A Game of Ghosts: A Charlie Parker Thriller: 15. From the No. 1 Bestselling Author of A Time of Torment

by John Connolly

  ‘So what do you want?’

  Parker reached into his satchel and removed a sheaf of papers. They represented Aimee Price’s last professional involvement in his affairs.

  ‘You’re not just using me,’ he said. ‘You’re also using my friends.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘A token of your gratitude wouldn’t go amiss.’

  ‘More money? I don’t think that’s going to happen.’

  ‘They don’t need money, but you can offer some practical assistance that might help your cause. Louis doesn’t have a record. Angel does.’

  ‘Which, let me remind you, has required me to clean up more than one mess, and calm any number of representatives of local and state law enforcement. As for Louis, just because he has never been convicted of a crime doesn’t mean he’s not on the radar.’

  ‘Louis isn’t the issue. Angel is. My price for going after Eklund just went up. This is it.’

  He handed the papers to Ross, who glanced through them.

  ‘Proceedings to seal his criminal record in the state of New York,’ he said, when he was done. ‘You and Ms. Price have been busy.’

  ‘Angel’s record complicates certain areas of his life, including possession of a firearm. We’d have gone for expungement, but that isn’t an option in New York. A lot of favors have been called in to fast-track this. As you’ll see, there’s also a degree of confusion about Angel’s age at the time of the commission of the offense that got him put in Rikers – and for burglary, a nonviolent felony.’

  ‘All very affecting, but I don’t see how this involves me.’

  ‘I’d like you to support the application.’

  ‘Officially or unofficially?’

  ‘We’ll settle for the latter, as long as we get the right result. We’re also aware that Angel’s details are in the FBI database, and the FBI, as a federal agency, is not bound to follow any order issued by a state court. We’d need to know that the state decision would be implemented by all appropriate institutions.’

  ‘Just so another of your friends can continue shooting at people with impunity?’

  ‘No,’ said Parker, ‘so he can shoot at the right people with impunity.’

  One thing that could be said for SAC Edgar Ross: he didn’t go in for a whole lot of hemming and hawing.

  ‘I’ll have to talk with my superiors. I’ll see what I can do. You can throw in some pages of that list of yours. It may help to sweeten the deal.’

  ‘I’m sure I can find two.’

  ‘I’m sure you can find five.’

  ‘Three it is.’

  It was a good deal. Parker had been prepared to offer Ross much more than that.

  Ross put on his jacket, and they shook hands.

  ‘The Webb business is interesting,’ Ross reminded Parker, ‘but Eklund remains the focus.’

  ‘On that,’ said Parker, as Ross was about to turn away.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You told me that my investigation into Eklund had to be kept off the FBI’s books, yet you show up here with two federal agents in tow. It doesn’t make sense.’

  Ross frowned.

  ‘Who said they were federal agents?’

  Parker drove back to Portland. He got delayed near the Kennebunk Service Plaza, where a tractor-trailer had skidded on the road ahead and ended up on its side. He used the opportunity to pull in and pick up a coffee, more for something to do while the accident was cleared than anything else. When he returned to his car, he turned on the interior light and located the bug. He’d play Mother’s game, but not Philip’s.

  ‘Screw you, Philip.’

  He pulled the bug and ground it into fragments beneath his heel.

  56

  Sam was quiet at dinner that evening. Rachel didn’t notice; she was tied up with preparations for a meeting the next day that would determine the funding of her biobehavioral research, and wasn’t even looking at her food as she ate, so concerned was she with the screen before her.

  They were in the kitchen of the converted stables that served as their home. They usually dined with Sam’s grandparents only every second or third night, and on weekends. Despite their proximity, they didn’t want to be living in one another’s pockets.

  Sam pushed some vegetables around on her plate. She’d eaten most of her chicken, and some of the rice, but she wasn’t very hungry.

  ‘Can I leave the table, please?’ she asked.

  Rachel looked up.

  ‘You haven’t finished your food.’

  ‘I don’t want any more.’

  ‘Are you feeling sick?’

  ‘No, I just don’t want to eat anything else.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure. What are you going to do now?’

  ‘Go to my room.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then come over here and give me a hug.’

  Sam did, but she kept her eyes open, and didn’t hold on to her mother for long. She went to her room and looked at the cracked panes of glass. She’d pulled the drapes after the glass had cracked, but the damage would be discovered the next day, when her mom or grandmother came in to clean the room or put away fresh clothes. Even if she left the drapes closed, they’d just be opened again.

  She undressed and went to bed. When her mother arrived to check on her, she pretended to be asleep, and stirred a little for show when she felt the kiss on her cheek. She was still angry, and still sad, but after a time she slept for real, and dreamed of fire.

  57

  Madlyn was the last to arrive at the Buckner house, when it was already after seven p.m. Her son, Steven Lee, drove her, but David Ferrier wasn’t around to witness their welcome. By then his wife had announced that she’d had enough of his ways for the evening – and every evening for the foreseeable future – and forced him to join her in the kitchen, where they were playing a series of bad-tempered games of gin rummy, made only slightly more tolerable by two glasses of actual gin. With the door closed, and the window facing out on his backyard, Ferrier was cut off from all activity at the Buckner house.

  Madlyn was the de facto matriarch of the Brethren. There were members of the family older than she, but they weren’t capable of doing much more than eating, sleeping, and mostly getting to the bathroom on time. Madlyn was seventy-nine, but looked a decade younger. She was tall and thin, and favored an obscure French perfume that reminded Kirk of dead chanteuses.

  Madlyn still saw the ghosts, but not as often since Sally had come to the fore. Steven Lee, her only child, fat and shiny like a statue of the Buddha, had never married, and was devoted to his mother. When Madlyn died, it was widely believed her son would have to be buried alongside her, living or dead.

  Kirk was in the basement when they turned up. He’d been showing off his plastering to Sumner, who worked in construction. Sumner thought it a miracle that Kirk and Sally’s whole house hadn’t started to crumble around their ears if this was the quality of Kirk’s efforts throughout, but he did his best to keep this opinion to himself. He thought he might say something about it to Sally before he left, if only to suggest that it would be a good idea if every tool Kirk owned were suddenly mysteriously lost, never to be found again.

  Sumner was drinking a beer, while Kirk stuck to soda. Some of that Baptist shit seemed to be sticking to Kirk, in Sumner’s view. They all had their ways of blending into communities – volunteer work, neighborhood watch, Rotary Club, whatever – but Kirk and Sally had favored churches right from the start. It was one thing using them for cover, but another entirely to start taking anything they said seriously. It wouldn’t make any difference. There would be no salvation for any of them.

  The two men went upstairs to greet Madlyn and Steven Lee, and the entire group squeezed into the Buckners’ living room, some of them forced to sit on the floor, or perch on the armrests of sofas and chairs. It was a long time since so many had gathered for an occasion that wasn’t a funeral or a wedding, and the lat
ter tended to be only superficially happy affairs, especially if someone from outside were being drawn into the family. That was why the Brethren generally married distant cousins, with no secrets to be kept. When they did marry outside their own – and it was good for the bloodlines, at least – they tried to keep the truth from their spouses. Untold generations of those who married into the Brethren had spent their entire lives ignorant of what would befall them at the moment of death, unaware that they had cursed themselves from the moment of consummation, just as their children were cursed, and their children’s children.

  Those gathered in the Buckners’ home were all related by blood, although Kirk and Sally were the only siblings in a relationship. Such unions were not unknown among the Brethren, and it was generally felt to be for the best in this case. It meant that Sally didn’t have to bear the burden alone.

  They all knew why they were present. Donn Routh was dead, his body still missing. The women had experienced the moment of his passing, even – in the cases of Sally and Madlyn – sharing some of the pain of it. Now they had come together to discover how it might have happened, and what steps should be taken in the aftermath.

  Sally had not told anyone but Madlyn about the private investigator, Eklund. Obviously Kirk knew, because he’d been present when Eklund arrived at their door, but it wasn’t as if Sally needed to consult the others before acting. She understood immediately the threat Eklund posed, and the only piece of good fortune about the whole affair was the fact that fucking David Ferrier and his bitch wife had been away for the weekend when Eklund showed up, and so nobody had seen him enter the house, just as nobody had witnessed Kirk later driving away in Eklund’s car, which he’d taken by back roads to the wrecking yard owned by Steven Lee, where it was reduced to scrap before the sun was given time to set on it.

  Now, as the Brethren listened, Sally explained all that had happened, up to the point where she dispatched Routh to purge Eklund’s home of any incriminating evidence. She omitted the words Eleanor had written on the bathroom window. She didn’t know what they might mean, only that Eleanor had communicated anger and fear as she wrote them. Until she could find out more, she thought it better not to cause alarm. They had enough to be concerned about as it was. The exception was Madlyn: Sally would quietly share everything with her later.

  ‘So what should we do?’ asked Jeanette. She had arrived with her younger sister, Briony, and their older brother Art. Their parents had died in a car accident while Jeanette and Briony were still in their midteens and Art was barely twenty-one. The boy had looked after his sisters with the help of the rest of the Brethren, but Jeanette was the one who had always demonstrated the greatest maturity. Sally thought that she and Art might soon begin sleeping together, if they had not done so already. It was in the way they looked at each other, and in how Art’s hand rested on his sister’s thigh. Sally would question the girl about it before she left. It might be that the next leader was emerging at last, and in time Sally would be able to hand the reins to Jeanette, aided by her brother. The arrangement had a pleasing symmetry to it.

  ‘Eklund spoke to many people over the course of his investigations,’ Sally replied, not quite answering the question. She had to move cautiously on this. They needed to be led to a point from which there could be no turning back. ‘He spent years looking for us, even if he didn’t determine until recently that we, the living, were the real object of his pursuit.’

  ‘If he was so intent on finding us,’ said Sumner, ‘how come we weren’t aware of him until he showed up on your doorstep?’

  Sally detected an accusatory tone, which she didn’t like. Murmurs of agreement accompanied the question from the two older couples in the room – Esther and Allan, who had been the first to arrive, and Sophia and Richard. Richard and Allan were brothers, and had married sisters from an ailing branch of the family in Iowa. Sometimes, the Brethren’s marital arrangements made even Sally’s head swim. Esther and Allan were followers, not leaders. Whatever the majority decided this evening, they would fall in behind. If, by some small chance, they showed any signs of individual thinking, Sally knew she could steer them back in the right direction. Richard and Sophia were brighter, but still easy to manipulate. Sumner, by contrast, was a smart-ass, although his wife, Jesse, was okay.

  ‘I don’t have an answer to that,’ Sally replied. ‘I think he was just lucky, but we have always hidden our tracks well.’

  ‘What changed?’

  ‘He received an influx of funds, which enabled him to concentrate solely on his obsession, and he started speaking to some of the right people. Which brings us to the reason why you’re all here. We’re still under threat, and we must respond. We have to deal with those who helped lead Eklund to us.’

  This news wasn’t met with universal approval. With one exception, the Brethren gathered around her weren’t killers, although they had killing in their genes. They were ordinary folk, with ordinary jobs and ordinary lives. Esther had early-onset arthritis. Allan had beaten stomach cancer, and would be three years clear come April. Richard and Sophia were both teachers, and their two kids had brains to burn. Richard had cheated on Sophia a year or two back, and she’d found out about it, but they’d come through it and were working at getting along better. What united them was a bargain that had been struck in their name more than 150 years earlier, and all because the Magus was afraid of the justice he and his brood might face in the next world. His descendants had been paying the price for that bargain ever since.

  Donn Routh had done all their dirty work for them in the past, but he was dead. Steven Lee had his uses, but he was reactive, not proactive, and didn’t like to leave his mother. He also preferred killing women, which concerned Sally.

  ‘Do you have names?’ asked Allan.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How do you know that Eklund wasn’t lying to you, or keeping something back?’ asked Sumner.

  Fucking Sumner.

  ‘That,’ said Sally, ‘I can prove to you.’

  The room lay off the basement. Sumner reckoned it was no more than ten feet by twelve, but of sufficient build quality to suggest that Kirk hadn’t been involved in the construction. Sally said that the previous owners had tiled it and installed plumbing for a shower and toilet, but then sold up before the work could be completed. The floor was unfinished concrete, and the wall tiles were cream. Both were heavily stained with blood.

  They couldn’t all see the man who lay chained to a pipe in the corner, so the ones at the front had to make way for those at the back after they’d finished gawping. The room wasn’t too cold because the boiler stood on the other side of the wall, but the man was still shivering. He was naked apart from a pair of stained boxers, and the tips of his remaining fingers and toes were blue. The stumps of the rest had been crudely cauterized. Cotton gauze covered his eyes, held in place by bandages, and his mouth was taped shut. He turned to face the new arrivals, and tried to say something, but the tape muffled his words.

  ‘God, the smell,’ said Esther.

  Even Sumner, who was familiar with sewer pipes, had to admit it was pretty bad.

  ‘We’ve been hosing him down once a day,’ Kirk explained. ‘It helps some.’

  ‘Who cut off some of his fingers and toes?’ Sophia asked.

  ‘I did,’ said Sally.

  ‘Was it hard?’

  ‘Only the thumbs.’

  She turned to Sumner.

  ‘Now do you see why I believed him?’

  ‘I surely do,’ Sumner replied. A man would give up a lot of information to avoid further amputations.

  ‘He had a laptop in his car. He gave us the password. I used it to double-check everything he said.’

  ‘Why did you keep him alive?’ It was Allan. ‘Why didn’t you, you know …?’

  ‘Kill him?’ said Sally.

  Allan nodded. He looked appalled at what he was seeing. He’d be no use to them for what was to come, not that Sally had expected anything better fro
m him.

  ‘I wanted to wait until Donn finished his work, just in case we had any more questions for him.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘It might be best to get rid of him, but I’m not doing it.’

  ‘Why can’t Kirk take care of it?’ Esther asked.

  ‘Kirk’s no killer. Anyway, don’t you think we’ve done more than our share already? It’s time for others to do theirs.’

  Sumner was the first to understand.

  ‘So this is some kind of test?’

  ‘If you want to put it that way.’

  Eklund was moaning and shaking his head. He might not have been able to see or speak, but he could certainly hear.

  They regarded him in silence. Then Richard spoke.

  ‘Okay, I’ll do it,’ he said. ‘I have a gun in the car.’

  ‘You own a gun?’ Sumner was shocked. He’d always taken Richard for one of those tree-hugging liberals. Hell, he’d wept with joy when Obama was first elected, then wept even harder the second time.

  ‘Yes,’ said Richard, ‘and I know how to use it.’

  ‘He’s a really good shot,’ said Sophia. ‘I keep telling him he should enter competitions.’

  Sally was surprised. After all these years, Richard was showing some spunk.

  ‘You can’t use a gun,’ said Sally. ‘Someone might hear, even down here.’

  ‘What, then?’

  Sally was wearing a long sweater over her jeans. She raised the sweater, reached into one of the pockets, and pulled out a knife. Richard took it and flipped the blade. It wasn’t long – only four inches – but it was sharp.

  He licked his lips, and blinked hard behind his black-framed spectacles.

  ‘I might need someone to hold him,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll help you,’ said Sumner.

  Esther announced that she didn’t want to watch. Richard said that was fine, because he didn’t want an audience. Kirk shooed everyone upstairs, with the exception of Sally and Madlyn, who declined to leave.

  Eklund was crying – a high keening sound, like a woman in pain. He heard the two men approaching and tried to kick out at them with his ruined feet, but they were too quick for him. Sumner sat on Eklund’s legs, but Richard wanted him facedown: ‘I don’t care to get blood on me.’