Gray Ghost (11 page)

Mattie smiled. “That nice car? All dressed up? Not what you’d expect for a friend of Errol, that’s all. Maybe I was wrong about that.”

“How long did the man stay?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. I was in the house. I just noticed the car drive up and the man get out.”

“Did he go inside? Did he and Errol talk?”

She shook her head. “I wasn’t like snooping, honestly. I just happened to glance out the window and notice that car pulling up in front of his house. Only reason I even paid any attention was, we don’t have cars like that coming to this neighborhood that much. Next time I looked out, it was gone.”

“How much later was that?”

She shrugged. “Couple hours, I guess. But it could’ve been gone for a long time before that.”

“This is helpful,” said the sheriff. “Thank you, Mattie. If you think of anything else, you be sure to give me a call. You’ve got my card.”

“Sure,” she said. “I will.”

They got into Calhoun’s truck and waved at Mattie, and the sheriff told him to head back to the shop.

“You didn’t want to talk to some of the other neighbors?” said Calhoun after they’d pulled back onto Route One.

“Nope.”

“You find anything interesting inside?”

The sheriff shrugged.

“It would appear that Watson was interrupted,” said Calhoun. “Left the TV running, his dinner half eaten.”

“It’d take some kind of man to eat even half of that shit,” said the sheriff.

Calhoun smiled. “You gonna tell me what you’re thinking?”

“Not yet.”

“I’m your deputy,” said Calhoun. “You’re supposed to share.”

The sheriff shook his head. “If I’m wrong,” he said, “I don’t want you to think I’m stupid.”

When they got back to the shop, the three of them went inside. Ralph curled up on his old sweatshirt in the corner next to the door. Adrian was still behind the counter, and Kate was talking with a customer at the rack of fly rods. The sheriff went over and spoke to her, then crooked his finger at Calhoun.

Calhoun followed the sheriff back to Kate’s office. “What’re we doing?” he said.

The sheriff sat in Kate’s chair and hitched himself up to her computer. “Watch and learn,” he said.

“I ain’t interested in learning any of that computer mumbo-jumbo,” said Calhoun. “My head’s too full already.”

“Well, sit there and keep me company, at least.”

Calhoun took the wooden chair across from him.

The sheriff was pecking away at the computer, mumbling, “Hm,” and then, “Ha,” and after a few minutes, “I thought so.” He looked up. “Come here, Stoney. Take a look at this.”

Calhoun got up and went around to the sheriff’s side of the desk. On the computer screen was a colored photograph of a thin-faced man with a balding head and round glasses. He looked about forty, and then Calhoun saw his birthday, which was 7/17/62. His place of residence was Portland 04101. No street address.

“Errol Watson?” said Calhoun.

“Himself.”

“Looks like a banker.”

The sheriff snorted a quick laugh. “Take a look.”

The sheriff scrolled down the screen, and Calhoun saw a list headed “Convictions.” Errol Watson had five convictions—two for Title 17A, section 253, “Gross Sexual Assault,” two for 17A, section 254, “Sexual Abuse of Minors,” and one for 17A, section 255A, “Unlawful Sexual Contact.”

“Not a nice man,” said Calhoun.

“No. I’m prepared to bet my pension that as we speak, Mr. Watson is in a drawer in the refrigerator room in the morgue in Augusta, all burned beyond recognition.”

Calhoun found himself nodding. “I wouldn’t bet against you. How’d you do that, anyway?”

“I told you to watch and learn.”

“Just give me the condensed version.”

The sheriff smiled and waved his hand. “I had a hunch, that’s all.”

“More than a hunch, I bet.”

“Well, sure,” said the sheriff. “A couple of things struck me, as they probably struck you. First off, our corpse having his pecker cut off and jammed into his mouth, suggesting he might be a sex offender of some kind. Second, Mattie there, her mother being so emphatic, telling her to stay away from Errol Watson. Third, the fact that Watson left suddenly, his dinner half eaten, his dog on the loose, the TV still running. And fourth, just the way he was living. Solitary. Disorganized. Aimless. A man having trouble finding a place in society, no friends or family coming to visit, and who didn’t care very much one way or the other.” He looked at Calhoun and shook his head. “So anyway, putting all that together, I wondered if Mr. Errol Watson himself might be a convicted sex offender. If so, I knew we’d find him on the sex offender registry. So I just went there on the Internet and typed in his name, and that’s how I got what you’re looking at.”

“Simple as that,” said Calhoun.

“Yep. Simple as that. Here. Take a look.”

The sheriff typed something, and up on the screen came a page titled “Maine Sex Offender Registry Search.” “Okay,” he said. “When I went here before, I typed in Watson’s name, but you can type in a town instead. Let’s look at Portland.” He pressed a key, and another page appeared on the screen. He scrolled down a list and clicked on “Portland.” Almost instantly an alphabetical list of names with telephone numbers appeared. “Here you are,” said the sheriff. “All the convicted sex criminals who live or work in Portland. They update it on a regular basis.” He scrolled down the numbered list.

Calhoun read the names as they appeared on the computer monitor. The last one on the list was number 129. “That’s a lot perverts for one little city,” he said.

“Those are just the ones who’ve been tried and convicted,” said the sheriff. “The tip of the proverbial iceberg.”

“Only three women.”

The sheriff nodded. “That’s the usual percentage. Women don’t get accused much, and they get convicted less often. Doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of female perverts out there.”

Calhoun was nodding. “So these people,” he said, “these sex offenders, anybody can see who they are, what they look like, what they’ve done, where they’re living and working. All you need is a computer.”

“That’s right,” said the sheriff. “It’s all public information, and they try to make it as easy as possible for the public to get at it. The whole point is for everybody to know who these predatory sons of bitches are.” He pushed himself to his feet. “So now I’m going to hustle back to my office and see what else I can find out about Mr. Errol Watson. And I’m going to inform Detective Gilsum and the ME’s office up in Augusta that we have a possible ID on our corpse. They can get the dental records of anybody who’s spent time in prison.”

The sheriff went to the front of the shop and waved at Kate, who was on the phone at the counter. She waved back at the sheriff and gave Calhoun a quick little smile that was pretty convincing around her mouth but didn’t make it all the way up to her eyes.

“I’ll be in tomorrow,” Calhoun said to her.

“If the sheriff needs you …”

“Hell,” he said, “I’m just a volunteer deputy. I got a responsibility. I’ll be here to open up at noon and I’ll close at four, and you should stay home and take it easy for once.”

“I might just do that,” Kate said. “I sure could use a break.”

“I’ll be here,” said Calhoun. “Don’t even think about it.” He gave her a smile and a nod and got out of there quick before Kate felt obligated to try to smile again.

The sheriff was in the parking lot leaning against the side of his Explorer. When Calhoun caught up to him, he said, “We did some good work today, Stoney. I think we make a pretty good partnership, don’t you?”

“It ain’t a partnership,” said Calhoun. “You’re the boss and I’m your deputy.”

“I don’t really think of it that way.”

“I do,” said Calhoun. “It’s the way I want it to be.”

The sheriff shrugged. “Whatever. Either way.”

“Those records,” said Calhoun. “Watson’s, I mean. They should tell you who his victim was, right?”

“Victim or victims, plural. Yes.” The sheriff smiled. “You’re thinking about somebody with a motive to slice his throat and cut off his dick and set him afire.”

“Well,” said Calhoun, “if some man had unlawful sexual contact with my minor daughter, say, and sexually abused her, and committed gross sexual assault on her, if I’m even close to imagining what those crimes actually amount to, I can’t think of anything I wouldn’t want to do to him.”

“Or,” said the sheriff, “if you just suspected he might’ve had unlawful sexual contact with your daughter. Or even if you suspected he might’ve just thought about it.”

Calhoun nodded. “You’re thinking about Mattie.”

“Mattie’s daddy. Lawrence Perkins from Kittery.”

“Or even Mattie’s mom.”

The sheriff shrugged. “Anybody who knew what Mr. Errol Watson was makes a pretty good suspect when you think about it.” He climbed into his Explorer, started it up, and rolled down the window. “We’ve still got to find the Paul Vecchio connection,” he said.

“If there is one.”

“Oh,” said the sheriff, “I’m sure there is.”

“I’m working at the shop in the afternoon tomorrow.”

“I’ll find you if I need you.”

Calhoun heated up a can of beans and a leftover piece of steak for dinner. He and Ralph ate out on the deck while the sky turned from blue to pewter to purple to black and Bitch Creek bubbled around the rocks out back and the bats flapped around in the yard.

He was in the kitchen washing the dishes when he saw headlights cutting through the woods and pulling into his yard.

He took the Remington twelve-gauge off its pegs and went out onto the deck in time to see the Man in the Suit step out of his Audi. He made a visor of his hand, looked up, then waved and started up the steps.

Calhoun stood there at the top with the barrel of his shotgun resting on his shoulder.

“Put that damn thing away, Stoney,” said the Man in the Suit. “I come in peace.”

“You never go anywhere in peace,” said Calhoun. But he turned and leaned the shotgun against the wall.

The Man in the Suit went over and sat in one of the Adirondack chairs. “You got some coffee heated up?”

Calhoun shrugged, went inside, poured two mugs full, and took them outside. He put one on the table next to the Man in the Suit and held the other in both hands. He remained standing. He figured if he sat down it would look like he welcomed the man’s company. “So what do you want?” he said.

“I wanted to congratulate you. A deputy sheriff. The first step in what promises to be a long and exciting career as a crime buster.”

“Not me,” said Calhoun.

“I mean it,” said the Man in the Suit. “You made the right decision. So how’s it going?”

“What’s it to you?”

The Man in the Suit smiled. “That’s the big question, isn’t it?” He leaned forward. “Stoney, I wish I could speak more candidly with you, I really do. Maybe someday I’ll be able to. But let’s put it this way for now. You are investigating a couple of interesting crimes. You are, I have no doubt, discovering talents and knowledge that you didn’t know you had. You’re remembering new things, learning more about yourself. Am I right?”

Calhoun shook his head. “I just do what the sheriff tells me to do, that’s all. I drive him around, mainly. I don’t have any particular talent or knowledge that I’m aware of. I’m just helping him out. It’s no big deal.”

The Man in the Suit smiled. “You can be up-front with me, Stoney. I’m your friend.”

Calhoun had danced this dance with the Man in the Suit before. He had no intention of being up-front with him. “I know that,” he said. “I’m just telling you how it is.”

The Man in the Suit peered at Calhoun over the rim of his coffee mug. He took a sip, then put it down. “There is much about yourself that you don’t know, Stoney, and that I do know. Quid pro quo, remember ?”

“I got no quid for you,” said Calhoun. “Sorry.”

“Your family,” the Man in the Suit said, as if Calhoun hadn’t spoken. “Your education. Where you lived. What you did. What you were good at. Who you loved. Who loved you.”

“I don’t care about that,” said Calhoun. “I got a chance to start my life over again, and it’s going pretty good.”

“That’s not how I hear it.”

“What do you hear?” said Calhoun before he could stop himself.

The Man in the Suit shrugged. “I hear Kate dumped you, for one thing.”

“She didn’t—” He clamped his mouth shut, then took a deep breath. “That’s none of your God damn business.”

The Man in the Suit shrugged. He finished his mug of coffee, put the mug down, and stood up. “Maybe next time I come by you’ll be in a better mood, Stoney.”

“Don’t bother coming by,” said Calhoun. “This is my mood whenever I see you.”

“We haven’t talked about your relatives lately,” said the Man in the Suit.

Calhoun knew this was how the man hoped to manipulate him, but he couldn’t help himself. “What relatives?”

“Well,” said the Man in the Suit, “for example, it occurred to me that you might have wondered if you had any children.”

Calhoun clenched his teeth so that he wouldn’t speak before he thought about what to say.

Then he said, “I don’t care about that.”

The Man in the Suit smiled and nodded. “Right. Okay, Stoney. Maybe another time.” He went down the steps to his Audi. He opened the door, looked up and waved, and got into his car.

Calhoun stood there and watched him head up the driveway

until his headlights stopped winking through the woods and the purr of the Audi’s engine died in the distance.

He knew it was going to be hard not to think about children, now that the Man in the Suit had stuck that idea into his head.

But he planned to try.

Calhoun woke up with gray light and a cacophony of birdsong seep-ing in through the bedroom window screen. It had been another lousy night’s sleep. The last time he remembered sleeping decently was several nights earlier with Kate beside him, their legs all tangled together, her hair in his face, her skin slick against his.

That was before she told him she wasn’t going to come to his house anymore, and before Paul Vecchio showed up dead, and before Ralph disappeared.

The dreams, as usual, faded too fast for him to nail them down, and he was left with that familiar sadness, the vague certainty that things were not right. He often had vivid dreams, and he understood that if he could remember them and analyze them, they would give him a window into his life before ten thousand volts of lightning had pulverized all of his conscious memories.

He could never recall them, though. He’d tried instructing himself to wake up in the middle of a dream so he could write it down for later analysis, and he had managed to do it a few times, but in the sharp rational light of morning wakefulness, his notes made no sense whatsoever. “Woman with no eyes waving her hat at me,” he’d written once about a dream that had left him feeling panicky. Another time: “Naked in the desert surrounded by children with heads like tennis racquets.”

The doctors at the VA hospital in Virginia had explained that his memories of the first thirty-odd years of his life weren’t really gone. They resided in remote and mysterious corners of his unconscious mind. But his wiring had short-circuited. The electronic connections, the network of ganglions and synapses that allowed thoughts to move back and forth between the conscious and the unconscious parts of the normal mind, had been fried in Calhoun’s. Sometimes there would be a spark—a dream fragment, a song lyric, an evocative smell—and a distorted impulse would plow into his consciousness, daring him to make sense of it, which, so far, he hadn’t had much luck at.

So Stoney Calhoun was left with weird, quickly forgotten dreams, and jolts of deja vu, and apparitions. They were the gifts’ and the curses’of a lightning-zapped brain, and he accepted them as his own version of normality.

Then along would come the Man in the Suit hinting that maybe he had children, or he’d get a particularly vivid flash of déjà vu, or a gray nun who’d been dead for eighty years would cry out to him from Quarantine Island, and even if he couldn’t figure out what it meant, or if it was just random and meaningless, it would leave him jangly and depressed—sometimes only until he came fully awake, but sometimes for the whole day.

He hoped today wasn’t going to be one of those days.

He poured a mug of coffee, took it down to Bitch Creek, and sat on his usual boulder. Ralph sat beside him. Calhoun thought about Lyle, as he always did when he visited Bitch Creek. He remembered how Lyle had brought a little Brittany puppy to him, telling him that a man living alone in the woods needed company. For a young guy, Lyle was pretty wise. Calhoun always missed him.

They looked for feeding trout, but there were none to be seen this morning. No ghostly dead bodies came drifting down on the currents, either, and whatever it was that had been tugging at Calhoun’s memory recently did not reveal itself.

They went back to the house. He fed Ralph and made a toasted peanut-butter sandwich for himself. They ate on the deck while the sun rose into a pure blue September sky, but Calhoun’s cloud of hopeless sadness continued to envelop him.

He spent the morning splitting and stacking firewood, and gradually the intense, hard, repetitive exercise cleared his head and calmed his spirit.

A little before eleven Calhoun and Ralph piled into the truck and headed for the shop. Sundays had been dead since Labor Day, but Kate insisted that they open up for a few hours anyway. If you closed the shop when business was slow, she said, business would just get worse. He supposed she was right. Anyway, Kate was the boss.

So he opened up, turned on the classical music station, checked the voice mail for messages, made some coffee, then sat at the bench to tie some more flies for the Boston guys.

Kate had set up the fly-tying bench in the middle of the store, and she encouraged Calhoun to tie flies whenever he wasn’t actually with a customer. She theorized that a man tying flies would be an attraction to any potential customers who wandered into the shop. Plus, it would give them something to talk about with Calhoun, who was uninterested in holding idle conversations with strangers.

A little after two o—clock, the bell over the door dinged. Calhoun looked up. A woman had stepped inside.

Ralph got up from where he was lying beside Calhoun and went over to her with his stubby little tail all awag, and she knelt on the floor and bent her face down so Ralph could lick it. He could hear her cooing and nice-dogging at him. Ralph couldn’t get enough of that kind of attention.

At first he didn’t recognize the woman. A long reddish-blond braid hung out of the back of her Boston Red Sox cap. She was wearing dirty sneakers and tight-fitting blue jeans and a dark leather vest over a man’s untucked white shirt.

It was Dr. Sam Surry, the medical examiner. She looked more like a college art student than a doctor.

After a minute she straightened up, looked around, and spotted Calhoun. She smiled and waved and came over, with Ralph trailing behind her trying to sniff at her cuffs.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey, yourself. Where’s your stethoscope?”

She smiled. “This is Ralph, right?”

Calhoun nodded.

“He came back. I’m so glad. I was worried about him, I really was.” She bent over and gave Ralph’s forehead a scratch. “He’s a nice doggie. He must smell Quincy on my pants.”

Quincy, Calhoun remembered, was her springer. “Ralph’s a bird dog,” he said. “He’s got an excellent nose.”

“You’re tying flies. That’s so cool.” She came over and stood behind him. “It’s hard to reconcile, a big tough guy like you making those delicate little things out of feathers and thread and fluffy stuff.”

“I ain’t that tough,” said Calhoun.

She put her hand on his shoulder and leaned over to look at what he was doing. Her fingers burned, the way they had left heat the other night when she’d touched him. Her hair smelled soapy. “Do you give lessons?” she said. Her mouth was very close to his ear.

He shrugged. “Kate and I have talked about doing that. Holding fly-tying classes in the winter when things are slow. It would bring people into the shop, give us more exposure, maybe even create some new fishermen, new customers. That’s her idea, anyway. I think it’s probably worth a shot, though I’m not sure I have the patience for it. Maybe we’ll try it this year.”

“If you do,” she said, “I’ll sign up. I almost went into surgery because I like to do precise work with my hands. It must be satisfying to catch fish on flies you made yourself.”

Calhoun nodded. “Ayuh. It is.” He wondered why Dr. Sam Surry had come into the shop, but he couldn’t come up with a polite way of asking.

“I bet you’d make a wonderful teacher,” she said. Her hand was still on his shoulder. He wondered if she’d forgotten it was there, or if she was as aware of it as he was.

He shifted in his chair, and she finally took away her hand, which was a relief.

“We got a big clearance sale going on,” he said after a minute. “Fifty percent off all the clothing. Or, if you like, you can get two of something for the price of one. Whichever you prefer. We’re making room for next year’s outdoor active wear fashions.”

She was smiling at his cumbersome change of subject. “Are next year’s outdoor active wear fashions better than this year’s?”

Calhoun shrugged. “I am the last person you should ask about fashion. I was just trying to do my job and sell you a damn shirt.”

“Would it be awful if I didn’t buy anything?”

“You didn’t come here looking for a bargain?”

“No,” she said. “I came looking for you.” She hesitated. “I thought you’d want to know that they did the ballistics, and your pistol was not the weapon that Mr. Vecchio was shot with.”

“I was pretty sure of that,” said Calhoun.

“You should get it back in a few days.”

He nodded. “That’s good. I appreciate you dropping by to tell me.”

She shrugged. “I was in the neighborhood. Thought you’d like to know that you’re no longer a suspect.”

“I’ve been wondering whether I did it or not.”

She smiled.

“You want some coffee?” he said.

She looked at her wristwatch, then at him. “Okay. Sure.”

“Milk and sugar?”

She shook her head. “Just black.”

Calhoun got up, went back to the coffee urn, filled two mugs, and brought them back to the fly-tying bench.

Dr. Sam Surry had picked up one of the featherwing streamers he’d made the other day. She was holding it up to the light, squinting at it. “This is gorgeous,” she said. “A work of art.”

“It’s called a Gray Ghost.”

“It’s too pretty for some old fish to chew on.”

He handed her a mug of coffee. “I’ll make one for you, if you want. Show you how it’s done.”

“I’d like that,” she said.

She hitched up a chair beside him, and he proceeded to tie a Gray Ghost for her. He explained what each piece of material and each part of the fly was called, and he told her that Mrs. Carrie Stevens, who’d invented several Ghosts—gray, green, and black that he knew of, maybe others—tied beautiful flies without a vise, holding the hook and manipulating the thread and the materials with her fingers.

He was just stroking back the wings and whip-finishing the head when the bell over the door dinged and Kate came in. She looked around, and then her eyes lit on Calhoun with Dr. Sam Surry sitting beside him. She arched her eyebrows, smiled quickly, and came over.

“How’s it going?” she said to Calhoun.

“Slow.” He dabbed a drop of head cement on the Gray Ghost. “This is Dr. Surry,” he said to Kate. “She’s the medical examiner on Mr. Vecchio’s case.” To Sam Surry, he said, “This here is Kate Bala-ban. She’s my boss. She owns the place.”

Kate gave Dr. Surry a quick smile. “Stoney and I are partners, actually,” she said.

“He was showing me how he ties a Gray Ghost,” said Dr. Surry.

“He’s an artist, all right,” said Kate.

“I thought you were taking the day off,” said Calhoun.

Kate nodded. “I know you did. I need some stuff in my office. I’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”

She went into her office in the back of the store, and after a few minutes she came back out. She went behind the front counter, did something at the cash register, then waved and left the store.

“Kate’s a spectacular-looking woman,” said Dr. Surry.

Calhoun nodded. “She surely is.”

Dr. Surry stood up. “Well,” she said, “I guess I should get going.”

“Don’t forget your fly,” said Calhoun. He put the Gray Ghost he’d tied for her into a transparent envelope. “Go catch something with it.”

“I think I’ll have it framed,” she said. She headed for the door.

Calhoun got up and followed her. “Sure I can’t interest you in a nice half-price Patagonia shirt?”

She smiled. “I’ve already got a shirt. Thanks for the fly. If I hear anything new on the case, I’ll let you know.” She gave him a little wave and went out the door.

Calhoun watched her walk away, then shrugged and went back to his fly-tying bench. He had the feeling that between Sam Surry and Kate Balaban, he’d missed something, but he decided not to dwell on it. There was no point to trying to understand the ways of women.

Calhoun was putting away the fly-tying stuff, getting ready to close up the shop, when the sheriff came in.

“You want to buy something,” said Calhoun, “or are you on the job?”

“On the job, I’m afraid. Two murder cases, Stoney. Can’t really take a day off, even if it is a Sunday. Jane doesn’t like it, but what are you going to do?”

“Take her out to dinner.”

He nodded. “Already thought of that. We’re going to try that new Mexican place. I’d ask you to come along, but…”

Calhoun smiled. “If you did, I know enough to turn you down. So what’s up?”

“Just wanted to update you. They haven’t been able to check the dental records yet, it being the weekend and all, but the body size and age and everything of that burned corpse matches what they know about Errol Watson. It’s not a positive identification, but everything fits and I’m prepared to pursue it. He served four and a half of a seven-year sentence for fondling a twelve-year-old girl, exposing himself to her, showing her pornographic photographs. Got out a year and a half ago. I got the names of the victim’s parents and the ADA who prosecuted the case and the PD who defended him. I figure we should try to talk to all of them.”

“We?” said Calhoun.

The sheriff nodded. “I’m hoping you’ll come with me, Stoney. I’d value your insights.”

“You talking about tomorrow?”

The sheriff nodded. “The sooner the better. Your shop’s closed on Mondays, if I recall.”

Calhoun shrugged. “I got nothing better to do.”

“I also want to talk to Mattie Perkins’s parents,” said the sheriff.

“Suspects,” said Calhoun.

“Sure. The other thing is, Gilsum says his cops never went to Vecchio’s house. I had the feeling he never even thought of it, though what he said was, they hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”

“You tell him I was there?”

“Had to,” said the sheriff. “Had to tell him you were working with me.”

“What’d he say about that?”

“Nothing. I think he’d’ve liked it if you were a good suspect. But you’re not, and he knows it. Gilsum’s a pragmatist. He just wants the case solved. He doesn’t much care how it happens.”

“So,” said Calhoun, “whoever killed Vecchio took his keys and went to his house up in Sheepscot and grabbed his laptop and stuff.”

“We don’t know that,” said the sheriff, “but it’s a reasonable supposition.”

“Reasonable supposition,” repeated Calhoun. “You sound like a damn lawyer.”

The sheriff smiled and glanced at his watch. “Jane’s waiting. I’ll pick you up around nine in the morning?”

“Come early,” said Calhoun, “we’ll have coffee.”