Page 81 of The Instruments of Darkness

“And?”

“I’m not a marriage counselor, Mr. Parker.”

“Did you suggest they ought to see one?”

“I might have indicated that it couldn’t hurt, but her therapist may have a better insight into that aspect of her life.”

“Was there ever an intimation of violence in the relationship?”

“On the part of the husband? I saw no evidence of it, and Colleen never raised the subject. Have you reason to suspect him of it?”

“I’ve been spending a lot of time in Colleen’s company,” I said. “Something about her demeanor has been troubling me, and the closest point of reference I can find is in abused women I’ve met. She’s been worn down. But then, there’s more than one kind of abuse.”

“Her husband struck me as unsympathetic to her situation,” said Shapleigh, “which would have affected Colleen emotionally and psychologically, but that’s only based on what she shared with me. I met him a couple of times when he came to collect her. Colleen introduced us, but I had no interaction with him beyond that.”

“What about his attitude toward the child? Was he close to Henry, involved in his life?”

I already thought I knew the answer, but it never hurt to look for a professional opinion, especially when it came free of charge.

“Again,” said Shapleigh, “from what Colleen told me, he wasn’t particularly interested in Henry’s day-to-day upbringing, but she did qualify that by emphasizing how hard her husband worked. He wasn’t home a great deal, but he also possessed a somewhat old-fashioned attitude toward the patterns of child-rearing, in my opinion.”

“It was women’s work.”

“Yes.”

Shapleigh removed her spectacles. It might have been meant to emphasize her sincerity. She leaned forward on her desk and gave me her best sympathetic look, possibly a variation on the one reserved for patients who were about to receive an unwelcome diagnosis and be advised to get their affairs in order.

“Look, Mr. Parker,” she said, “I have nothing to share with prosecutors that will reflect adversely on your client—and my patient—even if they succeed in subpoenaing records or forcing me to take the stand. I hope that’s some reassurance. Otherwise, I wish I could be of more help, but I can’t.”

She replaced her spectacles. We were done.

CHAPTER LIII

Mattia Reggio drove northwest in glorious sunshine. He had a big bag of discounted Swedish Fish from T.J. Maxx on which to nibble, although he also intended to stop along the way for a snack and to use a restroom. He was no longer able to walk more than a mile without thinking about taking a leak, and if he had to get up only once during the night to empty his bladder, he felt like offering up a prayer of thanksgiving. His wife kept urging him to see a doctor to confirm that there was nothing amiss with his plumbing, but he assured her it was his simply advancing years. There was hardly a man who didn’t make it beyond fifty without passing more water more often, and Reggio had exceeded that milestone by almost two decades.

But unbeknownst to his wife, he was worried, because he had a suspicion that there might well be something wrong down there. He experienced intermittent pain in his ass and groin, and sometimes he saw blood in the bowl, but he kept this to himself. One of his drinking buddies, Ed Nibloe, had consulted an internist about pain when he took a leak, and next thing the guy was whipping out Ed’s prostate and hacking at tumors. Now the poor bastard couldn’t even fuck his wife and wore a bag or some such contraption to collect his piss. To Reggio, that sounded like the cure might be worse than the disease. Once you started allowing doctors to poke around your insides, they were bound to find cracks in the machinery. It stood to reason. But as any guy who’d ever tended an old house, car, or marriage would tell you, it was often better to ignore certain deficiencies and imperfections for fear that one might otherwise discover oneself stranded amid rubble, wreckage, or divorce lawyers. Leave well enough alone, that was Reggio’s motto.

He ate another Swedish Fish and checked that he was keeping below the speed limit. He had a license for the gun in his pocket, the prohibition on possession of a firearm by a convicted criminal being five years in the state of Maine, and it had been many decades since Mattia Reggio last subsisted on prison food. But to be pulled over by cops would involve having his license run through the system, and being forced to answer questions about his affairs that he had no desire to answer, if only on a point of principle.

Amara had seen him stow away the gun; the woman was gifted with the eyesight of a hawk. She had always tolerated his old profession, but never approved of it. She loved him, she liked to say, despite her better judgment, but she loved him even more once he’d retired from the life.

“Where are you going?” she’d asked that morning, as he was checking the tire pressure with a pocket gauge. His father always used to do it before taking a trip, because he said you couldn’t trust the ones in gas stations worth a shit. Now you were lucky if you could find a gas station that would even provide air, or not without charging you a buck or two for the pleasure, the clock ticking down as you scuttled like an idiot from tire to tire, praying your time wouldn’t run out before you finished the job.

“Road trip,” he said.

“With a gun?”

“It’s for my own peace of mind. I’m not expecting to use it. I just want to ask someone a few questions.”

Even as he answered, he realized that the three statements, when linked together, became drained of any sense or truth.

“Questions about what?”

“About the Colleen Clark thing.”

“Does Mr. Castin know you’re doing this?”

“Yes,” said Reggio, then caught the cold gleam in her eye. Jesus, the woman ought to have been a cop. “Or no,” he relented, “not as such, but I don’t want him wasting his time on what might be nothing. If it pans out, it could be helpful, and if it doesn’t, I’ll have had myself a change of scenery.”

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