The Woman in the Woods

Howard was happy enough to go along with Parker’s suggestion, as long as either Dakota or Parker called her as soon as they’d taken a look inside. So Parker returned to Orchard Road, where Dakota was waiting in Lombardi’s yard, Janette Howard having called her in the interim to let her know that Parker had permission to enter the house. He wasn’t concerned as yet about contaminating a possible crime scene: Lombardi might well have gone away for a day or two, but equally she could have fallen, or been taken ill. Neither was he trespassing on private property, as he had the niece’s consent to enter. He pulled on a pair of gloves, just in case, and used Dakota’s key to open the front door.

  The alarm didn’t sound: that was the first unusual thing Dakota noticed.

  “Maela always sets the alarm when she leaves,” she said. “Shit.”

  Dakota called Maela’s name, but there was no reply. Parker told her to stay by the door while he searched the house, and not to touch anything.

  It didn’t take long to establish that it was empty. The beds were made, and the kitchen and bathroom were spotless. The bookshelves contained a lot of poetry and alternative lifestyle books, along with some feminist writing and various semi-mystical works—Carlos Castaneda, Robert Pirsig, Kahlil Gibran—but not much fiction. More books of a similar stripe stood piled on a packing chest that functioned as a coffee table in the living-cum-dining room, along with the most recent copy of the Maine Sunday Telegram, folded open to a puzzle page. Beside the newspaper were a pen and a pair of bifocals.

  Dakota had not moved from her post by the door, but Parker could see her from where she stood, and she him. Her hands were deep in the pockets of her jeans, and she was hunched with unease.

  “Does her home always look this tidy?” he asked.

  “Maela’s that kind of person.”

  Parker looked at the spectacles again. Given her age, it wasn’t a surprise that Lombardi might require bifocals, and it indicated she wore spectacles when she drove.

  “I don’t suppose you’d know if Maela keeps a spare pair in her car for driving?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t. I guess, now that you mention it, she does wear them to drive, but I couldn’t say if she has a pair just for the car.”

  Parker went back outside and checked the mailbox. It contained some junk mail, but nothing more. He returned to the house and went through it again, this time examining each room more closely. He wasn’t any wiser by the end of the process. Finally, he tried the answering machine on the home phone and listened to the voice messages. He heard two from Molly Bow, and a few hang-ups, which were his own earlier attempts to contact Lombardi, but that was all.

  Dakota’s cell phone rang. She looked at the screen.

  “It’s her niece,” she said.

  “You’d better answer it.”

  “What should I say?”

  “Tell her that her aunt’s not here, and I’ll come by to talk with her as soon as I can.”

  Dakota did as Parker asked while he stood between the dining table and the kitchen arch, trying to find something, anything, that might give him cause for disquiet, but he didn’t know Maela Lombardi and so was unfamiliar with her ways. He could only take Dakota’s word that Lombardi maintained a pristine household, and he was wary about raising the alarm over nothing. Dakota claimed that she hadn’t seen Lombardi for a few days, but how often did such a period of time go by without one neighbor seeing another? It was hardly shocking. Likewise, the fact that Lombardi hadn’t informed her niece she was leaving town might just be because she hadn’t gone anywhere in particular. It wasn’t against the law for an elderly woman to head out for a while without alerting the army, navy, and National Guard. The alarm hadn’t been set, but maybe Lombardi was in a hurry when she left, and forgot to activate it.

  And yet there was something off, because he could smell it: an odor, faint but unpleasant. It was strongest over by a big armchair that faced the television. Parker knelt, noticing a faint stain on the fabric of the chair, and another on the floor. He leaned closer. He sniffed. Someone had thrown up here, and recently. He touched a finger to one of the stains. It came back slightly damp.

  So: older people were sometimes ill, just like younger ones. It didn’t mean much. Except Maela Lombardi kept a very neat home, and struck Parker as the kind of person who would have cleaned up better than this if she’d puked. It wasn’t enough to justify hitting the panic button, but it remained odd.

  There appeared to be nothing more he could do. He thanked Dakota for her help, watched while she locked up—noting that she took the time to set the alarm—and returned to Janette Howard’s house. He sat at her kitchen table while her kids played computer games, and asked how often she spoke to her aunt.

  “Well, not every day,” said Howard.

  She sounded slightly guilty about this.

  “But you get on with her?” said Parker.

  “Yes, mostly.”

  Parker stepped carefully. He didn’t want to alienate the young woman.

  “I don’t mean to pry,” he said.

  “Maela and I differ on certain issues,” said Howard.

  “What kind of issues?”

  “Uh, she’s pretty liberal.”

  “On?”

  “Everything. Gay marriage, abortion. You know, social stuff.”

  “And you’re not.”

  “Nobody’s as liberal as Maela.”

  “So how often would the two of you speak?”

  “I call her once a week, or a little less than that, to make sure she’s doing okay.”

  Parker realized he was back where he’d started: with no idea if Maela Lombardi was actually missing or not.

  “Has your aunt been ill lately?”

  “Maela?” Howard laughed. “She’s healthy as a horse. Why?”

  “It smelled like someone might have been sick in the house—not very much, but enough to leave an odor and a couple of stains.”

  “That’s not like Maela, although I’m not sure she’d even admit if she was feeling unwell. She’ll probably still be trying to make out everything’s fine when they’re putting her in a pine box.”

  Howard realized what she’d said, and looked ashamed.

  “God,” she said. “Now should I call the police?”

  “She’s an elderly woman. It can’t hurt.”

  Howard didn’t look enthused at the prospect, but then few people ever did.

  “Maela has a poor opinion of the police,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “She’s countercultural. If I call the cops, then she’d better be missing. If she’s just left for the movies and dinner, she’s going to be seriously pissed when she gets back.”

  CHAPTER

  LXI

  Daniel Weaver crouched by his bedroom door, listening to his mom and Grandpa Owen arguing. Since they often argued, mostly about small stuff, Daniel had grown used to their raised voices as a kind of background noise to his existence. Both his mother and Grandpa Owen lived their lives with the volume turned up. His mother claimed that a lifetime spent in trucks had made Grandpa Owen deaf to reason, so she had no choice but to shout at him. Grandpa Owen liked to respond that at least he had an excuse.

  On this occasion, their back-and-forth had a different tone, which was what had drawn Daniel to eavesdrop. He had already learned that if adults were trying to keep their voices down, there might be something worth hearing.

  “I did as you told me.” It was Grandpa Owen speaking. “I gave you time to think, but this isn’t going away. The longer it continues, the less likely we are to get a fair hearing.”

  “They’ll take him from me.” Daniel had to strain to pick up his mother’s words.

  “We’ll hire a good attorney.”

  “With what? Are lawyers accepting coupons now?”

  “I got a little left in the bank. And there’s the rig.”

  Silence.

  “You can’t sell the rig.”

  “I’m tired. I can’t handle the
long hauls anymore. There’s still money in her—not as much as I’d like, but some.”

  Dishes being stored away, the jangle of the silverware drawer.

  “We should have been honest from the start.”

  “She made us promise not to.”

  “She shouldn’t have,” said Grandpa Owen. “It wasn’t fair.”

  “But look what she gave us in return.”

  A chair being pulled up, a creaking as weight came to rest upon it. His mother, Daniel thought, becuase Grandpa Owen always groaned when he stood up or sat down.

  “What we did was wrong, but not very wrong,” said Grandpa Owen. “They’ll see that he’s better off with us. The state doesn’t want to put kids in foster homes, not if they can avoid it. It costs too damn much.”

  The sound of his mother crying. Daniel wanted to go to her, but that would have revealed his snooping. All he could do was sit and listen. He didn’t want anyone to take him from his mom and Grandpa Owen. He’d run away if they tried. If he couldn’t run, he’d fight.

  “I told you,” said Grandpa Owen. “I’ll make the call from a public phone. I’ll be careful not to stay on the line for too long. I’ll test the waters, see what Castin says, and you and I can discuss it before we proceed any further.”

  “And if we don’t like what he has to say?”

  Daniel waited for the answer.

  “We could leave, I guess. Go someplace far from here.”

  Grandpa Owen sounded like a man being asked to jump over a stream that looked too wide for him.

  “But?”

  “If we were to strike camp,” said Grandpa Owen, “we might just be giving ourselves away.”

  “And then they’d find us, wouldn’t they? They’d send the detective—Parker. He’d hunt us down. I don’t want him coming after us. He scares me.”

  “So do I make the call?”

  This time the silence went on for so long that Daniel was convinced he’d somehow missed his mother’s reply, until her voice came, very softly:

  “Yes. But not yet.”

  “Jesus . . .”

  Daniel heard a chair being pushed back, and he was back between the sheets by the time his mother appeared at the bedroom door. He pretended to be asleep as she came to sit on the edge of his bed. She didn’t touch him, didn’t try to wake him, but he could hear her breathing, and smell her perfume, and feel the fierce heat of her love for him. At last she left, and he turned over on his bed as though twisting in his sleep, so he could watch her as the door closed, before she was lost to him.

  CHAPTER

  LXII

  Parker was sitting in his home office, updating Moxie Castin on what amounted to very little progress at all, when the alarm on his phone was activated, and seconds later an unmarked car, its dashboard flasher illuminated to identify the driver as a police officer, pulled up outside his door. Parker had already spoken with Molly Bow, alerting her to the possibility that Maela Lombardi might be missing and asking her permission to refer the police to her should they come calling. That permission had not been forthcoming as yet.

  “I shouldn’t have told you about Maela to begin with,” Molly said. “If the police get involved, I’ll be forced to give them even more names.”

  “You can’t be forced to give them anything at all. And let me remind you that you told me you didn’t have ‘that information.’ ”

  “Then why sic them on me to begin with?”

  Parker had to admit there was a kind of logic to the argument, but it was canceled by an equal amount of illogicality. If Lombardi was missing, then Bow had at least helped to set in motion some kind of investigation into her whereabouts, and thus had done the right thing by revealing Lombardi’s name to Parker, whatever her concerns about betraying confidences.

  But he also had to recognize that a) Lombardi might not be missing at all; and b) if she were missing, her disappearance might not necessarily be linked to the Piscataquis remains. Lombardi’s work with imperiled women could easily have left her exposed to acts of vengeance from a host of aggrieved partners, as Bow herself could attest from personal experience. Bow might be sitting on information that could assist the police in finding Lombardi, but she was also putting the squeeze on Parker in an effort to keep her name out of the investigation.

  Sometimes, Parker’s vocation made his head hurt.

  If he retained any doubts about the reason for this police presence, they were dispelled as soon as the car door opened and the plainclothes officer stepped out. Her name was Kes Carroll—Kes being short for Kestrel, which meant she was officially the most exotically named person known to Parker, as well as the tallest woman, topping out at six-two in her stocking feet—and she was the Cape Elizabeth PD’s sole detective. Parker had enjoyed occasional professional dealings with her, and always found her to be a straight arrow. Carroll was in her late fifties, and could easily have retired years before, but she appeared to find fulfillment in her work, and who was Parker to question that?

  He opened the front door before Carroll had a chance to ring the bell, and invited her inside for coffee. She took a seat at the kitchen table while he found some cups. A pot was already brewing.

  “Sorry for the late visit,” said Carroll.

  “I wasn’t doing a whole lot anyway. I take it this is about Maela Lombardi?”

  “Her niece called, said she’d spoken with you.”

  “Did she sound worried?”

  “More apologetic.”

  “She and her aunt aren’t particularly close.”

  “So she told us. Looks like you might have lit a small fire under her, though.”

  “It could be nothing.”

  “With you involved?”

  Parker poured coffee for both of them, and put milk and sugar on the table.

  “So?” asked Carroll as she added milk. “What’s the deal?”

  “The deal is the Jane Doe from Piscataquis. Moxie Castin hired me to find out what I can about her and the missing child. I can’t reveal how I know this, but it’s possible—just possible—that Lombardi might have had some contact with Jane Doe.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’ve been trying to figure out why a pregnant woman would head to Maine to begin with, never mind end up buried in a shallow grave with the afterbirth. If she had relatives here, they’d have shown themselves by now.”

  “Unless they were the ones who put her in the ground—they, or the child’s father.”

  “But why hide a death in childbirth? It’s not a crime, unless someone can prove willful neglect.”

  “You know this state. Once you head out to the willywacks, there’s no telling why some folks do the things they do. So what brought you to Lombardi?”

  “I’ve been told she operated an unofficial safe house for women fleeing abusive relationships. What if Jane Doe was running from the father of her child? What if she was desperate? If she didn’t want to turn to state services, or Planned Parenthood, or whatever other organizations might be in a position to offer help, where would she go? Even if Lombardi hadn’t met her, she might know of someone else who did.”

  “But wouldn’t Lombardi have come forward if she had some knowledge of the case?”

  “I’d hoped to ask Lombardi that myself. She might have felt under pressure to protect this network of safe houses, because my understanding is that Lombardi is just one link in the chain.”

  “Or?”

  “Or Jane Doe made her promise not to tell.”

  “Why?”

  “Because whoever she was running from was so bad that not only was Jane Doe’s life at risk, but so was the life of her child, and perhaps the life of anyone who helped her.”

  “That’s a hell of a leap to take.”

  “I’ve taken bigger.”

  Carroll tried her coffee, and gagged.

  “This is horrible,” she said.

  “Organic decaf.”

  “What’s the point of that?”

  “Makes
me feel virtuous.”

  “Well, whatever helps.” Carroll didn’t push the mug away, instead electing to keep it clasped in her hands, welcoming the warmth, if not the taste. Spring might have arrived, but the nights continued to bear winter’s mark. “As for Lombardi, I’m reluctant to issue a Silver Alert until more time has gone by.”

  Silver Alerts sent notifications about missing seniors to highway signs around the state, asking motorists to be on the lookout.

  “I did tell the niece that there was nothing to stop her from putting out the word herself on community bulletin boards, Facebook, Twitter, whatever might help,” Carroll continued, “and if Lombardi hasn’t made contact by morning, I’ll look at speeding up procedures. But Howard was adamant that her aunt had shown no signs of dementia. If Lombardi got in her car and drove away, she knew what she was doing, and where she was going.”

  “Unless she didn’t leave willingly.”

  Parker told Carroll about the stains and the smell.

  “You know,” she said, “you see a lot of shadows. You ought to ditch decaf, try regular. It might help.”

  Carroll gave the coffee one more try, if only to be sure it was as unsatisfactory as she thought, before pouring away what was left and depositing the cup in the sink.

  “Do you know Solange Corriveau?” she asked.

  “Only by reputation.”

  “I’m going to have to share with her what you just told me.”

  “I’m speculating. You can see how thin it is.”

  “Thin or not, she’s now the lead on Jane Doe, and she’ll take whatever she can get. You should expect to hear from her sometime tomorrow, especially if Lombardi is still missing by morning. She’ll want to know more about any possible link between Lombardi and Jane Doe.”

  “I don’t have a problem with that, but my source might.”

  “Corriveau won’t care one way or the other. She drinks her coffee with extra caffeine, and eats her meat raw.”

  Parker thanked Carroll and walked her to her car.

  “How’s your daughter?” she asked, as she opened the driver’s door. Carroll had met Sam a couple of times when she came to visit, and once gave her a ride with the siren on. Sam was suitably impressed.