The Wrath of Angels Read Online Free PDF Page A

could about you before I started sharing my father’s secrets with you. I know some cops in the County,’ – nobody in Maine ever referred to it as Aroostook County, just ‘the County’ – ‘and I was tempted to ask them about you as well. I figured they might be able to tell me more than I could find online. In the end, I decided it would be better to say nothing and just see what you were like in person.’
    ‘And how’s that working out?’
    ‘Okay, I guess. I thought you’d be taller.’
    ‘I get that a lot. Better than “I thought you’d be slimmer,” or “I thought you’d have more hair.”’
    She rolled her eyes. ‘And they say women are vain. Are you fishing for compliments, Mr Parker?’
    ‘No. I figure that pond is all fished out.’ I let a few seconds elapse. ‘Why did you decide not to ask the police about me?’
    ‘I think you know the answer already.’
    ‘Because you didn’t want anyone to wonder why you might need the services of a private investigator?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘Lots of people hire investigators, for lots of reasons. Cheating husbands—’
    ‘I’m not married anymore. And, for the record, I cheated on him.’
    I raised an eyebrow.
    ‘Are you shocked?’ she asked.
    ‘No, I just wish he’d had my card. Business is business.’
    It made her laugh.
    ‘He was a jerk. Worse than a jerk. He deserved it. So why else do people hire you?’ she said.
    ‘Insurance fraud, missing persons, background checks.’
    ‘It sounds dull.’
    ‘It’s safe, for the most part.’
    ‘But not all the time. Not for the kind of investigation that ends up with your name in the papers, the kind that ends with people dying.’
    ‘No, but sometimes investigations start out as one thing and mutate into another, usually because someone tells lies right from the start.’
    ‘The client?’
    ‘It’s been known to happen.’
    ‘I won’t lie to you, Mr Parker.’
    ‘That’s reassuring to hear, unless that itself was a lie.’
    ‘My, the world has taken its toll on your idealism, hasn’t it?’
    ‘I’m still idealistic. I just keep it safe behind a carapace of skepticism.’
    ‘And I don’t want you to hunt anyone down either. At least, I don’t think so. Not in that sense, anyway. Ernie may disagree with me on that one.’
    ‘Did Mr Scollay try to dissuade you from coming here?’ I asked.
    ‘How did you know that?’
    ‘A trick of the trade. He’s not very good at hiding his feelings. Most honest men aren’t.’
    ‘He believed that we should keep quiet about what we knew. The damage was done, in his view. He didn’t want his brother’s memory besmirched in any way, or my father’s either.’
    ‘But you didn’t agree.’
    ‘A crime was committed, Mr Parker. Maybe more than one.’
    ‘Once again, why not go to the police?’
    ‘If everyone went to the police, you’d be a full-time bartender and a part-time private investigator.’
    ‘Or no private investigator at all.’
    Ernie Scollay was returning from the men’s room. He removed his baseball cap as he walked and ran his fingers back through his thick white hair. If I was conscious of a tension between him and Marielle, I was more conscious of the fact that Ernie was frightened. So was Marielle, but she hid it better. Ernie Scollay: the last of the honest men, but not so honest that he didn’t want to keep his brother’s secrets hidden. He glanced at Marielle and me, trying to ascertain if we had been discussing anything that we shouldn’t have while he was absent.
    ‘Where were we?’ he asked.
    ‘At the clearing,’ I said.
    Paul and Harlan looked to the clearing. The buck lay dead at their feet, but the fear it had emanated was still with them. Harlan tightened his grip on his rifle; there were four bullets left in his magazine, and Paul had the same. Something had spooked the buck, perhaps drawn by the smell of its blood, and they didn’t want to face a bear with their hands hanging or, God forbid,