This felt familiar—and familiarly disorienting: Crowe alluding to some pressing offstage drama, probably exaggerating its importance. Hunter tried to decide if she could trust him—and also wondered a little if she could trust herself.
He’d be staying at the Old Shore Inn, about twenty miles from her place at the marina. If she wanted to stop by, they could discuss it tonight.
“Why a zoo in the morning?”
“The press, for one thing. They’re probably a day behind us, two days at the most. And that gap will certainly tighten by the a.m. There are a lot of moving parts to this thing and I’m afraid it may blow up quickly.”
“Why are you interested in what happened here?”
“We’re interested in Kwan Park. But I’m not going to get into it now,” he said. “I spoke with your sheriff briefly, by the way. Earlier. Sounds like quite an interesting place there.” She could hear the wink in his voice. “We meet for a drink, I can lay the groundwork for you. Otherwise, we do it tomorrow morning with everyone else present. Your call.”
Hunter turned to the window, surprised to see the snow coming so thick, slanting against the marina lights. No, she thought, it wouldn’t be particularly smart to get on the road now, at the start of what was predicted to be a substantial overnight snowfall.
“I THINK I’LL go check the doors at the church,” Luke Bowers said.
“And windows.”
“Those, too.” He looked out at the snow, moonlit through the birch and pine woods. “I just need to go over the books for a few minutes. Fix all the things that Aggie straightened out for me.”
Charlotte gave him a faux scold. “Be nice. We need to invite her over sometime.”
“You’re right. Let’s do that soon.”
Luke looked at his wife and felt a ripple of affection as he turned to go. She was one of the most naturally kind people he’d ever known, despite her inherent inwardness; it was never something she had to work at the way he did. Once, Charlotte had told him, If you can’t be happy, be kind. Happy will follow. He had slipped those words into a sermon a few days later, even though he worried some in the congregation would find them corny. But the church members seemed to unanimously love it; some still repeated it as if it were a famous biblical passage.
The drive along the bay road was lovely, the snow dense to his left, already sticking in the farm fields and sparse woods, swirling to his right out over the Chesapeake.
He parked in the gravel lot under the overhang and ran into the offices, entering through Aggie’s work space. He flicked the lights on and walked down the long corridor linking the offices and sanctuary, breathing the warmer, musty air. Entering the church through the choir door, he left the lights off, then sat in the front row and watched the stream of snow patterns on the walls and across the floor and the rows of pews. He loved the effects of snow through the rear windows and stained glass of this old building. It always stirred dormant feelings, reminded him of how it felt to walk into falling snow as a child, to soak in the quiet dignity of all that nature. In a sense, that was what his work was all about, he’d told Charlotte—trying to recapture the sense of joy and wonder that we surrender to adulthood.
Luke was aware of another presence in the sanctuary this evening, though. The thing that had invaded Tidewater County almost a week ago was still here. A certain kind of evil. He turned his head toward the place where he had discovered Kwan Park’s body, hunched over the pew back, facing the altar. He watched the cascade of snow through the second-story rear windows as the old building moaned and its shutters thunked faintly. And he saw a long arc of light flash across the south wall like a shooting star.
What was that?
Luke stood up and listened, hearing the rafters strain in the wind.
A minute later he heard something else, louder and more deliberate.
Knocking.
Someone was banging on the front doors of the church building.
He stepped back through the choir entrance in the dark, and the knocking came again, harder. An insistent, muffled bap-bap-bap.
Luke stopped several feet from the doors, wondering if he’d remembered to lock them. He saw the handle jiggle back and forth.
The knocks came again. A question being asked. He reached toward the door and opened it.
Chapter 31
JACKSON PYNNE STOOD in the doorway, his long cashmere overcoat flecked with snow.
Luke let him in and closed the door. Pynne brushed his shoulders and sleeves. He stomped his right shoe, then his left.
“Fucking snow,” he said.
“I thought you were leaving town, Jackson.”
“I came back.”
“I can see. Let’s go to my office. It’s warmer there.”
Pynne’s rubber soles squished on the wooden floor as he followed Luke down the dark corridor to the church offices, walking in that slightly cocky way he had. Luke clicked on the desk lamp in his office.
“Have a seat, Jackson.”
He didn’t. He stood in the center of the room, taking in everything, the snow melting from his coat. “I understand the police’ve been looking for me,” he said. “Bothering my sister.”
“Have they?”
“Our little conversation the other day was supposed to’ve been in confidence. Right?”
Luke clasped his hands on the desk.
“I trusted you on that, Pastor,” Pynne said, pointing an index finger at him. “I like to think I can take a person at his word.”
Luke sighed. “Please. Have a seat, Jackson.”
This time he did, reluctantly, his long legs jutting up from the card-table chair in front of the desk.
“So, it turns out you do have a connection with this woman who was found in the church, after all,” Luke said.
Pynne’s expression didn’t change. Luke watched the shadows of falling snow on his face.
“She worked for a Quik Gas franchise in Ohio. Which, it turns out, you used to co-own. That’s what I was just told this afternoon. I didn’t know you were a franchise owner of Quik Gas.”
Jackson Pynne watched him. He said nothing.
“The police figured that out by themselves, I assure you. From what I understand, they’re looking for you.”
“Yeah?”
“That’s what I understand.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said, turning his eyes to the window.
“They want you to tell them what she was doing here in Tidewater. What might’ve happened to her.”
Jackson sighed dramatically, fiddling with the buttons on his coat. The tension had shifted; his concern now was defending himself rather than accusing Luke.
“Well, I can’t. And I’m not going to,” Pynne said, anger rising in his voice.
“Which one is it?”
“What?”
Jackson sat up straighter again. He crossed his legs at the knee and jiggled his foot. Then uncrossed them.
“What happened?” Luke said. “Who was she?”
“Kwan Park.”
“Yes.”
He turned away, as if he didn’t know where to look or what to do. “I was helping her,” he said, his voice sounding humbled all of a sudden. “Okay? What do they think happened?”
“I don’t know.”
He kept glancing out the window, at the place he used to inhabit; like a man in prison, Luke thought.
“If you want to talk about it, please feel free,” Luke said, summoning the most reasonable tone he could.
“I’d rather you do the talking here, Father.”
“I’m not a father.”
“Pastor.”
Luke shrugged. “Okay, what should I talk about?”
“Tell me what you know.” He reached for something inside his coat. Then tried the other pocket. Luke
wondered for a second if he might be carrying a handgun. “What the police think my connection to this is?”
“Police think this woman Kwan Park worked for you.”
“Okay.” Pynne finally found what he was after: a pack of Chesterfields.
“They think maybe you were having a relationship with her.”
“Yeah?” He tamped out a cigarette. Felt for matches or a lighter, nodding for him to go on.
“They also think her murder might be connected to several other homicides.”
The cigarette was halfway to Jackson Pynne’s mouth when his hand froze.
“Several other homicides?”
“Yes.” They stared at one another across the desk for a while, the snow shadows creating an illusion of distance. He’s come here for a reason, Luke thought. Information, yeah, but something else, too.
“What happened to Kwan Park, Jackson?”
Pynne shook his head, but his eyes, uncharacteristically, seemed to glisten. Luke noticed the front of the matchbook as he finally pulled the match between the striking surface and the cover. Gonter’s Crabhouse. The end of his cigarette flared red. He slipped the matches back into his pocket. His fingers unsteady.
“I had nothing to do with what happened,” he said. “You understand that, right? I was trying to help the woman. I loved that woman.”
“Okay.” Pynne’s eyes were on the end of his cigarette as he inhaled. “You can understand why police would want to find you, though, right? The fact that she worked for you—they’re going to want to ask you questions. I think you ought to be prepared for that, Jackson. I mean, if you didn’t have anything to do with it, you still have—”
“ ‘If’ I didn’t have anything to do with it?” he said, bolting forward in the chair.
“I’m sorry.”
“I just told you I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Yes, you did. I’m sorry.”
Luke let him cool off. Smoke hung in the office now, the smell reminding him of other paths his life might’ve taken.
“Who’s after you, Jackson?” Luke finally said.
He shook away the question.
“Do you know?”
“Yeah, I know.” He looked out the window. Luke waited, understanding they were in delicate terrain now.
“What’s this about, Jackson? What do you think happened?”
Pynne took his time, seeming to work through a problem. Finally, his eyes slid back to Luke’s and held steady. “I got into something, okay?” he said. “A little mess. But I didn’t kill anyone.”
“What kind of a mess?”
“Just—a business deal that went wrong.” He hunched forward, placing his elbows on his knees, holding out the cigarette in his right hand. “But it’s not what I did so much as what I know. What I figured out. Or what they think I figured out.”
“Okay.” Pynne inhaled on the cigarette, letting smoke flow slowly from his nostrils this time. “And you don’t want to go to the police with what you know. Not even anonymously?”
“Right.”
“Why?”
“Why?” His mouth flexed unfamiliarly. “Because I say anything, it’d be the same thing as shoveling my own grave. You understand?”
“Not entirely,” Luke said. “But, as I say, I’m sure the police are looking for you right now, Jackson.”
“Are you?” He feigned a laugh and shook his head. Looked out the window. “Fucking snow,” he said, lifting the cigarette slowly to his mouth.
“I know,” Luke said. “Just understand that if you want to talk, I’m here.”
“I heard you the first time, Father.”
“I’m not your father.”
“Pastor.” He pointed his cigarette at Luke again and held it; snow shadows twisted patterns through the smoke. “Tell me about those other homicides.”
Luke drew a deliberate breath; he probably shouldn’t have mentioned that.
“Go ahead, goddamn it,” Pynne said, lurching forward again. “Tell me about that. Who they were. Describe them.”
Luke thought of the computer printouts, the death scenes, the victims, the man whose lips and tongue had been removed. “As I understand it, there are three other cases, Jackson,” he said. “Which police think might be related. I don’t know a lot of details.”
“Tell me what you know. Describe them.”
“Two women and a man.”
“Describe them.”
“Okay. A woman in Delaware. Maybe forty-five years old. Her body found burned beyond recognition in a wax museum fire. Then a woman in West Virginia, late thirties. Shot in the head, left in a waste pit, wrapped in a bedsheet and bound in duct tape. And a man in Virginia, around fifty, wearing a business suit. Shot in the chest. Left in the woods beside a rural highway.”
A shadow of recognition swept his face, Luke thought.
“Go on.”
“That’s all.”
He slowly rose from the chair. Walked through Aggie’s office to the front door. He took a long final drag on his cigarette and flicked it outside, the wind blowing the red sparks into the office. He walked back through Aggie’s space, his eyes wandering, both hands shoved in his coat pockets, bringing a breath of cold air back with him.
“Let me tell you something, then, Pastor,” he said, still standing. “All right?”
“Yes, please.”
“I’m going to give you three names, okay? If you want to tell the police about them—anonymously—go ahead, see if they mean anything. Just don’t call anybody right away, you follow me? Give me a couple of hours.”
“Why?”
“Why. You don’t listen, do you?”
“Not always.”
“Not often.”
“Okay.”
“At this point, my name doesn’t enter into it. Not in any way, shape, or form.”
“If that’s how you want it.”
“It is.” Luke waited. “Okay. You got a pen?”
Luke reached for the church ballpoint pen on his desk and held it up.
Jackson Pynne gave him three names then, spelling each. Luke wrote them in his spiral sermon book: Mark Chandler, Sheila Patterson, Katrina Menken.
“Look into their backgrounds if you want. Where they worked.”
“Why? Who are they?”
Pynne stared back at him. Luke thought he was about to become angry again. Instead, he flashed a smile. “You mean, who they are right now?”
“Okay.”
“Right now they’re nothing. Lighter than vapor.”
He stepped toward the window. Peered out, ducking his head slightly to see better, the set of his face somber again.
“The thing is,” he said, “I was trying to do something honorable. You know?” He turned, hands in his pockets. “You ever read ‘The Killers’?”
“You mean the Hemingway story?”
“Yeah.” He smiled quickly, surprised that Luke knew this. “Well, that’s who I am. Old Ole. They’re coming to collect now. Trumble’s people are coming to collect.”
“Collect from you?”
“Yeah, right.” Luke saw an ambiguous half smile in his reflection on the glass. “Remember how we used to talk, Pastor?”
“Of course I remember.”
“And how I always told you I was looking for something? Something I could do that would make a difference. Help other people. Maybe give me redemption, in a way. Remember that?”
“I think so.”
“Well, you know what? I finally found a deal like that. And it had to do with Kwan. It was about us. We were going to do some good and then maybe have a life for ourselves. Somewhere down South.”
Luke felt an enormous sadness for Jackson Pynne all of a sudden, Pynne looking up at the snow.
; “What I recommend, Jackson, is that you talk with the authorities,” he said. “They’re going to find you eventually, you know.”
“Yeah, I do. I do know that, Pastor. And you know what: they can fuck off, okay?” He gave Luke an unfriendly smile. “But I want to tell you this. I actually prayed for this goddamned thing to work. With me and Kwan. And you know what? Despite all that, the whole fucking thing blew apart, you follow me? The whole fucking thing!”
Luke waited a moment, looking at his desk.
“Would you like to tell me about it?”
“No. I wouldn’t.”
“Why not? You were just saying how we used to talk.”
“Why not? Because I said so, okay? I can’t. Not until I’m sure about a couple of things.”
“Okay.”
A few minutes later Luke watched Jackson Pynne striding through the snow to his Audi, scanning the grounds of the church. Taillights brightened as he braked around a bend of trees. Luke tracked his direction, waiting for the taillights to disappear in the snow. But before they did, he saw from the north a pair of headlights, slicing a path that came into line behind Jackson’s car. And for a few seconds there were two sets of taillights, moving in tandem, south and east, before both vehicles seemed to become engulfed, swallowed up by all that snow.
KIRBY MOSS FOLLOWED Pynne’s Audi as it pulled out from the church lot. Finally, he’d found him. Mostly by dumb luck and happenstance. He’d been staking out the town house from a distance and Pynne had eventually shown up, parked for less than a minute, and then driven on. Police evidence techs were inside by then, processing the unit. No way was he going in.
Moss had followed. He’d tailed Jackson Pynne driving north, back toward the church. Back to the scene of the crime, just as Rankin’s client had predicted.
The fact that Pynne had spent this time in the church might become a problem now, Moss figured. But it wasn’t his problem. His problem was to keep Pynne in sight, to find where he was going to stay tonight. Then Rankin would make sure they ended this thing in whatever way he saw fit, so they could all go home. It was even possible they could finish it before morning. Moss felt a warm current of satisfaction course through him, thinking about it.
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