But he could blend in. He could not follow his chosen profession otherwise. It was not a veneer of normality that he wore. It coexisted alongside his strangeness. Even now, dressed in his smart black suit, he carried a brown paper bag in his right hand. In it, she knew, would be muffins. Muffins were her weakness. For the right muffin, at the right time, she might even betray her fiancé, and she loved him deeply.
She realized that she was toying with her engagement ring, slipping it on and off her finger, and she could not remember if it was the thought of Brennan, the man who gave the ring to her, that had caused her to touch it, or if she had begun twisting it when the detective appeared. She decided that she did not want to think about it, although this, too, she would tell the detective, at another time and in another place.
He crossed the lot and walked up the damp path that led to her building. As he did so, it seemed to her that the heads of the black birds turned to follow his progress, perhaps attracted by the blackness of his suit, seeing in him one of their own. She wished that they would leave. She adjusted the blinds at the window, altering her field of vision, but the knowledge of the birds remained. They’re just birds, she thought: big black birds. This isn’t a movie. You’re not Tippi Hedren.
She decided to force the birds from her mind. Perhaps she had been using their presence as a distraction, a means of delaying the conversation that was about to take place. She did not want him to refuse to help her, or her client. If he did, she would understand, and she would not think less of him, but she felt it was important that he agreed to involve himself. He had told her once that coincidences bothered him. The coincidences here were off the scale.
She prepared to greet him. It was time.
I passed through the reception area, barely glancing at the waiting man, and entered Aimee’s office. I placed the bag in front of her and opened it so that she could peer inside.
‘Charlie Parker, you are the very devil,’ she said, taking one of the pastries out. ‘Peach? They didn’t have raspberry?’
‘They had raspberry, but he who pays the baker calls the flavor.’
‘You’re telling me that you don’t like raspberry?’
‘I’m not telling you anything. It’s a muffin. It’s got peaches. Live with it. You know, I can see why Brennan is taking so long to add a gold band to that rock you’re playing with. Sometimes he probably wonders if he kept the receipt.’
I watched her shift her hand quickly from the ring. To give it something else to do she picked at the muffin, even though I could see from her face that she had little enthusiasm for it. She could usually eat one any time of the day or night, but something had killed her appetite. She swallowed the fragment in her mouth, but ate no more. It seemed to taste too dry to her. She coughed and reached for the bottle of water that she always had on her desk.
‘If I find out he kept the receipt, I’ll kill him,’ she said, once the dryness was gone.
‘A psychologist might wonder why you play with it so much.’
She reddened. ‘I don’t.’
‘My mistake.’
‘Yes, it is.’
Brennan, her fiancé, was a big lug who adored the very ground she walked on, but they had been engaged for so long that the priest earmarked to conduct the wedding ceremony had died in the interim. Somebody in the relationship was dragging heels on the way to the altar, and I wasn’t sure that it was Brennan.
‘You’re not eating your muffin. I kind of expected it to be reduced to crumbs right about now.’
‘I’ll eat it later.’
‘Okay. Maybe I should have bought raspberry after all.’
I said nothing more, but waited for her to speak.
‘Why are you wearing a suit?’ she said.
‘I was testifying.’
‘In church?’
‘Funny. In court. The Denny Kraus thing.’
Denny Kraus had killed a man in a parking lot off Forest Avenue eighteen months earlier, in an argument over a dog. Apparently the victim, Philip Espvall, had sold Denny Kraus the animal claiming it was a thoroughbred pointer, a gun dog, but the first time Denny fired a gun near the dog it headed for the hills and was never seen again. Denny had taken this badly, and had come looking for Espvall at the Great Lost Bear, which happened to be the bar in which I worked occasionally when money was scarce, or when the mood took me, and in which I was tending bar on the night that Denny came looking for Espvall. Words had been exchanged, both men had been ejected, and then I’d called the cops as a precaution. By the time they caught up with the two men, Espvall had a hole in his chest and Denny was standing over him, waving a handgun and shouting about a retarded dog.
‘I forgot you were tied up with that,’ said Aimee.
‘I was bar manager that night. At least we didn’t serve Denny any alcohol.’
‘It sounds pretty clear-cut. His lawyer should tell him to cop a plea.’
‘It’s complicated. Denny wants to argue provocation, but his own lawyer is trying to have him declared mentally incompetent to stand trial. Denny doesn’t believe he’s crazy, and so I’m wearing a suit while Denny’s lawyer tries to convince the judge of one thing and his client tries to convince him of the opposite. For what it’s worth, I think Denny’s crazy. The prosecution is playing hardball, but he’s been in and out of the Bangor Mental Health Institute for the past decade.’
‘And he still owned a gun.’
‘He bought it before he found his way into the state mental health system. It wasn’t like he went into the store drooling and screaming obscenities about dogs.’
Aimee was distracted by the flapping of wings behind her. A raven was trying to alight on the windowsill but couldn’t get a foothold. It returned instead to the ones in the birch. Four now.
‘I don’t like them,’ she said. ‘And these are real big. Have you ever seen ravens that big before?’
I stood and stepped over to the window. I could barely see the birds through the gap in the blinds, but I didn’t reach out to widen it with my fingers. On the road beyond I saw cars passing, each with at least one child inside, all coming from L’École Française de Maine just up the street. One of the birds turned its head and cawed an objection to their presence.
‘How long have they been here?’
‘Not long: since shortly before you arrived. I know they’re just birds, but they’re real smart, ravens. Animals have no right to be so smart, and it’s as if these ones are waiting for something.’
I stared at the ravens for just a moment longer, then returned to my chair.
‘Just birds,’ I echoed.
She sat forward in her chair. We were moving on to the business of the moment.
‘Did you see the man sitting outside?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Anything strike you about him?’
I considered the question.
‘He’s nervous, but he’s trying to hide it. Hardly unusual for someone in a lawyer’s office who isn’t a lawyer, and he doesn’t give off a lawyer vibe. He’s doing okay, though. No tapping of the feet, no tics, no hand gestures. Either for professional or personal reasons, he’s grown good at hiding what he’s feeling. But it’s there: It’s in his eyes.’
‘Did you learn how to do that from your ex-girlfriend?’
‘Some of it. She taught me how to put words to sensations.’
‘Well, you both did good. That man outside has been concealing truths about himself for a very long time. He has a story that I’d like you to hear.’
‘I’m always happy to listen.’
‘There’s a complication. I’ve acted on his behalf in the past – nothing serious, a DUI that we had quashed, and a minor dispute with a neighbor – and I’ve agreed to act for him in this matter too, insofar as I can, but I need someone with your skills to work on the ground.’
‘So I hear his story, and decide if I want to take the job.’
‘I want you to decide before you hear his story.’
‘That’s not how I work. Why would you want me to do that?’
‘Because I want you to be bound by the same duty of confidentiality as I am.’
‘You don’t trust me?’
‘I trust you. I’m just not sure how you’re going to react to elements of his story. And if the police become involved I want you to be able to say that you’re working for me, with the consequent protection of privilege.’
‘But if I decline to take the case, what’s the problem? How are the cops going to know?’
She took her time before answering.
‘Because you might feel compelled to share with them what you learn here.’
Now it was my turn to pause.
‘No, that’s not my style,’ I said at last.
‘Do you trust me?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ll want to take this case. You’ll have reservations about the client, perhaps, but you’ll want to take the case. What he did, he did a long time ago, but it may have ramifications for an investigation that’s ongoing.’
‘What did he do?’
‘You’ll take the case?’
‘What did he do?’
She grimaced, then sat back in her chair.
‘He murdered a girl.’