The Unquiet

“L. M.,” he said.

“Lucy Merrick,” I said. It had to be. There were no other markings on the walls or the windows. Had the letters been carved by a kid seeking a thrill, there would have been other initials, too, other names. But Gilead was not a place to come to alone, not willingly.

And I knew then that this was where they had taken Andy Kellog and, later, Merrick ’s daughter. Andy Kellog had come back damaged, traumatized, but still alive. Lucy Merrick, though, had never returned. Instantly, the air in the house smelled stale and dead to me, infected by what I knew in my heart had occurred in its rooms.

“Why here?” said Louis, softly. “Why did they bring them here?”

“Because of what happened before,” said Angel. He touched his finger to the marks made by Lucy on the glass, tracing each one carefully and tenderly in an act of remembrance. I thought of my own actions in the attic of my house, reading a message written in dust. “It added to the pleasure, knowing they were repeating something that had been done in the past, like they were continuing a tradition.”

His words echoed Christian’s talk of “clusters.” Was that what lay behind Clay’s fascination with Gilead? Did he want to re-create the events of half a century before, or did he help others to do so? Then again, perhaps his interest was not prurient or lascivious. Maybe he wasn’t to blame in any way for what had happened, and only his professional curiosity drew him to this site deep in the woods, haunting his memory and finding form in the pictures that Merrick had torn apart on Joel Harmon’s wall, and that Mason Dubus proudly displayed on his. But I was starting to believe that less and less. If men had sought to re-create the original crimes here, then perhaps they would have sought out their instigator, Mason Dubus. I was aware that we were following a path trodden by Clay, tracing the marks that he had left as he moved north. He had given one of his precious artworks to Dubus. It did not seem like a mere act of thanks. It was closer to a gesture of respect, almost of affection.

I walked through the two rooms, looking for any further trace of Lucy Merrick’s presence in that house, but there was none. There had probably been mattresses once, blankets, even some books or magazines. There were light switches on the walls, but the sockets were bare of bulbs. I saw marks in the upper corner of the second room, where a metal plate of some kind had been held in place, a neat hole drilled below them. A larger hole in the wall, since filled in but its shape still visible, indicated the spot where a stove had once stood, and the fireplace had long ago been bricked up. Lucy Merrick had disappeared in September. It must already have been cold up here. How did she stay warm, if this was where they had kept her? I could find no answer. Everything had been removed, and it was clear too that these rooms had not been used for many years.

“They killed her here, didn’t they?” asked Angel. He was still by the window, his fingers maintaining contact with the carved letters on the glass, as though by doing so he could somehow touch Lucy Merrick herself and comfort her, so that, wherever she was, she might know that someone had found the marks she had left and was grieving for her. The letters were small, barely there. She did not want the men who had abducted her to see them. Perhaps she believed they would provide proof of her story when she was released, or did she fear, even then, that she might never be freed, and she hoped these letters might provide some sign in case anyone cared enough about her to try to discover her fate?

“They didn’t kill any of the others,” I said. “That’s why they wore masks, so they could let them go without worrying about being identified. They might have taken it a step further, or something could just have gone wrong. Somehow, she died, and they cleared away any sign that anyone had ever been here, then locked it up and never came back again.”

Angel let his fingers drop.

“Caswell, the guy who owns the land, he must have known what was happening.”

“Yes,” I said softly. “He must have known.”

I turned to leave. Louis was ahead of me. He stood, framed in the doorway, dark against the morning sunlight. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped. The sound had carried clearly to each of us. It was a shotgun shell being jacked. A voice spoke. It said: “Boy, you better not move an inch, or I’ll blow your damn head off.”

Chapter XXXII

Angel and I stood silently in the house, unwilling to move or speak. Louis remained frozen in the doorway, his hands outstretched from his sides to show the man beyond that they were empty.

“You come out slowly now,” said the voice. “You can put your hands on your head. Them fellas inside can do the same. You won’t see me, but I can see you. I tell you now, just one of you moves, and Slick here in his fancy coat will have a hole where his face used to be. You’re trespassing on private property. Might be that you have guns too. Not a judge in the state will convict if you make me kill you while you’re armed.”

Louis slowly stepped out of the doorway and stood with his hands on the back of his head, facing out into the woods. With no choice, Angel and I followed. I tried to find the source of the voice, but there was only silence as we stepped from the shelter of the house. Then a man emerged from a grove of fetterbush and hoptree. He was dressed in green camouflage pants and a matching jacket, and armed with a Browning 12-gauge. He was in his early fifties, big but not muscular. His face was pale and his hair was too long, squatting untidily on his head like a filthy mop. He didn’t look as if he had slept properly in a long time. His eyes were almost falling out of his head, as though the pressure on his skull was too much for them to bear, and the sockets were so rimmed with red that the skin seemed to be slowly peeling away from the flesh beneath. There were fresh sores on his cheeks, chin, and neck, flecked with red where he had cut them as he tried to shave.

“Who are you?” he said. He held the gun steady, but his voice trembled, as though he could project confidence only physically or vocally, but not both at once.

“Hunters,” I replied.

“Yeah?” He sneered at us. “And what do you hunt without a rifle?”

“Men,” said Louis simply.

Another crack opened in the man’s veneer. I had a vision of the skin beneath his clothing crisscrossed with tiny fractures, like a china doll on the verge of shattering into a thousand pieces.

“Are you Caswell?” I asked.

“Who’s asking?”

“My name is Charlie Parker. I’m a private investigator. These are my colleagues.”

“My name’s Caswell all right, and this is my land. You got no business being here.”

“In a way, our business is exactly why we’re here.”

“You got business, you take it to a store.”

“We wanted to ask you some questions.”

Caswell raised the muzzle of the gun slightly and fired off a round. It went some distance over our heads, but I still flinched. He jacked another load, and the eye of the gun maintained its unblinking vigil on us once again.

“I don’t think you heard me. You’re in no position to ask questions.”

“Talk to us, or talk to the police. It’s your choice.”

Caswell’s hands worked on the grip and stock of the rifle. “The hell are you talking about? I got no problems with the police.”

“Did you fix up this house?” I indicated the building behind us.

“What if I did? It’s my land.”

“Seems like a curious thing to do, fixing up a ruin in a deserted village.”

“There’s no law against it.”

“No, I guess not. Might be a law against what was done in it, though.”

I was taking a chance. Caswell might try to shoot us just for goading him, but I didn’t think so. He didn’t look the type. Despite the shotgun and the camo clothing, there was something soft about him, as though someone had just armed the Pillsbury Doughboy.