The MSP now had a dozen-strong evidence response team working the scene, alongside troopers, sheriff’s deputies, staff from the ME’s office, and the anthropological advisors and students from Orono; but anyone with any sense deferred to the wardens, who were the ones most familiar with the terrain and were responsible for organizing the search for the infant’s body. That made for anything up to seventy people on the ground in total, as well as an assortment of cadaver dogs that Parker could already hear barking in the woods as he pulled up.
A state police sergeant approached him. The badge on his uniform read ALLEN, which Parker recalled as being one of the ten most common names in Maine. Apparently “Smith” was the most prevalent, although that was probably true of most of the other forty-nine states in the Union as well.
Parker got out of the car, and he and Allen shook hands. Allen had responsibility for all those entering and leaving the scene, and it was easy to see why. He was about Parker’s age, but had fifty pounds on him, and a foot in height. It was hard to picture the trooper fitting easily into a car that wasn’t specially built.
“I hear you want to view the scene,” said Allen.
“If it’s okay with you.”
“Detective Walsh gave the all clear—although he said that if you were to fall down a deep hole, none of us should be in any hurry to rescue you.”
That Walsh. What a joker.
“I’ll be sure to watch where I step,” said Parker. “Anything else I should be aware of?”
“It’s muddy as all hell in there, but at least you’re wearing good boots. Other than that, it’s the usual: stay inside the marked paths, and don’t pick up or drop anything. I’d appreciate it if we could hold off for a few minutes, though, just until you meet Gilmore.”
Lieutenant John Gilmore was the search coordinator for the Maine Warden Service. He was as highly regarded as they came.
“Don’t want to cross the wardens,” said Parker.
“Sure don’t. Gilmore is dispatching search groups right now, but he’s expecting you. We have coffee, if you want it.”
Parker accepted the offer. It was noticeably colder out here, and the ice was more persistent and prevalent than on the coast. He went back to his car, found a pair of gloves on the floor behind the passenger seat, and slipped them on. Allen retrieved a thermos from his own vehicle, and poured two paper cups of black coffee. They talked about nothing much until Gilmore appeared from the woods, trailed by a couple of civilians carrying GPS devices. He was another big man, although rangier than Allen. He said something to the civilians that sent them on their way before heading over to where Parker and Allen were waiting. Standing between the two men made Parker feel like an adopted child, his awkwardness lessened only slightly by Allen wandering off to make some calls.
“I know the face,” said Gilmore. “And the reputation.”
“Likewise.”
“You here to stir up trouble?”
“Only if you think it might help.”
“I suspect we have enough to be getting along with.”
Gilmore poured himself coffee while Parker explained the reason for his presence, just in case anything had become lost in translation. In return, Gilmore brought Parker up to date on the current status of the search. A cordon had been placed around the entire area after the initial discovery, following which the wardens had conducted a general examination of the landscape and eliminated those regions unsuited to the interment of a body, no matter how small, either for reasons of inaccessibility or unsuitability; the wardens couldn’t guarantee where a body would be, but they could do the next best thing, which was to say where it wouldn’t be. Meanwhile MASAR, the Maine Association for Search and Rescue, had begun seeking volunteers to look for the child’s remains. This whole process had taken a week to organize, but it meant that the search would be conducted in the most efficient manner possible. Now teams of between two and four volunteers, each equipped with GPS and a dog, had commenced slow walks over carefully designated zones. As each zone was cleared, the GPS coordinates would be downloaded from the devices and the cleared areas marked on a map to ensure that nothing was missed, and time and energy were not wasted in the unnecessary repetition of tasks.
“If there’s another body out there,” said Gilmore, “we’ll find it, eventually.”
“How long until you’re sure?” asked Parker.
“Weather permitting, could be another week.”
Allen rejoined the conversation, and Gilmore cleared up one or two further details for Parker before returning to the more immediate business of checking in with the search teams, as well as finding somewhere discreet to take a leak.
And Parker followed Allen up the well-trodden trail to the grave.
CHAPTER
XXXI
Quayle had been following the news coverage of the woman’s body found in the woods. Naturally it interested him, but he had few contacts in this part of the world, and none in law enforcement. It was possible that these were the remains of Karis Lamb, but they might equally be those of another young female. Until the identity of the victim was established with certainty, Quayle would continue hunting. Even if it were Karis in the ground, he would still need to find out who had put her there.
Quayle knew that Karis Lamb had been given Maela Lombardi’s name as a source of help and shelter in Maine. Since Karis had already shown herself willing to entrust her safety to Dobey and Bachmeier, with no adverse outcome, Quayle considered it highly likely that she would have taken the next step and contacted Lombardi upon her arrival in the state.
Lombardi lived on Orchard Road in Cape Elizabeth, not far from the big Pond Cove Elementary School on Scott Dyer Road, at which she had taught for many years. Orchard was tree-lined, and all of the homes were well tended. Lombardi’s was one of the smaller builds: little more than a cottage, Quayle thought, and not suitable as a family home. In fact, according to the plans that Quayle found online, it was just the kind of dwelling in which one might have expected to find a retired spinster schoolteacher: single story, with a double window at either side of the central front door; two bedrooms, one barely large enough to accommodate a twin bed, the other more substantial; a living room that flowed into the kitchen area; and one bathroom. It was set back slightly from the road, and shaded by mature shrubs and hedges. It didn’t have a garage, and the driveway was empty. This didn’t trouble Quayle. He had no intention of approaching Lombardi by day. Orchard didn’t have street lighting, so by night the only illumination would come from porch lights and the interiors of the houses themselves. Getting to Lombardi without being seen would pose no particular difficulty, and once he and Mors were inside they would have plenty of time to spend with her. They would find out what they needed to know, and Lombardi could be made to disappear. Quayle would let Mors take care of that.
So they knew where Lombardi lived, but they also knew what she looked like. The old busybody had been photographed for the local papers upon her retirement, and her name and image also cropped up regularly in bulletins from the Cape Elizabeth Historical Preservation Society, the Education Foundation, the Friends of the Thomas Memorial Library, and the League of Women Voters. Quayle wondered why Lombardi had never married or had children of her own. He thought he might ask her before she died. He hoped she wouldn’t give him some sentimental claptrap about all her students being her children. He wasn’t sure he could bear it.
“Where do you want to go?” asked Mors. She was driving. She always drove because Quayle had never learned, and did not care to at this stage of his existence. He was especially grateful for her presence in this land of oversized vehicles, and it made him yearn once again for their business here to be done with so he could return to London: a city in which he could walk anywhere he needed to go, or slip into the comfort of a black cab, even join the masses on the Underground, although Quayle now rarely ventured far from the river.
“Away from people,” he said.
“Do you want
to return to the hotel?”
They were staying as husband and wife in a motel by the Maine Mall, under names that existed only on credit cards linked to temporary accounts, supported by whatever identification they elected to present.
“No. Find somewhere I can look at the sea.”
Even as a creature of the city, Quayle found comfort in the rhythms of oceans, and the ebb and flow of tides.
In this world, at least.
“You know,” he said, as the road unspooled behind them, “it is believed that salt calls to salt, and we respond to the sea because we came from it, but I don’t think that’s true.”
“No?”
Mors’s eyes did not leave the road, and she betrayed no real indication of interest—but then, she so rarely did. Her body might have retained some superficial warmth, but at her core Mors was even colder than Quayle. At best, she could just about rouse herself to a state of vague indifference.
“There is a greater ocean waiting in the next life, and into it all souls must flow.”
“Even yours?”
Quayle glanced at her to see if she was trying to be funny, but she was not. Still, there was no denying the presence of a certain hard wit, and perhaps a glimmer of inquisitiveness. It was unusual for her to hear Quayle speak in this way.
“No, not mine. I’m referring to the commonality.”
“Why not yours?”
“Because I have been promised oblivion.”
“And what of me?”
“I think you’ll enter the water. I think you’ll face judgment.”
Mors was silent. A gull stood on the white line ahead of them, picking at roadkill. She slowed to give it time to ascend.
“Does that concern you?” Quayle asked.
She turned to him, the car now almost at a halt. Her eyes were the peculiar gray of the scum found on certain ponds, the kind that even the thirstiest of animals prefer to skirt. Mors had been marked for him as a teenager, and nurtured by a succession of carefully selected foster parents until she was ready to come to him in young adulthood, when the welfare system no longer had any cause to pay cognizance to her. She was very good, perhaps the best of all those who had joined him over the years.
“I’ve told you before,” she said. “You can choose to believe what you want, but I think there’s nothing beyond this world. In the end, we’ll all face oblivion.”
“But what if you’re wrong? And you are wrong.”
“Then the next world can’t be any worse than this one.”
Quayle knew all about her past, of what had been done to her before she came under his protection. Her loyalty to him was deep and unconditional, but not unrelated to what his influence had enabled her to inflict upon her abusers. Quayle had regarded it as part of her conditioning, and Mors was intelligent enough to recognize that by indulging her desire for revenge, she had made herself Quayle’s creature. But for her, it was a price worth paying. Whatever torments she had suffered as a child, she returned tenfold on her tormentors, and all thanks to Quayle. He had brought her a kind of peace.
You’re mistaken about this world, just as you are about the next, Quayle wanted to tell her, although he kept his counsel. Who was he to argue degrees of suffering with one who had already been through her own hell?
And you are damned.
CHAPTER
XXXII
The fallen tree responsible for exposing the grave site was gone. It had not been possible to bring a crane into woodland that might conceal another body for fear of causing a further collapse, or the destruction of any evidence that might remain under the topsoil, even after all this time. Instead the tree was cut into pieces with chain saws and hauled away, leaving only the wound on the ground caused by its upheaval, now protected by a tarp that hid it entirely from view.
This was peatland, with a degree of tree cover over nutrient-poor soil. Parker had spent his youth exploring such places with his grandfather, seeking out palm warblers and yellowthroats, and the larvae of elfin butterflies among the spruces. But the ground coverage here was pitted and uneven, and marked by patches of exposed earth. It was an alopecic landscape.
Parker placed a pair of blue polyethylene covers on his boots before stepping off the main trail and following Allen to the canopy over the grave. Allen unhooked the rope securing the main flap, and pulled it aside so Parker could view the interior.
“I’d prefer if you didn’t step in,” said Allen. “We’ve taken photos and video, and searched all around, but you know . . .”
Parker understood. For now, the scene was still active. Any kind of contamination had to be kept to a minimum, and Allen was already doing him a favor by being so cooperative. In any case, Parker didn’t need to proceed. He could see all he needed from where he stood.
The collapse of the tree had left a massive circular gouge, since widened in the course of the search for further remains. The interior smelled of dampness and dirt, and a faint mustiness that might just have been stale air trapped by the canopy, but was probably something more mortal.
Just slightly off-center was the grave, the position of the body unmarked by tape or rods since forensic mapping was now done electronically, using the head and groin as markers. The hole was smaller than Parker had anticipated. The restricted volume of the space occupied by her for so long seemed to accentuate the poignancy of her passing, as though in death she had huddled until such time as she might be discovered. Parker squatted and clasped his hands between his legs, almost like one in prayer. Allen didn’t disturb him by speaking, but stood back in silence.
Eventually Parker said, “I was just thinking how small she was.”
“She was found with her legs folded up to her chest. Less of a hole to dig. But even allowing for that, she was still just a little thing.”
Parker stepped away from the canopy, and waited for Allen to reseal it.
“Are you the same Allen who faced down Gillick and Audet outside Houlton back in—what was it, ninety-eight?”
Ryan Gillick and Bertrand Audet were, respectively, a serial rapist and a mid-ranking meth dealer who escaped from custody when they were transferred to Maine General following a gas leak at the old state prison in Thomaston. They headed for the Canadian border, armed with a pair of pistols picked up from an ex-girlfriend of Gillick’s, presumably one of those he hadn’t raped. At Houlton, just a few miles south of the border, Gillick and Audet rear-ended a truck, an incident that attracted the attention of a passing state trooper from the Houlton barracks. Audet panicked, and shots were fired. Gillick ended up dead, and Audet was now languishing in the new state prison at Warren.
“Ninety-nine,” Allen corrected. “Yeah, that was me. Sounded more dramatic on the news than it was. I couldn’t recall much about it when the AG’s people came for my report. I just remembered being scared.”
The attorney general retained exclusive jurisdiction for the investigation of police use of deadly force. It wasn’t a pleasant experience for any officer, although in more than one hundred reviews of deadly force shootings conducted over almost thirty years, the AG’s office had yet to recommend that criminal charges be filed against any officer in the state of Maine.
“I heard you took a bullet,” said Parker.
“Nope, took a piece of masonry from a ricochet. Hit me in the small of the back. Still hurts if I sit for too long.”
“The body does take such intrusions amiss.”
“Figured you’d know.”
“More than I care to.”
Together they walked back to the trail, and Allen showed Parker the Star of David hacked into the gray-brown bark of a black spruce on the other side. It was an older tree, approaching fifty feet in height, its branches short and upturned at the ends. Beneath the star was another indentation, but less clear. It looked as though someone might have begun carving an inscription before obliterating the marks.
“And you’re sure this was made at the same time that the body was buried?” said Parke
r.
“Only God can be that certain, but close enough, according to the forestry people.”
“What about the tree that fell?”
“Probably of a similar age to this one. Most of this thicket is black or red spruce, with some larch. It dates back to the early seventies.”
Furrows appeared in Allen’s massive brow. It was like watching one of the faces on Mount Rushmore frown.
“What?” said Parker.
“It’s easier to show than explain. Just odd, that’s all. I’ll point it out to you when we go through the data.”
Parker watched one of the searchers rise from a kneeling position and stretch, her hand against her lower back. Beside her, a chocolate Labrador yanked at its leash, eager for the game to continue.
“Do you have an opinion on all this?”
“If anyone was asking,” said Allen, “I’d tell them that if the child died at birth, it would probably have been buried with its mother. If someone was going to take the time to put her in the ground, and carve that star as a grave marker, why not do the same for the baby?”
“And if the child died later?”
“Then I’m not sure I’d risk digging up one perfectly good grave just to add a small corpse, wouldn’t matter how sentimental I was feeling. I’d bury the child someplace else. You mind if I ask how you fit into all this? You looking for whoever laid her in the dirt?”
“I’m working for a lawyer. He’s Jewish. He’s concerned for the infant, living or dead. So I suppose I’m looking for the child.”
“Mighty Christian of him. That’s a joke, by the way. And if you’re looking for the child, and it isn’t buried somewhere here, then it seems to me that you are looking for whoever interred that woman.”
Allen let his gaze drift from the dig to the trees and beyond, taking in fields, towns, cities unseen.
“And her child could be anywhere,” he added.
But Parker said nothing. Like Allen, his mind was roving farther than the dig.
The Woman in the Woods Page 11