The Unquiet-CP-6 (8 page)

“How you doing?” I said.

He peered lazily at me, as though it were all that he could do just to rouse himself enough to respond. He had another cigarette between his lips, and a blue pack of American Spirit rested on top of the dashboard in front of him.

“Fine,” he said. “Just fine.”

He raised his right hand to his mouth, drawing on the cigarette so that the tip glowed brightly. He looked away from me and stared through the windshield.

“Thought someone was paying me mind,” he said. “I see you got a gun.”

The bulge of the .38 was barely visible beneath my jacket, unless someone knew what he was looking for.

“Can’t be too careful,” I said.

“You don’t need to worry about me. I don’t carry a gun. I got no call for one.”

“I guess you’re just a gentle soul.”

“Nah, I can’t claim that. The woman hire you?”

“She’s concerned.”

“She has no cause to be. If she tells me what I want to know, I’ll be on my way.”

“And if she doesn’t, or if she can’t?”

“Well, that’s two different things, ain’t it? One can’t be helped, and one can.”

His fingers shifted from the wheel. Instantly, I was reaching for the gun at my waist.

“Whoa, whoa!” he said. He held his hands up in mock surrender. “I done told you, I got no gun.”

I kept my hand close to the butt of the pistol. “I’d still prefer it if your hands stayed where I can see them.”

He shrugged exaggeratedly, then allowed his palms to rest against the top of the wheel.

“Do you have a name?” I asked.

“I have lots of names.”

“That’s very mysterious of you. Try one and see how it fits.”

He seemed to give the issue some thought.

“Merrick,” he said at last, and something in his face and his voice told me that this was as much as I was likely to get from him where names were concerned.

“Why are you bothering Rebecca Clay?”

“I ain’t bothering her. I just want her to be straight with me.”

“About what?”

“About her father.”

“Her father’s dead.”

“He ain’t dead. She got him declared dead, but that don’t mean nothing. You show me the worms crawling in the sockets of his eyes, then I’ll believe he’s dead.”

“Why are you so interested in him?”

“I got my reasons.”

“Try sharing them.”

His fingers tightened on the wheel. There was a small India-ink tattoo on the knuckle of his left middle finger. It was a crude blue cross, a jailhouse tattoo.

“I don’t think so. I don’t like strangers questioning me about my business.”

“Well, then you’ll know just how Ms. Clay feels.”

His teeth worried at the inside of his lower lip. He kept his gaze fixed straight ahead. I could feel the tension building up inside him. I had allowed my hand to drift to the butt of my gun, and my own forefinger was now extended above the trigger guard, ready to slip into place if necessary. Then the tightness released itself from Merrick’s body. I heard him exhale, and he seemed to grow smaller and less threatening.

“You ask her about the Project,” he said softly. “You see what she says.”

“What is the ‘Project’?”

He shook his head.

“Ask her, then come back to me. Maybe y’ought to talk to her ex-husband too, while you’re about it.”

I didn’t even know that Rebecca Clay had been married. I was only aware that she hadn’t married the father of her child. Some investigator I was.

“Why would I do that?”

“A husband and wife, they share things. Secret things. You talk to him, and it could be you’ll spare me the trouble of talking to him myself. I’ll be around. You won’t have to come looking for me, because I’ll find you. You got two days to make her tell me what she knows, then I lose my patience with y’all.”

I gestured at his wounded hand.

“It seems to me like you lost your patience once already.”

He looked at the bandaged limb and stretched the fingers, as if testing the pain in the wounds.

“That was a mistake,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to strike out like that. I’m being sorely tested by her, but I don’t mean to do her harm.”

Maybe he believed that was true, but I didn’t. There was a rage inside Merrick. It pulsed redly, animating his eyes and keeping every muscle and sinew in his body taut with barely suppressed emotion. Merrick might not mean to hurt a woman, might not set out to do it, but the blood on his hand said all that needed to be said about his capacity to control his impulses.

“I lost my temper, is all,” he continued. “I need her to tell me what she knows. It’s important to me.” He drew on his cigarette again. “And since we’re getting all friendly here, you didn’t give me your name.”

“It’s Parker.”

“What are you, a private cop?”

“You want to see my license?”

“No, a piece of paper won’t tell me nothing that I don’t already know. I don’t want trouble from you, sir. I’ve come here with business to conduct, business of a personal nature. Maybe you can make that little lady see reason so I can conclude it and be on my way. I hope so, I surely do, because if you can’t, then you’re no good to either of us. You’ll just be in my path, and I might have to do something about that.”

He still had not looked at me again. His eyes were fixed on a small photograph that hung from the rearview mirror. It was a picture of a girl with dark hair, perhaps Jenna Clay’s age or a little older, the image encased in plastic to protect it. A cheap crucifix dangled beside it.

“Who is she?” I asked.

“That doesn’t concern you.”

“Nice-looking kid. How old is she?”

He didn’t reply, but I had clearly struck a nerve. This time, though, there was no anger, just a kind of disengagement.

“If you told me something of why you’re here, then maybe I could help you,” I persisted.

“Like I told you, sir, my business is personal.”

“Then I guess we’ve nothing left to discuss,” I said. “But you need to stay away from my client.”

The warning sounded hollow and unnecessary. Somehow, the balance had shifted.

“I won’t trouble her no more, least of all, not until you talk to me again.” He reached down for the ignition key, no longer intimidated by the gun, if he had ever really been in the first place.

“But here’s two warnings for you in return. The first is that when you start asking about the Project, you’d best keep a keen eye in your head because the others are going to hear about it, and they won’t like it that people are looking into it. They won’t like it one little bit.”

“What others?”

The engine sputtered into life.

“You’ll find out soon enough,” he said.

“And the second warning?”

He raised his left hand and clenched it into a fist, so that the tattoo stood out starkly against the white of his knuckle.

“Don’t interfere. You do, and I’ll leave you for dead. Mark me now, boy.”

He pulled away from the curb, the exhaust pumping thick blue smoke into the clear fall air. Before it was entirely engulfed by fumes, I caught a glimpse of his license plate. Merrick. Now, I thought, we’ll see what we can find out about you in the next two days. I walked back to the bookstore. Rebecca Clay was seated in a corner, flicking through an old magazine.

“Did you find him?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She flinched. “What happened?”

“We talked, and he went away. For now.”

“What does that mean, ‘for now’? I hired you to get rid of him, to make him leave me alone permanently. Are you saying he’s going to come back?”

Her voice was steadily rising, but there was a tremor beneath it. I walked her from the store.

“Ms. Clay,” I said, “I told you that a warning might not be enough. This man has agreed to stay away from you until I make some inquiries. I don’t know enough about him to trust him entirely, so I’d suggest that, for the moment, we continue to take every precaution. I have people whom I can call, so there will always be someone watching over you while I try to find out more about him, if that will make you rest any easier.”

“Fine. I think I’ll send Jenna away for a while, though, until this is all over.”

“That’s a good idea. Does the name ‘Merrick’ mean anything to you, Ms. Clay?”

We had reached her car.

“No, I don’t believe so,” she said.

“That’s our friend’s name, or that’s what he told me. He had a photograph of a little girl in his car. It might have been his daughter. I was wondering if she was one of your father’s patients, assuming she shared his surname.”

“My father didn’t discuss his patients with me. I mean, not by name. If she was referred to him by the state, then there might be a record of her somewhere, I guess, but you’ll have trouble getting anyone to confirm it. It would be breach of confidentiality.”

“What about your father’s patient records?”

“My father’s files were placed with the court after his disappearance. I remember that there was an attempt to get a court order authorizing some of his colleagues to examine them, but it failed. Access can only be obtained through an in camera review, and they’re rare. The judges have been reluctant to grant them, in order to protect the privacy of the patients.”

It seemed time to broach the subject of her father and the accusations made against him.

“This is a difficult question for me to ask, Ms. Clay,” I began. She waited. She knew what was coming, but she wanted to hear me say it aloud.

“Do you believe that your father abused the children in his care?”

“No,” she said firmly. “My father didn’t abuse any of those children.”

“Do you think he enabled others to do so, perhaps by feeding them information about the identities and whereabouts of vulnerable patients?”

“My father was devoted to his work. When they stopped sending children to him for evaluation, it was because it was felt that he was no longer sufficiently objective. His inclination was to believe the children from the outset, and that was what got him into trouble. He knew what adults were capable of doing.”

“Did your father have many close friends?”

Her brow furrowed.

“A few. There were some professional colleagues too, although most didn’t stay in touch after he disappeared. They wanted to put as much distance as possible between my father and themselves. I didn’t blame them.”

“I’d like you to make a list: business associates; college buddies; people from the old neighborhood; anyone with whom he maintained regular contact.”

“I’ll do it as soon as I get home.”

“By the way, you didn’t tell me that you were once married.”

She looked surprised. “How did you find out?”

“Merrick told me.”

“Jesus. It didn’t seem important to tell you. It didn’t last long. I don’t see him anymore.”

“What’s his name?”

“Jerry. Jerry Legere.”

“And he isn’t Jenna’s father?”

“No.”

“Where would I find him?”

“He’s an electrician. He works all over. Why do you want to talk to him?”

“I’m going to talk to a lot of people. That’s how these things work.”

“But that’s not going to make this man, this Merrick, go away.” Her voice was rising again.

“That’s not why I hired you.”

“He’s not going to go away, Ms. Clay, not yet. He’s angry, and that anger has something to do with your father. I need to find out the connection between your father and Merrick. To do that, I’m going to have to ask a lot of questions.”

She folded her arms on the roof of her car and laid her forehead against them.

“I don’t want this to drag on,” she said, her voice slightly muffled by her posture. “I want things to go back to the way they were. Do what you have to do, talk to whomever, but make it stop. Please. I don’t even know where my ex-husband lives anymore, but he used to do some work for a company called A-Secure, and he probably still does. They install security systems in businesses and homes. A friend of Jerry’s, Raymon Lang, does a lot of the maintenance on the systems, and he used to put business Jerry’s way. You’ll probably find Jerry through A-Secure.”

“Merrick thinks that you and your ex-husband might have spoken about your father sometime in the past.”

“Well, of course we did, but Jerry doesn’t know anything about what happened to him. I can tell you that for sure. The only person Jerry Legere ever cared about was himself. I think he believed that my father would turn up dead somewhere and he could start spending the money that would come to me.”

“Was your father wealthy?”

“There’s a good six-figure sum still tied up in probate, so, yes, I suppose you could say that he was comfortable. Then there’s the house. Jerry wanted me to sell it, but obviously I couldn’t because it wasn’t mine to sell. In the end, Jerry just got tired of waiting, and of me. It was mutual, though. Jerry wasn’t exactly a great catch.”

“One last thing,” I said. “Did you ever hear your father mention something about a ‘project,’ or

‘the Project’?”

“No, never.”

“Have you any idea what that might mean?”

“None.”

She raised her head and got into her car. I stayed behind her all the way to her office, then remained there until it was time for her to collect Jenna. The principal escorted the girl to the door of the school, and Rebecca spent a little while talking to him, presumably to explain why Jenna would not be in class for a while, then I followed them both back to the house. Rebecca parked in the drive and kept the car doors locked while I checked every room. I went back to the front door and indicated that everything was okay. Once she was inside, I sat in the kitchen and watched while she put together a list of her father’s friends and colleagues. It wasn’t very long. Some, she said, were dead, and others she could not remember. I asked her to let me know if she thought of any additions, and she assured me that she would. I told her that I would deal with the issue of extra protection that evening and would call her with the details before she went to bed that night. With that, I left her. I heard her turning the key in the lock behind me, and a series of electronic beeps as she entered the alarm code to secure the house. Already, the daylight had departed. The waves broke on the shore as I walked to my car. Usually, I found it restful, but not now. There was an element missing, something out of kilter, and the late-afternoon air carried the scent of burning upon it. I turned to the water, for the smell was coming off the sea, as though a distant ship were aflame. I looked for its glow upon the horizon, but there was only the rhythmic pulse of the lighthouse, the movement of a ferry upon the bay, and the lit rooms in the houses on the islands beyond. Everything spoke of calm and routine, and yet I could not shake my sense of unease as I made my way home.
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