Page 72 of The Furies

Sarah, his wife—although by then in name only, their marriage having long become a celibate nightmare for her—probably didn’t even register that he’d been murdered. Earlier that same week, her five-year-old daughter, Kara, had fallen down the stairs at their home in Revere, hit her head on a spindle, and died on her way to the hospital. In the space of seven days, Sarah Sawyer became a widow and the mother of a dead child. But by then she had been ostracized, tainted by association with her husband’s activities. Her daughter’s funeral was sparsely attended, and Sarah didn’t even bother to go to Nate Sawyer’s cremation. The story was that his ashes were claimed by the Office and fed to hogs.

Six months later, the bodies of two women were found buried under the part-dirt floor of the rented garage in which Nate Sawyer had formerly stored a 1978 Chevy Camaro. The first had been missing since 2014, the second since 2016. It wasn’t clear if Sawyer had only recently developed an interest in killing women, or if these represented his latest victims. Sarah Sawyer, already a pariah in her community, now became an object of disdain, even hatred, beyond it. She must have known, it was whispered. If she didn’t know, she must have suspected. And if she didn’t suspect, she ought to have. With her husband dead, some of the blame for his crimes devolved to her. That left her with two choices: she could brave it out or disappear from sight. Wisely, she went with the second. I wasn’t aware that she’d relocated to Maine, assuming she hadn’t traveled all the way to Portland from somewhere else just to engage my services. If so, she was destined to be disappointed. I couldn’t think of many reasons why I’d choose to involve myself in her difficulties. To be honest, I couldn’t think of any.

By then I was turning onto Forest Avenue. I found a parking space outside the Great Lost Bear, but didn’t immediately go inside. Instead I spent a few minutes boning up on the facts of the Sawyer case. His widow had been born Sarah Gaudiano. I wondered where Abelli had come from, unless the woman in the Bear was lying about her identity, in which case she was insane because no one in their right mind would claim a connection to Nate Sawyer if it wasn’t true. But then, these were strange days.

CHAPTER VI

Bobby Wadlin was sitting behind his desk when Lyle Pantuff and Gilman Veale passed by on their way to find somewhere to eat breakfast. Unlike seemingly most of the population of the city, Wadlin wasn’t panic buying or watching a news channel, but was immersed in an episode of Alias Smith and Jones, a series that Pantuff recalled vaguely but Veale, being fifteen years younger than his partner, did not.

Wadlin leaped to his feet as the two men came into view, or as close to leaping as someone as naturally indolent as Bobby Wadlin ever came.

“You gentlemen sleep okay last night?” he said.

“I slept fine,” said Pantuff. “I always sleep fine. Must be my clear conscience.”

That grin widened in a manner suggesting it would be surprising if he had any conscience at all, clear or otherwise.

“Why do you ask?” said Veale. His intervention surprised Pantuff, Veale not being one for unnecessary conversation. But Veale thought that Wadlin appeared agitated, and his original inquiry had an air of more than politeness about it.

Bobby Wadlin suddenly regretted opening his mouth. Pantuff might have resembled a sideshow freak, but it was possible to gauge the measure of him. By contrast, being regarded by Veale was like having a spider crawl across one’s face.

“Another guest called to complain about a disturbance last night,” said Wadlin.

“From our room?” said Pantuff.

“No, heaven forbid,” said Wadlin. “From the hallway. Someone running around. He thought it might have been a kid but”—Wadlin tapped the notice on the plexiglass advising guests that minors were not welcome: it read NO KID’S ALLOWED—“we don’t permit children at the Braycott, so he must have been mistaken.”

Veale was staring at the sign.

“No kid’s what?” said Veale.

“What?” said Wadlin. He had almost said “No kid’s what what?” but stopped himself just in time for fear that Veale might feel he was being mocked.

“Your sign says ‘No Kid’s Allowed,’ but it doesn’t say what particularly of kids is not allowed. Toys? Games? Shoes?”

Bobby Wadlin did not have a fucking clue what the guy was talking about. The Braycott, he mused, really did need a stricter door policy. His utter bewilderment finally registered with Veale.

“You have a rogue apostrophe on your sign,” said Veale. “You’ve made the word ‘kids’ into the possessive. You should correct it to avoid confusion.”

Wadlin had a vague memory of someone else complaining about one of his signs. Maybe it wasn’t just viruses that were contagious, but fucking pedantry, too. He considered informing Veale that he’d get around to the sign in his own good time, just as soon as the temperature in hell dropped enough, but common sense prevailed. When a man like Gilman Veale told you to fix something, you got it fixed, so Wadlin removed the sign and tossed it in the trash. He thought he might dispense with signs entirely in favor of making up the rules as he went along, which was what he preferred to do anyway.

Pantuff’s eyes drifted to the TV screen, where Pete Duel and Ben Murphy were now running the details of a con with Walter Brennan.

“You know there’s a pandemic, right?” said Pantuff.

Wadlin followed his gaze.

“Not in Wyoming Territory in the eighteen hundreds,” he said.

“You must go out sometime.”

“I try not to. I don’t like it out there. Never did.”

Given the current state of the world, Pantuff thought Wadlin might have a point. He asked Wadlin for some breakfast recommendations, and Wadlin suggested Marcy’s up on Oak Street, although he advised that they only accepted cash, which made Pantuff like the place already. He only ever paid cash, and any cards he used were stolen.

Pantuff and Veale left Wadlin to his show, got in their car, and drove to Marcy’s. Pantuff drove everywhere, preferring never to be more than a block from his vehicle. He’d gone to jail the first time because he’d tried to get away on foot after taking down a liquor store, and only a fool made the same mistake twice.

“You okay?” he said to Veale as they pulled up at a parking meter a few steps from the door of the diner. Anyone unfamiliar with Veale would have spotted no alteration in his demeanor since they’d left the Braycott, but Pantuff knew better.

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