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I wanted to understand.
I called his name. He stopped and stared back at me. “Have you seen the Summer Lady, James?” I asked. A tear dropped onto my cheek and rolled down to the corner of my mouth. I savored it with my tongue.
He nodded solemnly.
“She's waiting for me,” he said. “She's going to take me to the others.”
“Where is she, James?”
James Jessop raised his hand and pointed into the darkness of the forest, then turned and walked into the tangles and trees, until the shadows of the branches embraced him and I could see him no more.
19
AS I DROVE DOWN TO WATERVILLE to meet Angel and Louis, my hand tingled from the touch of a lost child. St. Froid Lake had seemed indescribably desolate. I still heard the howls of the hybrids ringing in my ears, a perpetual chorus of mourning for the dead. Pictures of flapping canvas and piles of earth, of cold water and old brown bones flashed through my mind before coalescing into a single image of James Jessop receding into the hidden reaches of the forest, where an unseen woman in a summer dress waited to take him away.
I felt a surge of gratitude that there was somebody waiting for him at the edge of the darkness, that he would not have to make that journey alone.
I just hoped that there was somebody waiting for us all.
In Waterville, I parked outside the Ames mall and waited. It was almost an hour before the black Lexus appeared, turning onto the main street and parking at its far end. I watched Angel get out and walk casually to the corner of Main and Temple, then turn into the back lot of the Fellowship's building at the junction with the Hunan Legends Chinese restaurant when he saw that the street was clear. I locked the Mustang, met Louis, and together we walked down to Temple to join Angel. He stood in the shadows and handed us each a pair of gloves. His own hands were already concealed and holding the handle of the newly opened door.
“I think I'm go
“I'll break the sad news to the Chamber of Commerce,” I told him. “I don't know how they'll cope.”
“So where are you pla
“Maybe I won't live long enough for it to become an issue.”
“Man, you sure going the right way about it,” said Louis. “Grim Reaper probably got your number on speed dial.”
We followed Angel up the thinly carpeted stairs until we arrived at a wooden door with a small plastic sign nailed to it at eye level. It read simply: THE FELLOWSHIP. There was a bell on the door frame to the right, in case anyone somehow managed to sneak in the front door without Ms. Torrance turning on them like a hungry rottweiler. I slipped out my mini Maglite and shined it on the lock. I had taken the precaution of wrapping some duct tape around the top so that only a thin beam of light about half the size of a dime showed. Angel took a pick and a tension tool from his pocket and opened the door in five seconds flat. Inside, the lights from the street shone on a reception area with three plastic chairs, a wooden desk with a telephone and blotter on top, a filing cabinet in one corner, and some vaguely inspirational pictures on the walls featuring sunsets and doves and small children.
Angel jiggled the lock on the filing cabinet and when it clicked, pulled open the top drawer. Using his own flashlight, he illuminated a pile of conservative and religious tracts published by the Fellowship itself and other groups of which the Fellowship presumably approved. They included The Christian Family; Other Races, Other Rules; Enemies of the People; Jewry: The Truth About the Chosen People; Killing the Future: The Reality of Abortion; and Daddy Doesn't Love Me Anymore: Divorce and the American Family.
“Look at this one,” said Angel. “Natural Laws, U
“Maybe they've smelled your aftershave,” I replied. “Anything in the other drawers?”
Angel went through them quickly. “Looks like more of the same.”
He opened the door into the main office. This was more elegantly furnished than the reception area; the desk was marginally more expensive, with a high-backed imitation leather chair behind it and a pair of couches in the same material against two of the walls, a low coffee table between them. The walls were covered with photographs of Carter Paragon at various events, usually surrounded by people who didn't know any better than to be happy around him. The sunlight had shone directly onto these images for a long time. Some of the photographs had faded or turned yellow in the corners, and a coating of dust added a further element of dullness. In the corner, beneath an ornate crucifix, stood another filing cabinet, stronger and sturdier than the one in the reception area. It took Angel a couple of tries to get it open, but when he did his brow furrowed in surprise.
“What is it?” I said.
“Take a look,” he replied.
I walked over and shined my light into the open drawer. It was empty, apart from a thick coating of dust. Angel opened the other drawers in turn, but only the bottom drawer contained anything: a bottle of whiskey and two tumblers. I closed the drawer and reopened the one above it: there was only dust, and dust that obviously had not been disturbed for a long time.
“Either this is special holy dust,” said Angel, “which would explain why it has to be locked up safe at night, or there's nothing here and there never was.”
“It's just a front,” I said. “The whole thing is just a front.” Just as Amy had told me, the Waterville organization was simply a mask to fool the unwary. The other Fellowship, the one with the real power, existed elsewhere.
“There must be records of some kind,” I said.
“Maybe he keeps them out at his house,” suggested Angel.
I looked at him. “You got anything better to do?”
“Than burgle a guy's house? No, not really.” He took a closer look at the lock on the filing cabinet. “Tell you something else; I think someone tried to get this open before we did. There are marks around the lock. They're small, but it was still a pretty amateur job.”
We relocked the doors and headed downstairs. At the back door, Angel paused and checked the lock with the aid of his pocket light. “Back door's been opened from outside,” he said. “There are fresh scratches around the keyhole, and I didn't make them. Guess I didn't see them because I wasn't looking for them.”
There was nothing else to say. We weren't the only people interested in finding out what was in Carter Paragon's files, and I knew that we weren't the only ones hunting Mr. Pudd. Lester Bargus had learned that too, in his final moments.
Carter Paragon's house was quiet as we drove past. We parked our cars off the road, in the shadows cast by a stand of pine trees, and followed the boundary wall of the property around to a barred security gate at the back of the house. There were no video cameras visible, although there was an intercom on the gatepost, just as there was at the main entrance to the house. We climbed over the wall, Angel and I going first, Louis joining us after what seemed like a very reluctant pause. When he hit the soft lawn, he looked in dismay at the marks left by the white wall on his black jeans but said nothing.
We skirted the house, staying within the cover of the trees. A single light burned in a curtained room on the upper floor at the eastern side. The same battered blue car was parked in the drive, but its hood was cool. It hadn't been driven that evening. The Explorer was nowhere to be seen. The curtains on the window were drawn tight, so it was impossible to see inside.