The Burning Soul (36 page)
Authors: John Connolly
Tags: #Mystery, #Azizex666, #Horror, #Fantasy, #Suspense, #Thriller
‘What is it?’
Tommy seemed to be struggling to speak. His eyes were fixed on Dempsey’s face. Eventually he said, ‘Thank you.’
‘For what?’
‘For standing by me.’
‘We’ll figure out a way, Tommy. We’ll make it right.’
‘No,’ said Tommy. ‘No, we won’t. When the time comes, you try to stay alive. You take Francis, and whatever money is left, and you hide yourselves away. Maybe they’ll be content with my head. If they give me a chance, I’ll tell them that you’re no threat to them. No revenge, Martin. Understand?’
Dempsey nodded. ‘I understand, Tommy.’
The grip on his arm tightened once, and then was released.
‘We’ll talk no more about it,’ said Tommy.
Using the trees as cover, and sprinting across the patches of open ground, they came to the backyard. As they drew nearer the house, Dempsey saw a woman pass by the kitchen window. Her reddish-brown hair was pulled back severely from her face and tied tightly with a scrunchie. She was filling a coffeepot with water.
Leaving Tommy against the north wall, Dempsey checked out as much of the single-story dwelling as he could without exposing himself to the deputy on the road. There were three bedrooms: one with a queen bed and woman’s clothing scattered on the chairs and floor; the second a smaller room with a double bed and walls decorated with posters of bands whose names and faces were largely unfamiliar to Dempsey; and a third room with a single bed surrounded by assorted boxes and cases. Beside it was a small window of frosted glass: the bathroom.
On the other side, a door from the kitchen led into a big living room that ran most of the width of the house. A man in a golf shirt and chinos sat at a cheap desk reading a paperback novel. Dempsey looked around for monitoring or recording equipment but didn’t see any. Dempsey waited, and a second man appeared. He wore black pants, and a long-sleeved blue shirt. Both men wore Glock 22s at their waists.
Not cops: FBI.
Eventually, Valerie Kore entered the room and handed each man a cup of coffee. They thanked her, and she left. He saw her step into the hallway. She didn’t come back.
Dempsey returned to Tommy.
‘Two feds watching the phone in the living room.’
‘Feds? You sure?’
‘They’re wearing Glocks. Standard issue for federal agents.’
‘Fuck.’
‘You want to back off?’
‘We’ve come this far.’
Tommy tried the kitchen door. It opened silently, and he and Dempsey moved into the house. Dempsey counted down from three with his fingers, and they burst into the living room. One of the agents was so shocked that he spilled his coffee on himself and swore, but he and his colleague raised their hands without even being told.
‘Tommy Morris,’ said the one in the golf shirt. ‘You gotta be kidding me.’
Tommy told them to shut up and get down on the floor. He kept them covered while Dempsey pulled their hands behind their backs and cuffed them with plastic ties he’d picked up at Home Depot. They heard the sound of a toilet flushing. Tommy took the door, and when his sister entered the room he put his hand over her mouth. At the sight of the agents on the floor she began to struggle, but Tommy pressed the barrel of his weapon against her cheek and she grew still. Slowly, he turned her around. She recognized him, and tried to pull away.
‘Valerie, I just want to talk,’ he said, his hand still covering her mouth. ‘I can help you find Anna.’
And, instantly, the fight left her body.
‘I’m going to take my hand away, okay?’
She nodded, and Dempsey got a good look at her for the first time. She had naturally pale features sprinkled with a dusting of freckles, and large brown eyes. He’d heard that she used to be a looker, especially with a little makeup, but now her eyes were sunk deep into her skull with gray-black bags beneath them, and spots had broken out on her skin. She had probably been prescribed sedatives and sleeping pills, but his guess was that she wasn’t taking them. She’d hate lying awake at night, but would fear sleep more. Awake she might still be of some use to her daughter, while to embrace temporary oblivion was to be selfish. What if those who had her daughter called? What if she was sleeping, and somehow the chance to get Anna back safely was missed?
‘Why did you come here?’ she said. ‘I have enough troubles.’
‘I told you, I want to help. Come on, let’s go to another room where we can talk in private.’
She led him to one of the bedrooms, and soon Dempsey could hear the low murmur of their voices. He drifted toward the window, where he could keep an eye on the front of the house. The deputy hadn’t moved from his cruiser, and no more cars passed.
One of the agents spoke to Dempsey.
‘You made me burn my balls,’ he said.
‘That’s sad. Maybe they’ll swell up to the size of a regular set.’
The agent sighed into the carpet.
‘I don’t know who’s crazier,’ he said, ‘you or Morris.’
‘Me,’ said Dempsey. ‘Definitely me.’
Valerie sat on her daughter’s bed. Tommy leaned against the wall, taking in the pictures on the walls and the photographs of the niece he hadn’t seen in so very long.
‘How did you find me?’ said Valerie. ‘You see me on the TV?’
‘I knew before that,’ Tommy replied. ‘I’ve known where you were for a long time.’
‘The FBI said this might be something to do with you. Is that true?’
‘No.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because I asked.’
Even after so many years, she remembered that tone.
‘Did you ask Joey Toomey?’ she said.
‘We talked.’
‘The FBI thinks you killed him.’
‘I thought just what you did: that Anna’s disappearance might have been a way to get at me. I had to be sure that it wasn’t.’
‘Did killing him make you certain?’
‘No. Killing him just made me feel better.’
There was disgust on her face, but it was mingled with another response. Perhaps, Tommy thought, she still has some of the old blood in her.
‘They say you’re in trouble.’
‘Who says?’
‘The FBI. They say that Oweny Farrell has put a price on your head.’
‘Oweny Farrell couldn’t afford to pay for one hair,’ he said, and the bravado sounded hollow even to him.
‘Why did you hide from me?’ he asked. ‘Why did you run from your own family?’
She looked at him with bewilderment.
‘Are you crazy? Are you out of your fucking mind?’
‘Don’t talk to me that way.’
‘What way should I talk to the man who killed the father of my little girl?’
‘I didn’t know,’ said Tommy. ‘I swear I didn’t know.’
‘You didn’t know what? That he was her father, or that he was to be killed? What didn’t you know? Tell me. Which was it?’
He didn’t answer.
‘You didn’t
know
.’ She spat the last word. ‘I don’t believe you. I didn’t believe you then, and I still don’t.’
know
.’ She spat the last word. ‘I don’t believe you. I didn’t believe you then, and I still don’t.’
Tommy was forced to turn away from the fury in her eyes.
‘You should have come back,’ he said. ‘If you’d come back and let me look after you, then maybe this—’
She raised an index finger to him, the nail ragged and bitten.
‘Don’t say it. Don’t you dare say that. I swear, I’ll blind you with these nails if you try to play that game with me.’
Tommy stayed silent.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last. ‘You’re right. That was wrong.’
She didn’t reply.
‘You and Anna are all the family I have left. I—’
She interrupted him. He didn’t like it. She’d been away from men for too long, he thought. She’d forgotten her manners.
‘We’re not your family, Tommy. That ended when you put Ronnie in the ground. Anna has no memory of her early life, thank God, and I haven’t told her anything to change that. As far as she’s concerned she has no uncles, no cousins, nothing. She just accepts that’s the way things are for her.’
Tommy let it go.
‘None of this will bring her back,’ he said.
Suddenly Valerie started to cry. It surprised her almost as much as it disturbed Tommy. She didn’t think that she had any tears left.
He came to her, and stroked her hair, and she allowed him to press her face to his belly.
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Tell me everything that you told them.’
Dempsey was still waiting by the window when Tommy returned.
‘Finished?’ Dempsey said.
‘Finished.’
Tommy squatted in front of the agents. From his pocket he took a roll of duct tape.
‘Sorry about this, boys,’ he said. ‘No hard feelings.’
‘Come in, Tommy,’ said the one in the golf shirt. ‘Come in and talk to us. We’re your best chance now.’
‘I hope that’s not true,’ said Tommy. ‘If it is, I’m in worse trouble than I thought.’
He wrapped the tape around their mouths and their legs. He had similarly restrained his sister, although he had left her mouth free, and her nail scissors were within reach. She had promised to give them as much time as she could before freeing herself and the agents.
‘Did you learn anything?’ asked Dempsey, as they returned.
‘It was enough to see her, and for her to know that I’m on her side. I want to do this for her. I want to find my niece. I have to try to make things right, Martin, before the end.’
Dempsey said nothing, because there was nothing to say.
They called Ryan from the road, and dumped the car at a strip mall. They’d boosted it from outside the Colonial movie theater in Belfast after watching the couple pay for a matinee show and give their tickets to the usher. Their movie would probably have finished by now, and they’d have noticed that their car was missing. Ryan picked them up, and they returned to the motel. Tommy was more upbeat than he’d been in a while. Dempsey saw some of his old dynamism returning, and believed Tommy might have been reinvigorated by the meeting with his sister.
He was only partly right. Tommy Morris’s mood had been improved by seeing Valerie after all this time, but he was also anticipating the possibility of a more direct contribution to the search for his niece.
Tommy Morris was about to be given a name.
26
R
andall Haight and I stood at the door to the meeting room. From inside we could hear the sound of men’s voices, and I thought I recognized Gordon Walsh’s dulcet tones.
andall Haight and I stood at the door to the meeting room. From inside we could hear the sound of men’s voices, and I thought I recognized Gordon Walsh’s dulcet tones.
‘Are you ready for this, Randall?’ I asked.
‘Yes, thank you.’
I opened the door with my left hand, and patted Haight on the shoulder with my right, although it was as much a means of giving him an extra push over the threshold if required as it was a gesture of reassurance.
Chief Allan gave a muffled grunt as Haight entered the meeting room, but it was the only sound that anyone made. Haight took a seat beside Aimee on one side of the table, facing Allan, Gordon Walsh, and Soames. Engel and his fellow agent had taken two seats by the window, slightly apart from the main group. I sat against the wall and listened.
Walsh made the introductions for his side, and slid a recording device closer to Haight, who gave his name for the record. There were notebooks open and ready. Once Haight had settled into his chair, Aimee asked him to tell everyone, in his own words and in his own time, why he was there.
He began haltingly, but as he went on he grew a little more confident, and stumbled less. He kept his hands clasped in front of him, untangling his fingers only to take an occasional sip of water. His story began with the circumstances surrounding the death of Selina Day, his sentencing and imprisonment, and his eventual move to Pastor’s Bay. There was nothing in it that I hadn’t already heard, and he was interrupted only twice, once by Walsh and once by Allan, to clear up minor points. He then described receiving the succession of missives that had led him to this room. When he had finished, Aimee produced a number of sealed plastic bags, each containing an envelope and its contents, and handed them over to Walsh.
Only Engel appeared disengaged from what we had heard. I could see him zoning out shortly after Haight started speaking. This was of no use to Engel. His interest didn’t lie in an old killing far from the Northeast. It didn’t even lie in the safe return of Anna Kore. Engel wanted Tommy Morris, and Randall Haight’s disclosures would bring that consummation no closer.
Walsh asked if he and his colleagues could be excused in order to consult for a time, but Aimee offered instead to take Haight and me into her office until they were ready to resume. Haight went to the restroom, and while he was gone Aimee raised an eyebrow at me and said, ‘Well?’
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