Page 36 of The Furies

“And how did that work out?”

“You’d have to ask Ambar,” said Will, “but I’d say they’re worthless securities.”

I thanked him, locked my car, and knocked on Dolors Strange’s front door. I felt briefly guilty at the prospect of dragging her from her sickbed, but I was here now, and had questions that needed to be answered. I let a minute or two go by before knocking a second time, with the same result.

I glanced around. Cars passed, but I saw no pedestrians, and nobody was paying me any attention. I left the front porch and walked around the exterior of the house. None of the drapes were closed, and I could see clearly into every room, the bathrooms excluded because of their frosted glass. Dolors might have been in there, but I didn’t think so, because unoccupied houses have a particular feel to them. Finally, I took a look in the garage. It too was empty.

Which made me wonder just how sick Dolors Strange really was.

CHAPTER XLII

Ambar Strange’s cottage was also quiet when I got there, with no car in the driveway. I assumed she was at work, which was the main reason I was at her home and not the dental practice. I parked in the driveway as though I was expected, in the event that any of the neighbors were paying attention, and went straight to the back of the house.

The damage to the glass and screen of her door had not yet been repaired. One of the lower panes was badly broken, the hole now covered with a piece of cardboard, and part of the screen was mangled, the way an animal might tear at a wire cage to escape confinement. I’d viewed the handiwork of some lousy burglars in my time, but this was rough by any standard.

I gently pried the cardboard from the glass before taking some pictures of the mess with my phone. By now I was feeling tired and hungry. Had Angel and Louis been around, I’d have arranged to meet them somewhere for dinner, but they had returned briefly to New York for one of Angel’s regular medical reviews. I thought about catching a movie, but there was nothing I wanted to see. I missed Sam, and sometimes I missed Rachel, too. Generally I liked my solitude, but there were moments when it became hard to differentiate from loneliness.

I checked the images of the damage for clarity as I headed back to the car, magnifying the last of the pictures. It might have been the dying sunlight on the glass when viewed with the naked eye, or the angle from which I’d taken the photo, but I was noticing something I’d missed initially. I returned to the door, knelt, and examined the glass more closely. Among the scratches I thought I could pick out a semicircle, and what looked like a “V” tilted on its side. Unless I was very mistaken, it resembled half the rune I’d found on Raum Buker’s mirror. I pictured him scratching at his tattoo as he left Ambar Strange’s property. Now I thought I knew why.

* * *

IN MY CAR, I accessed online the property records for Ossipee, New Hampshire. Emmeline Towle, mother of Egon Towle, who had been saved from a prison beating by Raum Buker, still lived in the area. It was about a ninety-minute drive from Portland to Ossipee, but it would have to wait until the following day. Nobody liked a private investigator showing up once darkness fell. Come to think of it, they didn’t much welcome visits in daylight either.

I’d already looked into Egon Towle’s criminal record. Prior to the spell in East Jersey State Prison that had brought him into Raum’s purview, he’d been in trouble with the law on only one previous occasion, and that was down in Connecticut. Towle had been charged with larceny in the first degree for being in possession of a collection of rare coins. He could have faced up to twenty years in prison, and a hefty fine, but the judge, bless her tender heart, had deemed him suitable for accelerated pretrial rehabilitation on the grounds that Towle claimed to have been unaware of the true value of the haul, which came to almost $250,000. Towle had successfully completed the rehab program, vowed never to sin again, and the charge was dismissed. Five years later, he started his term at East Jersey, once more for a crime involving coins, which suggested efforts to rehabilitate him might not have succeeded unconditionally. He’d also graduated to robbery involving the use of a firearm.

I called Angel.

“How did the medical appointment go?” I said.

“I’m going to be with you all for the foreseeable future. Louis took the news like a trouper.”

“Good, because I wouldn’t be able to keep him amused on my own. What do you know about coin thieves?”

“They’re boring,” said Angel. “Seriously. They read boring magazines, have boring conversations, and keep company with the kind of men who make stamp collectors look like RuPaul. If you’re talking about very rare coins, they’re hard to sell, so they’re usually stolen to order, or at least with buyers in mind. On the plus side, if you do have a buyer, then the goods are easily transportable, and will earn someone a lot of money very quickly for minimal risk. After that, the coins vanish into a private collection, although I’ve heard of some being used as collateral in drug deals, the same as stolen art. Why?”

“You ever hear of a guy named Egon Towle?”

“Nope.”

“Could you ask around?”

“I can make some calls. How quickly do you want it?”

“By tomorrow. I’m planning to drive to New Hampshire to visit his mother. Towle may be living with her.”

“Is this still the Raum Buker thing?”

“He and Towle were prison buddies.”

“Well,” said Angel, “there’s no accounting for taste.”

CHAPTER XLIII

I couldn’t sleep that night. It was nothing to do with Raum, or the Sisters Strange. I knew this because of the familiarity of the restlessness, and what I understood it to signify: my dead daughter was near, or whatever part of her still inhabited this world.

It was cold outside, but not so much as to be uncomfortable, not with a warm coat and boots worn over my T-shirt and sweatpants: that strange weather again. I suppose I might have presented a sight had there been anyone other than Jennifer to witness it, but all was quietude, and no cars passed on the road below. I stood on my porch and surveyed the trees and the marshes, but could find no trace of her. It was like that with her. She was a manifestation more often sensed and felt than seen and heard, but I took comfort from it nonetheless.

“I’m okay,” I said aloud to the darkness. “Better than okay.”

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