The Burning Soul

by John Connolly

  She never spoke. She could not, for during the assault she had bitten off most of her own tongue.

  He stared into her eyes, and she entered him, just as her attackers had once hoped to enter her. In that moment he was lost to her. She released her hold upon him, and kissed him, and he tasted the blood. A great lethargy came over him, and he fell into a deep sleep. When he woke she was gone, but she returned that night, and the next, and every night after. His only respite from her was during the hearing itself, and he came to welcome the tedium of it, the arguments and counterarguments, the testimony of experts, the milk and sandwiches and cookies that they gave him for lunch. His only wish was that his parents had not been there. They gave him no comfort, for he felt their shame at what their son had become.

  In the evenings he would be returned to his new cell at juvie. They were called ‘rooms,’ but it was still a cell. A room you could leave when you chose to do so; a cell you could not. Sometimes, she would already be waiting for him there. He would smell her as he approached the cell, and his footsteps would slow, forcing the guard to steer him on, one hand on his arm, the other at his back. At other times, she would come only when dark had fallen, and he would wonder where she had been. They would not let him speak to his co-accused, so he could not ask him if the girl appeared to him as well, if she divided her time between them like a sluttish girlfriend who could not decide her favorite among her suitors. But, no, how could she be with them both? She spent every night with him. Whenever he woke, she was there. She was always there.

  When he was almost eighteen they moved him to another facility, and she followed him. For a time, they made him share a cell, but that arrangement didn’t last long. His cellmate was older than him by ten years and smelled of sour milk. One of his eyes was smaller than the other, and his eyelashes were crusted with hardened mucus. He had twisted fingernails. They reminded the boy of thorns. He did not speak, not ever. Nor, it seemed, did he sleep, for as the boy tossed and turned he could see the silhouette of his cellmate’s head hanging over the edge of the bunk above, watching him.

  On the third night, as he lay sleeping, the boy was attacked. He knew what the older man wanted, and tried to fight him off. Eventually his screams brought a guard, and the next day he was moved to another cell in a different wing while his cellmate went to solitary confinement. The girl consoled the boy. She held him in the dark. Nobody was supposed to hurt him.

  Nobody, except her.

  Three days later, his tormentor committed suicide in solitary by opening an artery in his left arm, tearing apart his flesh with a rusty nail in order to let the blood flow.

  The girl had smelled different that night when she came to the boy.

  She had smelled of sour milk.

  He never mentioned her to the psychiatrists or the guards or to anyone else. She was not to be spoken of. He was hers, and she was his. He feared her, but he thought that he might almost have loved her too.

  Now, years later, in another room, in another state, he wished for her to come, to confirm that it was over at last. As if she had responded to his wish, he suddenly smelled her scent. He rolled over in bed and caught sight of her, squatting in the shadows, watching him. The shock of it caused him to cry out. She rarely did that these days. If she entered his room at night she would crawl in beside him, working her way up under the covers from the base of the bed; or, if she was in a temper, she would pull the bedclothes from him or scratch at the window with her fingernails, preventing him from sleeping. Otherwise, she kept to her own places, and the basement in particular.

  But she’d been different since the detective came to visit, and he felt certain that her absence was linked to him. Then again, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d entertained someone in the house. Randall’s behavior did not strike anyone in Pastor’s Bay as odd. The farther north one traveled in the state, the more likely one was to encounter families or individuals who didn’t want to be disturbed, who liked to keep themselves to themselves. Maine was a state of scattered houses, scattered towns, scattered people. If you wanted folk living so close they could hear you scratch, there were big cities that would suit you better. If you wanted to scratch in peace, then Maine was the place. Even his local clients rarely ventured beyond the hall when they stopped by to drop off papers or clear up some item of business. Out of politeness he would usually offer coffee, or ask them to take a seat, but they rarely took up the invitation, and when they did the girl showed little interest in them. In her way, she was as solitary a soul as he was. They were twin dark stars, bound together by the gravitational pull of the past.

  Nevertheless, Randall was not a hermit. He attended meetings of the town council, and took care of its accounts gratis. He assisted at charity events, went out with his shovel in winter to clear paths for the older folk, and had even, very briefly, dated a divorcée who moved to Pastor’s Bay from Quebec to paint landscapes, and who volunteered at the library. Their halting relationship had occasioned some gossip in the town, not least because it had generally been assumed that Randall Haight was gay. The fact that he wasn’t disappointed those who thought that having a gay accountant, even a closeted one, added some much needed color to the social makeup of Pastor’s Bay, and strenuous efforts were made to find someone else who might be gay in order to make up for the perceived imbalance.

  The relationship hadn’t ended badly as such. There had been no big argument, no accusations of one party misleading the other. Randall had simply stopped calling, and then had left town for a couple of weeks in his car without informing the woman of where he was going, or when he might be back. By the time he returned the woman had packed up her belongings and was preparing to move away, having decided that she could paint just as well in a place where there were more than two bars, and more than two eligible men. She had liked Randall, though. She told her friends that she couldn’t understand why he’d suddenly gone cold on her.

  But the girl knew why Randall had stopped calling her. The girl had drawn him a picture. She’d used a lot of red, and she’d left a rusty nail with it, just in case Randall was a little slow on the uptake. Randall was hers, and hers alone. They had been together for so long that she would not countenance the possibility of another person coming between them. Similarly, Randall had experienced an acute sense of betrayal on the two occasions that he had slept with the woman from Quebec in her messy bedroom, surrounded by half-finished canvases, the smell of paint and spirits making his head spin. Even as he moved with her, her face buried against his chest, he had found himself seeking a hint of the girl’s familiar bloody, perfumed aroma, and when he closed his eyes and tried to lose himself in the act it was her face that he saw.

  He sat up in bed. The clock read 4:13 a.m..

  ‘Where have you been?’ he said, but she did not, could not, answer. She simply remained where she was, lodged in the corner, her hands clasped in her lap.

  ‘You want me to read to you?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘I’ve got a real busy day tomorrow,’ he told her. ‘I’ll need a clear head. I’ve got to get some rest, and you know I can’t sleep with you watching me.’

  The girl stood and walked to the bed. Her lips moved, and the ruin of her tongue flicked like a snake head in the pit of her mouth. She was talking to him, but he couldn’t follow the shapes that her mouth formed. He thought that there was a kind of tenderness to the way she was staring at him. She had never looked at him that way before, and he saw her pity for him. She reached out and laid her hand on his cheek. He shivered at her touch.

  ‘What is it?’ he said. ‘What do you want?’

  And then she smiled, and it stilled his heart. In all their years together, she had never smiled at him. The fear of her that was always with him, but that he tried to hide from himself and from her, welled up. Her touch was so cold that it burned his skin, spreading from his face like poison seeping through his veins until every inch of him felt as though it were being consumed by a
cold fire.

  She took her hand away, and walked from the room. He tried to follow her, but his limbs would not respond. He sank back on the pillow, and sleep took him instantly. When he woke the next morning, his left cheek was sore and red, and the girl was gone from his house forever.

  24

  The third anonymous text was waiting for me when I turned on my cell phone first thing that morning. It read:

  CHIEF ALLAN THE PEDOFILE IS GETTING ANXIOUS. HE MISSES HIS COOZE.

  I stared at the message. It didn’t take long to pinpoint what it was about it, apart from its contents, that bothered me. It was the spelling. ‘Pedophile’ was still misspelled, just as the word ‘preys’ had previously been misused. This time, it was the word ‘anxious’ that stood out, but only because it was spelled correctly. Perhaps I was trying to see a pattern where there wasn’t one, but it struck me that ‘anxious’ was a difficult word to spell. Someone who genuinely had difficulty with the word ‘pedophile,’ and who couldn’t make the distinction between ‘prays’ and ‘preys,’ would quite possibly misspell ‘anxious’ as well, or simply avoid using the word entirely. It raised the possibility that a smart individual was playing dumb in order to cast aspersions on Kurt Allan’s reputation, but to what end?

  As it happened, Allan himself was standing near Aimee’s office building, drinking coffee and smoking a roll-up behind a tree, when I pulled into the lot before noon. His uniform shirt was sharply ironed, and his shoes were freshly shined, which made the sight of the roll-up more incongruous. I acknowledged him with a nod as I approached the door, but wasn’t going to speak to him until he raised a hand and asked if I had a minute.

  ‘Your mysterious client isn’t here yet,’ he said. ‘In fact, you and I are the first to arrive, Ms. Price excepted.’

  He opened his tobacco pack and offered me one of the premade roll-ups inside.

  ‘You smoke?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You ever smoke?’

  ‘Couple as a teenager. I never saw the point. I preferred to spend my money on beer, when I could get it.’

  ‘I wish I’d been that smart,’ he said. ‘I’ve tried quitting, but there’s nothing like that first one in the morning with a cup of coffee, except maybe the second.’

  Despite his lean, muscular build, there was no glow of good health about Allan. He had a shaving rash on his neck, and bags under his eyes. Seen up close, his mustache was ragged and poorly trimmed. A missing-child case will wear a man down, I thought, but a guilty conscience would have a similar effect. Fairly or unfairly, I knew that I was now seeing Allan’s character refracted through the prism of the anonymous messages, but I had already taken steps to investigate the substance of the secret allegations being made against him.

  ‘Was there something in particular you wanted to discuss, Chief?’ I said. ‘I’d like some time to consult with Ms. Price before our client arrives.’

  ‘Sure, I understand. I just wanted to apologize for the way you were treated at the station. I think we started off on the wrong foot, and it just got worse from there on. We could have – I could have – been more civil. I hope you realize that we all just want to find Anna Kore.’

  He sounded sincere. He looked sincere. Maybe he even was sincere, although one thing didn’t necessarily follow from the other.

  ‘I’ve been treated worse,’ I said.

  ‘Pat Shaye told me that you had some trouble with your car. He said that he helped you out. I was glad to hear it.’

  Allan seemed anxious to ingratiate himself with me. I couldn’t understand why. Then it came.

  ‘You seen the newspapers this morning?’

  I had. There had been some criticism in the Portland and Bangor papers of the handling of the investigation so far, with particular emphasis on the response of the Pastor’s Bay Police Department when it had first been alerted to Anna’s disappearance, as well as a perception that the authorities were not briefing reporters sufficiently on what progress, if any, was being made. It was mainly reporters blowing off steam, inspired in part by the closed nature of the community in Pastor’s Bay, but Allan’s response to the criticisms as reported in the articles made him sound defensive, and by pointing out that the Criminal Investigation Division was in charge of the investigation he seemed to be trying to pass responsibility for any earlier failings on to someone else. It wasn’t Allan’s fault that Anna Kore was still missing, but people don’t like it when young girls are abducted, and it was only natural that the blame game would start to be played. Allan needed a break, and he was hoping that Aimee and I might be able to provide it.

  ‘It’s frustration,’ I said. ‘Everybody wants a happy ending, but they’re sensing that it’s not going to come in this case. Don’t take it personally.’

  ‘But it is personal,’ said Allan. ‘I know Anna Kore. I know her mother.’

  ‘You know them well?’ I asked. I was careful to make the inquiry sound as casual as possible, but Allan still seemed to detect an undertone that he didn’t like. I could see his testing of the question reflected on his face. He considered it the way a man might hold a piece of food in his mouth before swallowing, uncertain if it tasted right.

  ‘It’s a small town,’ he said. ‘Part of my job is to know its people.’

  I dropped the subject of how well he might have known the Kore family. There was no percentage in pursuing it further for now.

  ‘It’ll hit the town hard if the girl isn’t found,’ I said.

  ‘Worse than if she turns up dead?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You serious?’

  ‘If her body is found there can be a burial, a process of mourning, and there will be a chance of finding the person responsible, because with a body comes evidence. If she stays missing her fate will haunt the town, and her mother will never have a peaceful night’s sleep again.’

  ‘You’re talking about closure?’

  ‘No. It doesn’t exist.’

  For a moment, I thought that he was about to disagree, but I watched him reconsider, although there was no way to tell if he did so because of his own experience of loss and pain or out of his knowledge of mine.

  ‘I get it,’ he said. ‘It’s better to know than not to know?’

  ‘I’d want to know.’

  Allan said only ‘Yeah,’ and then was quiet for a time.

  ‘How long have you been chief of police?’ I asked.

  ‘‘Chief’?’ He picked a speck of tobacco from his lip and stared at it as though it had a deeper meaning in the context of his existence. ‘You had it right the first time we met. I share space with the town’s garbage truck and what we like to think of as our fire department. If there was a fire, I’d rather take my chances with spit and a blanket.’

  He dropped what was left of his cigarette into the bottom of his coffee cup, where it hissed like a snake giving warning.

  ‘I’ve been “chief” for five years. My wife – my ex-wife – was looking to move out of Boston. She had asthma, and the doctors told her that the city air wasn’t good for her. She’d grown up by the Maryland shore, and I was raised in the Michigan boonies, so we kind of drew a line north from one place, and east from the other, and this is where they intersected. That’s what we tell people anyway: The truth isn’t as romantic. We weren’t getting along in Boston, I saw the job in Pastor’s Bay advertised, and took it in the hope that putting the city behind us might help. It didn’t. Now it fills the hours, and pays my alimony.’

  ‘How long have you been divorced?’

  ‘Just over a year, but we were apart for almost another year before that.’

  I waited to see if he’d add anything, but he didn’t.

  ‘Kids?’

  ‘No, no kids.’

  ‘I guess that makes it easier.’

  ‘Some.’

  A black SUV paused across from the entrance to the lot, waiting for a break in the traffic. Engel was sitting in the passenger seat, with a female agent driving
. Almost simultaneously, Gordon Walsh arrived with his partner, Soames.

  ‘Looks like the gang’s all here,’ said Allan. ‘We’re just waiting for the special guest.’

  I excused myself and went in to confirm that Aimee was ready. An Olympus digital recorder was set up in the conference room, connected to a pair of external mikes. Aimee had agreed that the interview could be recorded, as long as it was made clear at the start that her client had voluntarily agreed to cooperate. She had also let it be known that she would stop the interview if she believed that her client was being badgered, or if any attempt was being made to link him, directly or indirectly, with Anna Kore’s disappearance. This was an interview, not an interrogation. Aimee was wearing a black pant suit over a plain white blouse. Her dress was serious, her face was serious, and her mood was serious. At times like these, I was reminded of how good a lawyer she really was.

  I closed the door behind me to ensure that we weren’t overheard.

  ‘I received another text from Chief Allan’s admirer,’ I said.

  ‘Interesting timing. Can I see it?’

  I handed her my cell phone.

  ‘“Cooze,”’ she said. ‘I hate that word. Any thoughts on how this fits in?’

  ‘Randall Haight is taunted about Selina Day, and now someone is bad-mouthing Kurt Allan. Makes you wonder how many potential blackmailers there might be in one small town.’

  ‘You think it’s the same person?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘And if they were right about Randall—’

  ‘—then there might also be some truth in what’s being said about Allan.’

  ‘We can’t just sit him down and ask him if he’s a pedophile,’ said Aimee. ‘It wouldn’t be polite. We could let Walsh know, or Engel.’