Gray Ghost (5 page)

The sheriff nodded. “First thing is to identify him, and we’re kinda stymied there, unless we can come up with some dental records to compare this man’s mouth to.”

Calhoun watched the sheriff as he talked. He noticed that his friend’s knee was jiggling, and he was staring off toward the pine woods behind Calhoun’s house, not making eye contact.

“The doctor notice anything else?” said Calhoun.

The sheriff nodded, still gazing off into the distance. He didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he turned to Calhoun. “His hands and feet had been bound with duct tape. His throat had been sliced from ear to ear.”

“Doesn’t sound like somebody setting himself afire to make a political point,” said Calhoun.

“Nope,” said the sheriff. “Not hardly.” He hesitated. “There was something else, too.”

Calhoun waited.

The sheriff cleared his throat. “His, um, his penis was cut off, Stoney, and it was stuffed into his mouth.”

“Jesus,” said Calhoun.

“Yeah.”

“Well,” said Calhoun, “I’m sure glad you came all the way out here to tell me these things, Sheriff. Cheerful as hell. Gets my day off on the right foot, all right.”

The sheriff shrugged. “I figured you’d want to know.”

“Why?”

The sheriff shook his head. “Tell me what you make of it, Stoney.”

“Well, let’s see,” said Calhoun. “They take this man out to one of the farthest islands in Casco Bay all bound with duct tape, they execute him, they cut off his pecker and shove it in his mouth, and then they douse him with—what? Gasoline?”

Dickman shrugged. “Not sure. Something like that.”

“They soak him so thoroughly with gasoline,” Calhoun continued, “that when they touch a match to him, his clothes and face and fingers are burned away, which probably means they don’t want you to identify him. They set him up on the east side of the island so the fire can’t be seen from the mainland. Or maybe they didn’t do it at night. Either way, Quarantine Island is a place nobody has any reason to go to, so they didn’t want the body to be found right away.” He paused to get his thoughts straight. “Still, they’re trying to make some kind of statement.”

“His, um, his penis,” said the sheriff.

Calhoun nodded. “Sure. That, plus burning him and leaving him there. You could truss up a body with chains and an anchor, drop it over the transom, and let the lobsters have their way with it if you didn’t want it ever to be found. These guys want it both ways. They want to make a statement, but they don’t want to get caught.”

“But what about his penis?” said the sheriff. “Surely that’s what this statement is all about. What do you make of that?”

“When you identify the body, figure out who he is, then you’ll have a better idea. Maybe he was fooling around with somebody’s wife. Maybe he was a homosexual who made a move on the wrong man. Maybe it was a man-hating woman who did this. Or maybe cutting off his penis says more about whoever killed the poor bastard than it does about him. It’s too early to theorize about the penis thing at this point. It could set you off in the wrong direction, you see ?”

The sheriff was nodding. “That’s damn good thinking, Stoney.”

“You find a lot of clues at your crime scene?”

The sheriff laughed quickly. “Nope. You were right. It was clean.”

Calhoun took a sip of coffee. “Are you anticipating any jurisdiction issues here?”

The sheriff rolled his eyes. “It’s a mess already. Local cops, county sheriff, state cops. I’m anticipating more competition than cooperation on this thing.”

“What’re you doing about the media?”

“The state police called a press conference and gave a statement, which, knowing you, you didn’t hear about.”

“I hope to hell my name wasn’t mentioned,” said Calhoun.

The sheriff smiled. “Not hardly. They just said the body was found by some fishermen and left it at that. You aren’t part of this story.”

“Damn right I’m not.”

The sheriff smiled. “They made no mention of the man’s penis or the fact that his throat was cut, which makes the story a lot less interesting to the media than it would be otherwise, though the fact that he was burned to a crisp is plenty interesting enough.”

“So when the whackos come out of the woodwork to confess—”

“Right,” said the sheriff. “Unless they mention slitting his throat and cutting off his penis, we’ll know they’re lying.”

“You’re hoping somebody will hear the news and come forward about a missing man, help you figure out who he is.”

“That’s the idea.” He smiled quickly. “ ‘Course, it would help if we could give out his picture to the TV people, but under the circumstances, we decided against doing that.” The sheriff put his forearms on the table and leaned toward Calhoun. “You’ve done this before, Stoney. You understand how it works.”

Calhoun shrugged. “It’s in the movies, on TV, in every damn mystery novel. Everybody knows how it works.”

The sheriff was looking at Calhoun. A little smile was playing around his eyes.

“What?” said Calhoun. “You’re lookin’ at me funny.”

“I think you know.”

“You better spit it out, Sheriff.”

He nodded. “Okay. Here it is. I need you to help me with this case.

Calhoun shook his head and waved the back of his hand in the air. “Not me, Sheriff.”

“Stoney,” said the sheriff, “you would not believe the stupidity I’ve been hearing.”

Calhoun smiled. “Of course I’d believe it.”

“Islamic terrorists,” said the sheriff. “Ku Klux Klanners. Nazi skinheads. Communist revolutionaries.” He smiled. “Lesbians, for Christ sake.” He shook his head. “That penis appeared to be circumcised, which was all one of our especially brilliant state police detectives needed to decide this was all about anti-Semitism. Anyway, they all seem more interested in promoting their favorite conspiracy theories than analyzing and interpreting the evidence, and it’s God damn discouraging.” He gripped Calhoun’s wrist. “I want you to help me, Stoney. You think straight. You know how to analyze things. You’re objective. You notice things, and you remember everything. You’re smart as hell, and you’re discreet, and most of all, I trust you. I need you. What do you say?”

Calhoun took a long, thoughtful swig from his coffee mug. Then he put it down on the table beside the sheriff’s hat. “I don’t know what I used to be,” he said, “but I know what I am now. I’m a fishing guide. That’s what I’m good at, and that’s all I want to be. I got a dog who loves me and a woman who loves me. I got my little house in the woods, and I got my trout stream out back. I’m content, Sheriff. I was given a chance to start my life over again, and I figure that’s a rare gift. There’s a helluva lot I don’t know. But one thing I do know is, I like this life of mine. I’m enjoying every minute of it. I’ve got no worries worth complaining about, and I don’t intend to do anything to change that. This life of mine feels fragile to me. Like I’m lucky to have it, and if I do the wrong thing, it’ll just shatter in a million pieces. I don’t want that to happen. Do you understand?”

Sheriff Dickman fished in his pants pocket, then put a leather folder on the table beside Calhoun’s coffee mug. “I want you to take this,” he said.

Calhoun shook his head. “I know what that is, and I ain’t taking it.”

The sheriff flipped open the folder and pushed it toward Calhoun. Inside was a badge. “This is yours,” he said. “I want you to be my deputy. Help me on this case. You can keep guiding and living your perfect damn life. I just want to consult with you, maybe ask you to come with me to poke around once in a while.”

“I understand you think I should feel honored and flattered,” Calhoun said, “but that ain’t how I feel. You asking me to do this just makes me all jangly and uncomfortable. I can’t exactly tell you why. I’m not saying it’s rational, but it feels bad, and I can’t ignore that feeling.” He reached over, flipped the folder closed, and pushed it away. “You’re a good friend,” he said to the sheriff, “and I hope to hell you’ll continue to be my friend. But I don’t want your badge, and I don’t want to be your damn deputy sheriff. I don’t want to go traipsing around with you on your investigations, and if you decide you’ve got to be mad at me and stop considering me your friend, I still ain’t going to do it. I don’t mind you talking to me once in a while, and I don’t mind telling you what I think, as long as you don’t take it too seriously. Maybe I used to be some kind of cop. I’m pretty sure I was. But I’m not now, and I don’t want to be again, and that’s that.”

The sheriff peered at Calhoun for a minute, then nodded. He reached down and gave Ralph’s forehead a scratch. Then he stood up, picked up the deputy badge, and dropped it into his pocket. He twisted his hat onto his head and looked down at Calhoun. “You are a disappointment, Stoney Calhoun.”

Calhoun nodded. “I understand.”

“I guess I don’t know what being friends with you means anymore,” said the sheriff. “I asked you to help me, Stoney, and believe me, asking you for a favor isn’t the easiest thing in the world for a man to do, and you refused, and while I suppose I’ve got to respect your reasons, friends help each other. In my book, that’s what being friends means.”

Calhoun shrugged. “In my book,” he said, “friends don’t ask their friends to do things that go against their grain.”

“They do when they really need them and their friends don’t volunteer to give a hand.” The sheriff turned, went down the steps, and climbed into his truck.

Calhoun stood at the deck rail and waved as the green Explorer headed out the driveway.

The sheriff did not stick his hand out the window and wave back.

They had no guide trips scheduled for that day, which was the second Wednesday in September. Calhoun didn’t understand it. September was the best month of all for catching a big striped bass on a fly along the coast of Maine. In August, when the fish were hard to find, either he or Kate had clients every day, but it seemed that most folks gave up on fishing after Labor Day. He figured they had to do a better job of getting the word out. Kate was talking about hiring somebody to set up a Web site, and as little as Calhoun knew about marketing, he guessed it might be good for business.

He and Ralph arrived at the shop around nine, and a little while later a couple of electronics salesmen from Boston came in to pick Calhoun’s brain. The Boston guys bought a handful of flies in exchange for some local wisdom, a courtesy that Calhoun wished more fishermen understood. He spread a topo map on the counter and was showing them where they could launch their boat on the Kennebec, and where in the estuary they might have some luck on the afternoon tide, when Kate came in.

Both men turned to look at her. Calhoun found himself smiling. Kate was wearing a pink T-shirt, faded snug-fitting blue jeans, leather sandals, red toenail polish, a touch of pink lipstick. Her black hair hung in two long braids off the front of her shoulders. Calhoun didn’t think any man could help but stop whatever he was doing to look at Kate Balaban.

She flashed a big smile at the two customers, said, “Mornin’, Stoney,” and headed for the office in back. Ralph got up from where he was lying near the front door and followed her.

After the customers left, Calhoun took his mug out back for a refill. Kate was at her desk with her reading glasses perched low on her nose, frowning at the computer. Ralph was curled up beside her.

He sat in the chair next to her. “Everything okay, honey?”

She nodded, still peering at the computer. “If we were making any money it’d be better. But, sure. Everything’s fine. Why?”

“You’re frowning.”

“I guess I’ve been frowning a lot lately.” She took off her glasses and turned to look at him. “I need to talk to you, Stoney.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Fire away.”

She shook her head. “Not now. Not here. You mentioned something about steaks yesterday. I suppose you ate ‘em all, huh?”

“Nope. Still got ‘em. Potatoes and salad, too.”

“Let’s see how things work out tonight, then.” She gave him a quick smile, then put her glasses back on and resumed frowning at the computer.

Calhoun knew better than to ask her any questions.

It was a typical Wednesday morning in the shop. The Loomis rep dropped in to talk about their spring line of fly rods and left some samples for Calhoun and Kate to try out. A few customers came in to buy flies and check out the end-of-summer clearance sales. The phone rang several times. A guy from Concord, New Hampshire, wanted to talk about setting up a guide trip, but he wasn’t ready to pull the trigger on a date.

Kate spent most of the morning at her desk writing e-mails and paying bills.

Around noontime Calhoun went back and stood beside her.

She poked a couple of keys, plucked her glasses off her nose, looked up, and said, “What’s going on, Stoney?”

“Thought I’d run out for sandwiches. What would you like?”

“Nothing. I’ve gotta head home in a minute. Might not be coming back. You and Ralph can handle the shop for the afternoon, can’t your

“Sure we can.” He hesitated. “You sure everything’s okay, Kate?”

“You already asked me that.” She shrugged. “Why don’t you go get your sandwich. I’ll wait till you get back before I leave.”

The sun had fallen behind the hill. Calhoun was sitting out on the deck listening to the water music from Bitch Creek and drinking coffee and waiting for Kate. Ralph had a belly full of dinner and was snoozing beside him. Bats and swallows were zooming around the yard. The barred owls were calling to each other. The coals were glowing red in the grill.

All in all, it didn’t get much better than this.

Calhoun heard the rumble of Kate’s truck before it turned off the road into his driveway half a mile away. He put his coffee mug on the table. Ralph lifted his head, yawned, stood up, and started wagging his stubby tail.

Kate pulled in next to Calhoun’s trailered boat. When she stepped out into the floodlit yard, he had to swallow a couple of times. She was wearing a pale orange ankle-length dress that fit tight around her torso and hung loose from her hips. She’d pulled her black hair back into a long ponytail and tied it with a ribbon that matched her dress.

She looked up at the deck. Calhoun stood up and waved. She gave him a big smile full of white teeth. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey.”

Ralph scampered down the steps and went to her, his whole hind end wagging. She scootched down to rub his ears. Then they both came up onto the deck.

A silver necklace inlaid with turquoise hung from Kate’s neck. Her long dangly earrings and heavy bracelet were also silver and turquoise. She walked straight over to Calhoun, put her arms around his neck, kissed the side of his face, and pressed herself against him. “I’m sorry, Stoney,” she murmured.

“Sorry for what, honey?”

“I’ve been pretty bitchy lately. It’s not that I don’t love you. I hope you know that.”

“I’m glad to hear you say it, either way.”

She leaned away from him, looked deep into his eyes for a minute, then smiled and covered his mouth with hers. When she broke away from the kiss, she whispered, “How far along are those coals?”

“Gonna have to let ‘em burn down a little more,” Calhoun said. “They won’t be right for at least an hour.”

“Good,” she said. “Perfect. I don’t want to wait anymore.” She took his hand and led him into the house and to his bedroom.

They were sitting out on the deck under a starry September sky. They’d made love and then they’d eaten steak and potatoes and salad. Ralph, who’d had his share of steak scraps, was sprawled on his side under the table. The moon had risen over the hill, and Stoney Calhoun couldn’t imagine feeling more contented.

Kate was wearing a pair of Calhoun’s sweatpants and one of his sweatshirts. Her hair hung loose around her shoulders. He thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world. She was lounging in one of the Adirondack chairs with her feet propped up on the deck rail sipping some Jack Daniel’s. Calhoun had a mug of coffee.

“You get enough to eat, honey?” he said.

“Ate too much. I’m stuffed.”

A minute later, he said, “Sheriff Dickman came by this morning.”

“About that burned-up body you found?”

He nodded. “He wanted to sign me on to be his deputy, help him with the case.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“I told him no damn way.”

Kate was silent for a minute. Then she said, “How come?”

“Just didn’t feel right. Soon as he mentioned it, my stomach got all knotty.” He shrugged. “Solving murders is the sheriff’s job. It ain’t mine. This case, it’s got nothing to do with me. I feel like if I stuck my nose into it, everything would fall apart.”

“You gotta do what you think is right.”

“I like my life,” he said. “That’s all. I don’t want to change anything about it.”

Kate looked up and seemed to be studying the stars. “Nothing ever stays the same, Stoney.”

He nodded. “I know that.”

“No matter how hard you try, something always comes along.”

“You think I should’ve taken that damn badge?”

“You should do what feels right to you.”

“Well, that’s what I did. Now the sheriff’s mad at me.”

“He’ll get over it.” She reached across the table and put her hand on top of his. “I told you I needed to talk with you.”

He smiled. “I remember you said that. Guess I was hoping it was so unimportant that you forgot all about it.”

“It’s not unimportant.” She took a sip from her glass. “It’s about Walter.”

Calhoun waited.

“He’s never going to get better.”

“It’s a terrible disease,” said Calhoun. “I feel bad for him.”

“I took him to a nursing home down in York this afternoon,” she said. “Left him there. He’ll never come home again. He’ll keep getting worse and worse.”

He squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, honey.”

She cleared her throat. “I feel as if I let him down. Like, if I loved him more, I wouldn’t’ve done that. Wouldn’t’ve handed him off to strangers.”

“You love him plenty,” said Calhoun. “Walter knows that.”

“He says he does.” She looked up at him. Tears glittered in her eyes. “I’m not sure he’s right, Stoney. You see what I’m saying?”

“Maybe you better spell it out for me, honey.”

“I keep thinking,” she said, “that if I didn’t… didn’t love you so damn bad …”

“Walter’s better off in the nursing home,” said Calhoun. “That’s got nothing to do with you and me.”

“Sure,” she said. “Walter was the one who said it was time he went there. But, see, that doesn’t make me feel any different.”

“It’s a hard thing,” he said. “You’ll get used to it.”

“He probably won’t… won’t die for a long time.” Kate was crying freely now. Tears ran down her cheeks.

Calhoun, as usual, didn’t know what to say. He just looked at her for a minute from across the table, then said, “Come here, honey.”

Kate got up from her chair, came around the table, and sat on Calhoun’s lap. She put her arms around his neck and buried her face against the side of his neck. “I feel so awful,” she murmured.

He held her tight and said nothing.

“So,” she said after a minute, “I decided I can’t come here and be with you anymore.”

Calhoun felt an icicle stab through his heart. He slid his hand under Kate’s sweatshirt and stroked the smooth strong muscles of her back. He could feel that she was shaking.

“You understand, Stoney?” she whispered.

He nodded. He wasn’t sure how his voice would sound if he tried to speak words.

“It just wouldn’t feel right,” she said. “Like you taking that deputy’s badge. Some things, it really doesn’t help to analyze them. You’ve got to consult your heart.”

Calhoun cleared his throat. “You don’t have to explain, honey. It’s okay.”

She turned her face and kissed him hard on the mouth. Then she pushed herself up off his lap. She stood there in his baggy sweatshirt and sweatpants looking down at him. Her face was wet. “I’m gonna leave now, Stoney, before I lose all my courage.”

He looked up at her and nodded.

She turned, went halfway down the steps, then stopped and looked up at him. “Is that all you’ve got to say?” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“About what I just said,” she said. “Do you have an opinion?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“You could—you could tell me I’m wrong. You could argue. You could have some emotion. You could … fight for what you want.” She was still crying. Or maybe she’d stopped and had started all over again. “You think I’m doing the right thing?”

“I’m pretty sure you’ve given it a lot of thought, honey. Nobody knows what the right thing is. Like you said, you consult your heart and make your best guess.”

“Don’t you care?”

Calhoun shook his head. “That ain’t really a question, is it?”

Kate smiled at him through her tears. “There’s nobody like you, Stoney Calhoun,” she said. Then she turned and continued down the steps.

Calhoun started to follow her.

At the bottom of the steps she turned and looked up at him. “Don’t come down, Stoney. Please. Just stay right there and wave to me when I go.”

“Sure,” he said. “Okay.”

She swiped her wrist across her eyes. “I’ll see you at the shop tomorrow.”

“I’ll be there.”

“We’re still partners, don’t forget,” she said.

He nodded. “Partners. You bet.”

She got into her truck, backed around, and started up the driveway.

Calhoun lifted his hand, and Kate flicked her headlights.

He stood there on his deck until the sound of the Toyota’s engine faded away in the distance. Then he collected the knives and forks and plates and glasses from the table and took them into the kitchen.

Calhoun was back out on the deck sipping coffee and looking at the stars and listening to some blues from the radio in the house. It was about an hour since Kate had left, and already he was feeling lonely and bereft. He wondered how he was going to work beside her, knowing she didn’t want them to be anything more than business partners.

Ralph, who had a good sense for Calhoun’s moods, had curled up right under his feet, trying to give him comfort.

When he heard the car engine out on the road half a mile away downshifting and turning into his driveway, he hoped it was Kate, coming back to say she’d changed her mind, or that it was the sheriff, saying he’d been wrong to be upset and wanted to be friends again.

But Calhoun’s ears told him the engine wasn’t Kate’s truck or the sheriff’s Explorer. It was that damn Audi sedan, which meant the Man in the Suit had come back.

Calhoun went inside, took his Remington twelve-gauge autoloader off the pegs, made sure it was loaded with Number 8 bird-shot, and went back out onto the deck.

The Audi pulled into the place next to Calhoun’s boat where Kate had parked earlier. Its headlights went off, the driver’s door opened, and the Man in the Suit stepped out. He looked up at the deck, shielded his eyes against the glare of the floodlights, and said, “You can put that damn shotgun down, Stoney. I’m not here to rob you.”

“Shoot all trespassers,” Calhoun said. “You’re the one who gave me that advice.”

“And damn good advice it is,” said the Man in the Suit. “Except I’m not a trespasser. I’m your friend.”

“Friend,” said Calhoun. “Not hardly. Well, come on up. It ain’t even midnight yet. Good time for a visit.”

The Man in the Suit was wearing a gray suit with a pale blue shirt and a dark blue necktie and shiny black shoes. He always wore a suit, and it was generally gray, just like the rest of him. Gray, indistinct, utterly forgettable. He’d never mentioned his name to Calhoun, and Calhoun didn’t want to suggest he had any interest whatsoever in the man by asking. He just thought of him as the Man in the Suit. He’d been dropping in at odd, unexpected times ever since Calhoun moved to the woods in Maine. His mission was always the same: to try to determine what Calhoun remembered about the time in his life before he’d been zapped by lightning.