“But you got shot.”
“Yes.”
“You mustn’t get shot.”
“That’s good advice. I’ll bear it in mind for the future.”
A woman emerged from the depths of the house. She was big and busty, with a manner that projected both strength and compassion. Her hair was grayer than before, and Parker thought she moved with a certain caution, even weariness, that was new to her. This was Molly Bow; if Candy was the heart of the Tender House, then Molly was its brain, its muscle, its sinew.
“I wasn’t flirting!” said Candy, as soon as she became aware of Molly’s presence.
“Are you sure?” said Molly.
“Give me a break,” said Candy. “Charlie Parker’s my friend.” She turned to Parker for confirmation of this. “Right?”
“Right. And I brought you a gift.”
“A gift? For me?”
Parker handed over a bag from Treehouse Toys containing a design-your-own-stationery set, including stickers, stars, and glitter. Candy liked making cards for the women and children in the Tender House. She left them on pillows, and slipped them under doors. Her face lit up when she peered into the bag.
“Thank you,” said Candy, and she hugged Parker again. “I must go and make you a card to take home.”
“I’d like that a lot.”
“A birthday card.”
“But it’s not my birthday.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
And Parker decided that perhaps it didn’t. You accepted birthday cards when and where you could.
“A birthday card it is, then.”
Candy headed into the house. Parker walked up to Bow and embraced her, although he noticed that she kept him at one remove.
“How are you, Molly?”
“I’m okay,” she replied.
“Just okay?”
“I got beaten up.”
“When?”
“About a month ago.”
“I didn’t know.”
“We kept it quiet. The police were informed, but we didn’t want to alarm any of the women. How can we expect to make them feel safe if we can’t even look after ourselves?”
“Who did it?”
“No idea. He wore a ski mask, so I figure it was some prick whose wife or girlfriend might have passed our way. He caught me as I was coming out of a movie. I should have parked closer to the light. He tried to drag me into the bushes. I think he had a mind to rape me, but he settled for kicking the shit out of me instead.”
“How bad?”
“A couple of busted ribs, and a lot of bruises. I managed not to get my nose broken, which is something. I always liked my nose.”
“That wasn’t what I meant.”
“I know. Physically, I’m on the mend. Psychologically, that’s another matter. I guess we have that much in common, right? But come on inside. I’ll make you a cup of coffee, and you can tell me what brings you to our door.”
* * *
IF THE FAçADE OF the Tender House was unchanged, its interior had undergone considerable renovation. An extension to the back of the main building now offered two rooms that could be used for meetings or therapy sessions, along with a small medical clinic and a new kitchen.
“We received a bequest,” Bow explained. “Enough to put together all this. We also have a nurse who comes in three times a week, and a therapist for two afternoons.”
She made coffee for both of them, and left Candy behind the main desk working on Parker’s card, with instructions to shout if she needed help. Bow and Parker went into the smaller of the new rooms, leaving the door slightly ajar. They sat opposite each other, a box of tissues on the table between them.
“So why are you here?” Bow asked.
“The woman’s body found in Piscataquis.”
“I don’t know much beyond what I’ve seen on television and read in the newspapers. They’re saying it wasn’t a homicide, and she died of complications from childbirth.”
“Probably postnatal hemorrhaging due to placental abruption, or that’s what’s coming from the ME. No sign of any other injuries.”
“And you’re investigating this?”
“In a way.”
“On whose behalf?”
“Moxie Castin’s.”
“Moxie Castin is a lawyer. So he’s employing you on behalf of a client?”
“No, it’s all Moxie.”
“Why?”
“The Star of David that was carved into a tree by the grave. Moxie’s Jewish. Trying to trace Jane Doe’s child is his service for the dead.”
“Which means you’re his service for the dead.”
“Yes.”
“You seem to spend a lot of time serving the dead.”
“I serve the living, too.”
“Not so much.”
Parker conceded the point.
“Could she have been someone with whom you were in contact?” he asked.
“I don’t think so. I went back through our records following the police appeals. We had a couple of pregnant women pass through here during that time, but the ages don’t match. Do the police think there’s any chance she might be local?”
“It’s unlikely. She’d be on file, or someone would have come forward by now. You know how this state is: it’s thirty-five thousand square miles of small town.”
“You could have told me all this in a phone call, and spared yourself a trip. Why did you need to look in my eyes?”
From outside came the sound of Candy humming as she worked.
“Jane Doe was pregnant,” said Parker, “and from outside the state. The fact that she ended up buried in the woods means she was probably in trouble from the start. So what drew her to Maine?”
“Family? A friend?”
“Then why hasn’t anyone claimed her?”
“Maybe the father of the child was a Mainer, or living here from away.”
“Again, the same question,” said Parker. “Why not come forward?”
“Because he killed her.”
“Nobody killed her. She died.”
“She was left to bleed out. There are all kinds of ways to kill a woman. Some don’t even involve laying a hand on her.”
“Okay, let’s say I accept that. Why let her die and then keep the child? Look at it objectively: What’s the point in concealing a postnatal death, and burying the body on woodland—which is risky—all to hide a baby?”
“I can come up with reasons,” said Bow, “none of them suggestive of a positive outcome for the child’s well-being.”
“Once more, all that may be true. But you’re starting at the end and working back. I’m still a whole set of steps behind you.”
“Where, exactly?”
“At the point where she gets here and looks for help.”
“Assuming she did.”
“Molly—”
“Fine, fine. So she seeks help—but she didn’t come to us.”
“And if she’d approached any of the other services or refuges in the state, there’d be a record of it. Someone would remember.”
“Right.”
“Then who do you turn to if you’re really frightened, and really, really at risk, and you don’t want to be remembered?”
Molly stared at Parker, but said nothing.
“The Tender House is discreet,” Parker persisted, “but the fact that you could be dragged into bushes and beaten, in all likelihood because of your work here, confirms a certain awareness of your presence. Sometimes, discreet isn’t enough.”
“You’re fishing.”
“You know me better than that.”
“What are you suggesting?”
Parker had been asking around. He’d even spoken to Rachel, his ex. Rachel was a psychologist and had worked with victims of domestic abuse. She’d made some calls, and come back with a piece of information she’d been unable to substantiate but that was, in her view, more than hearsay.
“I’ve heard rumors.”
“Safe houses. Women and children in trouble, being passed from place to place. All under the radar, and only the most desperate of cases, the ones barely a step ahead of a violent death. No police involvement, no state or local services. They go in one end of the tunnel and come out the other, far away.”
“Fairy tales.”
“I don’t believe that’s the case.”
Molly sat back in her chair and folded her arms. Her demeanor didn’t augur well for disclosures.
“And if—if—all that were true, don’t you think these individuals might also want to help solve the mystery of this woman’s identity?”
“Not if it meant explaining how they knew.”
“You’re asking me to betray confidences.”
“Molly, there’s something very wrong here. I’ll do all I can to protect sources, and not endanger anything you or others may have worked hard to establish, but I need to make my way back along the chain. This woman deserves better than an anonymous burial in a pauper’s grave, and out there is someone who knows where her child is.”
Slowly, Bow unfolded her arms, and Parker thought again about how tired she appeared. It wasn’t just the recent assault. Perhaps there was only so long a person could bear witness to the damage men were prepared to inflict on women without falling victim, even temporarily, to despair.
“I’m not supposed to know,” she said. “And you make it sound like some kind of formal structure, or secret organization, but it’s not like that. There’s no one network, no hierarchy. There are only people who want to help, who remain in loose contact with one another, and understand the value of staying low.”
“I won’t share this with anyone else, not even Moxie.”
“Jesus.” She breathed deeply. “I’ll give you a name, but—”
Parker waited.
“You’ll have to tell her I sent you,” said Bow, “and then she’ll never trust me again. None of them will.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. I like you, I really do, but in so many ways you’re just another man. You’re convinced of the rightness of your own cause. You know best, and you’ll threaten and wheedle and cajole until you get what you want. When you’re done, you’ll look back at the havoc you’ve created, and all you’ll be able to do is shrug and make your apologies.”
Parker didn’t reply. He knew some of this was true, and the part that wasn’t didn’t matter.
“You need to talk to Maela Lombardi,” said Bow. “She lives not far from you, over in Cape Elizabeth.”
Parker recognized the name.
“She was a schoolteacher.”
“Yes.”
He tried to picture Lombardi. He thought he might have seen her once, at a community gathering. He asked Bow for contact details, and was given two numbers—home and cell phone—along with an address.
“Are there others like Lombardi in Maine?” he asked.
“Not that I know of.”
“And you’d know.”
“I would.”
“And in the rest of New England?”
“I don’t have that information.”
“You’re certain?”
“Don’t push me, Parker.”
And when Molly Bow told you not to push, you were advised to stop pushing.
“Thank you,” said Parker.
“Don’t thank me either. Your gratitude won’t make me feel any better.”
She stood. Their meeting was over. Parker felt a kind of sadness. He understood that their relationship had shifted irrevocably, and not for the better. She walked him to the door, where Candy was waiting with a birthday card. He accepted it, and received another hug for good measure, before Candy went to her room to take a nap, leaving Parker alone with Bow. Her arms were folded again. It looked like Candy’s would be the last hug he received at the Tender House.
“I know,” he said to her, as he stood on the step, the street beyond still empty.
“You know what?”
“That you lied to me earlier.”
She stared hard at him, and waited for him to continue.
“You can identify who assaulted you. If you’re not certain, you’re as good as.”
She stayed silent for so long that Parker became convinced she was going to let him walk away without any reply at all.
“I have no proof,” she said at last.
“He’ll do it again. If not to you, then to some other woman.”
“I’m not going to give you his name.”
“I didn’t ask for it.”
For the first time, she looked disappointed in him.
“In your way,” she said, “you did.”
And she closed the door in his face.
CHAPTER
LVIII
Daniel Weaver was no longer answering calls from his toy phone. He had made this decision after seeing the story about the dead lady on one of the news shows Grandpa Owen liked to watch—except Daniel felt that lately his grandpa wasn’t much enjoying the news shows, which made Daniel wonder why he continued to monitor them so intently.
But the toy phone kept ringing. It didn’t ring while his mom or Grandpa Owen were nearby, or not since the morning of the dental appointment, when his grandpa had remarked on the noise. It was as though the lady who called herself Karis didn’t want to draw that kind of attention. It was Daniel with whom she wished to communicate, not anyone else.
And Daniel didn’t want to talk to dead people.
Daniel had no proof that Karis and the dead lady were one and the same. He just knew it to be so, the same way you knew the voice coming out of the ventriloquist’s dummy was really just that of the man or woman holding it, no matter how still the person’s lips stayed. But he wanted Karis to go away. He didn’t know why she’d chosen him. He didn’t understand why she claimed to have been waiting so long to speak to him. He wasn’t important. He was just a boy.
And talking to Karis wasn’t like talking to an ordinary adult. It was more like talking to Jordan Ansell, the eldest son of Mr. Floyd Ansell, who owned the laundry in town. Something bad had happened to Jordan Ansell while he was in his mom’s tummy, and now one eye was smaller than the other, and he couldn’t use his withered left arm to lift stuff. Jordan Ansell was all grown up, but he still lived at home with his parents and got paid to iron laundry. Jordan Ansell would ask a question, and seem to listen to the answer, but the next thing that came out of Jordan Ansell’s mouth would be completely unconnected to what was said before, so a conversation that might have started with Jordan Ansell commenting on the weather would quickly jump from rain to stones to dog hair and eventually finish up with shoes, Jordan Ansell having a particular fascination with what folks did or did not wear on their feet. Jordan Ansell didn’t really listen to what anyone said. He heard, but he didn’t listen.
Karis was like that. Karis would ask a question, and say yes yes yes as the answer came, and sound as though she were fascinated by what she was hearing, but her tone never varied, and even Daniel recognized that not everything he said was interesting. Then, once Karis had exhausted her store of yes yes yes, she would cut to the chase, like Jordan Ansell focusing on sneakers and cowboy boots, and ask Daniel:
when will you visit me?
when will you come?
The first time she said this, Daniel asked her where she lived, and Karis giggled as though Daniel had accidentally made a joke, but one only she could understand.
in the woods
“Where? In a house?”
not a house
That laugh again. It made Daniel’s scalp itch.
“Then where?”
among the trees
“Like a witch?”
maybe a good witch
“How will I find you?”
start walking and i’ll find you
“But where?”
north
“Which way is north?”
you wait until the sun
starts to go down, and then you keep it to your left
“I can’t do that.”
why?
“Because the woods are dangerous.”
i’ll protect you
“Why can’t you just come here?”
i like the woods
you’ll like them too
i can show you the secret places
and then we’ll sleep
Karis kept asking him to go into the woods, and sometimes she’d get mad at Daniel for not understanding why it was so important that he should. She’d begin to talk faster, so fast that Daniel couldn’t pick up all the words because they flowed into one another until at last they became just a stream of noise that turned to static before exploding into silence. And when Karis called back again—an hour later, a day later—it would be as if their previous conversation had never occurred, and they would start the dialogue afresh.
when will you visit me?
when will you come?
But that was before Daniel realized who Karis was. Now Daniel was certain that he didn’t want to join Karis in her secret places, and he didn’t wish to find out where she slept, because when he tried to imagine it he saw worms and bugs, and felt cold, damp earth around him.
He knew he should tell someone—his mom, his grandpa—but Karis had made it clear that he wasn’t to do this. She was his friend, not theirs. If he told, they’d be angry with him, and she would be angry with him too. That was when her voice would change, and it made Daniel feel very afraid, because he understood that, deep down, Karis was always angry.
Sad, but mostly angry.
But all this had to stop. Daniel was afraid to sleep. He saw the phone in his dreams, and its ringing woke him, even when it wasn’t making any sound at all. The stupid smile under the dial gave him the creeps, and the little black eyes that moved in their plastic sockets reminded him of a dying dog he and his grandpa had found by the side of the road a few months back. The dog had been run over by a car. Its skull was all messed up, its fur torn and bloodied, and its eyes were rolling in its head. Grandpa Owen told Daniel to go stand behind a tree while he went to find a big stone.
And the dog hadn’t made a sound, not even at the end.
Daniel knew he had to get rid of the phone, but he was afraid to put it in the trash because his mom and grandpa were compulsive sorters, and if they found the phone Daniel would have to explain why he was throwing it away instead of putting it in the box for the charity store. Daniel didn’t think that would be a good idea. He didn’t want some other kid getting calls from Karis. Neither could he burn the phone, because matches alone wouldn’t do the trick, even if he could find a way to get to them.
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