If he was lucky.
They talked as they ate. Louis agreed with Parker that Griffin’s murder had not simply been a matter of expediency, but a form of extreme retribution.
‘It could also be a warning,’ said Angel, following the second train of thought.
‘Yes, but to whom?’ said Parker.
‘Us, maybe.’
Parker hadn’t considered that possibility.
‘If it was,’ said Louis, ‘then they don’t know us very well.’
‘No,’ admitted Angel, ‘they don’t. After all, when have we ever paid attention to warnings?’
‘I prefer to think of them as invitations,’ said Louis.
The check arrived. Parker picked it up.
‘You gonna pay that?’ asked Angel.
‘I’ll bill Moxie for it. This was a business meeting.’
‘You think he’d spring for champagne later?’
‘Maybe if we find Burnel alive.’
‘So no champagne, then.’
‘Probably not.’
Back in Scarborough, Parker began reading through Jerome Burnel’s case files for a third time. He was almost finished when a driver arrived with a stack of paperwork relating to Harpur Griffin, including his personal details and a list of previous convictions, for some of which he’d served time in Ohio and West Virginia. Parker flicked through the documents, establishing their order and relevance, before returning to the beginning. He made one quick run-through, then called the lawyer who had defended Griffin during his most recent trial. Her name was Beth Shears and, according to an Internet search, she had since moved on to work in the state’s Department of Professional and Financial Regulation. Parker wasn’t surprised. Maine didn’t have a public defender’s office, and instead the state hired private attorneys to take on court-appointed work. The rates were far lower than those in private practice, and the state’s budget for court-appointed and indigent defense wasn’t enough to meet demand. Lawyers either supplemented state work as best they could or, like Shears, went in search of positions with more money and security.
He found Shears’s number in the phone book, and was lucky enough to get her at home. She’d seen the TV reports on Griffin, and so wasn’t surprised to be receiving a call about him, although she’d expected the first one to come from the police. She couldn’t tell Parker a lot about her former client. He’d pleaded not guilty, despite fingerprint and DNA evidence to the contrary. Oh, and he’d also been apprehended at the scene, which hadn’t helped his cause. He was only lucky that the old woman he hit hardest didn’t die in the immediate aftermath of the attack, or else he’d still be in Warren now.
‘He came on to me,’ said Shears.
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, three times. I should have thrown him to the wolves, but I needed the money.’
‘What, so you let him?’
It took Shears a moment to figure out that Parker was joking.
‘No, smartass, I held my temper and told him that I’d walk away if he even looked at me strangely again. I did my best for him, but, between us, I just wanted the judge to lock him up.’
‘Did he ever mention a king to you?’
He was being careful here. He knew the police would talk to Shears eventually.
‘As in royalty?’
‘Anything like that.’
‘No, I don’t believe so.’
Parker thanked her, looked at his notes, and decided that he hadn’t learned much of use. He returned to the files, but only got as far as the second page when he paused, flicked back, found the reference that had caught his attention, then put the Griffin material aside and reached for Burnel’s file. It took him a while to find the papers he wanted: the background information on Burnel’s ex-wife, Norah Meddows, born June 19, 1971, in Deep Dell, West Virginia. He held her details in his left hand, and Harpur Griffin’s in his right. Harpur Griffin: born November 20, 1979, in Turley, West Virginia.
Parker pulled up a map of West Virginia on his computer screen, and saw that Deep Dell and Turley were both in Plassey County, the smallest county in the state.
Curious.
He spent another hour working Norah Meddows alone, using the social security number contained in the file given to him by Castin. By the time he was done, he had her current address, place of employment, and the make of car she drove. She was living in Columbus, Ohio, about a four-hour ride from Plassey County. She hadn’t quite returned home, but it was close enough.
What was it one of the men had said to Burnel? I like your jacket. That was it. He could have meant nothing by it, or else something very significant indeed: not just that he liked the jacket, but the gemstones he knew it contained.
How badly could an ex-wife hate her former husband? Parker supposed there were no limits, not really. Badly enough to arrange for him to be robbed and murdered, only to have it all fall apart when Burnel pulled a gun and started shooting? Maybe. But badly enough to set him up for a prison fall? Badly enough to have him brutalized while inside?
Unless Norah Meddows was a complete sadist, why go to the trouble of ruining her husband’s life in the aftermath of a failed robbery? They weren’t getting along, and divorces weren’t so hard to come by. She’d have been entitled to alimony. Maybe she was just greedy and wanted everything.
No, he was missing something. He knew it. A point of contact between Griffin and Norah Meddows was absent. True, they came from the same county, but Griffin had only entered the picture after Burnel was incarcerated, and Griffin, high on Adderall, hadn’t let slip that Burnel had enraged Norah Meddows. No, he claimed that Burnel had somehow crossed the Dead King, and it was the mention of the Dead King at the Porterhouse that had brought a reaction from the two men with Griffin, and almost certainly contributed to his death.
It was a pity Parker didn’t know anyone in West Virginia. He performed one more Internet search, and was grateful that he did. Sometimes, life dealt you a halfway decent hand.
As it turned out, he did know someone in West Virginia. Parker was about to renew an old acquaintanceship. He just didn’t think that the other half of this relationship would be very pleased to hear from him again.
He continued working late in the evening and into the night. He sat on the couch in his office, his legs stretched before him, his back supported by cushions. All he needed was a rug and a bath chair and he’d officially be an old geezer. Only at two a.m. did he cease taking notes, because he’d found at last what he had been looking for from the start: a Dead King.
And then he saw the name attached to the academic reference, and a prickle of disquiet crept across him like the touch of a spider in the dark.
47
Only about 1,800 students were enrolled at Bowdoin College, but given that its hometown of Brunswick had a population just north of 20,000, their presence exerted a significant influence on the community. The vibe in summer was laid-back. Now that the students had returned, the vibe in fall was also laid-back – as befitted a small, private liberal arts college – but with slightly more noise.
Parker liked Brunswick. It had a Bull Moose store that crammed a lot of books and music into its small space, which Parker regarded as an indication that all might not yet be lost for humanity, and the town itself was pretty, once you got past the logjam on Route 1 and progressed to the appropriately named Pleasant Street. He passed the First Parish Church, where, in pew twenty-three, Harriet Beecher Stowe first conceived of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and continued along Maine Street until he came to Ashby House, home of the college’s faculty of religion.
Professor Ian Williamson was sitting at his office window in Ashby House, amusing himself by counting the remaining leaves on the nearest tree while half listening to one of his students complain of how GWS 1017, the Christian Sexual Ethics offering, was making her feel uneasy due to its use of explicit language. Williamson wasn’t actually sure that there was any explicit language in the Christian Sexual Ethics option, or none that he would h
ave regarded as such, but then he had to admit that students these days appeared more ready to take umbrage than those of previous generations. He had a vague longing for the student radicalism of the sixties and seventies, mainly because he had been too young to experience it himself. It seemed to him that the youth of that era had been looking for reasons to be angry, which was perfectly understandable because the young were supposed to be angry. Now the young were just looking for reasons to feel offended, and that wasn’t the same thing at all. The four ages of man, as far as Williamson was concerned, were confusion, anger, complacency, and grumpiness, but it was important to embrace them in the right order.
The Christian Sexual Ethics course wasn’t even one of his own, but because he was English and the girl was an international student from his homeland, albeit one with a remarkably sheltered upbringing, she had turned to him in her moment of need. He was about to suggest that she switch to Rel 216, The New Testament in Its World, which would provide less scope for unhappiness, provided she called in sick should it appear to be about to touch on matters circumcisional in its rituals section, when he saw the distinctive Mustang pull up outside Ashby House, and Parker emerge from it.
‘Penny,’ he said, interrupting her in mid-flow about what she believed to be soft-pedaling on matters of sexual orientation, ‘I’m afraid I have another meeting that’s about to begin. Leave me to think about this for the rest of the day, and I’ll have an answer for you in the morning.’
He smiled his best smile, the one that had brought a thousand American women – well, a few: three, actually, depending on how one chose to define a sexual encounter – to his bed when he was still a single man. Not that he had any intention of trying to lure Penny to his bed, nor would he have done so even had he been a young and single doctorate student. Frankly, after hearing her views on GWS 1017, there wouldn’t have been much point.
He heard the door close behind her, but by then he was standing at his window, watching Parker’s progress, and had anyone been present to witness it, the expression on Williamson’s face might have led them to believe that the impending visit was not entirely a welcome one.
It had been many months since Williamson and Parker had last met, when the detective had come to discuss the qualifications, real or fraudulently claimed, of a preacher named Michael Warraner, who had ministered to the town of Prosperous. Warraner had come to regret Parker’s interest in his affairs, but from what Williamson knew of Parker, regret, injury, and sudden mortality were associated risks when dealing with him, which might have explained some of his nervousness at the detective’s return to Bowdoin. But Williamson greeted him warmly, asked after his health, and offered coffee or tea, both of which were declined. He thought that Parker looked thinner, which was to be expected after what he had endured, but the effect was not to diminish him but rather to concentrate, and perhaps even enhance, his sense of energy and mission.
As for Williamson himself, he remained unchanged as far as Parker was concerned: the same disheveled hair and the same worn Converse sneakers, although combined now with clothing of browns and reds, perhaps as a gesture to the season, or so that he could, if necessary, hide himself from his students in a pile of leaves. It looked like he’d added some more religious artifacts to the collection in his office, and several extra piles of books, although that hardly seemed possible given how crammed the shelves and floor space had been when Parker last visited.
‘I noticed in the college guide that the faculty has a new option in Paganism, Christianity, and the Occult,’ said Parker. ‘That wouldn’t be one of yours, by any chance?’
‘Am I that obvious?’ said Williamson. ‘It’s turned out to be one of the most popular courses we’ve ever offered. Booked out. Standing room only. Although I’m not sure that we’ll have enough cauldrons for everybody. That’s a joke, by the way.’
‘I got it. I even understand irony. I’ve seen Frasier.’
‘Well, then I may try some irony later, just to test you.’
Williamson invited Parker to take a seat while he assumed the chair opposite, a low coffee table between them. Parker reached into his satchel and produced two books: the studies of the Green Man, the pagan figure represented on some old European churches that Williamson had loaned him many months before, when Parker was investigating the town of Prosperous. Williamson thanked him, and gave the covers of the volumes a little pat, like a man greeting his returning dogs.
‘I visited Prosperous,’ said Williamson.
‘Really?’
‘Yes, out of curiosity as much as anything else. It’s changed considerably.’
‘For the better, I hope.’
‘I suppose that depends on whether you have to live there or not. They still seem to be rebuilding parts of it, but it appears to have survived – as, more to the point, and more to be welcomed, have you. There are lots of rumors about what happened to you, and how it might have been linked to the fate of Prosperous.’
‘I’ve heard most of them.’
‘Are they true?’
‘I think they’re called rumors for a reason.’
‘That’s not quite an answer.’
Parker relented, but only slightly.
‘I’m not sure I’m ready to give any answers yet, or at least not ones that might incriminate me or anyone else.’
‘We have an archive – well, more correctly, I have an archive, which the college kindly keeps under lock and key. If you did feel the urge, I’d like to hear more about the fall of Prosperous, and have it on record. It could be arranged that the papers would remain sealed until after your death.’
‘I’ll bear it in mind, but I can’t say that it appeals.’
‘If that sounds too formal, or too risky, I’d be happy to listen to a tale told over a drink. A story, after all, is just a story.’
‘That might work.’
‘Right, then. Now, I sense that you didn’t just come here to return my books. Is there something I can help you with?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Parker. ‘I’d like you to tell me about dead kings.’
48
Leaves falling; the coming and going of students. Across Maine Street, Bowdoin College Museum of Art was hosting an exhibition entitled Night Vision: Nocturnes in American Art, 1860–1960. Parker thought that he might take a look at it later, if there was time.
Williamson fiddled with his Nespresso machine. The act of making a cup of coffee appeared to help him arrange his thoughts, the physical routines echoing his mental processes. Parker had told him something of how he had come to be asking about dead kings, and Williamson had blanched as he made the connection to the man who had been found burned alive in his car over the previous weekend.
‘That – and I’m sure you’ll forgive me if I sound impressed – is a very obscure piece of folklore,’ said Williamson, as the coffee began to pour. ‘What makes you think that this man Griffin wasn’t simply referring to an individual, someone with an ear for striking nomenclature?’
‘As far as I can tell, there isn’t even a rapper called Dead King, and those guys pick up on all the good names,’ said Parker. ‘But I admit I believed I’d exhausted every avenue of inquiry, and was thinking along those same lines – that Griffin was using someone’s nickname – until I found one reference to a “dead king” in a book called Violence and Devotion in Medieval Society, published back in 1945.’
‘Which brought you to me.’
‘That’s why I get to put the word “investigator” on my business cards, helped by the fact that the book was written by an English academic named Norman Williamson, which led me to wonder if you might not have entered the family business.’
‘My grandfather,’ said Williamson. He searched his shelves, found his copy of the book, and handed it to Parker. ‘I wasn’t even aware that the book could be found on the Internet.’
‘Someone scanned and posted it. I’d say that you were being hurt for royalties, except I suspect it’s out of copyrigh
t by now.’
‘Not quite,’ said Williamson. ‘Nevertheless, I don’t believe that I’d have been buying a yacht with the proceeds in any case.’
The book was in plain brown boards, with the gold lettering of the author’s name and the title almost entirely rubbed away. Parker flicked to the title page and saw that it had been inscribed ‘with paternal affection and admiration’ to someone named Alice.
‘Your mother?’ asked Parker.
‘My aunt. I’m sure my mother must have had a copy too, at one point, but it went missing somewhere along the way. My mother preferred romantic fiction, which is no judgment upon the woman herself, of whom I remain very fond.’
He added milk to his coffee, and resumed his seat. Parker, meanwhile, found the page that he had printed from the Internet and brought with him, just in case Williamson, Ian, wasn’t related to Williamson, Norman, or didn’t possess a copy of the book in question.
‘The study makes only a passing reference to a dead king in the section on totems,’ said Parker. ‘Would you have anything more detailed, or more recent?’
‘I don’t think very much has been done on it,’ said Williamson. ‘Entire dictionaries and encyclopedias have been devoted to superstitions and folklore; even the best can barely find space for all of them, and that’s before you get down to the micro level. Blakeborough’s Wit, Character, Folklore & Customs of the North Riding of Yorkshire, published in 1898, runs to five hundred pages and includes more than four thousand idioms, and that’s just one third of the county. Or take a look at this—’
He opened a door under the shelves, and Parker saw layers of bound documents. Williamson ran a finger along the spines until he came to the one that he wanted, and gave it to Parker, who glanced at the title page.