My visit to Thomas Eldritch hadn’t contributed significantly to my sense of inner well-being, although it had at least given me Merrick’s first name. Eldritch had also carefully avoided any denial that Merrick might have done time, which meant that somewhere in the system there was probably a closetful of bones just waiting to be rattled. But Eldritch’s hint that I knew his client made me uneasy. I had enough ghosts in my past to know that I didn’t relish the prospect of any of them being raised.
I stopped for coffee and a sandwich at the Bel Aire Diner on Route 1. (I gave Route 1 this much: at least it had no shortage of spots where a man could eat.) The Bel Aire had survived in its current spot for more than half a century, a big old DINER sign outside advertising its presence from the top of a forty-foot pole, the name written beneath in the original fifties cursive. The last I heard a guy called Harry Kallas was running the Bel Aire, and Harry had taken over the place from his father. Inside it were burgundy vinyl booths and matching stools at the counter, and a gray-and-white-tiled floor that boasted the kind of wear and tear associated with generations of business. There were rumors that it was due to close for redecoration, which I supposed was necessary if kind of sad. A TV was built into the wall at one end, but nobody was watching it. The kitchen was noisy, the waitresses were noisy, and the construction workers and locals ordering blue plate specials were noisy too.
I was finishing my second cup of coffee when the call came through. It was Merrick. I recognized his voice the moment I heard it, but no number was displayed on my cell phone.
“You’re a smart sonofabitch,” he said.
“Is that meant to be a compliment? If it is, you need to work on your technique. All that time in the can must have made you rusty.”
“You’re fishing. The lawyer didn’t give you shit.”
I wasn’t surprised that Eldritch had made some calls. I just wondered who had touched base with Merrick: the lawyer, or his client?
“Are you telling me that if I go searching for you in the system, I won’t find a record?”
“Search away. I ain’t gonna make it easy for you, though.”
I waited a heartbeat before asking my next question. It was a hunch, and nothing more.
“What’s the name of the girl in the picture, Frank?”
There was no reply.
“She’s the reason why you’re here, isn’t she? Was she one of the children seen by Daniel Clay? Is she your daughter? Tell me her name, Frank. Tell me her name, and maybe I can help you.”
When Merrick spoke again, his voice had changed. It was filled with quiet yet lethal menace, and I knew with certainty that this was a man who not only was capable of killing, but who had killed already, and that a line had been crossed at the mention of the girl.
“Listen to me,” he said. “I told you once already: my business is my own. I gave you time to convince that little missy to come clean, not to go nosing around in matters that don’t concern you. You’d better get back up to where you came from and talk her around.”
“Or what? I’ll bet that whoever called you about my visit to Eldritch told you to take it down a couple of notches. You keep harassing Rebecca Clay, and your friends are going to cut you loose. You’ll end up back in the can, Frank, and what good will you be to anyone then?”
“You’re wasting time,” he said. “You seem to think I was funnin’ with you about that deadline.”
“I’m getting close,” I lied. “I’ll have something for you by tomorrow.”
“Twenty-four hours,” he said. “That’s all the time you have left, and I’m being generous with you. Let me tell you something else: you and missy better start worrying if’n I am cut loose. Right now, that’s the only thing holding me in check, apart from my general good nature.”
He hung up. I paid the check and left my coffee to grow cold. Suddenly, it didn’t seem like I had the time to linger over it after all.
• • •
My next visit was to Jerry Legere, Rebecca Clay’s ex-husband. I contacted A-Secure and was told that Legere was out on a job in Westbrook with Raymon Lang, and after only a little cajoling the receptionist let me know the location.
I found the company van parked in an industrial wasteland of mud and seemingly deserted premises, with a rutted track leading between them. It wasn’t clear if the site was half finished or in terminal decline. Building work had ceased some time before on a couple of incomplete structures, leaving sections of the steel supports jutting from the concrete like bones from the stumps of severed limbs. Puddles of filthy water stank of gas and waste, and a small yellow cement mixer was lying on its side in a patch of weeds, slowly decaying into rust.
Only one warehouse was open, and inside I found two men on the first floor of the empty two-story interior, a blueprint spread out on the ground in front of them as they knelt over it. This building, at least, had been finished, and there was fresh wire screening to protect its windows from any stones that might have been thrown. I knocked on the steel door, and the men both looked up.
“Help you?” said one. He was about five years older than I was, big and strong-looking, but balding badly on top, although he kept his hair cut short enough to disguise the worst of it. It was petty and childish, I knew, but I always felt a brief surge of warmth inside when I met someone close to my own age who had less hair than I did. You could be king of the world and own a dozen companies, but every morning when you stared in the mirror your first thought would be, Damn, I wish I still had my hair.
“I’m looking for Jerry Legere.”
It was the other man who answered. He was silver-haired and ruddy-cheeked. Rebecca was six or seven years younger than I was, I guessed, and this man had a good ten or fifteen years on me. He was carrying some weight, and his jowls were sagging. He had a big, square head that looked a little too heavy for his body and the kind of mouth that was always poised to find something to scowl about: women, kids, modern music, the weather. He was wearing a checked lumberjack shirt tucked into old blue jeans and muddy work boots with mismatched laces. Rebecca was an attractive woman. True, we couldn’t always choose those with whom we fell in love, and I knew looks weren’t everything, but the union, however temporary, of the houses of Clay and Legere suggested that sometimes looks might actually be a real disadvantage.
“My name’s Charlie Parker,” I said. “I’m a private investigator. I’d like to talk to you if you can spare a few minutes.”
“Did she hire you?”
From the tone of his voice, “she” didn’t sound like anyone for whom he retained a high degree of affection.
“I’m working for your ex-wife, if that’s what you mean,” I replied.
His face cleared, but only slightly. At least it took a little weight off his scowl. It looked like Legere was having troubles with someone other than Rebecca. The effect didn’t last long, though. If there was one thing that could be said for Jerry Legere, it was that he wasn’t a man capable of keeping his thoughts hidden behind a poker face. He went from concern to relief, then descended into worry that bordered on a kind of panic. Each transition was clearly readable in his features. He was like a cartoon character, his face engaged in a constant game of catch-up with his emotions.
“What does my ex-wife need with a detective?” he asked.
“That’s why I’d like to talk to you. Maybe we could step outside.”
Legere glanced at the younger man, who nodded and returned to checking the blueprint. The sky was clear blue, and the sun shone down upon us, giving light but no warmth.
“So?” he said.
“Your wife hired me because a man has been bothering her.”
I waited for Legere’s face to conjure up a surprised expression, but I was disappointed. Instead, he settled for a leer that could have come straight from a villain in a Victorian melodrama.
“One of her boyfriends?” he asked.
“Does she have boyfriends?”
Legere shrugged.
“She’s a slut. I don’t know what sluts call them: fucks, maybe.”
“Why would you call her a slut?”
“Because that’s what she is. She cheated on me when we were married, then lied about it. She lies about everything. This guy you’re talking about, he’s probably some jerk who was promised a good time, then got upset when it didn’t arrive. I was a fool to marry a woman who was soiled goods, but I took pity on her. I won’t make that mistake again. Now I’ll screw ’em, but I won’t marry ’em.”
He leered once more. I waited for him to nudge me in the ribs, or give me an “aren’t we men of the world” wink, like in that Monty Python sketch. Your wife, eh? She’s a liar and a slut, right? They all are. Put like that, it wasn’t quite so funny. I recalled Legere’s earlier question—Did she hire you?—and the relief on his face when I told him that I was working for his wife. What did you do, Jerry? Who else did you annoy so much that she might require the services of a private detective?
“I don’t think this man is a rejected suitor,” I said.
Legere appeared to be about to ask what a suitor was, but then took the trouble to work it out for himself.
“He’s been asking about Rebecca’s father,” I continued. “He’s under the impression that Daniel Clay might still be alive.”
Something flickered in Legere’s eyes. It was like watching a djinn momentarily try to break free from the bottle, only to have the cork forcefully rammed home upon it.
“That’s bullshit,” said Legere. “Her father’s dead. Everyone knows that.”
Legere looked away. “You know what I mean.”
“He’s missing, not dead.”
“She had him declared. Too late for me, though. There’s money in the bank, but I won’t see any of it. I could have done with some of it right about now.”
“Times hard?”
“Times are always hard for the workingman.”
“You ought to put that to music.”
“I reckon it’s been done before. It’s old news.”
He turned on his heel and looked back at the warehouse, clearly anxious to be done with me and get back to work. I couldn’t blame him.
“So what makes you so sure that Daniel Clay is dead?” I asked.
“I don’t think I like your tone,” he replied. His fists clenched involuntarily. He became conscious of the reflex and allowed them to relax, then wiped the palms dry on the seams of his jeans.
“There’s nothing in it. I just meant that you seem pretty certain that he’s not coming back.”
“Well, he’s been gone a long time, right? Nobody has seen him in six years, and from what I hear, he left with the clothes on his back and nothing else. Didn’t even pack an overnight bag.”
“Did your ex-wife tell you that?”
“If she didn’t, I read it in the newspapers. It’s no secret.”
“Were you seeing her when her father went missing?”
“No, we hooked up later, but it didn’t last more than six months. I found out she was seeing other men behind my back, and I let the bitch go.”
He didn’t seem embarrassed to be telling me this. Usually when men discussed the infidelities of their wives or girlfriends, it came with a greater degree of shame than Legere was showing, the memories of the relationship underscored by an abiding sense of betrayal. They were also careful to whom they told their secrets, because what they feared most of all was that they would somehow be held accountable, that it would be adjudged that their failings had forced their women to seek their pleasures elsewhere, that they had been lacking in the ability to satisfy them. Men tended to see these matters distorted through the prism of sex. I’d known women to wander out of desire, but I’d known more who had cheated because with it came the affection and attention that they weren’t getting at home. Men, by and large, sought sex. Women traded it.
“I guess I wasn’t no innocent either,” he said, “but that’s the way of men. She had everything she needed. She had no call to do what she did. She threw me out of the house when I objected to how she was behaving. I told you: she’s a whore. They hit a certain age, and that’s it. They become sluts. But instead of admitting it, she turned it on me. She said I was the one who done wrong, not her. Bitch.”
I wasn’t sure that this was any of my business, but Rebecca Clay’s version of her marital difficulties was very different from her ex-husband’s. Now Legere was claiming that he was the injured party, and while Rebecca’s story had more of the ring of truth about it, perhaps that was simply because Jerry Legere made my skin crawl. But I could see no reason for him to lie. The story didn’t reflect well on him, and there was no mistaking his bitterness. There was a little truth somewhere in his story, however distorted it might have become in the telling.
“Have you ever heard of a man named Frank Merrick, Mr. Legere?” I asked.
“No, I can’t say that I have,” he replied. “Merrick? No, it doesn’t ring a bell. Is he the guy who’s been bothering her?”
“That’s right.”
Legere looked away again. I couldn’t see his face, but his posture had changed, as though he had just tensed to avoid a blow. “No,” he repeated. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
“Strange,” I said.
“What is?”
“He seems to know you.”
I had his full attention now. He didn’t even bother to hide his alarm.
“What do you mean?”
“He was the one who told me to talk to you. He said you might know why he was looking for Daniel Clay.”
“That’s not true. I told you, Clay’s dead. Men like him don’t just drop off the face of the earth only to pop up again later someplace else under a different name. He’s dead. Even if he wasn’t, there’s no way he’d be in contact with me. I never even met the guy.”
“This man, Merrick, was of the opinion that your wife might have told you things that she kept from the authorities.”
“He’s mistaken,” he said quickly. “She didn’t tell me nothing. She didn’t even speak about him much.”
“Did you think that was odd?”
“No. What was she gonna say? She just wanted to forget him. Nothing good would come from talking about him.”
“Could she have been in contact with him without you knowing, assuming that he was still alive?”
“You know,” said Legere, “I don’t think she’s that smart. You see this man again, you tell him that.”
“The way he was talking about you, it sounded like you might get the chance to tell him yourself.”
The prospect didn’t appear to give him much pleasure. He spit on the ground, then rubbed the spittle into the dust with his shoe just to give himself something to do.
“One more thing, Mr. Legere: what was the ‘Project’?”
If it was possible to freeze a man with a word, then Jerry Legere froze.
“Where did you hear that?”
The words were spoken almost before he realized it, and I could see instantly that he wished he could retract them. There was no anger left now. It had disappeared entirely, overwhelmed by what might almost have been wonder. He was shaking his head, as if in disbelief.
“It doesn’t matter where. I’d just like to know what it is, or was.”
“You got it from that guy, right? Merrick.” Some of his belligerence was already returning. “You come here, making accusations, talking about men I’ve never met, listening to lies from strangers, from that bitch I married. You got some nerve.”
His right hand shoved me hard in the chest. I took a step back and he started to advance. I could see him preparing to land another blow, this one harder and higher than the first. I raised my hands in a placatory gesture, and positioned my feet, my right foot slightly forward of the left.
“I’ll teach you some—”
I came off my left foot and hit him in the stomach with a doorbreaker kick, following through with the full weight of my body. The force of the impact drove the air from his body and sent him sprawling backward in the dirt. He lay there gasping, clutching his hands to his belly. His face was contorted in pain.
“You bastard,” he said. “I’ll kill you for that.”
I stood over him.
“The Project, Mr. Legere. What was it?”
“Fuck you. I got no idea what you’re talking about.”
He forced the words out through gritted teeth. I took one of my cards from my wallet and dropped it on him. The other man appeared at the entrance to the warehouse. He had a crowbar in his hand. I raised a finger of warning to him, and he paused.
“We’ll talk again. You might want to think some on Merrick and what he said. You’re going to end up discussing this again with one of us, whether you like it or not.”
I started to walk back to my car. I heard him get to his feet. He called after me. I turned around. Lang was standing at the entrance to the warehouse, asking Legere if he was okay, but Legere ignored him. The expression on his face had changed again. It was still red, and he was having trouble breathing, but a look of low cunning had taken shape upon it.
“You think you’re clever?” he said. “You think you’re hard? Maybe you ought to make some inquiries, see what happened to the last guy who started asking about Daniel Clay. He was a private dick too, just like you.”
He put a lot of emphasis on the word “dick.”
“And you know where he is?” Legere continued. “He’s in the same fucking place as Daniel Clay, is where he is. Somewhere, there’s a hole in the fucking ground with Daniel Clay in it, and right next to it is another hole with a fucking snoop rotting to hell inside. So you go right ahead, you keep asking questions about Daniel Clay and ‘projects.’ There’s always room for one more. It don’t take much effort to dig a hole, and it takes less to fill it up again once there’s a body in it.”
I walked toward him. I was pleased to see him take a step back.
“There you go again,” I said. “You do seem certain that Daniel Clay is dead.”
“I got nothing more to say to you.”
“Who was the detective?” I asked. “Who hired him?”
“Fuck. You,” he said, but then he reconsidered. A broad, bitter grin creased his face. “You want to know who hired him? That bitch hired him, just like she hired you. She was fucking him too. I could tell. I could smell him on her. I bet that’s how she pays you, too, but don’t think you’re the first.
“And he asked all the same questions that you did, about Clay and ‘projects’ and what she said or didn’t say to me, and you’re gonna go the way he did. Because that’s what happens to people who go asking after Daniel Clay.”
He snapped his fingers.
“They disappear.” He wiped the dirt from his jeans. Some of his false courage began to dissipate as his adrenaline failed him, and for a moment he looked like a man who had glimpsed his own future, and what he saw frightened him. “They disappear . . .”