Nocturnes

I got it back, though.

Since then, Ray had kept out of my way, even though he now lived up in Bangor, in a small house off Exit 48 close by Husson College.

“Yeah, I know Ray Czabo,” I said.

The Grady house would appeal to someone like Ray. I felt pretty certain that he’d been down there on more than one occasion. He must have found it galling to be denied access to its secrets.

“Was Ray the only one?”

Matheson was holding something back. I wasn’t sure why. Perhaps he wanted to be certain that I was going to take the case before he told me, but I’d learned that lesson the hard way. Now I liked to know what I was getting into before it all began to fall down around my ears.

“There was another man, a few days ago. He came to the plant. You should understand, Mr. Parker, that very few people know about my ownership of the Grady house. Officially, the title is held by a company that shares its address with a particularly litigious firm of lawyers in Augusta. They’re not even my own lawyers. They were sourced independently. Yet this man arrived at my office and told my secretary he was interested in placing a large order. He seemed to know what he was talking about, so she called me. I was out on the floor at the time, and I came back to meet him.

“The first thing that struck me was that he wasn’t there to buy anything from my company. He was dressed in a thread-bare coat, there were stains on his trousers, and the sole was coming away from his left shoe. I couldn’t tell the last time his shirt had been properly washed, and he wore a dead man’s tie. Don’t get me wrong: in my business, I see a lot of people who work with their hands, and I’m not afraid to get my own hands and clothes dirty. But that’s, I don’t know, honest dirt, hard won and nothing for a man to be ashamed of. This guy, though, he was just plain filthy. I almost threw him out of my office before he had a chance to open his mouth. Maybe I should have.”

“What did he look like?”

“Tall. Taller than you. His hair was black, and long. It was hanging over his shirt collar. It was receding pretty badly, and he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. His skin was very white. Don’t recall the color of his eyes, if that’s the kind of detail you need to know. His fingertips and nails were stained yellow. I guess he was a smoker, but he didn’t light up while he was with me.”

“He give you a name?”

“No. I introduced myself, shook his hand-although I kind of regretted doing it-but he didn’t give me a card or a name. He just told me he had come about a delicate matter.

‘I believe that you are the owner of the Grady house.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I think that you do. There is a debt outstanding upon the house. An opportunity is about to arise for its payment.’

‘I told you: I think you have the wrong man.’

“I tried to convince him, but the guy just didn’t want to listen. He knew that the Grady house belonged to me. I don’t know how, but he did. When I checked with the lawyers, they told me that there had been no formal inquiries about the house for years, apart from a couple of media hounds howling down the phone on the a

“Why didn’t you?” I asked. Matheson looked like he could still handle himself.

“I’m not that kind of man,” he replied, but there was an unspoken “and” hanging in the air.

I waited. It came.

“He didn’t look like much: thin, dirty, unhealthy, but I got the feeling that he was stronger than he looked. I think that if I’d tried to lay a hand on him he would have hurt me. Not badly, maybe, but he would have enjoyed humiliating me. There was a malice to him, y’know? This all probably sounds cockeyed to you, but once my anger started to die down I began to get worried. Scared, even.”

I told him it didn’t sound cockeyed at all, that I had met men like that. They wanted you to descend to their level, and once you were down there they would try to finish you. If you were going to take them on, then you had to be prepared to endure some pain, and to inflict it back in spades.

Matheson continued: “So I told him that even if what he said was true, he should call up the Farmers’ Mutual Bank and ask them about it. Payments owing to him from John Grady were no business of mine. He didn’t seem to agree.

‘I am a collector, Mr. Matheson. I collect debts, but I also have an interest in other items. In lieu of the debt left outstanding by the previous owner, I will accept some small item of furniture from the house. It will barely cover my expenses, but in this case a token gesture will be sufficient. The house contains a number of ornate mirrors. If you give one of them to me, I will consider you to have discharged any responsibilities you may have in this matter.’

“That was exactly how he spoke,” said Matheson. “He spoke like a damn lawyer. Well, I’d had enough of him by then, so I told him to get the hell out of my office or I’d call the cops. He had any more questions, he could discuss them with my legal people, or with the Farmers’ Mutual, but I didn’t want to see him again.”

“What did he say?”

“He didn’t move. He just looked at his fingernails for a while before he stood, said that he was sorry I felt that way, and told me that he would deal with the matter through ‘other cha

“Did you get a look at his car?”

“There wasn’t one. He left on foot.”

“And he gave you no contact name, no number?”

“Nothing. He just told me he was a collector.”

“Did you talk to the police about this?”

“I told Chief Grass in Two Mile, but he said there were probably a whole lot of debts left unpaid when John Grady died. He took down the description I gave him, but he said there wasn’t much that he could do unless the collector came back, or used threats.”

“Did you feel as if he was threatening you in your office? He did speak of going through ‘other cha

“I suppose it could have been a threat. I didn’t take it that way.”

“And he never mentioned what the debt was, or whom he was representing?”

“No.”

“Do you think this man might be the one responsible for placing the photograph in the mailbox?”

“It’s possible, but I can’t see why he would do it. He certainly didn’t mention anything to do with pictures.”

Matheson asked if I wanted another coffee. I said yes, if only to give me a little time to think. His story about the collector made me uneasy, and I didn’t particularly want to sit in my car watching an old house night after night, waiting for some lowlife in old clothes who got kicks from planting the pictures of children in a dead child murderer’s mailbox, but something about that photograph of the girl was drawing me in. I had this much in common with Matheson: both of us had lost a daughter, and neither of us was prepared to stand idly by if another child was potentially in danger. Looking back, I guess I knew I would take the case as soon as he showed me the picture of the little girl with the bat in her hands.

When he came back, I told him my rates. He offered to pay me in advance, but I explained that I’d bill him after the first week. If I was making no progress after two weeks, then I’d have to leave it to the cops. Matheson agreed and prepared to depart. He left the photograph of the unknown girl with me.