  ‘I hate sitting down,’ he said. ‘It hurts. I’m better standing up. Did you see Sam?’

  ‘Yes. She’s gone to her room.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to upset her.’

  ‘She wasn’t crying, if that’s what you mean. She had a face like thunder, but there were no tears. Can I ask what you were talking about?’

  ‘The night tha
t Earl Steiger died.’

  ‘She doesn’t seem troubled by it,’ said Rachel. ‘We’ve had no nightmares, and no moods – or no more than usual.’

  ‘Does that bother you?’

  ‘Some. I’ve tried talking to her myself, but she doesn’t want to discuss it. It may emerge in time. I don’t want to force it.’

  Parker was aware that they were having two different conversations about the same subject, but he didn’t point it out. Rachel was discussing the aftermath, but he was interested in the event itself. Does she even see it, he wondered: the strangeness of their child?

  Or maybe he was imagining it all, and was only projecting his own curse on to Sam. He was the troubled one. He was the one whose deceased child wrote messages to him on dusty glass, and crossed the boundaries between worlds, between what was and what once had been. He was the one tormented by memories of his own dying, of sitting by a glass lake while his dead daughter held his hand and his lost wife whispered words in his ear that he could not recall.

  Dunes collapsed. Every year people died in accidents just like the one that killed Earl Steiger. The fact that no such incident had ever previously occurred at Green Heron Bay meant nothing. Steiger’s death was not inexplicable. It was not even regrettable. His daughter had witnessed it, and no more than that.

  But her face, her face …

  Rachel broke into his thoughts.

  ‘Are you leaving today?’

  ‘I haven’t discussed it with Angel and Louis, but I guess so.’

  ‘Why don’t you stay?’ she said. ‘There should be enough to keep those two occupied in Burlington for an evening, and I can get them a good rate at the Willard Street Inn. Sam has a sleepover planned, and my mom will catch a movie. I’ll cook you dinner. We can talk.’

  ‘And where will I sleep?’

  ‘We have space,’ she said. She placed her right hand against his face. ‘It’ll do you good.’

  So Angel and Louis left, and he stayed. Sam came down from her room, and after circling warily for a time joined him to watch a Marx Brothers movie on TCM. Afterward they played checkers, and he fell asleep on the couch. When he woke both Sam and her grandmother – who had not commented upon his continued presence beyond a mildly pained pursing of the lips – were gone, and Rachel was cooking chicken in a cream sauce. He showered in the guest bathroom, allowed himself a glass of wine, and they ate in the kitchen by candlelight while 1st Wave played in the background on Sirius. Afterward he helped her wash up, and then it was her turn to fall asleep beside him on the couch. He woke her shortly before eleven p.m. and kissed her goodnight.

  He lay awake in the spare room. His side ached. He considered taking a couple of the prescription pills to help him sleep, but he hated the aftertaste and the way they made his head feel clouded for hours after waking up. Thirty minutes, he thought. I’ll give myself thirty minutes. If I can’t get to sleep by then, I’ll take the pills. He heard Rachel’s mother come back and go to her room. After that, the house was quiet.

  Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes more.

  The bedroom door opened slowly, then closed again. Rachel came to him. She was wearing a short nightgown, and he watched as she lifted it over her head and let it fall to the floor.

  ‘Does it hurt a lot?’ she said.

  ‘No, not a lot.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. She eased herself onto the bed, and sat astride him. ‘You just stay still. Let me take care of you.’

  And he did.

  52

  Rachel was gone when Parker woke. He had a vague memory of her getting up to leave during the night, but it seemed then as much of a dream as her sleeping presence beside him had been. He showered, and changed – he had just enough clothing in his overnight bag to remain presentable for another day. The rest of his wardrobe was divided between Scarborough and Boreas. His time as a resident of that northern town was coming to a close, but he had decided to return for a few more days at least. He had unfinished business there.

  He went down to breakfast and caught Mrs Wolfe sending bad juju his way, although at least she had the decency to include Rachel in her glare of disapproval. He figured that she’d heard Rachel heading back to her room in the stable annex during the night. At least Frank wasn’t in the house as well. If he thought that his daughter had slept with her ex-partner under his roof, he’d have gone looking for his shotgun.

  Rachel gave him coffee and a bagel, but refused to catch his eye for fear of confirming her mother’s suspicions. It made Parker feel like a teenager again, and not in a bad way. Sam had gone straight from her sleepover to school, but it was a half day so he waited for her return. Angel and Louis appeared not long after she got back. Not wishing to strain Mrs Wolfe’s patience any further, they all made their farewells. Before Parker left, Sam hugged him and said: ‘Daddy, you should have used the crutch that they gave you.’ And he agreed that, yes, he should have, but he felt better now, and maybe he wouldn’t need it at all.

  Rachel kissed him on the cheek, and the affection of the gesture filled him with a tender sadness. The night before was lost to them now: it had been a small consecration, a minor epiphany, and no more than that, but sometimes such moments are all that we are given, and they are enough to fuel us, and give us hope that, somewhere down the line, another might be gifted.

  Angel and Louis sensed something of his mood, and there was no mockery as they drove away, no loaded questions about how the night had gone. The sun shone, and a classical piece played on the radio, one that Parker thought he recognized but could not identify. He didn’t ask its name, though. He simply listened, and let its waves break upon him.

  And only then did he realize he had not told Sam about the crutch. It had remained in the trunk of the car, where she could not have seen it. He said nothing to Angel and Louis, but merely added it to his concerns about his daughter.

  ‘What now?’ said Louis, after they had been driving in silence for almost an hour.

  ‘I’d like you to take me back to Boreas,’ said Parker. ‘I’d be grateful if you’d help me pack up my things. It won’t take long: a couple of hours at most.’

  ‘And then?’

  He’d read about the previous day’s press conference on the Portland Press Herald’s website, and had followed up with a call to Gordon Walsh before he went down to breakfast. He was now clear on how slowly the investigation into Ruth Winter’s murder was progressing. Steiger was one of the problems: a professional shooter meant a disconnect between the motive and the act, one that could only be remedied by forcing the killer to turn on whomever had hired him – not an option in the case of the late Earl Steiger. But as Louis pointed out, it also had to be recognized that, because Steiger could have been hired out by a third party – Cambion, in this case – he might not even have been aware of the original source of the contract. If they could get to Cambion, and make him talk, then they might learn something useful, but Cambion had gone underground. The solution, then, was to work backward.

  ‘I’m going to find out who ordered the killing of Ruth Winter,’ said Parker.

  Angel glanced at him in the rearview mirror. There was no doubt in the detective’s voice, and although he was staring out the window, his eyes saw nothing of what passed before them.

  Angel and Louis had spoken of Parker the night before. Yes, thought Angel, Louis was right: he is different. He has a certainty to him that was not there before. He should be dead, yet he is more alive and, more dangerous than ever.

  God help anyone who went up against him now.

  God help them all.

  53

  Bernhard Hummel was currently residing in the special care unit of the Golden Hills Senior Living Community just outside Ellsworth, Maine.

  Of the many ends that he might meet, Baulman had always been most fearful of dementia. The idea of slowly losing himself appalled him, and he had done all he could to ensure that such a fate was not destined to be his: he exercised regularly, ate well, and w
as never without a newspaper or a book. He played memory games – reciting the fifty state capitals, listing the names and numbers of beloved symphonies, or the German soccer teams of various vintages – and, although he was right-handed, he forced himself to perform many tasks using his left. His arthritis he could live with. His bladder was little better than a thimble, but he could calculate almost to the minute how long he had before he would need a men’s room. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d had a good night’s sleep, but he’d learned to grab a nap whenever he could, and anyway, it left more time for reading.

  But still he was troubled when he forgot the name of an acquaintance, living or dead, or couldn’t bring to mind quickly enough a favorite film, or the title of a novel. Unlike poor old Bernhard Hummel, he had nobody around who might notice any deterioration in the quality of his mental functioning. He had to be his own guardian, his own monitor. He could only hope that, if it happened, he would recognize the symptoms before it was too late, giving him time to kill himself.

  Golden Hills wasn’t the worst such facility that Baulman had visited in his time. It did, at least, have hills of a sort, and the buildings and gardens were well maintained. One half of the property consisted entirely of apartments and small cottages for those individuals or couples that needed a little help with day-to-day activities, yet didn’t require round-the-clock care, but Hummel was in a secure annex at the rear of the main building. Baulman was admitted without any trouble. He wasn’t even required to show ID, and for an instant he considered signing in under a false name. But what if the people from the Justice Department were tailing him? He would only bring down suspicion on himself if they checked the visitors’ register and found that he had signed in under an alias. He had grown increasingly paranoid about such surveillance – not without cause – and now found himself searching the faces of strangers for signs of excessive interest and monitoring the cars that followed him on both local roads and the freeway. He incorporated the routine into his memory games, filing away the license numbers, makes, and colors of cars. If they were keeping an eye on his movements, he had given them no cause to suspect him, and was not about to start today. He was entitled to visit his old friend Bernhard. What kind of man doesn’t visit his friends in the hospital? To hell with them if they did question him about it.