Page 50 of The Furies

Will sniffed glumly at the arrangement. It wasn’t a cheap gas station purchase, but a proper bouquet bought at Harmon’s Floral Company on Congress Street, with a ribbon and a card. He felt ridiculous standing on the stoop with no one to accept his offering, like an overgrown kid jilted on prom night. He considered leaving the flowers inside the screen door, but feared they might be crushed. Dolors, he knew, kept big planters beside the rear entrance to the house, the one that opened directly into her kitchen. The pots were empty at the moment, given the season, and he thought he might be able to leave the bouquet in one of them, where it could sit without being damaged or taken by the wind.

He opened his jacket to let in some air. He’d put on a sweater that morning, but the weather continued to play unseasonable tricks, and he now felt that he was wearing one layer too many. The ground was starting to thaw, even farther north. It had implications for his business, because he ran a small garden center alongside the lumberyard, and he wasn’t yet fully stocked for spring.

Will poked at the bouquet. If there was no fool like an old fool, he thought, there was no old fool like an old fool in love. Had he enjoyed more experience and success with the opposite sex, he might never have found himself in this position: employing the services of a private investigator to look into the activities of a woman who had once shared her bed with a criminal, and in turn had shared that criminal with her sister; a woman, what’s more, who had ended their nascent relationship upon that criminal’s reappearance after a term in prison for manslaughter, this last detail being just one of a number of facts about Raum Buker that Dolors had elected to skate over or conceal completely. And yes, perhaps Will had been complicit in this, accepting that whatever prospect he had of maintaining a relationship with Dolors was dependent on permitting her to share or conceal as she saw fit, but it had placed him on the back foot from the start. All this because, one afternoon, he had spotted a customer by the mulch pile and decided to pass the time of day instead of leaving his staff to take care of her.

Will was in love with Dolors Strange, and believed she might have reciprocal feelings for him. At a stage in life when he had more or less given up hope of ever finding a companion, or even a regular dinner date, he had entered the orbit of an extraordinary, if eccentric, woman, and had no intention of letting her go. It was, though, a source of reassurance that he had the investigator on his side. He might no longer have been sure what it was he had hired Parker to achieve or find out, beyond establishing Raum Buker’s reasons for being back in Portland, but he knew that a man could have worse allies in a time of disquiet.

Will arrived at the back of the house and stopped dead. The body of a squirrel was nailed to the door, its belly cut open and its innards coiled on the step. Its blood had been used to leave a figure like a stick man on the wood.

Will Quinn dropped the flowers and made a call.

CHAPTER LVII

I pressed Eleanor Towle for the name of the coin dealer who had conspired with Egon Towle and Raum Buker to steal Kepler’s collection. She knew it, even if she hadn’t yet revealed it. She knew because she was shrewd, and had become accomplished at seeing and hearing more than she ever let on. Despite this, it took her a while to answer. Had she been giving evidence on a witness stand, the obviousness of some of her inner deliberations might have caused a jury to doubt the truth of everything she said. I was disposed to be less censorious, because by now I thought I had the measure of her: if she lied, she would lie by omission, but she preferred to speak the truth.

“Nice to know that some details do slip by you,” she said. “It’s our frailties that make us human. His name was Reuben Hapgood.”

“Was?”

“He’s dead. Killed in a fire.”

“When?”

“A week or so ago, I think, at his store.”

“What was the cause of the fire?”

“It’s still under investigation, but the police have told the newspapers that it may have been started deliberately.”

This was the curse of living in a big country: a man in a contiguous state could be burned to death by parties unknown, and one might only find out about it by inadvertently making the right inquiry of a stranger.

“You didn’t see fit to mention this until now?” I said.

“It may have nothing to do with what Egon and Raum did.”

“Is that what Egon said, or what you’ve been trying to tell yourself?”

“Does it matter either way?” said Eleanor.

“I don’t suppose it does. It doesn’t even matter to Reuben Hapgood, not any longer.”

“That’s cold-blooded.”

I resisted the urge to laugh in her face. It wouldn’t have served any purpose, and might have brought proceedings to a premature end when questions remained to be answered. Eleanor Towle had degenerated in my estimation from intriguing to capricious, even downright shady.

I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket, but I didn’t take the call. Whoever it was could wait until I was done here. I asked Eleanor if she had a picture of the coin, but she told me she didn’t.

“Egon certainly has images of it,” she said, “and Raum, too. They’ll need them when the time comes to sell, just to convince buyers that they really do have it in their possession.”

“But they won’t start advertising it until after Kepler is dead.”

“Like I told you, that’s one chance they’re not prepared to take. He’s not a man to be underestimated.”

“Why didn’t Raum and your brother just dispose of Kepler and have done with it, instead of risk having him come after them?”

“Egon isn’t the kind,” said Eleanor. “Neither is Raum, for all his bluster.”

I reminded her that Raum had done time for killing a man in New Jersey.

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