The Wolf in Winter

  'That's right,' said Morland. 'Annie Broyer. He claimed that someone at a women's shelter in Bangor told him that she was headed up this way. Apparently she'd been offered a job here by an older couple, or that was the story he'd heard. He wanted to know if we'd seen her. He had a photograph of her, but it was old. He described her well, though, or well enough for me to be able to tell him that no young woman of that description had found her way into this town, or none that I knew of, and I know them all.'

  'And was he happy with that?'

  Morland's face bore an expression I'd seen a thousand times. I'd probably worn it myself on occasion. It was the face of a public servant who just wasn't paid enough to deal with the unhappiness of those for whom the reality of a situation wasn't satisfactory.

  'No, Mr Parker, he was not. He wanted me to take him to every house in Prosperous that might be occupied by an older couple and have me show them the photograph of his daughter. In fact, he went so far as to suggest we ought to search the houses of everyone over sixty, just in case they had her locked up in their home.'

  'I take it that wasn't an option.'

  Morland spread his hands helplessly.

  'He hadn't reported his daughter missing. He didn't even know if she was missing. He just had a feeling in his bones that something was wrong. But the more we got into it, the more apparent it became that he didn't really know his daughter at all. That was when I discovered that she'd been living in a women's shelter and he was homeless and they were estranged. It all got sort of messy from there.'

  'What did you do in the end?'

  'I made a copy of the photograph, put together a description of his daughter to go with it, and told him I'd ask around. But I also tried to explain to him that this wasn't the kind of town where people took in street women they didn't know and offered them beds in their homes. To be honest, I don't know a whole lot of towns where anyone would behave in that way. The story just didn't ring true. He gave me a couple of numbers for shelters and soup kitchens where a message could be left for him, and then I gave him a ride to Medway so he could catch the bus back to Bangor.'

  'Let me guess,' I said. 'The offer of a ride to Medway wasn't one that he could refuse.'

  Morland gave me the long-suffering public servant expression again.

  'Look, it was a last resort. He said he was going to get a cup of coffee, and next thing I knew he was stopping folks on the streets to show them the picture of his daughter, and taping crappy photocopies to streetlights. I'd told him that I'd do what I could to help him, and I meant it, but I wasn't going to have a bum – even a well-dressed bum – harassing citizens and defacing public property. I like my job, Mr Parker, and I want to keep it. Most of the time it's easy, and even when it's hard, it's still kind of easy. I like this town too. I grew up here. My father was chief of police before me, and his father before him. It's our family business, and we do it well.'

  It was quite a speech. I'd have voted for him if he ran for offce.

  'So you drove Jude to Medway' – I resisted suggesting that Jude had literally been given the bum's rush – 'but I'll venture that he didn't take the hint.'

  Morland puffed his cheeks.

  'He started calling my offce two or three times a day, asking if there had been any progress, but there was none. Nobody here had seen his daughter. He'd been given bad information. But he wouldn't accept that, so he came back. This time, he didn't pay me the courtesy of a visit, just went from house to house, knocking on doors and peering in windows. Naturally, I started getting telephone calls from panicked residents because it was getting dark. He was lucky he didn't get himself shot. I picked him up and kept him in a cell overnight. I told him I could have him charged with criminal trespass. Hell, he even ended up in the cemetery more than half an hour after sunset, like that fella in Dickens.'

  'Magwitch,' I said.

  'That's the one.'

  'What was he doing in the cemetery?'

  'Trying to get into the church. Don't ask me why: we keep it locked, and visits are only by appointment. We've had incidents of vandalism in the past. Do you know about our church?'

  I told him that I did, and I'd be curious to see it before I left, if that was possible. Morland perked up slightly at the prospect of my leaving town. He was tiring of talking about the problems of dead bums and their daughters.

  'In conclusion, the next morning I drove him back to Medway – again – and told him that if he showed his face in Prosperous one more time he would be arrested and charged, and he'd be no help to his daughter from a jail cell. That seemed to get through to him, and apart from a phone call or ten, that was pretty much the last I saw or heard of him, until now.'

  'And nobody in town knew anything about his daughter?'

  'No, sir.'

  'But why would his daughter have said that she was going to Prosperous if someone hadn't given her reason to do so? It sounds like an odd story to make up.'

  'She might have been trying to impress the other street people. Worst case, she spoke to someone in Bangor who told her they were from Prosperous when they weren't. It may be that this Jude was right, and something did happen to her, but if so, it didn't happen to her here.'

  Morland returned the photo of Jude, and got to his feet. We were done.

  'So you want to see the church before you go?'

  'If it's not too much trouble,' I said. 'At least you won't have to drive me to Medway after.'

  Morland managed a thin smile, but said nothing. As I stood, I let my arm brush one of the photographs on the desk. I caught it before it hit the foor, and returned it to its place.

  'Your family?' I said.

  'Yes.'

  'Good-looking boys. No girls?'

  Morland gave me a peculiar look, as though I had intimated something unpleasant about him and the nature of his familial relations.

  'No, no girls,' he said. 'I'm happy about that, I got to say. My friends with daughters tell me they're more trouble than boys. Girls will break your heart.'

  'Yes,' I said. 'Jude's daughter certainly broke his.'

  Morland took the photograph from me and restored it to its place on his desk.

  'You had a daughter, didn't you?'

  'Yes,' I said. 'She died,' I added, preempting whatever might have followed. I was used to it by now.

  'I know,' said Morland. 'I'm sorry. You have another little girl now, don't you?'

  I looked at him curiously, but he appeared nothing but sincere.

  'Did you read that somewhere too?' I asked.

  'You think there's anyone in Maine law enforcement who doesn't know your history? This is a small-town state. Word gets around.'

  That was true, but Morland still had a remarkable memory for the family histories of men he had never met before.

  'That's right, I have another little girl,' I conceded.

  Morland seemed on the verge of saying something, then reconsidered, contenting himself with, 'Maybe if this man Jude hadn't walked out on his family, his daughter might not have ended up the way she did.'

  Morland had a point – Jude, had he still been alive, might even have agreed with him – but I wasn't about to point the fnger at Jude's failings as a husband and a father. I had my own guilt to bear in that regard.

  'He tried to make up for it at the end,' I said. 'He was just doing what any father would have done when he came looking for her in Prosperous.'

  'Is that a criticism of how he was treated by my department?'

  Morland didn't bristle, but he wasn't far off it. 'My department', I noted, not 'me'.

  'No,' I said. 'You just did what any chief of police would have done.'

  That wasn't quite the truth, but it was true enough. Maybe if Morland had a daughter of his own he might have behaved more compassionately; and if Jude hadn't been a bum, and his daughter a homeless ex-junkie, Morland might have tried a little harder – just a little, but sometimes that's all it takes. I didn't say any of this aloud, though. It wouldn't hav
e helped, and I couldn't guarantee that, in his position, and with his background, I would have behaved any differently.

  We walked from his offce. Morland told the receptionist that he was heading out to the chapel. She looked surprised, but said nothing.

  'This woman, Annie Broyer, you think she's dead?' asked Morland as we stepped outside.

  'I don't know,' I said. 'I hope not.'

  'So you're going to keep looking for her?'

  'Probably.'

  'And you've been hired to do this by whom?'

  'I haven't been hired by anyone.'

  'So why are you looking for her?'

  'Because nobody else will,' I said.

  Morland took this in, then told me to follow his car.

  He was still shaking his head as he pulled away.

  23

  The Blessed Chapel of the Congregation of Adam Before Eve & Eve Before Adam, to give it its full title, was situated in the middle of a forest about half a mile northwest of Prosperous. A road marked private, and secured with a lock and chain for which Chief Morland had a key, wound through the woods until it came to iron railings painted black, within which lay the town's original cemetery and the church itself. Morland parked his car on a narrow strip of grass beside the railings, and I parked on the road. There was a gate in the railings, also kept closed with a lock and chain, but it was already open when we arrived.

  'I gave Pastor Warraner a call along the way and asked him to join us,' said Morland. 'It's just good manners. The church is in his care. I have a key, but it's only in case of an emergency. Otherwise, I leave all such matters to him.'

  I looked around, but I could see no sign of the pastor. The church was even smaller and more primitive than I had expected, with walls of rough-hewn gray stone, and a western orientation instead of the more usual eastern. I did one full circuit of the building, and it didn't take long. A heavy oak door seemed to be the only point of entry or exit, and it had two narrow windows on its northern and southern walls, sealed with glass from within and bars without. The wall behind what I presumed to be the altar was blank and windowless. The roof was relatively new, and appeared incongruous above the ancient stones.

  The main decorative features, in the form of the faces for which the church was famous, were in the upper corners of each wall, creating a kind of Janus effect where they met, an impression compounded by the fact that the lengths of carved ivy and branches of which the decorations were composed fowed between the faces and continued along the upper lengths of the walls, so that the visages all appeared to spring from the same source. They had weathered over the centuries, but not as much as might have been expected. Intricate constructions of stone leaves formed a protective screen around them, from which the faces peered out. They reminded me of childhood and fairy tales, and of the way in which the markings on the trunks of very old trees sometimes took on the appearance of contorted, suffering people, depending on the light and the angle at which they were examined.

  But what struck me most was the sheer malevolence of the expressions on the carvings. These were not manifestations of gentle emotions nor signifers of hope. Instead, they boded only ill for all who looked on them. To my mind, they had no more place on a church building than a pornographic image.

  'What do you think?' said Morland, as he joined me.

  'I've never seen anything like them before,' I said, which was the most neutral reply I could offer.

  'There are more inside,' he said. 'Those are just the opening acts.'

  As if on cue, the door to the chapel opened and a man stepped out.

  'Pastor Warraner,' said Morland, 'this is Mr Parker, the detective I told you about.'

  Warraner wasn't what I had expected of a cleric who had charge of a building that was almost a millennium old. He wore jeans and battered work boots, and a brown suede jacket that had the look of a garment long reached for instinctively when warmth and comfort were required. He was in his late forties, with heavily receding hair, and as we shook hands I saw and felt the calluses on his skin, and caught a faint smell of timber and wood shavings on him.

  'Call me Michael,' he said. 'I'm glad I was around to say hello.'

  'Do you live nearby?' I asked. I hadn't seen any other vehicle when we arrived.

  'Just the other side of the woods,' he said, gesturing over his right shoulder with his thumb. 'Five minutes on foot. Same time that it takes me in my truck by the less scenic route, so it makes more sense to walk. May I ask what brings a private detective to our town?'

  I stared at the church carvings, and they stared back. One had its mouth wide open, and a tongue poked obscenely from between its carved lips. It seemed to mock any hope I might have of fnding Annie Broyer alive.

  'A homeless man named Jude came to Prosperous recently,' I said. 'Chief Morland tells me that he may have trespassed on the church grounds in the course of one of those visits.'

  'I remember,' said Warraner. 'I was the one who found him here. He was very agitated, so I had no choice but to call Chief Morland for assistance.'

  'Why was he agitated?'

  'He was concerned about his daughter. She was missing, and he was under the impression that she might have come to Prosperous. He felt he wasn't getting the help he needed from the police. No offense meant, Chief.'

  'None taken,' said Morland, although it was hard to tell if he was sincere as he had kept his sunglasses on against the glare of winter sun on snow. I barely knew Morland, but I had already fgured him for a man who guarded any slights jealously, nurturing them and watching them grow.

  'Anyhow, I tried to calm him down, but I didn't have much success,' said Warraner. 'I told him to leave the grounds, and he did, but I was worried that he might attempt to break into the church, so I called the chief.'

  'Why would you think he'd want to break into the church?' I asked.

  Warraner pointed at the faces looming above his head.

  'Disturbed people fxate,' he said, 'and this wonderful old building provides more opportunities for fxation than most. Over the years we've had attempts to steal the carvings from the walls, and to deface them. We've found people – and not just young ones either but folk old enough to know better – having sex on the ground here because they were under the impression it would help them to conceive a child, and, of course, we've been visited by representatives of religious groups who object to the presence of pagan symbols on a Christian church.'

  'As I understand it, this town was founded by the Familists, and it was orginally their church,' I said. 'Their belief system strikes me as more than a complicated variation on Christianity.'

  Warraner looked pleasantly surprised at the question, like a Mormon who had suddenly found himself invited into a house for coffee, cake and a discussion of the wit and wisdom of Joseph Smith.

  'Why don't you step into my offce, Mr Parker?' he said, welcoming me into the chapel.

  'As long as I'm not keeping you from anything important,' I said.

  'Just kitchen closets,' he said. 'I run a joinery service.'

  He fshed a card from his pocket and handed it to me.

  'So you're not a full-time pastor?'

  Warraner laughed. 'I'd be a pauper if I was. No, I'm really just a caretaker and part-time historian. We no longer have services here: the Familists are no more. The closest we have are some Quaker families. The rest are mainly Baptists and Unitarians, even some Catholics.'

  'And what about you?' I said. 'You still keep the title of "pastor".'

  'Well, I majored in religion at Bowdoin, and studied as a Master of Divinity at Bangor Theological Seminary, but I always did prefer woodworking. Still, I guess you could say that the theological gene runs in the family. I hold a weekly prayer group, although often I'm the only one praying, and there are people in town who come to me for advice and guidance. They tend to be folk who aren't regular churchgoers but still believe. I don't probe too deeply into what it is that they do believe. It's enough that they believe in some power
greater than themselves.'

  We were in the church now. If it was cold outside, it was colder still inside. Five rows of hard wooden benches faced a bare altar. There were no crosses, and no religious symbols of any kind. Instead, the wall behind the altar was dominated by a foliate face larger than any that decorated the exterior. Two slightly smaller faces of a similar kind were visible between the windows.

  'Do you mind if I take a closer look?' I said.

  'By all means,' said Warraner. 'Just watch your step. Some of the stones are uneven.'

  I approached the altar along the right aisle of the church. As I passed, I glanced at the frst of the faces. It was more detailed than the ones outside, and had a grinning, mischievous expression. As I looked at it more closely, I saw that all of its features were made from stone recreations of produce: squash, pea pods, berries, apples and ears of wheat. I had seen something like it before, but I couldn't recall where.