"Why don't you sit down," the woman said. "We were about to take a coffee break anyway. There's no electricity yet, but we've got a big Thermos."
Mo took a seat and accepted the Styrofoam cup she handed him. Paul Skoglund pulled a chair around and poured himself a cup of coffee, and the three of them sat facing each other. Mo introduced himself in more detail, then gave them a general overview of his investigation, avoiding details—just enough information to persuade them to give a consent search.
Skoglund and the woman, Lia McLean, explained how they came to be involved at the house. As they talked, Mo appraised them. Paul Skoglund was tall, fit, with light brown hair, and, now that his anger had dissipated, an open, friendly face. He seemed to have a lot of nervous gestures and occasionally repeated the barklike cough. Two thin vertical lines rose between his brows, the traces of worry that Mo associated with people of conscience.
But the woman. Lia. Oh God, Mo thought, not this. He tried to avoid looking at her except to meet her eyes occasionally, as he did Paul's, consciously distributing his gaze. She was wearing jeans and a thick sweater and absurd embroidered purple socks above white running shoes. A band of late-afternoon sunshine fell across her as she sat, setting her thick hair on fire. Perfect legs, exactly the kind of strength in her thighs he most admired. A heart-shaped face, youthful but for a faint band of purple below each eye which gave her otherwise confident appearance a touch of vulnerability that Mo found himself hopelessly susceptible to. And that alertness about her: incredibly clear eyes with a disconcertingly acute focus. There was no wedding ring on her finger, but from the way she looked at Skoglund, the way they touched each other, it was clear they were either married or at the very least shacking up. Mo felt the familiar misery of his longing come over him, and cursed himself.
"So there are several vectors that seem to intersect here," Lia said. "You're hearing that at least two teenagers were here shortly before their disappearances. And there's a possible connection to another case, which I'm presuming you don't wish to tell us too much about for confidentiality reasons."
"Exactly."
"There are a couple of things I'd like clarified," she said. "You have to understand, I grew up in a police family—my father's an investigator in Providence, I've taken some forensics courses, I work part-time as an investigator for a child- and spouse-abuse advocacy group. What I don't get is why you're only now looking into this. When the kids disappeared, what, three or four months ago?"
Mo cleared his throat. "My predecessor on the case retired, so there was a, ah, delay in things. I'm new up here. I was posted with a different BCI office before. It took me a few weeks to get oriented."
"You mentioned that your senior officer didn't really think there was much to go on here."
"I intend to change his mind."
Lia laughed softly. "My father used to get into trouble for playing the Lone Ranger too often. Do you often do things this way?"
"This is the first time that comes to mind," Mo lied.
Lia got serious. "When he did it, it was usually because either he didn't have a lot of faith in his superiors'judgment, or they didn't have a lot of faith in his."
It was clear he'd have to stay on the level with her: She'd catch him in any omissions or inconsistencies. At the same time, he wasn't about to tell her the whole saga of his checkered past.
"Let's just say this is a combination of both," Mo said.
"We're curious about what happened here too, as you can imagine," Lia said. "As you saw, there's a strange quality to the vandalism." She looked at Paul. "Detective Ford's being here might be a real stroke of luck, Paul! It would be great to have a trained forensic investigator here—he'll no doubt see a lot of things we'd miss."
The worry lines between Paul's brow deepened. "No doubt. But it's not our house. We'd have to ask Vivien." He bit back a cough, puffed his cheeks and forcefully blew out a column of air, then turned to Mo.
"My aunt has made it clear she doesn't want the police looking into this, Mr. Ford."
"Just 'Mo' is fine."
"She distrusts everyone, including the police, and she values her privacy. I doubt she'll let the police in here on the basis of what you've told us."
"I'd hoped she'd voluntarily let me in."
"Very unlikely," Lia said. "See, Mo, there's a lot we don't understand, beyond the unusual nature of the damage. Paul's aunt has done some strange things." She went on to explain that Vivien had left abruptly, without making any provisions at all to secure the house or protect her valuables. "It's almost as if she knew she had to get out quick."
"Could be." Mo rubbed his chin, thinking it over. "Tell you what. Give me your aunt's telephone number, I'll call her, try to get her consent to look through here. If she says yes, I'll conduct some routine forensics. In the meantime, I'd like to ask a small favor. Bend the rules a bit—walk me through the house today. Just so I have a general idea."
"Sure," Paul said. "If we're going to do it, we should go right away. Once the sun gets below the ridge, it gets dark in here. You won't be able to get as good a sense of it by flashlight."
Lia tied on a pair of boots, and then Mo walked behind her out into the big room, followed by Paul. Mo allowed himself to look her up and down: the cascade of hair down her back, the fine square shoulders, the supple stride. He looked quickly away.
In the main room, a lowering sun threw tree shadows onto the milky plastic over the west-facing windows. A man came through the door Mo had entered by, set down his toolbox, and rubbed his hands. Mo assumed he was the electrician whose van was parked out front. From outside came the roll and chunk of a sliding van door.
"We're out of here for the day," the electrician said. "Enough's enough already. Maybe you should have a refrigeration specialist come in, they're used to working in absolute zero. Myself, I'm losing the feeling in my fingers."
"How'd it go today?" Paul asked.
"Slow. It's dark and cold down there. Plus, in these old places, they ran the wiring down a central tree from the attic. Some of this conduit has been yanked so hard it's been pulled loose up there. The whole central wiring tree's screwed. I'll have to get up into the attic tomorrow. It means replacing more than I thought, more time in the up-and-down." The electrician rubbed his thumb and fingers together, the universal sign for money.
Lia and Paul introduced Mo to the old man, Dempsey Corrigan, who was just finishing packing his tools for the night.
"I take it this is an okay cop," the old guy said.
"I try," Mo told him.
"Well, good. And good night, kids. I'll be back in the morning." Dempsey swung his toolbox up and headed for the kitchen door.
Lia led them into the library, then into the downstairs bedrooms. Mo couldn't restrain repeated whistles of astonishment. There were drifts of rubble two and three feet deep in places—torn clothes and broken furniture, wrecked appliances and crumpled papers, dead houseplants, chunks of plaster from the walls.
"Holy shit," Mo said. "Excuse my French. Have you dug through any of these piles?"
"No. My priorities have been to close the place off against the weather, get the services back on line, set up for the long haul. My aunt wanted us to start with her papers."
"I mean," Mo went on, "you could easily have a corpse or two under all that. It's colder than a morgue drawer in here, so you wouldn't necessarily—" He stopped. He'd obviously upset his hosts with the idea.
Lia prodded him: "Wouldn't necessarily what?"
"Well, I was going to say that with the cold, no decomposition, your, uh, nose wouldn't necessarily clue you. Only way would be to conduct a manual search. Or bring dogs in."
"Terrific," Paul said. "Fucking terrific."
They started up the stairs in silence, the gruesome idea still with them. On the balcony, they stopped as Mo leaned against the railing and surveyed the room. It was a picture of the aftermath of a demented frenzy. On the way up, he'd had to step around a refrigerator door that h
ad been ripped off its hinges and thrust through the banister railing. Downstairs, he'd noticed a sink that had been shoved hard enough that it had lodged, head-high, in the lath-and-plaster wall.
"Have you ever seen anything like this before?" Lia asked.
"Nothing even close."
"What comes to mind when you look at it?"
"Psychopathology. Maybe combined with other motives—intimidation, revenge."
"We had surmised the same," Paul told him. "There's one other element that's suggested by the holes in the walls, the ripped-up heating ducts. We figured maybe somebody was searching for something."
Mo shook his head. "No. Or rather, not just that. Whatever other conscious motives, you've got to have some psychopathology here. Somebody with a lot of pressure inside."
By the time they descended the stairs, only a thin band of light lingered at the top of the tall windows, and the big room was starting to darken.
"You're welcome to come into the smoking room and warm up,"
Lia said.
"I'd like that." Mo rubbed his hands together.
"Yeah," Paul said darkly. "I know: colder than a morgue drawer." Mo chuckled. "Sorry. I could learn to keep my mouth shut once in a while."
"No!" Lia said emphatically. "Absolutely not. Your take on this is just what we need."
They went into the warmth. Lia's compliment, if that's what it was, made Mo feel good. The three of them held their hands in the hot air rising from the heater, not speaking, until Paul turned and began pumping up a Coleman lantern. When he had lit it and set it on the mantelpiece, he looked out the darkening windows briefly, and then turned back. "Well, I'd say the sun is verifiably over the yard arm," he said decisively.
"And I am going to have some cognac. I don't usually drink this early, but it's been a rotten day and I feel entitled to some self-indulgence.
Who's joining me?"
"I'd love some," Lia said. "You, Mo?"
Mo stalled, not sure. "What the hell is a 'yard arm' anyway?" Lia laughed. "No one knows. In Providence, it's called a yahd ahm." She mimicked the New England accent perfectly.
Paul poured amber liquor into three Styrofoam cups and handed Mo one. Mo inhaled the fumes, feeling better than he had in a long time. He liked these two. His divorce had worked an attrition on his circle of friends, the people he'd known when he was half of a couple, all of whom ultimately took one side or the other. He'd found it difficult to stand the company even of those who'd stayed with him, uncomfortable with the mix of sympathy and suspicion that seemed to follow divorce. But this was nice. Maybe there was hope for him after all.
"I've got a question for you, Mo," Lia said. She turned her eyes on him with a trust that warmed him. For an instant, he wondered if he might be letting his attraction to her bias his judgment about getting involved up here, telling them too much, bending too many rules.
"What's that?"
"What kind of investigator are you? I mean what kind of process you use—do you think of yourself as Apollonian or Dionysian? Rational and logical, or intuitive and instinctive?"
Mo laughed uneasily. He was flattered by her attention, but she had unknowingly touched upon a sore spot. "Good question," he said. He repressed a desire to tell them about White Plains and the whole chain of ramifications. "You learn one in forensic training, but you're born with 'the other. I guess I use both, you've got to. But probably I go to extremes. I'd do better if my Apollo and my Dionysus could work together as a team. Kind of meet in the middle."
"I think we all feel the same way." Lia reached over and touched her cup to his. "To meeting in the middle," she said, and swigged off her cognac. Mo automatically did the same.
Paul poured another jot into all three cups. The windows were now black rectangles, and Mo became conscious of their isolation, the acres of dark forest that surrounded them.
"Well, we'll need both halves of our brains to figure this mess out," Paul said. "We've run into some very interesting things among my aunt's papers. Some of them may be linked to the vandalism here."
"The problem is," Lia said, "we don't have access to other sources of information. We have an odd photo that suggests something like this happened before, but we can't be sure. We've found . . . well, other interesting things." She glanced at Paul, as if asking a question.
"I have to honor my aunt's desire for privacy," Paul said. "It's problematical."
Mo stood up. "Listen. I want to make a pitch to you. I hear your concerns, and I respect your aunt's desire, her right, for privacy. Okay. I can't just make your aunt open this place up, but at the same time I wouldn't be here if I didn't feel strongly that there was something here I need to find." He found himself getting worked up about it, gesturing, pacing feverishly. "I've got some kids, some good kids, missing. Their parents and brothers and sisters are walking wounded, there's a hole in their lives. I've got another young man who was killed dead. I can't figure out who or how or why, but I've got good indications he's tied in too. So what am I supposed to do—not follow the leads that brought me here?"
He turned to face them, glad to see they were listening and responsive. "And one other concern you ought to think about. The element of danger to you. This place scares the shit out of me—excuse my French. The sooner we get to the bottom of what happened, the sooner we can neutralize any danger to you while you're up here. And whether she likes it or not, to your aunt when she returns."
He paused to let that sink in. "So here's my proposition. I call your aunt, try to get permission for a consent search. If she doesn't consent, fine, then I don't come into the house. But maybe a little compromise will be in everybody's best interests, and this part's up to you. You tell me what you find, what you discover as you go along. I run the outside work."
Lia and Paul looked at each other. "It'd be just what we need, Paul!" Lia said.
Paul needed another minute to think about it. "Okay," he said finally. "But on one condition. I'd like to get this thing with Rizal cleared up. I don't want to be pushed around by him again. If you look into why he's hassling us, I'll agree to your proposal."
"That's tricky. I can't tell you about an ongoing investigation. I'm not willing to cast any aspersions on—"
"I know, loyalty to the cop corps, the brotherhood in blue. But you can tell me if there is really any drug investigation or if there's some other bug up this guy's butt." A hint of the anger Mo had seen earlier crossed Paul's face. "Just as you're sure this house is connected to your case, I'm sure he's got some hidden motives in this. I'd like to know what."
Mo considered it. Rizal was a shit, Mo wouldn't put anything past him. His instinct told him these were good people. He smiled. "Okay.
It's a deal." He took his notebook out of his jacket pocket, flipped it open, settled into his chair. "Okay. So tell me what you've got."
37
THE CANDLE FLAMES thrummed in unison, dancing to some invisible draft. Paul lay, thinking, staring at the ceiling. First thing in the morning, he planned to dig into the biggest drifts, just to set their minds at ease. It would be impossible to work wondering if the next time they moved something they'd uncover a goddamned corpse.
Rolled in her sleeping bag, Lia read one of her textbooks, leaving him to his thoughts, and Paul was glad—there were things he couldn't talk about with her just yet.
Morgan Ford, for example. At every turn, the detective had confounded Paul's preconceptions of what a cop was like. He had a self-effacing quality that made him accessible, rather charming Never pushy, no authority games. Yet at the same time Mo had a tough, assertive, competent side. Clearly a person who had taken a realistic look at his own strengths and shortcomings and come to terms with both.
When the detective interviewed them, he'd guided the discussion skillfully, listening attentively, taking detailed notes. They'd been left with no doubts as to his professional skills.
But there were aspects of Mo that Paul didn't want to mention to Lia right away. Paul had immediate
ly sensed Mo's attraction to Lia, the way his body had reacted whenever she inadvertently bumped shoulders with the detective during their tour of the house. Even his interviewing talents hadn't concealed the slight modulation of his voice whenever he addressed her. Paul was willing to bet that Mo had been divorced within the last year. He recognized the symptoms: the sweet-sad yearning of the single man. Looking at Lia leaning against the end of the bed now, her T-shirt taut against the round full curve of her breasts, he didn't blame Mo in the slightest.
Had Lia noticed? In every other way she was very observant, but her single blind spot was that unlike most beautiful women she was completely unaware of the effect she had on men. After two years with her, he'd come to know that her friendliness toward men was nothing more than a tomboy camaraderie, the natural ease of a woman who had grown up with three brothers, a cop father, a bunch of uncles. He'd always cherished her lack of self-consciousness. But a man meeting her for the first time could easily misunderstand her simple gregariousness.
Whether she'd noticed or not, Paul could understand why she might respond to Mo. The cop had a good build that his trim charcoal suit flattered, thick dark hair short on the sides but a little too long in front, a hint of the fifties rockabilly pop star. He had a generous, slightly asymmetrical nose and unwavering dark eyes with surprisingly long lashes.
In a lot of ways, Lia and Mo were more alike than Paul and Lia were: Both had quick, curious minds and a direct, pragmatic approach that Paul envied. Both had the bloodhound's instinct for the trail, both spoke the language of police procedure. When the three of them were talking, Lia and Mo had sometimes left him behind as they skipped ahead an inference or two, leaving Paul to wonder what he'd missed.
Plus—and this he hated to admit to himself—there had been something reassuring about having Mo in the house. Paul had caught a glimpse of the gun he carried in a snug shoulder holster, and he had no doubt the detective knew how to use it. Certainly Paul wasn't a source of reassurance to anybody, with his fucking tics and jitters and family skeletons.