He’d always been told that his father’s family was Irish and French, his mother’s Eastern European. But he didn’t look much like either parent, or, for that matter, their relatives or ancestors. His mother and father were both short, with strong features and darkish skin. When Luke was fifteen, lean and still growing, he stood two inches taller than his father, three and half inches taller than his mother. Eventually he’d tower over his mother by nearly a foot. Both parents were brown-eyed, although there had been blue eyes on his mother’s side, they told him. “That’s where your blue eyes come from,” she used to say. But since the photographs she showed him were always black and white, it was hard to tell. Luke’s father had begun to lose his hair in his early twenties, whereas Luke had thick hair—“unruly,” a barber once called it—and it was an odd color, a dark and light-blond mixture; “surfer hair,” according to Charlotte.
By the time he entered high school, Luke was all but certain that his parents’ stories about where he came from had been no more genuine than their tales about Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. Coincidentally, it seemed, when he was sixteen his parents called him to the family room on a Saturday morning and confessed the truth, with lowered eyes and a tone of gravity. His father began with an oddly constructed sentence that Luke still remembered with great affection: “As you may have guessed by now, Luke, we have something to tell you.” The fact that he’d been adopted didn’t cause him to love his parents any less; it was the opposite— recognizing how much they had wanted to be his real parents and, in their way, how much they had been, he loved them more. The fact that his parents had brought him, as a wide-eyed eight-year-old, to these briny, seafood-scented streets of Tidewater County made it feel like home to him years later when he returned with Charlotte.
At the Gas ’N Bait in town—which sold everything from apples to ammunition to hangover remedies—Billy Banfield, a genial, obese man, came lumbering out as soon as Luke pulled in.
“Hey there, Pastor, what d’you say?” He pretended to be checking a pump on the next island. “Terrible thing down to the church. They know anything yet?”
“Not that they’ve shared with me, no.”
He stepped closer, moving side to side.
“Is it true what I heard—the gal was naked when you found her?”
“No.” Luke watched the numbers whirl. “Not true.”
“No?”
“Nope, sorry.”
Billy moved a step and a half closer, trying not to seem eager, but his eyes belied his interest, as if he were entitled. “Hearing a lot of rumors, anyway.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” Luke smiled. He pulled the nozzle out and inserted it in the pump, walking tenderly from having banged his knee earlier. “Probably best not to pay a lot of attention to that sort of thing, Bill.”
“No. Wouldn’t mention it, ’cept when you hear one that you know ain’t true—can’t be true—when it’s about someone you know couldn’t be involved . . .”
Luke realized from the way Billy’s eyes had narrowed that he was talking about him. He smiled again and decided to let it go. “Anyway, take care, Bill.”
On the little “strip mall” along east Main Street, he stopped at Palmer’s Florist, where a reedy, silver-haired man he didn’t recognize was selling a bouquet of tulips to a young blond woman.
“Pastor Luke?” the man said, once he completed the transaction. “That you?”
Luke lifted his eyebrows.
“George,” he said.
“Oh.” Luke realized, shaking hands, that this must be the owner, George Palmer. Like a lot of people in Tidewater County, George was only there occasionally during off-season.
“Sorry, didn’t recognize you,” Luke said. “I’m used to always seeing attractive young women working here.”
George Palmer smiled and looked down, as if embarrassed. “Had to return for some family business. Hoping I’d find warmer weather. What happened, anyway?”
“Wish I could say.”
“We’re hearing all kinds of stories.”
“People do like to tell stories, don’t they?”
“Yes, they do.”
Luke bought two roses and continued his drive east. One of the roses he would leave at Tidewater Hospice with Millicent Blanchard, a church member who was living out her last days there. The other he’d take home to Charlotte.
Visiting the hospice always grounded Luke and seemed to comfort the patients. Today it also took his mind off of what had happened at the church—and what the people of Tidewater County imagined he knew about it. He stopped to visit with each of the patients briefly before going to Millicent’s corner room. At least she wouldn’t ask him what had happened.
“How are you today, Millie?” he said. He lifted the blinds to let sunlight in. “You look good. Here, I brought you a rose.”
He held the flower out and Millie took it, although her watery gray eyes didn’t seem at first to register what it was or who he was. Then she finally looked up at Luke and smiled broadly, like a child.
“So, you’re feeling comfortable? Good. Yes, I know, gorgeous day, isn’t it? Just look at those clouds. Aren’t they beautiful? You know what they say: there’s a lot more going on in the sky than there ever is on television. I’m glad you agree. We’ve always seen eye-to-eye on things like that, haven’t we?”
Luke had to provide both sides of the conversation now with Millie, an oysterman’s widow in her late sixties who had collapsed in her backyard five months ago, a few nights after sitting with Luke at an all-you-can-eat church crab feast, bragging on her great-grandkids. At first doctors thought she’d suffered a stroke, but it turned out to be a rare, degenerative brain disease. Millie wasn’t expected to last more than a couple weeks longer—although if anyone could defy expectations, it was her.
Luke felt a clutch of emotions, as he always did, holding her fragile hand, praying for Millie and her family, thanking God for Millie’s life, for her work with the church and in the community. As he walked away from her room, into the corridor, he felt weighted down with sadness, knowing that these visits with her were numbered.
He took the northern route back, through farmland that seemed to stretch without end in all directions. The morning haze had burned away and noontime light cast a stark clarity on the farm fields, the grain silos and wooden barns. Some places were zoned to become bigger, to attract industry and promote growth, but most of Tidewater County—other than a few stretches on the waterfront—was zoned to never become anything other than what it was. It’s what he loved about the place.
He pushed in one of Charlotte’s CDs. Chopin, Fantasie Impromptu, the console read. Charlotte, at his request, had begun teaching him a little about classical music, with mixed results. So far he’d learned that he liked Mahler and Tchaikovsky, although he sometimes couldn’t tell the difference. This one he liked; the music quickly drew him in, lending a subtle grandeur to the countryside as he drove back toward the coast on a shoulderless two-lane road, trying out anecdotes in his head for Sunday’s sermon.
Distances became a little tricky in this open country—so that you might see a truck across the fields and not know how far away it was or which direction it was going. He was absently tracking a pickup now as Chopin’s piano melody took a mysterious turn—a big silver truck, moving parallel to him, maybe half a mile away, but traveling faster than he was. Route 11, probably. Going west by southwest.
It must’ve turned left then, because when he noticed it again, the truck was coming directly toward him, perpendicularly. And then it was right there: Luke was stopped at the two-way at Goose Creek Crossing and the truck whooshed by, shaking his car. A new-looking double cab Ram pickup with a prominent dent on the right front fender.
More surprising than the vehicle—it was rare to see anything but old pickups ou
t here—was the man driving it. As the truck passed, the driver turned his eyes to look squarely at him.
Jackson Pynne.
He recognized him. Except why would Jackson Pynne be driving through Tidewater County?
It had been months since Luke had even thought of Jackson Pynne—and much longer since he’d actually seen him. But seeing him now gave him a bad feeling. Jackson was a hotel and condominium developer who’d come here six or seven years ago with deep pockets and plans to build a high-end hotel-marina project. The Baltimore Sun had called him a “maverick, larger-than-life businessman” back then—which Jackson liked, although that article may have also begun his unraveling. Tidewater County rarely made room for people who were “larger than life,” particularly when they were what locals called “come heres” rather than “from heres.”
In some ways, though, Jackson was larger than life. Tall, long-legged, with a self-assured step and cool, craggy features, he always reminded Luke of a 1950s film actor, in the Robert Mitchum, William Holden mold. There was an inherent drama in his face that often made him seem to be saying more than he actually was. People would sometimes do a double take when they spotted Jackson walking the streets of Tidewater, thinking he might be someone famous. And, for a while, Jackson Pynne had been a player in the business of Tidewater County, albeit a controversial one, convincing some of the newer commissioners and zoning board members that his hotel-marina would transform the waterfront, attracting a “new caliber” of tourist to Tidewater.
But the old guard had been quietly wary of him from the start and never made life easy for him. There were invisible layers of tradition in this county, Luke had discovered, as mysterious at times as the ways of a religious sect. Each of the three bayfront projects that Pynne tried to build had failed, costing him huge losses of money and prestige. Each time Pynne went before the county zoning boards—boards that routinely approved Nayak projects—he was asked to scale back his plans or to make numerous changes. In the last case—a boutique luxury condo/hotel with a restaurant he wanted to call “Jackson’s”—the delays ultimately led the state to file fraud charges against him after Pynne accepted deposits for units that were never built. He eventually repaid the deposits, but by then he’d worn out his welcome.
Toward the end of his years in Tidewater, Jackson Pynne had, improbably, adopted Luke as a friend. By then his frustrations with the zoning process and the “old boy” network had made him an angry man, cutting him off from nearly everyone else in the county. Sometimes he’d show up at the church unannounced and rant to Luke about the people who had “screwed” him, using his colorful nicknames for zoning board members—Baby Huey, Mr. Magoo, and the kraut, among them. Charlotte claimed Luke had a weakness for underdogs, and by then Pynne’s whole life seemed to have become a long shot. Luke tried to find the good in people, and there was a lot of good in Jackson Pynne, even a sense of nobility at times. There was also a deep yearning for something more meaningful in his life, which was probably what had drawn him to Luke. Jackson was a strange amalgamation of traits, which didn’t seem to mesh well.
People used to say, “Something strange happens every time Jackson Pynne comes to town.”
Remembering the sentiment, Luke felt a chill race through him.
Chapter 5
THE DEBRIEFING MEETING of the Homicide Task Force was scheduled for eleven-thirty at the Public Safety Complex. It left Amy Hunter time to drive into town and talk with Louis Gunther, Robby Fallow’s attorney. But she called ahead, and was told that Gunther wasn’t in the office on Wednesdays this time of year.
Just as well, Hunter thought.
This case wasn’t about Robby Fallow, she was certain of that. The Tidewater killing was sophisticated and remarkably clean, in a way that didn’t yet make sense, but that almost certainly eliminated the Fallows as suspects.
Investigators talked about a forty-eight-hour rule on homicides. Forty-eight hours after the victim was discovered, detectives should know what kind of case they had. But Hunter didn’t believe in those kinds of rules. In a case like this, without witnesses, the circumstances of the crime were like a heavy fog that had drifted in from the bay. You worked in the fog until it began to clear, however long that took. The idea that it should happen in forty-eight hours was just an excuse for lazy cops. On Wednesday morning the fog in the church killing was still impenetrable. There were no good leads on the victim’s identity, or on the killer’s. And the way the woman had been left, posed in a rear pew as if praying, felt not only like a challenge, but a taunt. A puzzle left for Hunter to solve.
Also, the case had tabloid potential, she knew, because of the numbers carved into Jane Doe’s right hand, which was why Hunter wanted to make sure that this detail was kept from the media for as long as possible.
Complicating the case was the unspoken conflict with Sheriff Calvert. This was the first Tidewater County homicide since commissioners had taken away his authority. Hunter would have to work around that.
She was thinking about Jane Doe’s eyes as she walked down the bright corridor to the conference room, wind driving dried snow against the ceiling-tall parking lot windows. Hunter had stood directly in front of the woman and stared into her film-coated eyes, wondering where she’d come from and why someone had done this to her. In every case, Hunter kept an image of the victim on her desk and also in her head, a reminder of who she was really working for. Years earlier she had herself been the victim of a violent crime, in a leafy suburban neighborhood where violations of that kind didn’t happen. It was something she didn’t talk about. But the way the case was mishandled had shaken her priorities and given Hunter her interest in law enforcement. She’d begun her career in Pennsylvania, working CID for the state police before Maryland hired her on an investigative track five years ago. The MSP had one of the most successful homicide units in the country, with a closure rate of ninety-two percent and a conviction rate over ninety-nine percent. But some cases defied percentages; some went cold for weeks and months, and a few never warmed up at all. This was beginning to feel like it could become one of those.
“All right,” she began at the task force meeting. “Let’s just summarize what we’ve got, where we need to go. Bottom line, somewhere, probably in this county, someone knows something about what happened. We need to find them.”
Nine others had gathered around the conference table, showing various levels of interest: state homicide investigators Sonny Fischer and Ben Shipman, Hunter’s partners—sometimes called “Fisch and Ship,” an endearment neither of them cared for; State’s Attorney Wendell Stamps, a large, shrewd man with a perpetually impassive expression; the state’s attorney’s lead investigator Clinton Fogg, a thirty-year veteran who still had a hard time looking Hunter in the eye—as if he couldn’t accept that she was really in charge of the Homicide Task Force; sheriff’s deputies Barry Stilfork and Susan Jones, whose allegiance was to the county sheriff; John Jay Blount, a captain with the Tidewater municipal police, who often gave Hunter the creeps, the way he stared at her; and the county’s public information officer, Kirsten Sparks, who vigorously chewed gum with an exaggerated motion of her jaw and neck as Hunter spoke. Hunter’s boss Henry Moore, the case officer with the state police homicide unit, was also in the room. He’d given her latitude in this case, like a coach allowing his quarterback to read the defense and respond accordingly. There were eighteen men and women in the state police homicide unit, and seven of them were now assigned to this case.
The sheriff, although part of the task force, had skipped the meeting, which was his way of making a statement. His loss, Hunter thought.
She glanced at her notes and continued: “Jane Doe arrived at the M.E.’s Office on Penn Street yesterday morning shortly before noon with Ben Shipman accompanying to maintain chain of custody. Preliminary autopsy and forensics reports from the state CSI are now ba
ck. Toxicology pending. Trace and biological analysis still under way in Pikesville.”
She then shared details from the M.E.’s report: “The victim was five foot five and a half inches tall, weight one hundred sixteen. Estimated thirty to thirty-five years old. Asian or Hispanic heritage. I want to make sure we get that out to the press today,” she said, making eye contact with Kirsten Sparks, the public information officer. “The paper used the word Caucasian. Which, as you know, is a word we don’t even use anymore.”
Sparks stopped chewing; her pale skin colored. “I’ve already spoken with them,” she said defensively. “Obviously, I wouldn’t have used the word Caucasian. I don’t know where they got that from.”
“I’m not saying you did. I’m just saying let’s make sure they have it right in future references.”
Hunter looked back at the report as Kirsten Sparks resumed her gum-chomping at a faster pace.
“So far, dental, fingerprints, and DNA have not resulted in an ID. Yesterday, two photos of Jane Doe and one of the tattoo on her ankle were sent electronically to law enforcement agencies throughout Delaware, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and D.C. A physical description and sketch to area media. We’ve contacted every police department in the state for missing persons reports. With no match so far.”
Hunter turned another page. “Okay,” she said. “This next part isn’t for the media yet, or for public consumption.” She glanced quickly at Sparks. “Preliminary autopsy shows four broken bones in her legs, two broken ribs, and a broken bone in her left arm. All of those wounds appear to be postmortem. The cause of death is two .22 caliber gunshot wounds to the chest.”
Kirsten Sparks stopped chewing. For a moment even Clinton Fogg’s eyes rose to look at her. “Wow,” Sparks said.
The Psalmist Page 4