‘Do I need to put my name down to shout at someone,’ he asked the receptionist, ‘or can I just go straight through?’
Preston appeared behind her before she could answer. She was one of those who had come to the hospital to hear Parker’s statement after the deaths at Green Heron Bay, and their encounter had been civilized.
‘I guess you can go right to the head of the line,’ said Preston.
She opened the door and led him to the chief’s office. Stynes invited him to sit, but he told her that he preferred to stand. His injured side was plaguing him. He was about done for the day.
‘No offense meant,’ he told her. ‘It’s more comfortable for me to stay on my feet, and if I sit down I may not be able to get up again.’
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Alive. How’s Cory Bloom?’
‘They’re letting her out of the ICU tomorrow.’
‘I’m glad.’
Stynes turned to look out the window, where Foster’s Jeep was pulling out of the parking lot.
‘I’m sorry you had to hear that.’
‘I’ve heard worse.’
‘Did he say something to you on the way out?’
‘He might have used a rude word. I tried not to look offended.’
‘He’s a jerk.’
‘Still, he hides it well.’
‘I was wondering if you’d come back here,’ said Stynes.
‘I’m going to stay around for a few days.’
‘To recuperate?’
‘To ask some questions.’
‘Bangor is handling the investigation.’
‘Does that mean you object to my asking questions?’
‘Would it make any difference if I did?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m not sure I believe that.’
‘It strikes me that you have enough people making life difficult for you. I’m not planning to add to your problems.’
‘I’ll hold you to that,’ she said. ‘I had an idea that you might be taking what happened up there personally.’
‘Just as you are.’
‘Cory’s not only my superior, she’s also my friend. Who were you planning on talking to?’
‘Anyone I can. I’ve already spoken to Amanda Winter’s mother. I also mentioned to Bobby Soames that I’d be hanging around for a while. I’m sure I can think of a few more.’
‘Bobby Soames leaks like the Titanic after the iceberg hit.’
‘Really? A chatty Realtor. Who knew?’
She nibbled at her bottom lip.
‘If you were anyone else, I’d tell you to turn around and keep driving until you hit Portland,’ she said. ‘But I’ll make an exception, if only because I know that my objections wouldn’t be worth a damn. But if you find out anything, you share it with Bangor – and me.’
‘Agreed.’
‘You still have your weapon?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t use it.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Just one. I have feds crawling over this, and our department is a virtual outpost of the MCU. If this goes to hell, and I’m asked, we never had this conversation.’
‘I get that a lot.’
‘I’ll bet. You take care, Mr Parker.’
‘You know, you’re the second person today who’s told me to do that?’
‘Only the second?’ said Stynes. ‘I’m shocked. Just make sure I’m not the last.’
Mary Preston joined Stynes in her office after Parker had left.
‘I’m starting to like him,’ said Preston. ‘But is it okay to say that he makes me nervous?’
‘He has blood on his hands,’ said Stynes. ‘And, you know, I think he may be almost fearless.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Don’t you see what he’s doing? He’s announcing his presence here, letting people like Bobby Soames know that he’s taking a professional interest in what happened to Ruth Winter, and by extension Bruno Perlman, and the Tedescos down in Florida. Whoever ordered their deaths is going to hear about it, and is going to know that Charlie Parker isn’t like the cops, or even the feds. He’s single-minded, he follows things through to their conclusion, and he won’t give up. I don’t think he ever gives up.’
Preston still looked confused.
‘He’s staking himself out, Mary,’ Stynes explained. ‘He’s going to bring whoever was responsible for those deaths down upon himself.’
‘And then?’
‘I believe he’s going to tear them apart.’
58
In any given situation, the most difficult step is to reach a decision. Once a decision is made, control can be asserted. Baulman and Riese were old soldiers, and they knew that, in war, any decision was better than none. To allow Hummel to remain alive, and wait to see what unfolded, would have been intolerable to them. It would have handed control of the situation to others – to Marie Demers, to the Justice Department, and all those who wished to deprive them of a peaceful death.
And so the Jigsaw Man arrived at Golden Hills. He had been there on many previous occasions, and was familiar with the names of at least half a dozen patients at any one time, but he had never before traveled there with the intention of ending a life.
At the front desk, he gave the name of Beate Seidel, who had been resident at Golden Hills for more than four years, and was now in a state of terminal decline. The Jigsaw Man doubted that Beate was capable of any kind of coherence in word, deed, or memory. Her mind was a series of baffling, unconnected images, and all he saw in her face that afternoon was fear. He stayed with her for half an hour, attuning himself to the rhythms of the staff. The evening meal had just been served, and a calm of sorts reigned, punctuated by the sound of competing televisions from various rooms. The orderlies and nurses had retreated to their stations to catch up on paperwork, and grab something to eat or drink.
The Jigsaw Man left Beate in her bed, staring at the ceiling, and stepped to the door to check the hallway. It was clear, so he walked quickly down to Bernhard Hummel’s room, slipping on his coat as he went, as though preparing to leave. The old man was snoozing on his bed, his slippers still on his feet. The Jigsaw Man left the door slightly open, advanced to the bed, and pulled the curtain halfway across, concealing them from anyone who might choose to peer in.
He stood over Hummel, and the old man opened his eyes. In his final moments, Bernhard Hummel was gifted with clarity.
‘I knew you’d come,’ he said. ‘Ever since Kraus visited, I knew.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the Jigsaw Man.
‘Don’t be. I’m tired of being afraid.’
Hummel closed his eyes and began to whisper.
‘Please hear my confession and pronounce forgiveness in order to fulfill God’s will,’ he said. ‘I, a poor sinner, plead guilty before God of all sins. I have lived as if God did not matter and as if I mattered most. My Lord’s name I have not honored as I should; my worship and prayers have faltered. I have not let His love—’
The Jigsaw Man had considered the best way to get rid of Hummel. Suffocation would have been easiest, but he knew that all deaths by suffocation or smothering were automatically treated as suspicious. Even a relatively gentle method, such as covering Hummel’s face with a pillow, would leave traces: bloodshot eyes, bruising around the nose and mouth, and high levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. It was important that Hummel’s passing should appear natural. Unfortunately for Hummel, that meant a difficult death.
‘In the stead and by the command of my Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins—’ said the Jigsaw Man, talking over Hummel.
It was Baulman who had given the Jigsaw Man the idea. The grapes he had brought for Hummel were still in a bowl by the bed. The Jigsaw Man had also brought a small bag of them with him in his pocket, just in case Baulman’s gift had already been removed, but now they would not be needed. He gently gripped Hummel’s lower jaw and pulled down, exposing the interior of his mout
h. Hummel’s eyes opened again, but the Jigsaw Man shook his head.
‘No,’ he said, and Hummel squeezed his eyes shut.
‘—in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,’ the Jigsaw Man continued, as he plucked three large grapes from their stems and dropped them down Hummel’s throat. ‘Amen.’
The grapes lodged perfectly, and Hummel began to choke. The Jigsaw Man put the slightest of upward pressure on Hummel’s Adam’s apple to make sure that he could not swallow. Tears rolled down Hummel’s cheeks. He clawed briefly at the Jigsaw Man’s gloved hand, and spittle flew from his mouth. The Jigsaw Man counted the seconds until Hummel’s body arched violently, and he smelled the dying of him. It had taken less time than expected. The Jigsaw Man was glad. He had always liked Hummel, and had no desire to see him suffer.
‘Go in peace,’ he concluded.
He pulled back the curtain, returned to the door, and listened. He heard no footsteps, no voices. He risked a glance out, and saw only the retreating back of an orderly. He stepped into the corridor, walked to the exit, and pressed the red button that unlocked the door. The receptionist looked up from his desk.
‘Goodbye, Pastor Werner,’ he said.
‘Goodbye,’ Werner replied. ‘And God bless you.’
59
Werner stood in the bathroom, his body dripping from the shower. He was hosting a soup supper that evening in the hall beside the church, to be followed by a short prayer service. He didn’t want to arrive there with the smell of Golden Hills still on his clothes and body.
He remained a lean, muscular man, even in his fifties. He kept weights and a bench in his basement, and exercised every morning. There was a good gym on the outskirts of town, with a better selection of weights and machines, but he rarely used it, and when he did he was careful to change before going, and to shower at home.
Now, naked before the mirror, he saw the hairless body of the Jigsaw Man. The child, Amanda Winter, used the name when she was being interviewed by the police after her mother’s murder, and Werner was amused when he heard about it – for few events in a small town, especially not a murder investigation, could ever really be kept secret. The Jigsaw Man. Looking at himself, it made a kind of sense.
Werner’s entire torso was covered with tattoos, as was his lower body down to his thighs. They had begun as a single small Balkenkreuz, the iron cross emblem of the Wehrmacht found on the side of German armored vehicles and aircraft during World War II. It was a shadow of the pectoral cross that he sometimes wore as a cleric. The Balkenkreuz had always fascinated him, even more than the swastika. The latter, he felt, had been hijacked by ignorant men – although his back was emblazoned with the Parteiadler of the Nazi Party, the stylized eagle atop the swastika – but the Balkenkreuz was the icon of soldiery. He’d had it placed in the center of his chest when he turned eighteen, then had slowly added more crosses over the years, creating an interlocking pattern, a gridwork, interspersed with other symbols, including the twin Sig runes of the SS, the Wolfsangel of the 2nd SS Panzer Division, and even the sword-and-hammer symbol of Strasserism. He had also supplemented the ornaments with appropriate quotations from Hitler and others. The first, written on his back, read ‘It is thus necessary that the individual should finally come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of the nation, that the position of the individual is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole.’ The second, across his stomach, read ‘Parallel to the training of the body a struggle against the poisoning of the soul must begin.’ All of the work had been done by the same sympathetic tattooist in Bangor. He was now an old man who, if he was aware of Werner’s vocation, gave no indication of it. So, yes, Werner was a Jigsaw Man, and the pieces came together to form a representation of something far greater than himself.
As far as he was aware, the police had largely dismissed Amanda’s description of the man at her window as a nightmare, and Werner supposed that was what he was. He still wasn’t sure what had brought him to the house that night, although he suspected that one element of it was the desire to spare Earl Steiger the trouble of doing the job, and to save a little money in the process. The war chest was nearly empty now, but it didn’t matter. His role as protector, inherited from his father, was almost at an end. Soon the last of his charges would be gone from this world.
A kind of madness had overcome him as he approached the Winter house. He wanted Ruth Winter to see him as he truly was, to witness his glory in her final moments. He stripped in the car, and walked through the darkness to her home. Only the sight of Amanda Winter asleep in her bed had saved her mother, for Werner sensed that, if he entered the house, the child might hear him and take fright, and then he would be forced to kill her too. He even thought, as he watched her, that she might already be half-awake. He didn’t want to kill Amanda. That wasn’t part of the deal by any stretch of the imagination.
Sanity returned to him after he had watched the girl for a time, or perhaps it was only a different kind of mania. He heard the sea call his name, and it spoke in the voice of Bruno Perlman. He almost thought that he could see Perlman standing amid the surf, beckoning to him, the hollow of his ruined eye like the gateway to the void into which Werner must ultimately, and inevitably, descend.
And he thought that it might not be the worst way to die, even as Perlman took solid form, the waves breaking against him, the stink of him sharp even against the salty tang of the night air. Werner barely felt the intense cold of the water as he entered it. Let oblivion come, he thought. Let the old horrors deal with the residue of their sins; I have watched over them for long enough. I will take this peace. I will lose myself in blackness, and I will sleep.
Only as the waves closed over his head did he realize that the voice that spoke to him was not his own. Salt water flooded his mouth and nose. He opened his eyes and saw Perlman floating before him, his teeth bared in rage as he recognized that he was about to lose his prize. Werner broke the surface, his body already going into shock. He fought his way back to shore, uncertain that he had the strength to make it, kicking all the while at surf and seaweed, and at the hands that he felt clawing at his legs even unto those final seconds when he crawled to the shore and lay shivering on the sand. He barely recalled returning to his car, and since then he had kept his distance from the water.
One memory of that night remained beyond dispute: he had watched over these old Germans for long enough, and mortality could not come soon enough to those that remained.
But Baulman was still a problem. Werner wasn’t sure that he could be trusted to remain silent if the Justice Department put further pressure on him, yet Baulman was one of those whom Werner had sworn to protect. Then again, he had sworn to protect Hummel, but he viewed his death as a kind of mercy killing. Baulman was different. Werner would have to consult on the matter, if it became an issue, although he was already certain of the answer he would receive.
Do it.
It would not be quite as much of a blessing as Hummel’s death, but it would be close. All Baulman had left was his dog, and even she was old. Werner would send them on their way together.
At least Oran Wilde was dead and buried. Werner had kept him alive for longer than was wise, but it had been necessary. He had required the boy’s blood to sow doubt and confuse investigators, and he didn’t know enough about pathology to be certain that analysis of the fluids wouldn’t reveal if the boy had been dead or alive when it was taken from him. Instead Werner locked Oran in the basement, and made sure that he didn’t suffer at the end.
Werner dried himself, put on a fresh shirt and pants, and attached his clerical collar. He was just combing his hair when the doorbell rang.
He answered it to find the detective, Charlie Parker, standing on his doorstep.
Parker’s first reaction to Pastor Werner was that Soames had been wrong in thinking him gay. There was an asexuality to the man, but at first Parker could not pinpoint the
source of this impression. As their conversation continued, he concluded that Werner had directed his sexual impulses away from both males and females, channeling them into his belief system. Parker had seen the pastor around town, but they had never spoken until now. Like most of the inhabitants of Boreas, he had appeared content to leave Parker in peace.
Werner was doing his best to hide his shock. The threat posed by Parker, and recognized by Steiger, was now upon him.
‘Pastor Werner?’ said Parker. ‘I’m—’
‘I know who you are.’
It came out sharper than Werner would have liked, so he tried to moderate its impact by adding, ‘I’m sorry. We have a soup supper at the church hall this evening, followed by prayers. I was about to leave.’
Parker checked his watch. ‘It’s at six o’clock, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s not even five yet, and I won’t keep you long. I just have a few questions.’
‘What kind of questions?’
‘About the town and your father.’
‘You sound like a policeman.’
‘Old habits die hard.’
‘Are you engaged in an investigation, Mr Parker?’
He said it casually, but he saw the light change in Parker’s eyes. Be careful with this one, thought Werner. Be very careful.
‘Of a kind,’ said Parker. ‘I’m trying to understand what happened here – to Ruth Winter, maybe to Bruno Perlman as well. I was involved, at least as far as Ruth Winter is concerned, so it’s personal as much as professional.’
‘But nobody has hired you?’
‘No. This one’s on my own dime.’
‘In that case,’ said Werner, ‘your time is like money. I can spare you half an hour, but then I will have to go. Come in, come in.’
He stepped aside, and welcomed the hunter into his home.
60
Marie Demers came out of a meeting in the Justice Department on Pennsylvania Avenue to find Toller rushing down the hallway toward her: Thomas Engel, who was being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, had just been moved to Lower Manhattan Hospital following what was believed to be a stroke.