The Killing Kind

“Hey, how you doing? Social call?”

“Have I ever paid you a social call?”

“Not that I can remember, but there's always a first time.”

“This isn't it. You remember that favor you promised me?”

There was a long pause. “You sure cut to the chase. Go ahead.”

“It's Charon. Seven or eight years ago he came up to Maine in search of an organization called the Fellowship. Can you find out where he went and the names of anyone to whom he might have spoken?”

“Can I ask why?”

“The Fellowship may be co

“That's quite a favor, Parker. We don't usually hand over records.”

Impatience and anger crept into my voice and I had to struggle against shouting. “I'm not asking for the records, just some idea of where he might have gone. This is important, Hal.”

He sighed. “When do you need it?”

“Soon. As soon as you can.”

“I'll see what I can do. You just used up your ninth life. I hope you realize that.”

I gave a mental shrug. “I wasn't doing a whole lot with it anyway.”

I drove through avenues of trees, their branches green with new growth, to this place of failed hopes and violent death, and sunlight dappled my car as I went. I stayed on I-95 all the way to Houlton, then took U.S. 1 north to Presque Isle and from there drove through Ashland, Portage, and Winterville, until at last I came to the edge of the town of Eagle Lake. I drove by a WCSH truck and gave my name to the state trooper who was checking traffic along the road. He waved me through.

Ellis had called me back with the name of a detective from the state trooper barracks at Houlton. His name was John Brouchard and I found him waist deep in a muddy hole beneath the big tarp erected to protect the remains, digging with a spade in a steady, unhurried rhythm. That was how it worked up here; everybody played his or her part. State police, wardens, sheriff's deputies, ME's staff, all of them rolled up their sleeves and got their hands dirty. If nothing else it was overtime, and when you've got kids going to college, or alimony payments to meet, then time and a half is always welcome, whatever way it has to be earned.

I stayed behind the crime scene line and called his name. He waved a hand in acknowledgment and climbed from the hole, unfolding a frame that was at least six-six or six-seven in height. He towered over me, his head blocking out the sun. His nails were black with mud and beneath his overalls his shirt was drenched in sweat. Damp earth clung to his work boots, and dirt streaked his forehead and cheeks.

“Ellis Howard tells me you're assisting them in an investigation,” he said, after we had shaken hands. “You want to tell me why you're up here if your investigation is centered on Portland?”

“You ask Ellis that?”

“He told me to ask you. He said you had all the answers.”

“He's being optimistic. Curtis Peltier, the man who was murdered in Portland over the weekend, was related to Elizabeth Jessop. I think her remains were among those found here. Curtis's daughter was Grace Peltier. CID III is looking into the circumstances of her death. She was doing graduate work on the people buried in that hole.”

Brouchard eyeballed me for a good ten seconds, then led me to the mobile crime scene unit, where I was allowed to view the video tour of the crime scene on a portable TV borrowed for the duration of the field recovery. He seemed grateful for the excuse to rest, and poured us both coffee while I sat and watched the tape: mud, bones, and trees; glimpses of damaged skulls and scattered fingers; dark water; a rib cage shattered and splintered by the impact of a shotgun blast; a child's skeleton, curled in fetuslike upon itself.

When the tape had concluded I followed him across the road to the edge of the grave.

“Can't let you go beyond here,” he said apologetically. “Some of the victims are still down there, and we're searching for other artifacts.”

I nodded. I didn't need to go inside. I could see all that I needed to see from where I stood. The scene had already been photographed and measured. Above holes in the mud, pieces of card had been attached to wooden spikes, detailing the nature of the remains discovered. In some cases the holes were empty, but in one corner I saw two men in white overalls work carefully around a piece of exposed bone. When one of them moved away, I saw the curved reach of a rib cage, like dark fingers about to clasp in prayer.

“Did they all have their names around their necks?”

The details of the names written on the wooden boards had appeared in a report in the Maine Sunday Telegram. Given the nature of the discovery, it was a wonder that the investigators had managed to keep anything at all under wraps.

“Most of them. Some of the wood was rotted pretty bad, though.” Brouchard reached into his shirt pocket and produced a piece of folded paper, which he handed to me. Typed on the page were seventeen names, presumably obtained by checking the original identities of the Baptists against the names discovered on the bodies. DNA samples were to be taken from surviving relatives, where dental records were not available. Stars beside some names indicated those for whom no positive identification had yet been made. James Jessop's name was the next to last on the list.

“Is the Jessop boy's body still down there?”

Brouchard looked at the list in my hand. “They're taking him away today, him and his sister. He mean anything to you?”

I didn't reply. Another name on the page had caught my eye: Louise Faulkner, the Reverend Faulkner's wife. Faulkner's name, I noticed, was not on the list. Neither were those of his children.

“Any idea yet how they died?”

“Won't know for certain until the autopsies are done, but all of the men and two of the women had gunshot wounds to the head or body. The others seem to have been clubbed. The Faulkner woman was probably strangled; we found fragments of cord around her neck. Some of the children have shattered skulls, like they were hit with a rock, or maybe a hammer. A couple have what look like gunshot wounds.” He stopped talking and looked away toward the lake. “I guess you know something about these people.”

“A little,” I admitted. “Judging by the names on this list, you have at least one suspect.”

Brouchard nodded. “The preacher, Faulkner, unless somebody planted those boards to throw us off the trail and Faulkner is lying there dead with the rest of them.”

It was a possibility, although I knew that the existence of the Apocalypse bought by Jack Mercier made it unlikely.

“He killed his own wife,” I said, more to myself than to Brouchard.

“You got any idea why?”

“Maybe because she objected to what he was going to do.” The article Grace Peltier had written for Down East magazine had mentioned that Faulkner was a fundamentalist. Under fundamentalist doctrine, a wife has to submit to the authority of her husband. Argument or defiance was not permitted. I guessed also that Faulkner probably needed her admiration and her validation for all that he did. When that was withdrawn, she ceased to have any value for him.

Brouchard was looking at me with interest now. “You think you know why he killed them all?”

I thought of what Amy had told me of the Fellowship, its hatred for what it perceived as human weakness and fallibility; of Faulkner's ornate Apocalypses, visions of the final judgment; and of the word hacked beneath James Jessop's name on a length of dirt-encrusted wood. Si