The Burning Soul

by John Connolly

  When the three-hour marker was passed, and Anna Kore had still not been found, a ripple ran through the law-enforcement officials. It was a silent acknowledgment that the nature of the investigation must now inevitably change. A list was assembled of family members and close associates, the first suspects when any harm comes to a child. All agreed to be questioned, backed up by polygraph tests. Valerie Kore was questioned first.

  Five minutes into her interview, an unanticipated call was made to the FBI.

  Anna Kore had been missing for more than seventy-two hours, but it was a strange disappearance, if it can be said that the circumstances of the abduction of one child are stranger than those of another. It might be more correct to say that the aftermath was proving stranger, for Valerie Kore, the bereft mother, did not behave in the way that might have been expected of one in her circumstances. She seemed reluctant to appear before the cameras at first. There were no quotes from her, or from relatives speaking on her behalf, in the TV reports or the newspapers, not initially. The vanishing of her daughter only gradually became part of a public spectacle, the latest act in an ongoing performance that played upon the general fascination with rape, murder, and assorted human tragedies. It was left to the police, both state and local, to farm out information about the girl to the media, and in the first twelve hours following the AMBER Alert those details were given out sparingly. Veteran reporters felt that there were mixed signals coming from the authorities, and they scented another story behind the bare facts of the girl’s disappearance, but any attempts to work their police sources were rebuffed. Even the local population of Pastor’s Bay seemed to have closed ranks, and the reporters had difficulty finding anyone prepared to comment on the case in even the most general of terms, although this was attributed to the characteristic oddness of the population rather than to any great conspiracy of silence.

  After her daughter had been missing for three days, Valerie Kore consented to, or was permitted to give, her first public interview, in which she would appeal for anyone with information about her daughter to come forward. Such appeals had both advantages and disadvantages. They attracted more attention from the general public, and thus could lead potential witnesses to offer assistance. On the other hand, it was often the case that the more emotional the pressure applied to the culprit in these cases, the greater the walls he or she might put up, so a public appeal risked antagonizing the abductor. Nevertheless, it was decided that Valerie should face the cameras.

  The press conference took place in the town hall of Pastor’s Bay, a simple wood-frame building just off what was called Main Street but might just as well have been termed Only Street, since Main Street implied that there were other thoroughfares worthy of note when, in fact, the town of Pastor’s Bay pretty much vanished if you stepped more than a stone’s throw in any direction from the bright lights of Main. There was a drugstore and a general store, both owned by the same family and situated adjacent to each other; two bars, one of which doubled as a pizzeria; a gas station; a bed-and-breakfast establishment that didn’t advertise its presence, as the owners were anxious to avoid attracting the ‘wrong kind’ of clientele, and so relied entirely on word of mouth and, it was sometimes suggested, psychic emanations in order to secure custom; two small houses of worship, one Baptist and one Catholic, that didn’t unduly advertise their presence either; and a small library that opened mornings only, and not at all if the librarian was otherwise occupied. When the media circus was given strictly controlled access to the town, it was the most significant influx of strangers that Pastor’s Bay had known since the town was properly established in 1787.

  Pastor’s Bay took its name from a lay preacher named James Weston Harris who arrived in the area in 1755 during the war between the English and the French. One year previously, Harris had been among the small group of forty men led by William Trent who were given the responsibility of building a fortification at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers in the Ohio Country. The Frenchman Contrecoeur arrived with five hundred men before the stockade could be completed, but he allowed Trent’s party to depart unmolested, and even purchased their construction tools to continue building what would subsequently become Fort Duquesne.

  Harris, who had believed himself to be in mortal danger, and had become resigned to death at the hands of the French, took his salvation as a sign that he should commit himself more fully to spreading the word of God, and so he led his family to the tip of a peninsula in New England with the intention of establishing a settlement. The area’s natives, who had sided with the French against the English, in part because of their natural antipathy toward the English’s Mohawk allies, were unimpressed by Harris’s renewed sense of vocation and hacked him to pieces within a month of his arrival. His family was spared, though, and following the cessation of hostilities they returned to the site and created the community that would ultimately become known as Pastor’s Bay. The family’s luck did not improve, however, and the twin forces of mortality and disillusionment eventually cleansed Pastor’s Bay of any lingering Harris presence. Still, they left a town behind them, although there were those who said that Pastor’s Bay had been blighted by the original killing, for it never truly thrived. It survived, and that was about the best that could be said for it.

  Now, after the passage of centuries, Pastor’s Bay found itself the focus of serious attention for the first time since the seeds of its foundation were sown and sprinkled with James Weston Harris’s blood. News vehicles were parked on Main Street, and reporters stood before cameras, the thoroughfare at their backs, and spoke of the agonies being experienced by this small Maine town. They thrust microphones into the faces of those who had no desire to see themselves on television, or to speak with strangers about the misfortunes of one of their own. Valerie Kore and her daughter might have been ‘from away,’ but they had made their home in Pastor’s Bay, and its people protectively closed ranks around them. In this they were not discouraged by their police chief, a turn of events that caused some citizens of Pastor’s Bay to whisper, just like the reporters, that there might be more to the disappearance of Anna Kore than met the eye.

  A table had been set up at one side of the town hall, with coffee and cookies available for the visitors. The table was staffed by Ellie and Erin Houghton, twin spinsters of uncertain vintage, one of whom, Erin, was also the town librarian, while her sister managed the mysterious, elitist bed-and-breakfast, although it was not unknown for them to swap roles when the mood struck them. Since they were identical, this made little difference to the smooth running of the community. They served coffee in the same manner in which they performed all their tasks, voluntary or otherwise: with a politeness that did not invite undue intimacy, and a sternness that brooked no disobedience. When the first reporters began jostling for space at the table, and some creamer was spilled as a consequence, the sisters made clear from the way they held the coffeepots that such nonsense would not be tolerated, and the hardened journalists accepted the rebuke like meek schoolchildren.

  All questions were directed to Lieutenant Stephen Logan, the head of the Maine State Police’s Criminal Investigation Division for the southern region of the state, although he occasionally deferred to the Pastor’s Bay chief of police, Kurt Allan, on local matters. If the question merited it, Allan in turn would look to the pale woman beside him to see if she had a reply, and then only if it was not possible for him to provide the answer himself. When she did not wish to respond, she would simply shake her head once. When she did respond, it was with as few words as possible. No, she had no idea why someone would want to take her daughter. No, there had been no argument between them, or nothing unfamiliar to any mother of a strong-willed fourteen-year-old girl. She appeared composed, but anyone examining her more closely would have seen that Valerie Kore was holding herself together through sheer force of will. It was like looking at a dam that was on the verge of breaking, where a keen eye could discern the cracks in the façade that t
hreatened to unleash the forces building behind it. Only when she was asked about the girl’s father did those cracks become readily apparent to all. Valerie tried to speak, but the words choked her, and for the first time tears fell. It was left to Logan to intervene and announce that law-enforcement officers were searching for the father, one Alekos ‘Alex’ Kore, now estranged from his wife, in the hope that he might be able to help them with their inquiries. When asked if Kore was a suspect in his daughter’s disappearance, Logan would say only that the police were not ruling out any possibilities, but were anxious simply to eliminate Alekos Kore from their enquiries. Then a reporter from one of the Boston newspapers complained about the difficulties of getting information and comments from the police, and there were some murmurs of agreement. Allan fudged the answer, talking about what he termed ‘familial sensitivities,’ but half of Maine could have given a better answer to the question, and one that would have satisfied those with anything more than a passing knowledge of that part of the world.

  It was Pastor’s Bay. They were just different up there.

  But that wasn’t the entire truth.

  It wasn’t even close.

  I watched the press conference on the early evening news, standing in the living room of my house as my daughter, Sam, finished her milk and sandwich in the kitchen. Rachel, Sam’s mother and my ex-girlfriend, sat on the edge of an armchair, her eyes fixed on the screen. She and Sam were on their way to Boston to catch a flight to LA, where Rachel was due to address a symposium on clinical advances in cognitive psychotherapy. She had tried to explain the substance of these advances to me earlier, but I could only assume that the attendees at the symposium were smarter than I was, and had longer attention spans. Rachel had friends in Orange County with whom she planned to stay, and their daughter was a few months older than Sam. The symposium would take up only one day, and the rest of their time in California was to be devoted to long-promised trips to Disneyland and Universal Studios.

  Sam and Rachel lived on Rachel’s parents’ property in Burlington, Vermont. I spent time with Sam as often as I could, but not as often as I should, a situation complicated, or so I told myself, by the fact that Rachel had been seeing someone else for more than a year now. Jeff Reid was an older man, a former executive with the capital markets division of a major bank who had retired early, thereby nicely avoiding the fallout of the various scandals and collapses to which he had probably contributed. I didn’t know that for sure, but I was petty enough to envy him his place in Rachel and Sam’s life. I’d bumped into him once when I was visiting Sam for her birthday, and he’d tried to overwhelm me with bonhomie. He had all the moves of one who has spent a large portion of his life and career making others trust him, justifiably or not: the wide smile, the firm handshake, the left hand on my upper arm to make me feel valued. Seconds after meeting him, I was checking to make sure that I still had my wallet and my watch.

  I studied Rachel as she took in the details of the conference. She had allowed a little gray to creep into her red hair, and there were lines around her eyes and mouth that I could not recall from before, but she was still very beautiful. I felt an ache in my heart for her, and I salved it with the knowledge that all was as it should be, however much I missed them both.

  ‘What do you think?’ I said.

  ‘Her body language is wrong,’ said Rachel. ‘She doesn’t want to be there, and not just because she’s trapped in every mother’s nightmare. She looks frightened, and I don’t think it’s because of the reporters. I’d hazard a guess that she’s hiding something. Have you heard anything about the case?’

  ‘No, but then I haven’t been asking.’

  The coverage of the news conference ended, and the anchorwoman moved on to foreign wars. I heard a noise behind me, and saw that Sam had been watching the news from the hall. She was tall for her age, with a lighter version of her mother’s hair, and serious brown eyes.

  ‘What happened to the girl?’ she asked as she entered the room. She had what was left of her sandwich in her right hand, and was chewing on a mouthful of it. There were crumbs on her sweater, and I brushed them off. She looked unhappy about it. Maybe she’d been planning to save them for later.

  ‘They don’t know,’ I said. ‘She disappeared, and now they’re trying to find her.’

  ‘Did she run away? Sometimes people run away.’

  ‘Could be, honey.’

  She handed the remains of the sandwich to me. ‘I don’t want any more.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll have it framed.’

  Sam looked at me oddly, then asked if she could go outside.

  ‘Sure,’ said Rachel. ‘But stay where we can see you.’

  Sam turned to go, then paused.

  ‘Daddy,’ she said, ‘you find people, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I find people.’

  ‘You should go find the girl,’ she said, then trotted off. Moments later, the top of her head appeared at the window as she began exploring the flower beds. On her last visit she had helped me plant native perennials in all of the beds, for I had let the garden go a little since she and her mother left. Now there was goatsbeard and harebell, turtleheads and shooting stars, all carefully labeled so that Sam would know which was which. It was not yet dark, but the lights outside were motion-activated, and Sam enjoyed setting them off by dancing beneath them. Rachel walked to the window and waved at her. I killed the TV and joined her.

  ‘There are times when I look at her and I see you,’ said Rachel. ‘Or when she talks and I hear your voice. She’s more like you than me, I think. Isn’t that strange, when she sees so little of you?’

  I couldn’t help but react, and instantly Rachel apologized. She touched my arm gently with her right hand.

  ‘I didn’t mean it to sound that way. I’m not blaming you. It’s just a statement of fact.’ She returned to watching our daughter. ‘She likes being with you, you know. Jeff is good with her, and spoils her, but she always keeps a little distance from him.’

  Go Sam, I thought. He’d probably advise you to invest your allowance in weapons and Big Tobacco.

  ‘She’s such a self-contained kid,’ Rachel continued. ‘She’s got friends, and she’s doing well in pre-school – better than well: She’s ahead of her class in just about every way imaginable – but there’s a part of her that she keeps for, and to, herself; a secret part. That doesn’t come from me. That’s you in her.’

  ‘You don’t sound like you’re convinced it’s a good thing.’

  She smiled. ‘I don’t know what it is, so I can’t say.’

  Her hand was still touching my arm. She suddenly seemed to notice, and let it fall, but it was an unhurried movement. What existed between us was different now. There was sadness there, and regret, but not pain, or not so much of it that it affected how we were together.

  ‘Try to see a little more of her,’ said Rachel. ‘We can work it out.’

  I didn’t respond. I thought of Valerie Kore and her missing daughter. I thought of my late wife, and my first daughter, wrenched violently from this existence only to linger in another form. I had witnessed the blurring of worlds, watching as elements of what once was, and what was to come, seeped into this life like dark ink through water. I knew of the existence of a form of evil that was beyond human capacities, the wellspring from which all other evil sipped. And I knew that I was marked, although to what end I did not yet understand. So I had kept my distance from my child, for fear of what I might draw upon her.

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ I lied.

  Rachel lifted her hand again, but this time she touched my face, tracing the lineaments of the bones beneath, and I felt my eyes grow hot. I closed them for a moment, and in that instant I lived another life.

  ‘I know that you’re trying to protect her by staying away, but I’ve thought about this a lot,’ said Rachel. ‘At the start, I wanted you gone from our lives. You frightened me, both because of what you were capable of doing and because o
f the men and women who forced you to act as you did, but there has to be a balance, and that balance isn’t here now. You’re her father, and by keeping your distance from her you’re hurting her. We’re hurting her, because I was complicit in what happened. We both need to try harder, for her sake. So, are we clear?’

  ‘We’re clear,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You won’t be thanking me when she’s dragging you around the American Girl store. Your wallet won’t be thanking me either.’

  Sam was crouching by the woods, collecting branches and twigs and twisting them into shapes.

  ‘What brought this on?’ I asked.

  ‘Sam did,’ said Rachel. ‘She asked me if you were a good man, because you found bad men and put them in jail.’

  ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I told her the truth: that you are a good man. But I was worried in case her knowledge of what you do meant that she connected it with its risks, and I asked her if she was frightened for you. She told me that she wasn’t, and I believed her.’

  ‘Did she say why she wasn’t frightened?’

  ‘No.’ Rachel frowned. ‘She just said the strangest thing – not the words but the way she said them. She said that the bad men should be frightened of you, but she wasn’t joking, and it wasn’t bravado. She was very solemn, and very certain. Then she just turned over and went to sleep. That was a couple of nights back, and afterward I was the one who couldn’t sleep. It was like talking to an oracle, if that makes any sense.’