The Killing Kind (14 page)

“I don't think I need your help.”

He waggled a finger at me in disagreement, and for the first time, I got a good look at his hands. They were thin, absurdly so, and there was something insectlike about them as they emerged from the sleeves of his jacket. The middle finger seemed to be about five inches long and, in common with the rest of his digits, tapered to a point at the tip: not only the nail but the entire finger appeared to grow narrower and narrower. The fingernails themselves looked to be a quarter of an inch at their widest point and were stained a kind of yellow-black. There were patches of short red hair below each of the knuckles, gradually expanding to cover most of the back of his hand and disappearing in tufts beneath his sleeve. They gave him a strange, feral quality.

“Now, now, sir,” he said, his fingers waving the way an arachnid-will sometimes raise its legs when it finds itself cornered. Their movements appeared to be unrelated to his words or to the language of the rest of the body. They were like separate creatures that had somehow managed to attach themselves to a host, constantly probing gently at the world around them.

“Don't be hasty,” he continued. “I admire independence as much as the next man, indeed I do. It is a laudable attribute in a man, sir, a laudable attribute, make no mistake about that, but it can lead him to do reckless things. Worse, sir, worse; it can cause him to interfere with the rights of those around him, sometimes without him even knowing.” His voice assumed a tone of awe at the ways of such men, and he shook his head slowly. “There you are, living your own life as you see fit, and you are causing pain and embarrassment to others by doing so. It's a sin, sir, that's what it is, a sin.”

He folded his slim fingers across his stomach, still smiling, and waited for a response.

“Who are you?” I said. There was an element of awe in my own voice as well. He was comical yet sinister, like a bad clown.

“Permit me to introduce myself,” he said. “My name is Pudd, Mr. Pudd. At your service, sir.” He extended his right hand in greeting, but I didn't reach out to take it. I couldn't. It revolted me. A friend of my grandfather's had once kept a wolf spider in a glass tank and one day, on a dare from the man's son, I had touched its leg. The spider had shot away almost instantly, but not before I had felt the hairy, jointed nature of the thing. It was not an experience I wanted to repeat.

The hand hung in midair for a moment, and once again the smile faltered briefly. Then Mr. Pudd took back his hand, and his fingers scuttled inside his jacket. I eased my right hand a few inches to the left and took hold of the gun beneath the newspapers, my thumb flicking the safety off. Mr. Pudd didn't appear to notice the movement. At least, he gave no indication that he had, but I felt something change in his attitude toward me, like a black widow that believes it has cornered a beetle only to find itself staring into the eyes of a wasp. His jacket tightened around him as his hand searched and I saw the telltale bulge of his gun.

“I think I'd prefer it if you left,” I said quietly.

“Sadly, Mr. Parker, personal preference has nothing to do with this.” The smile faded, and Mr. Pudd's mouth assumed an expression of exaggerated sorrow. “If the truth be known, sir, I would prefer not to be here at all. This is an unpleasant duty, but one that I am afraid you have brought upon yourself by your inconsiderate actions.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I am talking about your harassment of Mr. Carter Paragon, your disregard for the work of the organization that he represents, and your insistence on attempting to connect the unfortunate death of a young woman with that same organization. The Fellowship is a religious body, Mr. Parker, with the rights accruing to such bodies under our fine Constitution. You are aware of the Constitution, are you not, Mr. Parker? You have heard of the First Amendment, have you not?”

Throughout this speech, Mr. Pudd's tone did not vary from one of quiet reasonableness. He spoke to me the way a parent speaks to an errant child. I made a note to add “patronizing” to “creepy” and “insectlike” where Mr. Pudd was concerned.

“That, and the Second Amendment,” I said. “It seems like you've heard of that one too.” I removed my hand from beneath the newspaper and pointed the gun at him. I was glad to see that my hand didn't shake.

“This is most unfortunate, Mr. Parker,” he said in an aggrieved tone.

“I agree, Mr. Pudd. I don't like people coming onto my property carrying guns, or watching me while I conduct my business. It's bad manners, and it makes me nervous.”

Mr. Pudd swallowed, took his hand from inside his jacket, and moved both hands away from his body. “I meant you no offense, sir, but the servants of the Lord are afflicted with enemies on all sides.”

“Surely God will protect you better than a gun?”

“The Lord helps those who help themselves, Mr. Parker,” he replied.

“I don't think the Lord approves of breaking and entering,” I said, and Mr. Pudd's eyebrow raised slightly.

“Are you accusing me of something?”

“Why, do you have something to confess?”

“Not to you, Mr. Parker. Not to you.”

Once again his fingers danced slowly in the air, but this time there appeared to be purpose in the movement and I wondered what it meant. It was only when I heard the car door open and the shadow of the woman advanced across the lawn that I knew. I stood quickly and moved back, raising the gun to shoulder height in a two-handed grip and aiming it at Mr. Pudd's upper body.

The woman approached from behind his left shoulder. She didn't speak, but her hand was inside her thigh-length black coat. She wore no makeup and her face was very pale. Beneath her coat she wore a black pleated skirt that hung almost to her ankles, and a simple white blouse unbuttoned at the top, with a black scarf knotted around her neck. There was something deeply unpleasant about her looks, an ugliness from within that had seeped through her pores and blighted her skin. The nose was too flat for the face, the eyes too big and too white, the lips strangely bloated. Her chin was weak and receded into layers of flesh at her neck. No muscles moved in her face.

Mr. Pudd turned his head slightly toward her but kept his eyes on me. “You know, my dear, I think Mr. Parker is frightened of us.”

The woman's expression didn't change. She just kept moving forward.

“Tell her to back off,” I said softly, but I found that it was I who was taking another step back.

“Or?” asked Mr. Pudd softly. “You won't kill us, Mr. Parker.” But he raised the fingers of his left hand in a halting gesture, and the woman stopped.

If Mr. Pudd's eyes were watchful, his essential malevolence clouded with a thin fog of good humor, his partner's eyes were like those of a doll, glassy and expressionless. They remained fixed on me and I realized that, despite the gun in my hand, I was the one in danger of harm.

“Take your hand out of your coat, slowly,” I told her, my aim now shifting from the man to the woman, then back again as I tried to keep them both under the gun. “And it better be empty when it appears.”

She didn't move until Mr. Pudd nodded once. “Do as he says,” he said. She responded immediately, taking her empty hand from her coat quickly but without any fear.

“Now tell me, Mr. Pudd,” I said, “just exactly who are you?”

“I represent the Fellowship,” he said. “I am asking you, on its behalf, to cease your involvement in this matter.”

“And if I don't?”

“Then we may have to take further action. We could involve you in some very expensive and time-consuming litigation, Mr. Parker. We have excellent lawyers. Of course, that is only one of the options open to us. There are others.” This time the warning was explicit.

“I see no reason for conflict,” I said, mimicking his own tone and mannerisms. “I simply want to find out what happened to Grace Peltier, and I believe Mr. Paragon could help me toward that end.”

“Mr. Paragon is occupied with the work of the Lord.”

“Things to do, people to fleece?”

“You are an irreverent man, Mr. Parker. Mr. Paragon is a servant of God.”

“It's hard to get good staff these days.” Mr. Pudd made a strange hissing noise, an audible release of the pent-up aggression I sensed within him.

“If he talks to me and answers my questions, then I'll leave him alone,” I said. “Live and let live, that's my motto.”

I grinned, but he didn't return the favor.

“With respect, Mr. Parker, I don't believe that is your motto.” His mouth opened a little wider, and he almost spit. “I don't believe that is your motto at all.”

I cocked the pistol. “Get off my property, Mr. Pudd, and take your chatterbox friend with you.”

That was a mistake. Beside him, the woman shifted to her left suddenly and made as if to spring at me, her left hand tensed like the talons of a hawk while her right hand made a move for her coat. I lowered the gun and fired a shot into the ground between Mr. Pudd's feet, sending a spray of dirt into the air and causing birds to scatter from the surrounding trees. The woman stopped as his hand shot out and gripped her arm.

“Take off your scarf, my dear,” he said, his eyes never leaving mine. The woman paused, then unknotted her black scarf and held it limply in her left hand. Her exposed neck was crisscrossed with scars, pale pink welts that had left her so badly mutilated that to allow them to remain uncovered would be to invite stares from every passerby.

“Open wide, dear,” said Mr. Pudd.

The woman's mouth opened, revealing small yellow teeth, pink gums, and a tattered red mass at the back of her throat that was all that remained of her tongue.

“Now sing. Let Mr. Parker hear you sing.”

She opened her mouth and her lips moved, but no sound came. Yet she continued to sing a song heard only in her own head, her eyes half-closed in ecstasy, her body swaying slightly in time to the unheard music, until Mr. Pudd raised his hand and she closed her mouth instantly.

“She used to have such a beautiful voice, Mr. Parker, so fine and pure. It was throat cancer that took it from her: throat cancer and the will of God. Perhaps it was a strange blessing, a visitation from the Lord sent to test her faith and confirm her on the one true path to salvation. In the end, I think it just made her love the Lord even more.”

I didn't share his faith in the woman. The rage inside her was palpable, a fury at the pain she had endured, the loss she had suffered. That wrath had consumed any love that once existed within her, and now she was forced to look beyond herself to feed it. The pain would never ease, but the burden could be made more bearable by inflicting a taste of it on others.

“But,” Mr. Pudd concluded, “I like to tell her it was because her voice made the angels jealous.”

I had to take his word for it. I didn't see anything else about her that might have aroused the envy of angels.

“Well,” I said, “at least she still has her looks.”

Mr. Pudd didn't respond but now real hatred appeared in his eyes. It was a passing thing, gone as quickly as a mayfly to be replaced with his habitual look of false good humor. But what had flickered briefly in his eyes burst into glorious, savage flame in those of the woman: in her eyes I saw churches burn, with the congregations still inside. Mr. Pudd seemed to sense the waves of contained violence rolling from her, because he turned and touched her cheek gently with the hairy back of one finger.

“My Nakir,” he whispered. “Hush.”

Her eyes fluttered briefly closed at the caress, and I wondered if they were lovers.

“Go back to the car, my dear. Our business here is concluded, for the present.” The woman looked at me once more, then walked away. Mr. Pudd seemed about to follow her, then stopped and turned back.

“You are unwise to pursue this. I advise you for the last time to cease your involvement in this affair.”

“Sue me,” I said.

But Mr. Pudd only shook his head. “No, it's gone far beyond that, I'm afraid. I fear we shall be seeing each other again, under less favorable circumstances for you.”

He raised his hands.

“I am going to reach into my pocket, Mr. Parker, for my business card.” Without waiting for a reply, he took a small silver case from the right-hand pocket of his jacket. He flipped open the case and removed a white business card, holding it gently by one corner. Once again, he extended his hand, but this time it didn't falter. He waited patiently until I was forced to reach for it. As I took it, he shifted his hand slightly and the tips of his fingers brushed against mine. Involuntarily, I shied away from the contact and Mr. Pudd nodded slightly, as if I had somehow confirmed a suspicion he had.

The card said only ELIAS PUDD in black Roman letters. There was no telephone number, no business address, no occupation. The back of the card was completely blank.

“Your card doesn't say a lot about you, Mr. Pudd,” I remarked.

“On the contrary, it says everything about me, Mr. Parker. I fear that you are simply not reading it correctly.”

“All it tells me is that you're either cheap or a minimalist,” I responded. “You're also irritating, but it doesn't say that on your card either.”

For the first time, Mr. Pudd truly smiled, his yellow teeth showing and his eyes lighting up. “Oh, but it does, in its way,” he said, and chuckled once. I kept the gun trained on him until he had climbed into the car and the strange pair had disappeared in a cloud of dust and fumes that seemed to taint the very sunlight that shone through it.

My fingers began to blister almost as soon as they had driven away. At first there was just a feeling of mild irritation but it quickly became real pain as small raised bumps appeared on my fingertips and the palm of my hand. I applied some hydrocortisone but the irritation persisted for most of the day, an intense, uncomfortable itching where Mr. Pudd's card, and his fingers, had touched my skin. Using tweezers, I placed the card in a plastic envelope, sealed it, and placed it on my hall table. I would ask Rachel to have someone take a look at it while I was in Boston.

7

I LEFT MY GUN BENEATH THE SPARE TIRE in the trunk of the Mustang before walking to the granite masonry bulk of the Edward T. Gignoux Courthouse at Newbury and Market. I passed through the metal detector, then climbed the marble stairs to courtroom 1, taking a seat in one of the chairs at the back of the court.