John Connolly - Every Dead Thing

“This is a delicate situation, Mr. Parker, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate. Any communication in this matter will be made to me in the first instance before you impart any information to Mrs. Barton. Is that clear?”

I wondered if Kooper was worth the effort of annoying and decided, after looking at Walter’s look of discomfort, that he probably wasn’t, at least not yet. But I was starting to feel sorry for Isobel Barton and I hadn’t even met her.

“My understanding was that Mrs. Barton was hiring me,” I said eventually.

“That’s correct, but you will be answerable to me.”

“I don’t think so. There’s a small matter of confidentiality. I’ll look into it, but if it’s unconnected with the Baines kid or the Ferreras, I reserve the right to keep what I learn between Isobel Barton and myself.”

“That is not satisfactory, Mr. Parker,” said Kooper. A faint blush of color rose in his cheeks and hung there for a moment, looking lost in the tundra of his complexion. “Perhaps I am not making myself clear: in this matter, you will report to me first. I have powerful friends, Mr. Parker. If you do not cooperate, I can ensure that your license is revoked.”

“They must be very powerful friends because I don’t have a license,” I said. I stood up and Kooper’s fists tightened slightly. “You should consider yoga,” I said. “You’re too tense.”

I thanked Walter for the coffee and moved to the door.

“Wait,” he said. I turned back to see him staring at Kooper. After a few moments, Kooper gave a barely perceptible shrug of his shoulders and moved to the window. He didn’t look at me again. Kooper’s attitude and Walter’s expression conspired against my better judgment, and I decided to talk to Isobel Barton.

“I take it she’s expecting me?” I asked Walter.

“I told Tony to tell her you were good, that if the girl was alive you’d find her.”

There was another brief moment of silence.

“And if she’s dead?”

“Mr. Kooper asked that question as well,” said Walter.

“What did you say?”

He swallowed the last of his whiskey, the ice cubes rattling against the glass like old bones. Behind him, Kooper was a dark silhouette against the window, like a promise of bad news.

“I told him you’d bring back the body.”

In the end, that’s what it all came down to: bodies-bodies found and yet to be found. And I recalled how Woolrich and I stood outside the old woman’s house on that April day and looked out over the bayou. I could hear the water lapping gently at the shore, and farther out, I watched a small fishing boat bobbing on the water, two figures casting out from either side. But both Woolrich and I were looking deeper than the surface, as if, by staring hard enough, we could penetrate to the depths and find the body of a nameless girl in the dark waters.

“Do you believe her?” he said at last.

“I don’t know. I really don’t know.”

“There’s no way we’re gonna find that body, if it exists, without more than we’ve got. We start trawling for bodies in bayous and pretty soon we’re gonna be knee deep in bones. People been dumping bodies in these swamps for centuries. Be a miracle if we didn’t find something.”

I walked away from him. He was right, of course. Assuming there was a body, we needed more from the old woman than she had given us. I felt like I was trying to grip smoke, but what the old woman had said was the closest thing yet to a lead on the man who had killed Jennifer and Susan.

I wondered if I was crazy, taking the word of a blind woman who heard voices in her sleep. I probably was.

“Do you know what he looks like, Tante?” I had asked her, watching as her head moved ponderously from side to side in response.

“Only see him when he comes for you,” she replied. “Then you know him.”

I reached the car and looked back to see a figure on the porch with Woolrich. It was the girl with the scarred face, standing gracefully on the tips of her toes as she leaned toward the taller man. I saw Woolrich run his finger tenderly across her cheek and then softly speak her name: “ Florence.” He kissed her lightly on the lips, then turned and walked toward me without looking back at her. Neither of us said anything about it on the journey back to New Orleans.

IT RAINED throughout that night, breaking the shell of heat that had surrounded the city, and the streets of Manhattan seemed to breathe easier the next morning. It was almost cool as I ran. The pavement was hard on my knees but large areas of grass were sparse in this part of the city. I bought a newspaper on the way back to my apartment, then showered, changed, and read over breakfast. Shortly after 11 A.M. I headed out to the Barton house.

Isobel Barton lived in the secluded house her late husband had built in the seventies on Todt Hill, an admirable if unsuccessful attempt to replicate the antebellum houses of his native Georgia in an East Coast setting and on a smaller scale. Old Jack Barton, an amiable soul by all accounts, had apparently made up with money and determination for what he lacked in good taste.

The gate to the drive was open as I arrived, and the exhaust fumes of another car hung in the air. The cab turned in just as the electronic gates were about to rumble closed, and we followed the lead car, a white BMW 320i with tinted windows, to the small courtyard in front of the house. The cab looked out of place in that setting, although how the Barton household might have felt about my own battered Mustang, currently undergoing repairs, I wasn’t so sure.

As I pulled up, a slim woman dressed conservatively in a gray suit emerged from the BMW and watched me curiously as I paid the cabdriver. Her gray hair was tied back in a bun that did nothing to soften her severe features. A large black man wearing a chauffeur’s uniform appeared at the door of the house and moved quickly to intercept me as I walked from the departing cab.

“Parker. I believe I’m expected.”

The chauffeur gave me a look that told me, if I was lying, he’d make me wish I’d stayed in bed. He told me to wait, before turning back to the woman in gray. She glanced at me briefly but nastily before exchanging a few words with the chauffeur, who moved off to the back of the house as she approached me.

“Mr. Parker, I’m Ms. Christie, Mrs. Barton’s personal assistant. You should have stayed at the gate until we were sure who you were.” In a window above the door, a curtain twitched slightly and then was still.

“If you have a staff entrance I’ll use that in future.” I got the impression from Ms. Christie that she hoped that eventuality wouldn’t arise. She eyed me coldly for a moment, then turned on her heel.

“If you’ll come with me, please,” she said over her shoulder as she moved toward the door. The gray suit was thread-bare at the edges. I wondered if Mrs. Barton would haggle over my rates.

If Isobel Barton was short of cash she could simply have sold off some of the antiques that furnished the house, because the interior was an auctioneer’s wet dream. Two large rooms opened out at either side of a hallway, filled with furniture that looked like it was used only when presidents died. A wide staircase curved up to the right; a closed door lay straight ahead while another nestled under the stairs. I followed Ms. Christie through the latter and into a small but surprisingly bright and modern office with a computer in a corner and a TV and video unit built into the bookshelves. Maybe Mrs. Barton wouldn’t haggle about the rates after all.

Ms. Christie sat down behind a pine desk, removed some papers from her valise, and shuffled through them in obvious irritation before finding what she wanted.