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Authors: John Connolly

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BOOK: The Wolf in Winter
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The four men were seated at the western side of the store, where Calder had set up some tables beside a picture window that looked out on his yard and on the woods beyond. In summer there were picnic benches at which to sit, but now icy snow still lay on the grass, and the air was pierced by a damp chill that made an old man’s bones hurt. To Thomas’s left, a locked door led into the gun shop, and behind that
was the gunsmithery itself. A tattered and yellowed sign on the door advised that a deposit of thirty dollars was required for each weapon accepted for service, with a further twenty-five levied if the weapon was presented without the required magazine. Thomas didn’t even know why the sign was still in place. The only people who presented Ben Pearson with weapons to be serviced were locals, and they were hardly likely to forget that they’d left them with Ben. Similarly, if they neglected to bring along the magazine, they could just drop by with it later in the day.

Thomas’s wife, Constance, used Ben’s services occasionally—she had been a competitive rifle shooter for most of her life, and hadn’t been far shy of Olympic standard as a young woman, although, at that level, the gap between what she could do and what was required might as well have been as deep and wide as an abyss—but she was one of the exceptions in Prosperous. Even allowing for those who hunted, the town had one of the lowest rates of gun ownership in the state. The gunsmith element of Ben Pearson’s business was little more than a hobby for him. He kept only a small range of rifles and pistols for sale, mostly high-end stuff, but he seemed to enjoy the metalwork aspect of the job, the threading and fluting and jeweling. He was also reputed to make very fine custom-built stocks, if that was what floated your boat.

Thomas yawned and checked his watch. The whisky had gone to his head, and he was wishing for his bed. He glanced to his right. The light from their table illuminated only a few feet of snow on the yard outside. Beyond was darkness.

Something pale flickered in the shadows. It looked like a moth. As Thomas watched, it grew larger and larger. It took on the form of a young woman wearing a stained white dress, the color of it nearly lost against the snow, so that he thought he might almost have been dreaming her. Her feet were bare as she ran, and there were leaves caught in her dark hair. Closer and closer she came. Thomas opened his mouth to speak, but no words emerged. He rose from his chair just
as the girl impacted against the glass, shaking it in its frame. Her fingernails were torn. They left trails of blood on the window.

“Help me,” she cried. “Please help me.”

Her words turned to clouds on the air, and the wind snatched them away and bore them into the listening woods.

CHAPTER

III

Miles to the south, in the city of Portland, a homeless man was dying.

His name was Jude—no last name, just Jude—and he was well known both to his fellow street people and to those in law enforcement. He was not a criminal, although there were some in Portland who seemed to regard being homeless as a criminal act, punishable by the withdrawal of services and support until death took care of the problem. No, Jude had always been law-abiding, but he had been on the streets so long that he knew every nook and cranny of the city, every crack in the sidewalk, every raised brick. He listened carefully to the reports from others of his kind—the appearance of ­strangers among them, men of vicious demeanor, or the news of abandoned properties that had previously provided some shelter and were now being used by dealers of narcotics—and traded that information with the police. He did not do so for his own benefit, although there were times when the nights were cold and he was offered the comfort of a cell in which to rest, or even a ride to South Portland or farther afield if a cop was feeling particularly generous or bored.

Jude functioned as a kind of father figure to the homeless of Portland, and his relationship with the police allowed him to intervene on behalf of men and women who sometimes found themselves in trouble with the law for minor infractions. He also acted as a go-
between for the operators of the city’s homeless services, keeping an eye on individuals who were most at risk, and therefore least likely to maintain a consistent relationship with anyone who might be in a ­position to help them. Jude knew where everyone slept, and at any time he could name the number of homeless in the city to within a handful of people. Even the worst of them, the most violent and troubled, respected Jude. He was a man who would rather go a little hungrier himself, and share what he had with a brother or sister, than see another starve.

What Jude declined to share with others was much of his own history, and he rarely sought anything beyond the most basic assistance for his own needs. He was clearly an educated man, and the backpack he wore on his shoulders always contained a book or two. He was well versed in the great works of fiction, but preferred history, biography, and works of social commentary. He spoke French and Spanish, some Italian, and a little German. His handwriting was small and elegant, not unlike its practitioner. Jude kept himself clean, and as neatly turned out as his situation allowed. The Goodwill stores on Forest Avenue and out by the Maine Mall, and the Salvation Army on Warren Avenue, all knew his sizes by heart, and would often put aside items that they thought he might appreciate. By the standards of the streets, one might even have said that Jude was something of a dandy. He rarely spoke of any family, but it was known that he had a daughter. Of late, she had become a topic of conversation among Jude’s few intimates. It was whispered that Jude’s daughter, a troubled young woman, had fallen off the radar again, but Jude spoke little of her, and refused to bother the police further with his private concerns.

Because of his efforts, and his decency, the city’s advocates for the homeless had tried to find Jude permanent housing, but they soon learned that something in his character rendered him ill suited to settling down. He would stay in his new home for a week, or a month, and then a social worker would respond to a complaint and
find that Jude had given up his apartment to four or five others, and had himself returned to the streets. In winter, he would seek a bed at the Oxford Street Shelter or, if no such bed was available, as was often the case when the weather turned harsh, he would lie down on a thin mat on the floor of the nearby Preble Street community center, or take a chair in the lobby of Portland’s general-assistance office. On such nights, with the temperature at seventeen degrees and the wind so cold that it penetrated his layers of wool and cotton, of newspaper and flesh, right down to his bones, he would wonder at those who claimed that Portland was too attractive to the homeless, because it found a place for anyone who sought shelter. But he would consider, too, the flaws in his own personality that rendered him unable to accept the comforts that he sought for others. He knew that this meant he would die on the streets. He was not surprised, therefore, by the fact that death had now come for him at last, but merely by the form it had taken.

He had been living in the basement of a run-down and gutted condo near Deering Oaks for a week or more. He was eating little, apart from what he could scavenge and what the shelters provided, trying to balance the need to save money with the basic requirements of staying alive.

He would be of no use to her if he died.

Was it genetic? Had he passed on his own flaw, his destructive love affair with the streets, to his only daughter? In his colder, more logical moments, he thought not. He had never had difficulties with drugs or alcohol. Substance addiction was not in his nature. His daughter, by contrast, started using shortly after Jude left home, or so her mother had told him before all communication between them ceased. His wife had died hating him, and he could hardly blame her. She would tell him that she did not know what she had done wrong, what grave offense she had given that caused her husband to leave her and their child, for she could not accept that she had done nothing. Something
had broken inside him, that was all. He had walked away from everything—his job, his family, even his dog—because, had he not done so, he would have taken his own life. His was a psychological and emotional disturbance of untold, awful depth, mundane and yet tragic in its very ordinariness.

He had tried talking to his daughter, of course, but she would not listen. Why would she? Why should she take lessons in life from a man who had been unable to come to terms with happiness, with being loved? She threw his failings back in his face, as he knew she would. If he had stayed, if he had been a true father, then perhaps she too might have remained where she was, and this beast would not have taken her in its clutches and slowly drained the life from her. You did this to me, she said. You.

But he had done what he could for her, in his way. Just as he kept careful watch on those in his charge on Portland’s streets, so others did the same for his daughter, or attempted to. They could not save her from herself, for she had a self-destructive urge that was kin to her father’s fractured nature. Whatever had come from her mother’s estate went into her arm or the arms of others, or briefly lined the pockets of boyfriends who were one step above pimps and rapists.

Now she had traveled north. He had heard reports of her in Lewiston, and Augusta, then Bangor. The news from an old homeless woman, traveling south, was that his daughter was clean and seeking somewhere to live, as a place of her own would be the first step toward finding a job.

“How did she look?” Jude asked.

“She looked well. She’s pretty, you know that? Hard, but pretty.”

Yes, he thought. I know that. Pretty, and more than pretty.

She is beautiful.

So he took the bus north, but by then all trace of her was gone. There was talk, though. She had been offered a job. He learned that a young woman living and working at the Tender House, a shelter for
homeless mothers and their children in Bangor, had spoken with her. His daughter had seemed excited, or so Jude was told. She had money in her hand. She was going to take a shower, buy some new clothes, maybe get a haircut. There was work for her. A couple, a nice older couple, needed someone to help maintain their house and their big yard, perhaps cook a meal or two as well, or drive them places when the need arose. For the sake of their own security, and to calm any concerns that the girl might have, they told her that they’d drop by the local police department on the way to the house, just so that she could confirm that they were on the level and meant her no harm.

“They showed me a picture of their house,” Jude’s daughter told the young woman from the Tender House. “It’s beautiful.”

What was the name of this town? Jude asked his informant.

Prosperous.

Its name was Prosperous.

But when Jude traveled to Prosperous, and went to the police department, he was told that no such girl had ever passed through its doors, and when he asked on the streets of the town about his daughter he was met with professions of ignorance. Eventually, the police came for him. They drove him to the town limits, and told him not to return, but he did. The second time he got a night in a cell for his troubles, and it was different from the cells in Portland or Scarborough, because he was not there of his own volition, and the old fears came upon him. He did not like being shut in. He did not like locked doors. That was why he roamed the streets.

They drove him to Medway the next morning, and escorted him onto the bus. He was given a final warning: stay out of Prosperous. We haven’t seen your daughter. She was never here. Quit bothering people, or next time you’ll be up before a judge.

But he was determined not to stay away. There was something wrong in Prosperous. He felt it on that first day in the town. Living on the streets had made him sensitive to those who carried a bad seed
inside them. In Prosperous, one of those seeds had germinated.

He shared none of this with others, and certainly not with the police. He found excuses to remain silent, although one in particular came more naturally than others: his daughter was a drifter, an addict. Such people routinely disappeared for a while before turning up again. Wait. Wait and see. She’ll come back. But he knew that she would not return, not unless someone went looking for her. She was in trouble. He sensed it, but he could not bring himself to speak of it. His vocal cords froze on her name. He had been on the streets for too long. The illness that caused him to leave his family had left him unable to open himself up, to express weakness or fear. He was a locked box inside which tempests roiled. He was a man enshadowed by himself.

But there was one whom he trusted, one to whom he might turn: an investigator, a hunter. He worked for money, this man, and with that realization came a kind of release for Jude. This would not be charity. Jude would pay him for his time, and that payment would buy Jude the freedom he needed to tell his daughter’s story.

This night, his final night, he had counted his money: the handful of notes that he had hidden in a box in the damp earth of the basement; the small savings he had entrusted to one of the social workers, reclaimed that day; and a bag of filthy bills and coins, just a small fraction of the loans that he had given out to others and now repaid at a quarter on the dollar by those who could afford to do so.

He had just over a hundred and twenty dollars, enough to get him beaten up by some, or killed by others.

Enough, he hoped, to hire the detective for a couple of hours.

BUT NOW HE WAS dying.
The rope, suspended from a ceiling beam, was tightening around his neck. He tried to kick, but his legs were being held. His arms, previously restrained by his sides, were released, and he instinctively raised his hands to the noose. His fingernails were
ripped from his flesh, but he barely felt the pain. His head was exploding. He felt his bladder release, and knew that the end was coming. He wanted to cry out to her, but no words came. He wanted to tell her that he was sorry, so sorry.

The final sound that he made was an effort to speak her name.

BOOK: The Wolf in Winter
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