The Woman in the Woods

by John Connolly

  A shadow fell across the table, and both men looked up at the face of Charlie Parker.

  CHAPTER

  LII

  Quayle and Giller were not alone that evening in considering the possible implications of Parker’s involvement in their affairs.

  Holly Weaver was sitting at her kitchen table, drinking a glass of Maker’s Mark, light on the ice and heavy on the bourbon. The Maker’s was a Christmas gift from her father. Holly rarely drank hard liquor, but once or twice a month she liked to treat herself to a small one, usually over a book or while watching an old movie on TCM. So each Christmas, Owen Weaver presented his daughter with a bottle, and this was usually enough to take her through to the next Christmas.

  Not this time, though, Owen thought. This one wouldn’t even carry her to Easter, not unless she started watering it.

  “I saw him,” said Holly. “On the TV. The private detective, the one who hunted down all those bad people.”

  Owen wanted to ask Holly when last she’d eaten, and if she was managing to sleep at all, because his daughter had begun visibly to waste away since the discovery of the body, and her eyes stared out from reddish blue hollows. Instead, he said:

  “We’re not bad people.”

  “It won’t make any difference to him.”

  “He can’t know any more than the police do.”

  “Maybe not yet, but he’s not like the police. He’s different. Jesus, the stuff on the Internet: if even half of what they say about him is true . . .”

  Owen was of the opinion that virtually nothing on the Internet was true, and most of what was true wasn’t worth reading. But he also acknowledged that he might just be part of a dying generation, and eventually he, and those like him, would cede their places to men and women who thrived on conspiracy theories, the echo of their own voices, and the opinions of dogmatists and fools.

  Owen had Holly’s laptop open on the table before him. He was clicking through the searches in her history, taking in a headline here, a report there. He knew Parker’s name, and something of Parker’s reputation, from his own research, but Holly had discovered much more. Even allowing for falsehoods and exaggeration, this was a man to be reckoned with.

  “But who could have hired him?” said Owen. “If he’s a private investigator, someone must have paid him to sniff around.”

  Holly looked at him. She was still frightened, but the tincture of her fear altered.

  “What if it’s the people Karis was running from?”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I’ve been reading the same material as you,” said Owen, “and I don’t think Parker’s the kind to accept their money. All those cases—murderers brought to justice, missing women found, children saved from Christ knows what kind of end—they share some sense of morality, of right and wrong.”

  “They say he’s killed people.”

  “They do,” Owen admitted. “But if anyone believes the world is poorer for their absence, they’re keeping quiet about it.”

  Holly knocked back a mouthful of bourbon large enough to empty her glass. Owen hoped that at least it might help her sleep. It wouldn’t be good sleep, but in her current state, any rest at all would be a bonus.

  “He’ll come here,” said Holly. “He’ll find his way to my door.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  She was no longer looking at him. She was staring over his shoulder at the window, her gaze penetrating the glass and taking her into the darkness beyond, moving through forest and glade until it alighted at last on a man approaching from the south, his advance inexorable, his intent to deprive her of Daniel.

  “You’re wrong,” she said.

  Owen closed the laptop. He’d seen all he needed to see.

  “Then we have a choice,” he said.

  “Tell me.”

  “We wait for Parker to arrive, and the police with him.”

  “Or?”

  “Some of these stories mention two lawyers here in Maine, one in Portland and the other in Falmouth. Parker’s done work for both of them. The woman in Falmouth I don’t know, and it doesn’t look like she’s engaged with Parker lately, but I’ve heard of the second, Castin. I can talk to him—just over the phone, no names. I’ll be careful.”

  Holly put the glass down. She started to cry.

  “No,” she said. “It’s all the law.”

  “We need help. We have to tell someone what happened. We should have done it as soon as they found the body.”

  “They won’t believe us.”

  “We’ll make them believe us. It’s the truth.”

  “I can’t lose him, Daddy. I can’t. I’ll die!”

  Owen reached across the table to clasp her hands. He closed his eyes. He could feel again the spade in his hands, and the ache in his arms and back as he dug the hole; the form of the woman in her makeshift shroud, and the weight of her in his arms as he laid her in the ground. They had made her a promise, he and Holly, but it was one they should never have kept. Owen saw another path appear, one in which the police were called in the aftermath of the birth, and the child was temporarily taken from them while a process was initiated that ended with Daniel as his daughter’s boy, but without the secrets and without the fear.

  A fairy tale.

  Because there was another possibility: the woman identified; Daniel in foster care; and finally, the appearance of the father, come to claim his son at last.

  “Don’t let them have my baby.”

  A dying woman’s words, her hand in Owen’s, still slick with her blood; Holly beside them, holding the child, this wailing boy; and something in the way Karis Lamb says those words makes Owen want to tell his daughter to smother the child’s cries, to silence him with whispers and caresses, with the warmth of her flesh and the scent of her skin, lest the hunters might hear.

  Because unspoken yet still acknowledged between his daughter and him is the certainty that Parker and the police are not the only ones to be feared.

  “Don’t let them have my baby.”

  Them.

  He knew it would only be a matter of time before Karis Lamb was identified.

  And then they would descend.

  CHAPTER

  LIII

  Despite Giller’s efforts to bring Quayle up to speed on Parker, the lawyer was still surprised by his own response to the detective’s arrival at their table.

  From across the bar, Parker had resembled just another customer: average height, hair graying, his body perhaps refusing as yet to acquiesce entirely to the softness of middle age, or not without a fight. But Parker was different when viewed up close. It wasn’t as though any single facet of his character appeared more remarkable in proximity, although Quayle was prepared to make an exception for the eyes, which suggested a degree of insight both unusual and hard earned. Looking into them was like staring at the play of light on the surface of the ocean, the greenish blue of them communicating compassion, sadness, and a potential for violence that, once unleashed, would not easily be subdued. But Quayle thought also that there was about Parker a certain otherworldliness, a sense of one with an acute awareness of the ineffable. Quayle had encountered other such individuals in the past, but they were often ascetics, occasionally fanatics. Parker, from what Quayle knew, was neither. He was simply very, very dangerous.

  “Gentlemen,” said Parker. “I hope you’re enjoying yourselves tonight.”

  Quayle noticed that he kept his body slightly angled, so he could monitor both them and the crowd at the bar—in particular, Mors. Somehow he had picked up on her presence, even as she kept herself at one remove.

  “Very much,” said Quayle. “Although it’s a little noisy for my liking.”

  “Not from around here, are you?”

  “Just visiting.”

  “English?”

  “Yes.”

  “Business?”

  “Mostly.”

  “And what kin
d of business would that be?”

  “Are you the welcoming committee?”

  “The regular guy is off, and I’m still working on my people skills.”

  Parker waited for Quayle to answer his earlier question. The three men understood what was unfolding. Neither Quayle nor Giller made any effort to protest at Parker’s interruption of their conversation, or to pretend that this was anything other than what it was: an adversarial confrontation brought down upon them by some moment of carelessness on their part, or the detective’s responsiveness to threat and predation.

  “I’m involved with the legal profession,” said Quayle, at last.

  “A lawyer?”

  “Yes.”

  “You could have just said that.”

  “I don’t practice very much anymore.”

  “Yet here you are, on ‘business.’ ”

  “Indeed, here I am.”

  A printed sheet lay by Quayle’s right hand: the cryptic crossword puzzle from that day’s edition of The Times of London. Completing it was one of Quayle’s pleasures, and he had been forced to subscribe temporarily to the newspaper using a proxy account, in order to enjoy it while away from home. Quayle’s fountain pen lay alongside it, and the index finger of his right hand bore a telltale smudge of ink.

  “Puzzle fan?” said Parker.

  “Only of this particular crossword.”

  “Looks like you finished it.”

  “I always complete it, although some days it takes longer than others.”

  “I’m sure there’s a metaphor in there somewhere, or a lesson for life.”

  “If I discover it, I’ll be sure to pass it on.”

  “That would be just fine. Do you have a name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Care to share it?”

  “No.”

  Parker nodded once, as though Quayle had just confirmed everything he needed to know about him, before turning his attention to Giller.

  “You I think I’ve seen before.”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “I have a good memory for faces. How’s your memory for faces?”

  Giller shrugged, but didn’t answer.

  “I ask because it seemed that you were paying some attention to my face this evening. I’m just wondering if on those other occasions when I’ve seen you here, you might have been doing the same thing?”

  “I think you’re mistaken.”

  Parker considered this.

  “You could be right,” he said, “but I doubt it. And I bet you’re not the sharing kind either when it comes to names.”

  “Smith,” said Giller. “My friend across the table is also Smith.”

  “Well, Smith and Smith,” said Parker, “or Smith One and Smith Two as I’ll think of you from now on, I’m glad we got the formalities out of the way, broke the ice. Next time, we’ll all be more comfortable with one another. I’ll keep my eyes open, because I wouldn’t want to miss you. Until then, you enjoy the rest of your evening.” He backed away from them, pausing only to tap the bar, just to the right of where Pallida Mors was sitting. “You too, miss.”

  Quayle watched him rejoin the group, but Parker only stayed a few moments longer before leaving through the front door.

  “Will he wait?” asked Quayle.

  “Possibly,” said Giller. “But he can’t follow both of us at once, and if we leave now, he won’t have time to call for assistance.”

  “So which one of us will he go after?”

  “We’ll just have to see.”

  “And the matter of the child?”

  “I’m already working on it. I’ll be in touch.”

  “Sooner would be preferable.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind.”

  They made their way from the bar, Mors behind them. The owner, the birthday boy himself, gave no sign of noticing their departure, nor did anyone else. Once they were outside, Giller turned left without another word, left again, and was quickly gone from sight. Quayle and Mors headed right, in the direction of their rental car, but as they approached it, Mors took Quayle’s arm.

  “Let’s walk a while.”

  “What about the car?”

  “I’ll come back for it later.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s watching, and the car can be traced. He’s sharp.”

  “Sharp enough to have spotted you.”

  Mors bristled. “Yes.”

  Mors checked behind her, but saw no sign of the detective. She looked puzzled, even disappointed.

  “Why doesn’t he come?” she said.

  “Because he knows we’re here, and what we look like,” said Quayle. “Perhaps he’ll use other channels to find out why.”

  Eventually they neared the ramp for 295, where Mors hailed a passing cab. As they climbed in, neither of them paid any attention to the figure limping along the other side of the street, his progress assisted by a bright red Rollator. Only when the cab had slipped onto the highway did he reach into his pocket and carefully text the company name and license number of the cab to the number he had been given by the man outside the Great Lost Bear.

  It was the easiest twenty dollars he’d ever made.

  CHAPTER

  LIV

  Bobby Ocean was also in a bar that night, in his case the Gull’s Nest over in South Portland’s West End. Bobby had recently used one of his subsidiary corporations to take ownership of the Gull, as it was universally known. Over the preceding eighteen months, related companies had also acquired rental properties in the Brick Hill and Redbank neighborhoods, and along Western Avenue. The city council was planning to revitalize the area by improving roads and building sidewalks, as well as authorizing zoning changes and implementing a public-private proposal for affordable housing. The West End was on its way up, and Bobby Ocean would be in an ideal position to exploit this ascent.

  The only blot on the horizon was Bobby’s son, who was currently holding court in a corner of the Gull, and had already begun shooting his mouth off about the new proprietors. Billy had petitioned his father to be permitted to manage the Gull, and his mother had added her voice to her son’s. How could Billy be expected to become more responsible, she argued, if his father wouldn’t trust him with leadership? This seemed to Bobby to be putting the cart before the horse, but his protest fell on deaf ears, just as his wife preferred to ignore all the times Billy had failed to step up in the past. Those jobs, she claimed, just weren’t right for their son. They were too restrictive. He was a sociable boy, she said. People liked him.

  Maybe she really believed this, but Bobby thought she spoke more in hope than anything else. Their son was not sociable, just easily led. Folks didn’t like him: they liked his money, which Billy threw around freely enough to buy himself a circle of regular acquaintances. Some were plain old bottom-feeders, but others were of a more dangerous stripe. Bobby wasn’t planning on dying anytime soon, but he still worried about the future of businesses he had so painstakingly built up over the years. Billy was his only child, and the only one Bobby Ocean was ever likely to have. He was also, unfortunately, an asshole.

  That fucking truck: if only Billy hadn’t bedecked it with Confederate banners, but there was no talking to him. True, he might have inherited his fundamentalist views on race—not to mention women, homosexuals, and the poor—from his old man, but that didn’t mean he had to go around advertising them. The truck flags were just part of it: Billy had also involved himself with that Klan nonsense up in Augusta, which was arrant stupidity. Billy had been smiling when he told his father about it, as though expecting to be praised for what he’d done. But Bobby Ocean was a respectable figure in the state, and ensured that his support for far-right causes was discreet and largely anonymous. What effect did his son think it would have on the family name if he were questioned for disseminating hate literature? What the fuck was he thinking?

  But Bobby Ocean shouldn’t have struck him for it. That was a mistake. The openhanded blow landed on
the side of Billy’s head almost before his father realized he’d thrown it. And then—goddamn it, goddamn it all—the boy had started weeping.

  Jesus Lord.

  So maybe he’d have to throw the Gull to Billy. It was a shithole anyway, and eventually Bobby would have to close it for refurbishment, maybe put in a pizza oven once the hipsters began gathering. Billy could do what he wanted with it for a year or two, so long as he didn’t run the place into the ground. And if Bobby gave him the Gull, Billy might stop brooding on his truck, and that would be a good thing. There was no proof that Parker and his Negro had been responsible for what occurred, even if Bobby knew they were involved, knew it in his heart. He’d find a way to punish them for what they’d done, given time, but he didn’t want his son going up against a man like Parker.

  From the heart of a group of laughing men and women, all morons and blowhards, his son raised a glass to his father, and Bobby returned the gesture. After all, he loved his son, and perhaps it was partly his fault that Billy had turned out this way. Still, he couldn’t help but feel that some better version of the boy had dripped from his mother’s vagina before it could reach the egg.

  CHAPTER

  LV

  The text came as Parker shadowed the man he was now thinking of as Smith One. Parker knew the type: a crony, a consort, a willing servant to the demands of others, regardless of their moral complexion, just as long as they paid promptly—although the Smith Ones of this world preferred that the morality of their employers assumed tones of gray, fading to black.

  Which wasn’t to suggest Smith One lacked intelligence. He was keeping his head down as he headed along Ashmont, maintaining a steady pace and not looking back, but Parker was sure he was primed for the possibility of pursuit, if not already actively aware of his pursuer. Not that Parker cared. He didn’t intend to follow Smith One for very long. What Parker did intend was to grab Smith One at the first opportunity before encouraging him to share any and all information he might possess about his drinking companion, along with details of anyone else that might have paid him to monitor Parker’s movements.