Page 82 of A River Red With Blood
“Yes,” Sadlier replied seriously.“Yes, I guess so.”
“No, I didn’t see Mallory Norton.I’ve seen others, but not her.”
“Up here?You’ve seen others here, in the valley?”
They were coming to it now, coming to what she’d experienced out in those woods.Sabine first told him of the woman on Big Island, she with the cleft skull, and Sadlier rubbed his chin, the thick bristles making a sound like logs hissing softly in a fire, which brought Sabine close to tears for reasons that could not be explained beyond the beautiful ordinariness of it; and she did not speak further, nor did she move, but remained motionless against him, for though she had more to say, so much more, it seemed to her that her future, their future, rested on how he might respond; that here was the moment where words weighing less than feathers and more than a soul wouldtip the balance, either for or against, and nothing said after could ever undo it.
“Well,” said Tim Sadlier, “isn’t that a thing?”
His voice and eyes were all wonder, like a child encountering magic for the first time, and accepting it without reservation as itself alone.He peered down at her from the heights of the pillow, and a calloused finger stroked her cheek.
“But what,” he said, “made you fall in the woods?”
So this, too, she revealed to him; and when she was done, he told her of coffee beans arranged on a kitchen table and scattered on a cold floor, and seed bags torn in a locked toolshed, and she knew she had found the right man.
Now, at home in Haynesville, she refilled a bag with fresh clothing to last a week, replenished her toiletries, and made a final check on her fish.A neighbor, one of the few she trusted for the task, was looking in on the house while she was away, but the automatic feeders took care of the needs of the fish, and mercifully, none of them had died.
She both did and did not want to return to The Plains.She wanted to because of Tim Sadlier, but she did not want to because of everything else: a drowned boy, a missing girl, but most of all, the storm of anger and suffering that had engulfed her during the search, fragments of the lost coursing through it like debris, their names and the names of others, with the place and manner of their dying, but so confused that the associations between them could not be made with certainty and all deaths became one, a babel of voices speaking in tongues known only to the extinct, intelligible to her solely as emotions, colors; a synesthesia of agony.Scott Theriault’s voice was among them, but it was both him and not him: Scott, but not Scott entire.The best of him was gone, and the storm had gathered up what remained to add to its strength.
But the heart of the storm was the Other that spoke an older language still, a creature—because its nature was not human—concealed in the tumult, inciting the dead to extremes, using their pain to feed its own and its intent to focus theirs.It wasboth present and absent; Sabine was aware of entrapment, and an enforced limit to its range.It resembled a prisoner whispering persuasions from his cell, making agents of disorganized others, so that what was once chaotic was channeled into purpose; or a wolf hunting with hounds, binding them with fear of the alpha, but also with the prospect of bringing down bigger prey through its leadership.
And the Other had a name, one it could not bury from Sabine, because as the storm passed through her, so too was she briefly of it.The Other’s name was unfamiliar to her, but allied to it, like a twin star, was another name she knew very well.She’d held off on acting on it only because she wanted to be sure her mind wasn’t playing tricks, conflating her memories with those of theOther.
Sabine called the private investigator.The call went straight to voicemail, so she left a message.She kept it simple.
“I’ve been to The Plains, Mr Parker,” she said.“Call me.”
She closed her bag and went to bed.The next day, she would return to the hunt.
Chapter 78
Louis listened to the noises downstairs but did not move: patience, patience.At last, he heard footsteps ascending and Sturgis entered the attic room carrying a half-full bottle of wine, a wineglass, and plate of cold cuts and cheese.Sturgis put the glass and plate on the side table, pulled the cork from the bottle, and poured himself a generous measure.He then picked up the remote control and turned on the TV, which came alive to CNBC.The noise of gunfire in some benighted part of the world masked Louis’s approach, but as the screen darkened briefly, his reflection became apparent and Sturgis reacted.He stared first at Louis, then at the gun in Louis’s hand, the suppressor doubling the length of the barrel, before returning his attention from the weapon to the man.
“I know who you are,” said Sturgis.
“Likewise.Put the glass down slowly and sit in that chair.”
Sturgis did as he was told.
“How did you find me?”he asked.“I was assured of discretion.”
“You should have paid better,” said Louis.“You might have been guaranteed it.”
“What do you want?”
“The name of the person who told you to have me killed.”
Sturgis’s face lit up, transformed into the countenance of a fanatic.
“It wasn’t a person,” he said.“It was an angel.”
“An angel with membership of the Colonial Club?So an angel can get on the books but not a Black man?Brother King must be turning in his grave.”
“It’s nothing to do with the Colonial.I’m no longer a member.”
“I thought it was a lifetime deal.”
“I’m about to be indicted,” said Sturgis.“Receipt and possession of visual material of a child depicted in sexual conduct, with a mandatory minimum sentence of five years and up to twenty on each charge.I admit, I do like them very young, but we all have our weaknesses.I’m not optimistic about the prospect of leniency, and that’s before the authorities begin digging deeper into my activities.I’ll be an old man by the time I get out, assuming I survive long enough to be released, which I doubt.Pedophilia arouses the moral indignation of the general prison populace, or so I’ve been informed.”
