The Burning Soul

by John Connolly

  I drove to South Freeport shortly after one, and parked in the lot beside Aimee’s building. There were no ravens in the trees today. They were elsewhere, and that was fine with me. In the past, I had seen great black ravens squatting on the walls of the old prison at Thomaston, and they had seemed at once both monstrous birds and more, entities that mutated as I watched them, emissaries from a world more tainted than this one. That image had never left me, and now when I saw such birds I wondered at their true nature, and their true purpose.

  I smelled coffee brewing when I stepped into the office, and Aimee’s voice called a greeting from the little kitchen beside reception. Seconds later, she appeared carrying a pot on a tray, along with a pair of chicken wraps and two purple asters in a vase.

  ‘Very domesticated,’ I said. ‘He might marry you after all.’

  ‘Your fascination with my marital arrangements never ceases to amaze me,’ she said. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you were jealous and wanted to take his place.’

  ‘I’m just thinking about the free legal aid.’

  ‘Thanks. If you keep getting picked up for asking awkward questions, you’ll need to drive around with permanent counsel in the passenger seat of that man toy you drive.’

  ‘It’s just a car.’

  ‘A Camry is just a car. That’s a midlife crisis on wheels.’

  I took a seat at her desk. She poured the coffee, I took a wrap, and we began.

  ‘So, where are we?’ she said.

  ‘We’re nowhere.’

  I told her about my conversation with Randall Haight, my encounter with Allan, and my subsequent dealings with Gordon Walsh. I didn’t tell her that he had used my daughter’s murder to prick my conscience, or about the blowup that followed. I told myself that it wasn’t relevant, which was only partly true. Then I showed her the latest envelope that had been sent to Haight. Her face betrayed no feelings as she examined the photographs. Neither did she comment on the short film of the clothes laid out in the barn, but merely watched it in silence. When it was over, she said only, ‘It’s escalating.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You had those pictures with you when the cops took you in?’

  ‘They were in the trunk.’

  ‘You’re lucky they didn’t search your car. You could have been in a whole lot of trouble. I’ll keep them here for now, and mark them as case evidence.’ She put the envelope in a plastic bag, sealed it, and placed it in her safe.

  ‘What else?’ she said.

  ‘I’ve begun trawling the list of names Haight gave me in the hope of establishing a connection, but there’s nothing so far. Unless I can come up with a smoking gun pretty quickly, we’re looking at a fingertip search through personal lives that could take weeks or months. But if it turns out that Haight’s problem is linked to the abduction of Anna Kore—’

  ‘Assuming it is an abduction,’ Aimee interrupted. ‘Kids that age do run away, you know.’

  ‘I don’t get the impression that she was the kind,’ I replied. ‘I didn’t get that vibe from Walsh either. They’re worried. Let’s accept that she’s been taken against her will.’

  ‘Agreed. Reluctantly.’

  ‘Then our problem remains this: We still have no way of knowing, as yet, if Haight’s difficulties are connected to her disappearance.’

  ‘And that’s a big leap anyway.’

  ‘Look, I’ll be straight with you. My conversation with Walsh pricked my conscience. It wasn’t pleasant, and we exchanged some harsh words, but he was right and I was wrong. I’m not sure that we’re entitled to make the call on whether Haight’s problem is material to the investigation into Anna Kore. Personally, I still don’t like the aspect of coincidence here. One girl disappears, and a man jailed for the killing of another girl of roughly the same age finds himself the target of threats from an unknown source. Because these are threats: threats of revelation, threats of blackmail, maybe even threats of physical harm at some point in the future.

  ‘Leaving that aside, we have a duty to tell the police what we know. We’re withholding evidence that may be linked to the commission of a crime. Now, I accept that legally it’s a gray area, and it’s unlikely that either of us would end up behind bars for it, but I don’t want a murdered girl on my conscience, and neither do you.’

  Aimee finished one half of her wrap and started on the other. I had taken only a bite or two of mine, but then I was careful about speaking with my mouth full. Aimee had no such concerns. She had once told me that one of the problems with being a lawyer was that there was either too much to say and too little time in which to say it, or too little to say and too much time to fill.

  ‘I spoke to Haight again an hour ago,’ she said, still chewing.

  ‘And?’

  ‘He has suggested a compromise.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Through me, he hands over all the material that he’s been sent so far to the police for examination, but I don’t reveal the source.’

  I thought about it. ‘They won’t go for it. For one thing, you’ll have to explain the relevance of the photographs and the disc. Once you do that, they’ll want to interview him, and he’ll be on their suspect list, and as we know, he doesn’t have an alibi for the period during which Anna went missing. Even if, by some miracle, it was agreed that he wasn’t a suspect, he’d still have to come forward to be fingerprinted and give DNA samples in order to exclude him from any evidence found on the envelopes or the photographs.’

  ‘I didn’t think it would work either,’ she said. ‘He knows that his options are growing more and more limited, but I don’t believe he’ll break until he’s trapped in a corner. You’re serious about going to the cops if he doesn’t come around?’

  ‘I don’t want to ruin a man’s life, but part of me feels that the consequences of approaching the cops might not be as terrible as he thinks.’

  ‘No?’ She sounded skeptical.

  ‘They’ll be bad, but people have survived worse.’

  ‘He’ll need protection,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve thought about that. We can put the Fulcis on the house.’

  Some of the blood ran from Aimee’s face.

  ‘You’re not serious. They’re—’ She tried to find the right word, but the choices were overwhelming. In the end, she settled for ‘insane.’

  ‘They’re not insane,’ I said. ‘They’re medicated. The medication keeps them borderline sane. Now, if they weren’t taking their medication then I might accept your diagnosis, but, with respect, you’re not a member of the medical profession. I’m not sure you should be tossing words like “insane” around, especially where the Fulcis are concerned. They’re very sensitive men. They’re also very big, sensitive men.’

  ‘Is it true that one of them attacked a judge with his gavel?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Thank God.’

  ‘It was an attorney. Their attorney. But that was a long time ago, when they were young and foolish. And he wasn’t a very good attorney anyway, otherwise he wouldn’t have been hit with a gavel. Look, they may not be smart, but they’ll dissuade any morons with a couple of drinks under their belts who might have decided that Haight needs some harsh justice. He can probably do a lot of his work from home if we have to keep him contained. He may even decide that he wants to leave town for a while. If so, we can find a place for him to stay. It doesn’t have to be a motel room. We can put him somewhere pretty nice. I don’t think Mr. Haight would want to be without a degree of comfort.’

  ‘We seem to have decided that he’s coming forward, though he continues to maintain that he won’t.’

  ‘It’s just a matter of time. Even if Anna Kore turns up safe and well, it won’t solve Haight’s problem. I tried to explain some of this to him yesterday, but he’s a strange man, and a selfish one too.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘His only concern is the continuation of his existence as Randall Haight. The fact that a young
girl may be in danger doesn’t seem to cross his mind.’

  ‘Not everyone is as self-sacrificing as you.’

  ‘Spare me the sarcasm.’

  ‘I wasn’t being sarcastic,’ she said. She gave it a couple of seconds, then continued. ‘Are you having problems dealing with our client? You don’t have to like him, but you do have to be able to handle him without letting your dislike for him show.’

  ‘I can handle him, and I can conceal any negative feelings I may have about him,’ I said. ‘But you need to be clear on the extent of his self-interest, and the only way we can get him to act as we want him to is by making it appear that his actions serve his own ends. If we’re to make him come forward, then perhaps he needs to understand that if something bad happens to the girl, and it turns into a murder investigation, there’s a good chance the cops will find out who he is and what he did, and the rest of it will come out as well. If there is a connection between the two cases, the best – the very best – that he can hope for is to be known as the man who let a girl die when he might have been able to provide evidence that could have saved her. He could also end up in prison, and I don’t think that would suit him. He’ll do hard time as a convicted child killer linked to another child killing. He won’t survive a year.’

  She nodded. ‘I told him we were meeting, and that I’d call him when we were done. The threat of being returned to jail, unlikely as it might be, could be enough to persuade him to talk to the police. It’s probably the only thing he fears more than the revelation of his past. Is there anything else I should know?’

  ‘Kind of. You should know, but I don’t think it’ll make you any happier. The situation is more difficult than it first seemed.’

  ‘I find that hard to believe.’

  ‘Two things: The first is that while I was languishing in a broom closet in Pastor’s Bay I saw a fed named Robert Engel lurking in the background.’

  ‘So? The state police have asked for FBI assistance. It’s not unusual in cases like this.’

  ‘Child abductions are not Engel’s bag. He deals with organized crime: Italians, Russians, Irish. That’s not to say that any of them are above kidnapping, but what would criminals be doing taking a girl from Pastor’s Bay, Maine?’

  ‘What do we know about Anna Kore’s family?’

  ‘Not much, but I intend to find out more.’

  ‘And the second thing?’

  I showed her my cell phone with the anonymous text message about Chief Allan.

  ‘Shit,’ said Aimee. ‘Pastor’s Bay is a regular nest of vipers. Hasn’t anybody told them that gossiping is bad for the soul? So what’s Chief Allan lying about, if anything at all?’

  ‘For that you need to see the second message. It came through while I was finishing my breakfast.’

  I handed her the phone. There were ten words to the message:

  CHIEF ALLAN IS A PEDOFILE.

  HE PRAYS ON YOUNG GIRLS.

  ‘God,’ said Aimee. She pushed the phone away as if it were infected. I could see her running the numbers in her head, sizing up the angles. I had done the same earlier, and none of the results had pleased me.

  ‘It could just be a local with a grudge,’ I said. ‘He’s a small-town police chief, so you can be sure that he’s managed to cross a couple of people in his time. He tickets the wrong guy, makes someone put down a dog that bit when it shouldn’t have, didn’t let a possession bust slide. It doesn’t take much.’

  ‘But if it’s true? My God, a fourteen-year-old girl has gone missing from his jurisdiction. If he’s involved, he’s manipulating an investigation of which he may be the focus.’

  ‘We’re getting ahead of ourselves,’ I told her. ‘But I want help, and not Fulci help. I need to be able to track Allan, but he knows me, and when Haight presents himself to the police I’m going to be as popular with the cops as blackflies at a wedding, at least for a little while. I’m also worried about Engel. He deals with some seriously unpleasant people, and if there’s a mob angle to this we’ll have to move carefully, for our sakes and Haight’s.’

  ‘What are you suggesting?’

  ‘It’s already under way. I’ve asked some friends to come up from New York. They’ll be here tomorrow.’

  Aimee knew to whom I was referring. She had heard the stories.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’ll be very curious to meet these friends.’

  I spoke to Haight shortly after Aimee concluded her second conversation of the day with him. He sounded dazed, and less certain of the wisdom of keeping silent about what was happening to him, and I knew that soon we’d be facing the police in an interview room. Haight might not have realized it yet, but it was probably the best move he could make under the circumstances. The only part of our exchange that seemed to throw him was my final question.

  ‘Mr. Haight, in the course of your work have you ever had dealings with criminal enterprises?’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’ he said. ‘What are you implying?’

  ‘I’m not implying anything. All I’m asking is if, either knowingly or unknowingly, you might have come into contact with businesses that could have organized-crime connections? I’m talking about strip joints, gambling clubs, loan sharks, or even seemingly legitimate operations that weren’t quite so legitimate when their books were examined?’

  ‘No,’ he said, and he sounded definite about it. ‘I deal with small businesses for the most part, and none of them have ever given me any real cause to be concerned. They also know better than to ask me to collude in any illegal activities.’

  ‘That’s fine, Mr. Haight,’ I told him. ‘I just wanted to be sure.’

  ‘I like my work,’ he said. ‘Some people might find it dull, but I don’t. I like its sense of order. I don’t want to lose my job, Mr. Parker. I don’t want to lose my clients, and my friends. I don’t want to lose this life.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘You think you do, but you don’t understand at all.’

  And he hung up the phone.

  16

  Joseph Anthony Toomey, or Joey Tuna as he was known to his customers at the Dorchester Central Fish Market, a name that implied Dorchester was coming down with fish markets as if they were going out of fashion, sat in his office calculating the day’s takings and planning his orders for the week to come. Around him, the market was quiet. The day’s work was done by seven p.m., and in reality there was little cause for Joey to be there after hours, but he enjoyed the silence of the old building, broken only by the low hum of the refrigerators and the dripping of water. Each part of the day had its own rhythm, its own cadence, and after so many years of working the market Joey’s own body was now attuned to the cycles of his business. It was why he knew that he would never be able to retire: He was connected to this place as surely as if an umbilical cord joined him to it. Without it, he would fade away and die. He loved the market, loved the feel of it, the sound of it, the smell of it. He carried it with him in his heart, his thoughts, and on his clothes and his skin. His wife, his beloved Eileen, liked to joke that there were creatures living in the sea who smelled less strongly of salt and fish than her Joey. And what of it if he did? It was where we had all come from to begin with, and we could still taste it in our sweat. The sea had given life to Joey, and continued to support him. He tried never to be far from it, and had always lived within earshot of the sound of breaking waves.

  Still, he was always on site with the first of the workers, the processing crew that came in at six a.m. to commence the cutting of the fish, mostly haddock, tuna and swordfish. Throughout the day Joey’s was generally an unobtrusive presence, for he trusted his employees to do whatever was necessary to ensure the smooth running of the operation; after all, most of them had been with him for many years, and by now he was convinced that even the gentlest involvement by their employer was largely an inconvenience to them. They each had their own areas of responsibility, they worked well together, and when Joe
y stuck his nose in he only managed to confuse everyone. It was better if he simply ensured that they had fish to sell every morning, a safe in which to put the money every evening, and enough cash left at the end of the week to pay everybody’s wages.

  So he would make a cursory check at 7:45 a.m. before walking the floor with a mug of tea in his hand, shooting the breeze with his customers, checking that they were happy, enquiring after the well-being of their businesses and the health of their families, offering help where it might be needed, and carefully recording each acceptance of such favors in his mental ledger of debtors and creditors, for not every debt could be counted in dollars and cents. Joey knew the name of every significant man and woman who crossed the threshold of the Dorchester Central Fish Market, and the names of many of the less significant ones as well. He could judge minute changes in the state of a restaurant’s finances by the pattern of its orders, and he was careful to monitor any signs of fragility, both to guarantee that, in the worst event of a closure, his bills would not be among those left unpaid, and because troubles for some represented good fortune for others. Loans could be advanced, agreements signed, portions of businesses acquired for next to nothing, and once Joey or his associates had a seat at the table they would feed and feed and feed. To those who were vulnerable, or who knew no better, Joey Tuna’s offers of a helping hand were potentially cancerous in their malignity.

  After the delivery trucks went out to the restaurants, Joey would often disappear for a few hours to take care of matters unrelated to the purchase and sale of seafood, then come back in the late afternoon to balance the books, count the cash, and deal with any minor problems that might have arisen during the day. Recently, these were increasingly related to extensions of credit, and bills that were past due but were different in nature from those that might lead to Joey and his kind taking an interest in the business. They were, for now, temporary setbacks being endured by those who had been on Joey’s books for decades, men who were wise to Joey’s ways but knew him also as a fair trader, a man who kept his word and didn’t gouge honest men. True, there was a side to Joey that should be avoided, but he was by no means unique in this, and some of his customers were at least as hard as he was. Joey didn’t cheat. He didn’t mix frozen lobster meat in with the fresh. He didn’t soak his scallops overnight, knowing that they would absorb their own weight in water, transforming one pound into two; and you could do the same with haddock too, although they didn’t absorb as much. If he was forced to freeze fish, he froze only the oilier kinds – tuna, sword, salmon – but he would tell the buyer that it had been frozen, and therefore wouldn’t taste as good, even as he priced it lighter. With Joey Tuna, you knew what you were getting.