The Burning Soul

by John Connolly

  And the other girl, the one who has grown too old? Well, you do with her what you do with anything that’s too old and needs to be replaced. You throw it away, or you bury it.

  Except the girl had died before her time. Anna didn’t know how, or why. Mrs. Shaye had told her son to give it a rest for a while, to use porn, whatever it took. She was worried about creating a pattern, leaving a trail that could be followed. That was why they always kept the girls for so long.

  But Pat had seen Anna Kore, and desire had become action.

  Such needs he had, such needs.

  He’d tried to rape her that first night, but she’d fought and fought. She’d fought so hard that she’d hurt him, and hurt him badly. Her mother had taught her how to do it, because her mother had lived around violent men. She’d told her daughter that, if it ever came down to it, she had to be as cruel and merciless as she could imagine. The eyes were best, her mother had said. Aim to blind. But Anna couldn’t get close to Pat’s eyes, so she’d gone for the next best thing. She’d gripped and twisted his testicles, digging her nails into them, and she’d injured him down there, leaving him screaming in agony. His mother had been forced to help him from the room, and Anna’s punishment was to be put in the hole, down where the dead girl lay. It hadn’t been used in a while, and the insulation was bad, but they wanted her to know that she’d done wrong, and doing wrong brought consequences. So Pat Shaye had repaired the insulation, and while he worked he told her of all the things that he was going to do to her once he had recovered, of how he was going to rape her for days once the pain went away, maybe even rape her to death and then find another girl, because there would always be other girls.

  But then something had happened. When Pat came down to feed her on that last day he was worried, but he still found it in himself to torment her just a little.

  ‘You were almost rescued, honeybunch,’ he said. ‘The chief came, and I found him snooping. If I hadn’t returned in time, well, who knows? You might have been out of here. So close, uh, honeybunch? So close. Then again, the chief, he might have joined in, because he likes them young. Still, we’ll never know.’

  Then he’d touched himself while he stood over her.

  ‘Almost healed now,’ he said. ‘Another day and I’ll be as good as new, and then we can get to know each other better. It won’t be for long, though. You’ve become a liability, so I’ll have to make it special while it lasts.’

  And what had led Allan to the Shaye house? Crumbs of evidence. Literally that: crumbs. There had been traces of cookie crumbs in two of the envelopes sent to Randall Haight, and lodged in the glue on the flaps. The last page of the report, which Allan had probably read only long after the previous night’s killing was done, had suggested cookies or stale cake as a possible source of the organic matter found in the envelope. No hairs, no skin cells, no saliva, no DNA: Pat Shaye had just been a greedy boy nibbling on his mother’s cookies while he worked. Allan hadn’t come to the Shaye house in search of Anna Kore, although he might have been hoping that whoever was sending pictures of naked children and barn doors to Randall Haight might also be responsible for Anna’s abduction. Perhaps also his hunch about the crumbs might have caused long-buried suspicions about Pat Shaye to find concrete form, for on some level they shared the same tastes. So he had gone to the Shaye house, and being a clever man he might have looked at the abandoned truck, at the inflated tires and the marks beside them, and begun to wonder.

  That was where Pat Shaye had found him, and he buried his remains in a shallow grave.

  The final piece of the puzzle came later, once the investigation into the Shayes began in earnest. The Shayes, it emerged, were nomads of a kind. They had tended not to stay in any one place for longer than three or four years, perhaps to make it difficult to connect the disappearances of young women to them, avoiding the necessity of taking two girls from one particular geographic area. Sometimes they changed their names, Mrs. Shaye using her maiden name of Handley, or Patrick using his middle name of David. They even had different Social Security numbers to go with their various identities, numbers that would now have to be tracked down in case it was not only young girls that the Shayes had killed over the years in order to protect themselves. Then they had arrived in Pastor’s Bay and found that its remoteness suited them, as long as they were prepared to hunt farther afield for their prey. One of Mrs. Shaye’s previous jobs, under the name of Ruthie Handley, had involved showing houses for realtors on a freelance basis, among them the realtor who had sold a home to William Lagenheimer’s mother. Her son had even helped to repair a crack in the siding before the sale went through, and Mrs. Shaye and Mrs. Lagenheimer had got to talking, and, well, some small secrets were shared, because Mrs. Lagenheimer was very lonely, and very sad, and very delusional.

  So it was that, some years later, when a man calling himself Randall Haight moved to Pastor’s Bay, the Shayes had been very curious indeed. They had watched him, and they had followed him, and Pat Shaye had visited the empty house in Gorham where his mother had once sat with Mrs. Lagenheimer. They had filed away all that they knew about Randall Haight until it might become convenient to use it against him. At first, they had considered blackmail, because who knew when they might need a little extra money? But when Pat Shaye’s desires became too much for him, and he dragged down into his personal Hades young Anna Kore – a local girl, not a stray or a runaway but someone who was going to be missed – his mother came up with a much better use for the man who claimed to be Randall Haight, and what she knew about Chief Allan’s tastes helped to muddy the waters too. Anything, anything at all, to ensure that her son, her beloved son with his unusual needs, remained above suspicion.

  The fingertip search of Lonny Midas’s house also turned up one envelope that had not been handed over to Aimee Price. The postmark identified it as the final communication sent to him, dated only three days earlier and delivered the day before he died. It had probably been intended to make him run at last, and draw the police after him. It was found hidden behind a panel in his closet along with bank statements, share certificates, the money that Lonny had gathered to help him disappear, and a thick journal filled with tiny, near-indecipherable script: Lonny Midas’s testimony, his private attempt to hold on to his identity and his sanity. Later, when the journal’s contents were examined, it would be concluded that the had failed on both counts. After all, he was a man who had believed himself to be haunted by the ghost of the girl who had died at his hands. What else could he be, but mad?

  The last envelope Lonny had received contained a photograph of the house in Gorham, and a newspaper cutting about the Selina Day case, along with a printed note. The note read:

  ‘RANDALL HAIGHT’ IS TELLING LIES.

  WHO ARE YOU?

  VI

  For the soul is dead that slumbers . . .

  Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

  Was not spoken of the soul.

  From ‘A Psalm to Life’

  by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  41

  I left Pastor’s Bay with my license intact, barely, but not my reputation. Engel watched me go. He was holding something in his right hand as I pulled away: the tracking device from Allan’s truck. I had confessed to planting it. I didn’t know if Engel believed me. In the end, it didn’t matter. It was just one more weight on the scales that seemed to be tipping against me.

  Anna Kore lived, but it is possible that she might have been found earlier if it had not been for my arrogance, if I had spoken out sooner. It was Louis who pointed out later that, similarly, had I not acted as I did then she might not have been found at all, or not alive. But I still felt hollow when Valerie Kore thanked me, and kissed my cheek. I tried to apologize, to say that I was sorry, but she shook her head, and touched her finger to my lip, and silenced me.

  ‘She’s back,’ she whispered. ‘That’s all that matters. The rest will heal. I will make her well again.’

  Here is a truth, a tr
uth by which to live: there is hope. There is always hope. If we choose to abandon it, our souls will turn to ash and blow away.

  But the soul can burn and not be damned.

  The soul can burn with a bright fire and never turn to ash.

  Above Pastor’s Bay six ravens flew low, barely rising over the skeletal trees. High in the clear blue sky the last geese were heading south, but the ravens moved north toward forests and mountains, toward ice and snow. They flew fast and sure into the coming dark, that they might tell the waiting wolf of all they had seen.

  Acknowledgements

  A number of people gave help, advice, and assistance in the writing of this book. Without their kindness and generosity, it would be a poorer offering. My thanks to Lieutenant Brian T. McDonough, commanding officer of Unit I of the Maine State Police’s Criminal Investigation Division, who took the time to explain the work of his unit and, in particular, its handling of juvenile abductions; John Purcell of the law firm of Purcell, Krug & Haller in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, who was kind enough to ensure that the legal aspects of this story erred on the side of factual wherever possible; Shane Phalen, for ensuring that Parker’s methods bear some small resemblance to those of a practicing private investigator; to Vladimir Doudka and Mark Dunne for translation assistance; Ben Alfiero and all at the wonderful Harbor Fish Market in Portland, Maine (www.harborfish.com), who put white flesh on the bones of Joey Tuna; and to my fellow author, and friend, Chris Mooney (www.chrismooneybooks.com), who shared with me his library and his knowledge of Boston. He is a fine writer, and a finer friend. I am deeply indebted to them all, and any mistakes are my own, as indeed are any opinions expressed.

  I am immensely grateful to Dr. Danielle Pafunda for permission to quote extracts from her haunting verse project, ‘The Dead Girls Speak in Unison’ a work in progress. It’s unusual, and humbling, to encounter work in another medium that not only resonates so deeply with one’s own, but does so with such economy and beauty. The Brothers Bulger by Howie Carr (Grand Central Publishing, 2006) was hugely helpful in providing a backdrop for the activities of Tommy Morris and his associates. Incidentally, as I write, Whitey Bulger has just been apprehended after sixteen years on the run, bringing to an end that particular chapter of Boston’s criminal history.

  As always, this book was considerably improved by the input of my editors, Sue Fletcher at Hodder & Stoughton and Emily Bestler at Atria Books. To them, and to all at both houses who have supported my work for so long, my love and thanks. Thanks, too, to my beloved agent Darley Anderson and all those who work with him. They have found homes for my odd books, and I would not be publishing without them. Meanwhile, Clair Lamb, Madeira James and Jayne Doherty maintain a close watch on www.johnconnellybooks.com, and keep me from making too much of a fool of myself, for which I am very grateful.

  Finally, much love to Jennie, Cameron, and Alistair.

  Also by John Connolly

  The Charlie Parker Stories

  Every Dead Thing

  Dark Hollow

  The Killing Kind

  The White Road

  The Reflecting Eye (Novella in the Nocturnes Collection)

  The Black Angel

  The Unquiet

  The Reapers

  The Lovers

  The Whisperers

  Other Works

  Bad Men

  Nocturnes

  The Samuel Johnson Stories (For Young Adults)

  The Gates

  Hell’s Bells