Instruments of Darkness

Book 21: Charlie Parker

by John Connolly

Genres: Mystery; Horror; Traditional Mysteries; Crime Fiction; Supernatural suspense

Synopsis

From the international and instant New York Times bestselling author John Connolly, the beloved and brilliant Charlie Parker series returns with a heart-wrenching crime only one man can solve.

In Maine, Colleen Clark stands accused of the worst crime a mother can commit: the abduction and possible murder of her child. Everyone—ambitious politicians in an election season, hardened police, ordinary folk—has an opinion on the case, and most believe she is guilty.

But most is not all. Defending Colleen is the lawyer Moxie Castin, and working alongside him is the private investigator Charlie Parker, who senses the tale has another twist, one involving a husband too eager to accept his wife’s guilt, a group of fascists arming for war, a disgraced psychic seeking redemption, and an old, twisted house deep in the Maine woods, a house that should never have been built.

A house, and what dwells beneath.

Release date: May 7, 2024

Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books

Print pages: 352

Sample

CHAPTERI

Moxie Castin was easy to underestimate, but only on first impression. He was overweight by the equivalent of a small child, didn’t use one word in public when five others were loitering nearby with nothing better to do, and had a taste for ties reminiscent of the markings of poisonous insects or the nightmares of LSD survivors. He subsisted largely on fried food, coffee, and the Maine soda that had given him his nickname, now long since passed into common usage: since he had been christened Oleg, Moxie sounded better to him. He lost cases, but not many, and his friends far outnumbered his enemies.

Currently, Moxie was sitting in a booth at Becky’s on Commercial, performing a vanishing act on his patented version of the Hobson’s Wharf Special, which basically meant changing “or” to “and” when it came to the options: hence, bacon and sausage, two pancakes and French toast, along with the requisite two eggs over easy, home fries, and regular toast. Any cardiologist who had yet to slip Moxie a business card was missing a trick.

He looked doubtfully at my dry toast and coffee as he squirted ketchup on his bacon.

“Are you trying to make me feel bad?” he said.

“That depends on how bad you already feel,” I said. “I wouldn’t want to be responsible for tipping you over the edge.”

“I get my heart checked regularly.”

“You get your heart restarted regularly. It’s not the same thing.”

“I ought to have met you after breakfast. You’re raining on my food parade.”

One sausage link, a slice of bacon, and half an egg met their fate while I was still lifting my coffee mug to my mouth. If I was ruining Moxie’s appetite, it probably just meant he wouldn’t be able to eat the plate.

“I have a new client,” he said.

“Congratulations.”

“It’s Colleen Clark.”

“I take it back.”

A week earlier, Colleen Clark had been questioned by the Portland PD in connection with the disappearance and suspected death of her two-year-old son, Henry. The actual evidence amounted to a bloodstained blanket discovered beneath the spare tire of her car ten days after the boy went missing and the testimony of her husband, Stephen, who told police that Colleen had been struggling with anger issues and depression. He had also, he claimed, discovered bruises on the child’s arms, which his wife attributed to Henry’s undeniably rambunctious nature; the boy was a little ball of energy, and when he wasn’t running, he was falling. Regardless, Stephen Clark had been on the verge of reporting his suspicions to the family physician when Henry disappeared.

As in every parent’s nightmare, Henry Clark had seemingly been abducted from his toddler bed while his mother was asleep in the next room and his father was away on a business trip to New York. An exhausted Colleen told investigators that she’d slept comparatively late on the morning in question. A night of undisturbed rest was a rarity for her, and on those occasions when Henry didn’t look for attention during the night, her body went into shutdown. She woke shortly after seven and went to check on her son, only to find the bed empty and the window standing open. She immediately searched the garden, in case he had somehow managed to climb out, before calling her husband, quickly followed by the police.

Both parents made appeals for Henry’s safe return, but it was noted by some observers that the husband was more tearful than his wife, who appeared oddly detached and unemotional. It didn’t matter that there was more than one way to respond to trauma, and shock and guilt could make mannequins of the

best of us. The mob wanted a show, but only one of the actors was prepared to provide it. Within days, rumors were beginning to circulate. They were unfounded, but that was no obstacle, unfounded rumors being the best kind.

It was only after Stephen Clark persisted in raising his concerns about his wife with the police that her car was searched more thoroughly and the blanket found concealed in the well. Tests subsequently revealed it to be soaked with Henry’s blood. Colleen was interviewed by police without a lawyer present. She was convinced she didn’t need one, which, as any lawyer will tell you, is one of the signs that a person probably does. She denied all knowledge of how the blanket came to be in her car, although she did recognize it as one that had been given to the Clarks a few Christmases earlier. The blanket had been placed in storage in the attic because Colleen didn’t like it and would permit it to be put on display only when she knew the gifters might be coming to visit.

Even this little detail was added to the testimony being used to damn her in the popular imagination: her husband’s family had presented her with a nice blanket—expensive, too, not just a reject from the closeout shelves at Marshalls—but, ungrateful hypocrite that she was, she kept it hidden away from all eyes but theirs. Anonymous sources muttered disapprovingly about Colleen keeping herself to herself, of her failure to participate in joint community endeavors and her reluctance to join other young mothers for coffee, shopping trips, and stroller pushes at the Maine Mall. Thus a quiet, shy woman with better taste in furnishings than her in-laws, and with no fondness for the smell of mall disinfectant or Yankee Candle, was slowly transformed into a cold bitch capable of killing her son before concealing the body and concocting a fairy tale of child-snatching.

But Colleen stuck to her story, even as the police set about picking it apart, and the media reported on it every day, with the result that she was keeping the Maine newspaper industry afloat virtually singlehandedly. In addition, vloggers, amateur detectives, web sleuths, and would-be podcasters, along with protesters of various stripes and sympathies, continued to haunt her neighborhood. If some entrepreneur had set up a stall selling pitchforks and flaming torches, the picture would have been complete.

“You think she’s guilty?” asked Moxie, as he progressed to the French toast.

“I don’t have an opinion either way,” I said. “I only know what I’ve read.”

“So why the long face about adding her to the client list?”

“She’s a mother suspected of killing her child. Whoever represents her is in for a world of pain—which is not to say you’re wrong to take the case, just that it’ll bring the crazies down on you. But my understanding is that she hasn’t yet been charged with any crime.”

“She hasn’t,” said Moxie, “but she’s about to be: criminal restraint of a child younger than eight, a class C felony; kidnapping, a class A felony; and manslaughter, another class A felony. If convicted, she’s looking at thirty years on the class A charges, and that’s assuming she receives concurrent sentences; consecutive, and Christ will have returned to claim his kingdom before she gets out.”

“Why not murder?”

“I wouldn’t put it past the state, but they’d have to prove malice aforethought. They’re on safer waters with manslaughter, and the additional charges for ballast.”

“Difficult to prove all that without a body.”

“Difficult, but not impossible. They have the bloodstained blanket, the absence of an alibi, and public opinion is against her, which counts for something in a case like this. Justice may be blind, but it’s not deaf. Jury selection will be like picking daisies in a minefield.”

“Are you the first lawyer she’s consulted?”

“Does that tone suggest I should have been the last?”

By now Moxie’s plate was more than half empty, while I’d barely touched my toast. I’d ordered it so Moxie wouldn’t feel bad, but then I remembered that it took a lot to make Moxie feel bad.

“I think you’re becoming more sensitive to criticism as you get older,” I said. “Admittedly, you couldn’t become any more insensitive, but it’s still troubling.”

Moxie speared the remaining sausage link. “You know I broke up with Sylvia, right?”

Moxie had been seeing a woman named Sylvia Drake for a couple of months. She was an attractive older brunette, but if she ever met a bottle of booze she didn’t like, she’d buried the evidence deep. She wasn’t an alcoholic, though she tended to cease drinking at least one glass after she should have, and possessed only two voice settings: loud and too loud. I’d spent an evening with both of them a while back. It had been a testing experience.

Moxie had a string of ex-wives and never wanted for female company, even if none of the girlfriends ever remained on his books for long. Sylvia Drake would soon be replaced by another glamorous figure in her middle years, with some easily identifiable flaw that Moxie would later use to justify casting her aside, albeit with murmurs of regret. Interestingly, these women never held grudges against him, and a few even met up regularly for dinner and drinks, like an informal support group. Moxie would sometimes join them for a late cocktail. If I claimed to understand any of this, I’d be lying.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” I said.

“No, you’re not. I saw the look on your face when she fondled your ear at dinner.”

“Well, sorry in general terms. Insincere sorry.”

Moxie nibbled the final sausage, making it last.

“I have to admit, Syvia

 ran to extremes,” he said.

This was true. Her idea of redecorating was probably to blow up the house.

“Are you comfort-eating to ease your pain?” I asked.

“I was,” said Moxie, as the sausage gave up the ghost, “but I stopped.”

“Thank God.”

“You were asking about Colleen Clark and lawyers. In answer to your question, no, she didn’t have legal representation before now because she says she’s innocent.”

“And innocent people don’t go to prison.”

“That’s right,” said Moxie. “I explained to her that anyone who thought like her would never be short of company, especially in prison.”

I held up my mug for a refill of coffee.

“Who told you that charges were coming down the track?”

“Doug Isles, through a third party.”

Isles was a retired prosecutor in Androscoggin County. He’d run unsuccessfully for higher office on a number of occasions—including pitches for district attorney and the state senate—before giving up to snipe from the sidelines in a weekly newspaper column. He wrote well, but didn’t admire anyone half as much as himself, and viewed the electorate’s failure to acknowledge his finer qualities as a political offense on par with the murder of Julius Caesar.

“Any particular reason why he felt compelled to do that?” I asked.

“For one thing, he’s a friend of Colleen’s mother. They went to school together.”

“Sweet of him,” I said, “and therefore out of character. I’ve read his columns.”

“Then you know he doesn’t like Becker or Nowak, and the whisper is that Becker will prosecute. So that’s the other thing.”

Erin Becker was the state’s assistant attorney general and a protégée of Paul Nowak, the current attorney general. Nowak was preparing a run for governor and grooming Becker to succeed him as AG. A case like Colleen Clark’s would garner a great deal of publicity for them both, but would benefit them only if she was convicted. If they were to lose, it would damage their reputations and hamper their ambitions, thus making Doug Isles happier on his plinth.

“Who advised Colleen Clark to contact you?”

“Isles provided Colleen and her mother with a list of names. Mine was on it.”

“Did you have to pitch hard?”

“I was the only one Colleen called. She wasn’t interested in the others.”

“Why is that?”

“Because of you,” said Moxie.

It was widely known that I did some work for Moxie. I occasionally accepted employment from other lawyers as well, but the difference with Moxie was that I both liked and trusted him, and had yet to refuse him my help.

“When will she be charged?” I said.

“Isles thinks they’ll come for her tomorrow. Becker’s people have quietly been laying the groundwork because Nowak doesn’t want any mistakes. They may offer Colleen a plea deal, but it won’t be generous, and there’ll be no room for negotiation. If they don’t get what they want, they’ll push for a speedy trial.”

“How does your client feel about that?”

“She won’t cop a plea,” said Moxie. “She says she didn’t harm her child.”

“Is this where I ask if you believe her?”

“It can be, and I’ll reply that I’m here to defend her, whatever she may or may not have done. Between us, I really don’t know for sure. My gut instinct is that she’s innocent, but I’d still be concerned about putting her on the stand. She’s not cold, exactly, but she is reserved. I think her reaction to pain is to internalize it before donning a mask to hide any stray feelings that might slip through.”

“What about her husband?”

“He’s convinced she did it, or he’s not convinced that she didn’t do it, which is nearly as bad.”

“Have you spoken to him?”

“Not yet, but she’s told me as much. Even if she hadn’t, his body language and attitude in front of the media would have given it away. They’re no longer living together, and Stephen Clark, or someone close to him, has been feeding details about their marriage to the press, although the scuttlebutt has dried up noticeably over the last few days.”

“Becker?” I said.

“That would be my view. She probably told Stephen to stop courting the peanut gallery in case the defense starts hollering about the Sixth Amendment, for all the good that would do.”

The Sixth Amendment guaranteed the right to a speedy and public trial, which theoretically included being defended from prejudicial information that might bias prospective jurors against the defendant, the media being more inclined to publish material leaked by the prosecution and law enforcement. In practice, sensationalized pre-trial descriptions of crimes and defendants, even the publication of legally excludable material, rarely led to a change of venue or affected the decisions of trial courts, but most legal professionals agreed that these factors could work against an impartial jury. If the case went to trial, the best Moxie could hope for

 would be to raise with the judge the issue of what had previously been said or published about his client, and use it on appeal in the event of a conviction.

“Erin Becker doesn’t like me,” I said. “Nowak isn’t a fan either.”

I’d learned from my contacts at the Special Investigations Unit, the Maine State Police’s licensing division, that renewed pressure had been applied to rescind my PI’s license. The source of that pressure was dual: the AG’s office and the Cumberland County DA. To its credit, the division hadn’t buckled so far, because I continued to fulfill the minimum requirements and my check always cleared. I had been forced to seek a new insurer for my obligatory general liability policy, but that was a consequence of bad publicity as much as anything else—or so I liked to believe. My new insurers had already been required to pay out for damage to the Braycott Arms, a dive hotel in town, in the course of a previous investigation. My broker told the insurers they were getting off lightly, although the words “so far” remained unspoken in the background.

“Neither Becker nor Nowak was liable to be helpful anyway,” said Moxie, “so don’t take it personally in the current instance. Anyway, your involvement may encourage them to behave properly. If they try to be clever, I have faith in your ability to spot it; and if they’ve missed something, you’ll find it.”

“I haven’t said that I’ll accept the job.”

“Haven’t you? I’m sure I heard differently. If you’re genuinely vacillating, take a ride by the Clark house and see what’s been done to it. I can give you the address.”

My earlier comments to Moxie were returning to haunt me. Whoever took Colleen Clark’s side was likely to suffer, if only in the short term, and sometimes I grew tired of looking at unfriendly faces. But a child was missing, and his mother was about to be dragged into the machinery of the law. It chewed people up, the innocent as well as the guilty, and called the result justice, but only a fool would accept that as true.

“I’ll take the address,” I said, “and the job.”

“There you go, repeating yourself.”

“What about the boy?”

“That blanket was drenched in his blood. It’s not inconceivable that he’s still alive, but it is improbable.” Moxie waved for the check. “Whatever the truth, we need to work on Colleen’s defense. If she didn’t do it—and like I said, my feeling is that she’s innocent—then someone has probably killed her son and is trying to destroy her into the bargain. That’s your territory, but it’ll have to sit alongside trial prep.”

The check arrived. Moxie paid in cash, and tipped generously.

“Does she have funds?”

“Colleen doesn’t have enough to pay for long-term legal representation, so her

mother is picking up the tab. There’s still a mortgage on the house, and Colleen’s share from any sale won’t come to more than thirty or forty thousand. But her father was a gas executive, and left his wife in clover when he died. She doesn’t have a problem spending whatever is necessary to save her daughter, and perhaps find out what happened to her grandchild along the way.”

“Because one feeds into the other,” I said.

“If I can’t prove her innocent,” said Moxie, “proving someone else guilty will serve nearly as well.”

We stood to go. Moxie pulled a mask from his pocket and put it on to pass through the line of people by the door. The mask was black, with the words CALL MOXIE written on it in white, along with his number.

“I got a trunk full of these,” he said. “I’m determined to get some use out of them—and fuck what that CDC says about COVID, because I still wouldn’t want anyone north of Bangor coughing on me. And mark my words, there’ll be something else along soon enough. You know, if COVID had given people warts or facial blisters, every fucking person in this state would have been fighting for a jab and a hazmat suit. You want a box of these masks, just in case?”

“It’s tempting, but I think I’ll pass.”

“Well, if you change your mind, just ask. I’d offer to get some made up for you as well, because it pays to advertise, but they might make you look kind of conspicuous on a stakeout.”

The morning mist had matured to drizzle as we stepped outside. The lowering sky was the color of factory smoke, distant birds like charred fragments ascending.

“When can I talk to her?”

“Whenever you want. She’s at home. I told her she ought to move away for a while, but she refused. Not only is she quiet, she’s also stubborn as all hell. Takes after her mother. Colleen says she’s not going to let anyone drive her out.”

He looked sorrowful for a moment, even with his face partly obscured.

“Is that all there is to it?”

“No,” said Moxie. “She told me that she sleeps on the floor of her son’s room. I think she’s tormenting herself.”

A container ship made its way along the Fore River toward the Casco Bay Bridge. A solitary sailor stood on deck, but I couldn’t tell if he was looking forward or back, and the vessel was otherwise devoid of obvious crew. I glanced away for a moment, and when I turned back, the sailor was gone. Had the ship then plowed untended into the riverbank, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

“I take it you’ve already spoken with her at length?”

“I have, and my secretary has typed up the preliminary record. You can read it before you visit, if you think it’ll help.”

“I’ll wait,” I said.

Moxie’s notes would

be useful, but the most interesting observations would be stored in his brain. We could compare notes later.

“Do you want me to come along with you?” said Moxie.

“No, I’ll speak with her alone first, if that’s okay with you.”

“If I had an issue with how you operate, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

We had reached Moxie’s car. I waited while he tried to locate the fob, the cut of all his suits long since ruined by years of storing keys, notebooks, and cell phones in pockets that were never meant to house anything thicker than a credit card. Moxie didn’t care. Even these aspects of his appearance, which seemingly spoke of a lack of attention, were carefully cultivated. Moxie’s whole existence was one long strategic play.

I thought about Colleen Clark and what was to come. I felt what I always did at such moments: the temptation to walk away, except I knew that if I did, I would never be able to retrieve what I’d lost.

“It’s going to be a bad one, isn’t it?” I said.

“I don’t think that boy is coming back,” said Moxie, “so it already is.”

CHAPTERII

Colleen Clark lived in the Rosemont area of Portland, not far from Dougherty Field. It was a locale in which one might have expected to find a prosperous young family, with all the advantages of suburban living while still being close to the center of the city. The Clark residence wouldn’t have been hard to identify even if Moxie hadn’t given me the street number: someone had daubed the words BABY KILLER on the front of the house in red paint. An attempt had been made to obscure it with whitewash, but the letters persisted in showing through. The drapes were drawn, no car stood in the driveway, and the garage door was closed. The front door was on the eastern side, away from the street. It was a peculiar arrangement, as though the plans had been misread, or the house had been dropped randomly on its plot from the air.

I parked a short distance away, but couldn’t see any sign of reporters. Perhaps the warning to Stephen Clark against engaging with the media had become a general advisory to the press and TV people themselves, now that a prosecution was imminent. It wouldn’t stop online trolls from posting their bile, but they preferred to operate from the safety and anonymity of their caves, and anyone who gave them attention deserved to have their electricity shut off. I was old-fashioned about reporting: if it wasn’t worth paying for, it wasn’t worth reading.

I spotted the patrol car just seconds before the officer at the wheel got out. His presence explained why the street was so quiet. Someone, possibly a resident with influence, had complained about the mob, and anyone who didn’t belong was now being sent on their way. Also, it wouldn’t look good if someone took it into their head to assault Colleen Clark, or not before a jury had the chance to find her guilty. I showed the cop my ID and explained that I’d been engaged by Colleen’s lawyer. I was now working on her behalf, so he’d be seeing a lot of me from here on out. He told me to wait while he confirmed this with Moxie and ran it by his superiors, before giving me the all-clear.

“When did that happen?” I asked, pointing to the ghost of the words on the wall.

“Two nights ago, before a car was assigned. We just started keeping an eye on the place this morning.”

“I may bring in someone of my own, no offense meant.”

“None taken. It’s not a glamour detail.”

I thanked him and headed for the house. I could, of course, have arranged to meet Colleen at Moxie’s office, but I wanted to observe her in her own environment and view the room from which her son had vanished. I didn’t expect to learn anything more than the police, but it was an important first step in understanding what might have taken place.

Moxie had supplied me with contact details for Colleen, including her new cell phone number, and promised to let her know that I was on my way. Regardless, I decided to call before knocking, because in her situation I’d have been cautious about opening my door to strangers. She picked up on the second ring. Her voice was very small, and I could almost see her preparing to flinch. New number or not, she’d probably received enough abuse to last two lifetimes. Whatever might happen in the future, it would be years

before she heard a knock on the door, or the ringing of a phone, without her stomach tightening.

“My name is Parker,” I said. “I believe Moxie Castin told you I’d be calling.”

“Where are you?”

“Outside. I can be on your doorstep in ten seconds, if that’s not inconvenient.”

“It’s not inconvenient at all. I’ll be waiting.”

As I set foot on the Clark driveway, an elderly woman had appeared on the doorstep of the house next door, her arms folded and her face set like a sulky child’s. Her silver hair was cut close to the skull, revealing a hearing aid behind each ear.

“You from the police?” she said.

“No, I’m not.”

“Huh?”

“I said—”

“Huh?”

“I said, ‘I’m not the police!’ ”

It came out louder than I’d intended. The pilots of planes coming in to land at Portland Jetport now probably knew I wasn’t a cop.

“Who are you, then?”

I could have lied, or told her to mind her own business, but the police would already have spoken with her, which meant that I’d need to speak with her, too. As part of the preparation for a possible trial, I’d be following in the footsteps of the law like a delayed shadow.

“I’m a private investigator,” I said.

“Huh?”

I walked to the boundary hedge, where I could strike some balance between volume and mutual comprehension.

“I’m a private investigator.” I showed her my ID.

“I can’t read that,” she said. “I don’t have my glasses.”

“How about you just take my word for it?”

“I’ll just take your word for it,” she said.

If the situation hadn’t been so serious, I’d have been searching for a hidden camera.

“That’s very good of you.”

“You working for the Clark girl?” she asked. Seen up close, she had shrewd eyes, and the wiriness of a long-lived hound.

“I’m working for a lawyer,” I said neutrally.

“Her lawyer?”

I had to admire her persistence.

“Would that be a problem?”

“Not for me.”

“Then would you mind if I spoke with you later?”

“I wouldn’t mind at all. I’m not going anywhere. My name is Livonia Gammett, but you can call me Mrs. Gammett. If I get to know you, and decide I like you, I’ll consent to answering to Livvy.”

She prepared to go back into her house.

“And mind how you step,” she called over her shoulder. “They threw bags of excrement at her door during the night. I cleaned up most of it, but I can’t guarantee I got it all.”

Now I saw the stains on the driveway and the doorstep, although the door itself had been wiped clean. I could also smell disinfectant, and what it had been used to disguise. You didn’t have to look very hard to be disappointed by human

 beings. We were not all bad, just enough of us, although the rest had to work very hard to make up for that minority.

The door to the Clark house opened before I could ring the bell. The interior was dim and quiet. A woman’s pale face peered out at me, and I saw something familiar in it, like the spirit of someone I’d once known passing briefly through the body of another. Grief calls to grief, pain will find its echo, and sorrow, for all its idioms, is a universal language.

“Please come in,” said Colleen Clark.

I hesitated. The sense of loss was suffocating.

“Thank you,” I said, and joined her in the shadows.

 

CHAPTERIII

Deep in the Maine woods, and distant from memory, if not quite forgotten, stood a house. It had been built back in 1912 from Sears Kit No. 174, at a cost of just under $1,500, or $300 less than the company’s estimate, in large part because no laborers needed to be hired, the family responsible for its purchase taking care of the construction. The excavated basement had never been finished, and the plasterwork had always been rudimentary at best, while the brick mantel and fireplace in the dining room began to crumble shortly after the house was completed, for reasons that were never satisfactorily established. The cedar shingles on the roof and porch had lasted well into the 1970s, when they finally began to surrender to moisture and the decay that came with it. Even then the deterioration was gradual, and might still have been arrested with proper maintenance. But nobody arrived to address the issue of preservation, and just enough was done to keep it standing and secure. No one had ever spent long in it—or no one had ever survived in it for long, which is not the same thing. No, not the same thing at all.

Kit No. 174 had originally been designed with a narrow lot in mind: 24 feet in width and 50 in length, give or take, which included the front porch. The kitchen was a 10-foot-square box and the two bedrooms on the second floor were not much larger. The parlor was grim, and the dining room could barely have accommodated a standard table and chairs. It was, therefore, an odd choice of model for a woodland site, particularly on a large acreage owned by those who would be assembling the kit house. Only marginal effort would have been required to cut down some trees to facilitate a larger footprint, which would also have allowed more light to penetrate, any dwelling being otherwise destined to exist in an umbrous zone. Yet that option had not been explored, and so, for more than a century, a slender house had occupied an attenuated lot in a woodland hollow upon which the sun shone only reluctantly, as though electing to be frugal about the expenditure of its rays on such a poor object.

A traveler coming across the house unexpectedly might have wondered why it had been constructed at all, so unwelcoming an aspect did it present. This traveler, in passing, might also have noted how, the lichen on the shingles apart, nature appeared to be keeping its distance from the habitation. No ivy climbed the walls, and no briars enmeshed the banisters and steps of the porch. Even the growth patterns of the surrounding trees had accommodated themselves to the intruder, adopting stratagems to avoid touching it with their branches, their extremities taking abnormal turns back upon themselves, like broken limbs poorly set.

And while the house spoke of neglect, it was no ruin. The windows were dirty but unbroken, obscured by wooden boards on the lower floor, and the beveled plate glass on the oak front door remained in place, if now hidden behind reinforced steel. Inside, the original yellow pine flooring had been repaired in spots, but was otherwise intact. The ceilings’ poor plaster hung on only in places, but whatever fell had been swept up and disposed of. Enough: always, just enough.

Would our traveler have been tempted to explore it further? No, they would not. Some places discourage curiosity. They trigger an ancient response, one that advises us not to linger, and perhaps not even to mention what we might have discovered. Pretend you were never here, a voice whispers, and it takes us a moment to realize that it is not our own. Be on your way. If you forget me, I might forget you in turn.

But there is no traveler, or if there ever was—an incautious person, or an inquisitive one—the ground has long since swallowed them up, and their grave lies unmarked. This is private land, and has been since early in the nineteenth century. Its trails are not for hikers or snowmobiles. Admonitions against trespass

are posted on the nearest roads, both public and private, and nailed to trees. No local resident takes amiss this desire to be left alone. It is not uncommon in these parts. If the stewards of this realm wanted company, they would have situated themselves closer to people. They do not interfere with others, and others do not interfere with them. They give aid when it is sought, but do not offer it unless asked. They watch, but their gaze rarely extends beyond the borders of their own land. They do not ask for credit, and always pay in cash. They do not trouble the law, and the law does not trouble them. For these reasons they pass, if not unnoticed, then at least unremarked, or mostly so.

True, some in the area know about Kit No. 174, or have heard tell of it, even if they have never themselves set eyes on it. There is a story of a daughter who died, or maybe it was a niece: the tale varies according to the teller. The house was to have been hers and was left empty after she passed, bearing faint traces of intentions never to be fulfilled, like fingerprints on a glass of untasted wine. For a house cursed by ill luck to remain unlived in is not unknown, even after so much time has gone by. After all, ghosts may not be real, but no one has told the ghosts.

So this particular incarnation of Kit No. 174 occupies a liminal space. It is both finished, and unfinished; remembered and forgotten; concealed and in plain sight. Like all borderlands, it is disputed territory, but an accommodation has been reached, one that is satisfactory for most, if not all, concerned. No person has ever dwelt in it, but people have died there, and Kit No. 174 holds them in its memory.

Sometimes, it holds them so tightly that they scream.

 

CHAPTERIV

I had seen Colleen Clark only in newspaper photos and on television, always surrounded by taller men and women, but I was still surprised by how tiny she was. I doubted she could have nudged five feet, even in shoes, and she was thin in a brittle way that made me fear for her should she take a fall. I doubted she was eating very much, but then I doubted she ever ate a lot, and whatever calories she did consume were burned up just in keeping her alive, if barely. Her eyes were an unusually dark brown and sunk into her skull, suggesting that the pith of her had retreated still deeper into itself for protection. She wore her long auburn hair in a pair of loose plaits that hung over her shoulders, and her feet were bare. Even in the dimness, I could see the veins standing out against the pallor of her skin, like the tributaries of a river in winter.

I followed her into the kitchen. She offered me coffee, but warned that she wasn’t sure how old the jar was; she and Stephen usually drank fruit tea. I told her either would be fine. She didn’t pause or stumble as she spoke of her estranged husband’s name, and had a calmness about her that I might have mistaken for narcotically induced had Moxie Castin not assured me she had declined all offers of sedatives. I watched her boil a kettle of water to prepare two cups of tea. They smelled vaguely of strawberries, and not in a pleasant way. The scent was too strong, overripe. As she placed one cup in front of me, my stomach rebelled, but I drank nonetheless. She had gone to the trouble of making it, and I hoped that sharing it might alleviate the awkwardness of the situation.

“Mr. Castin told me you’d agreed to help,” she said.

“He asked, and I make a point of trying not to refuse him.”

She was gripping the handle of her cup so firmly that her knuckles looked set to erupt from her right hand.

“Why is that?”

“Because otherwise, I’d have to hang out with him for free.”

A smile flickered like a dying bulb and was gone.

“Did he say I’d approached him because of his connection to you?”

“He mentioned it.”

“I’ve read about you. You lost a child. I thought you might understand.”

The quiet of the house was unnerving. Not even a clock ticked. It was, I’d found, one of death’s traits: it muffled the sound in a place of loss, just as it rendered movements awkward and sluggish and made an inconsequence of time. Of course, the boy might still be alive. But, as Moxie had intimated, it felt as though he was gone.

Colleen looked at me, expecting some response, but I was not about to give her access to my pain. It would not benefit either of us.

“I’d like you to tell me about the night your son went missing.”

“I was sleeping. I don’t remember much at all.”

“Nevertheless, if you wouldn’t mind.”

She sipped her tea, lifting the cup to her lips with both hands. She was dressed in an oversized Patriots sweatshirt that might have been her husband’s—the sleeves pushed above her elbows, the hem hanging to thigh level—and a pair of jeans rolled up at the cuffs. Her mode of dress accentuated that sense of withdrawal, of shrinkage, as though these clothes might once have fit her, but no longer, just as the terms “mother” and “wife” were also becoming incompatible with her essence.

“Stephen left on business that afternoon. He’s away from home a lot. He’s trying to get a promotion. He’s very ambitious.” She peered at me over the rim of her cup. “Will you be speaking with him?”

“I’d like to, but he’ll be under no obligation to talk to me.”

“If you do, be gentle. He’s in a lot of pain.”

I searched for traces of anger in her, but could pick up none. Something must have shown

on my face, because she added: “We’ve both lost a son, and we both want him back. Stephen’s trying to cope with what’s happened in his own way, but he’s not very good at coping.”

“With life in general?”

“With emotions. Little things get on top of him, so big things…”

She let the implication hang.

“Mr. Castin informed me that you and your husband are temporarily estranged,” I said. “He also suggested that your husband might be holding you responsible for whatever happened to Henry.”

I was choosing my words carefully. There were layers of blame, justified or otherwise, to be mediated here, ...