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firearms as men and tend to pick less obviously violent ways to end their
lives. There is a useful rule in police work: a shot woman is a murdered woman
unless proved otherwise. Suicides also shoot themselves in certain sites of
election: the mouth, the front of the neck, the forehead, the temple, or the
chest. Discharges into the temple usually occur on the side of the dominant
hand, although that is not an absolute. Grace Peltier, I knew, was right
handed, yet she had elected to shoot herself in the left temple, using her
left hand and holding what I assumed to be an unfamiliar weapon. According to
Curtis, she didn't even own a gun, although it was possible that she had
decided to acquire one for reasons of her own.
There were three additional elements in the reports that struck me as odd. The
first was that Grace Peltier's clothes had been soaked with water when her
body was found. Upon examination, the water was found to be salt water,
although its precise source had yet to be determined. For some reason, Grace
Peltier had taken a dip in the sea fully clothed before shooting herself.
The second element was that the ends of Grace's hair had been cut shortly
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before her death, using not a scissors but a blade. Part of her ponytail had
been severed, leaving some loose hairs trapped between her shirt and her skin.
The third was not an inclusion but an omission. Curtis Peltier had told me
that Grace had brought all of her thesis notes with her, but there were no
notes found in the car.
The Bible was a nice touch, I thought.
I was walking back to my car when the cell phone rang.
Hi, it's me, said Rachel's voice.
Hi, you.
Rachel Wolfe was a criminal psychologist who had once specialized in
profiling. She had joined me in Louisiana as the hunt for the Traveling Man
came to its end, and we had become lovers. It had not been an easy
relationship: Rachel had been hurt badly both physically and emotionally in
Louisiana, and I had spent a long time coming to terms with the guilt my
feelings for her had provoked. We were now slowly establishing ourselves
together, although she continued to live in Boston, where she was doing
research and tutorial work at Harvard. The subject of her moving up to Maine
had been glanced upon once or twice, but never pursued.
I've got bad news. I can't come up on the weekend. The faculty has called an
emergency meeting for Friday afternoon over funding cuts, and it's likely to
pick up again on Saturday morning. I won't be free until Saturday afternoon at
the earliest. I'm really sorry.
I found myself smiling as she spoke. Lately, talking to Rachel always made me
smile. Actually, that might work out okay. Louis has been talking about
heading up to Boston for a weekend. If he can convince Angel to come along I
can link up with them while you're tied up in meetings, then we can spend the
rest of the time together.
Angel and Louis were, in no particular order, gay, semiretired criminals;
silent partners in a number of restaurants and auto shops; a threat to decent
people everywhere and possibly to the fabric of society itself; and polar
opposites in just about every imaginable way, with the exception of a shared
delight in mayhem and occasional homicide. They were also, not entirely
coincidentally, my friends.
Cleopatra opens at the Wang on the fourth, probed Rachel. I think I can
probably hustle a pair of tickets.
Rachel was a huge fan of the Boston Ballet and was trying to convert me to its
joys. She was kind of succeeding, although it had led Angel to speculate
unkindly on my sexuality.
Sure, but you owe me a couple of Pirates games when the hockey season
starts.
Agreed. Call me back and let me know what their plans are. I can book a table
for dinner and join the three of you after my meeting. And I'll look into
those tickets. Anything else?
How about lots of rampant, noisy sex?
The neighbors will complain.
Are they good looking?
Very.
Well, if they get jealous I'll see what I can do for them.
Why don't you see what you can do for me first?
Okay, but when I wear you out I may have to go elsewhere for my own
pleasure.
I couldn't be sure, but I thought her laughter had a distinctly mocking tone
as she hung up.
When I got back to the house, I called a number on Manhattan's Upper West Side
using the land line. Angel and Louis didn't like being called on a cell phone,
because as the unfortunate Hoyt was about to learn to his cost cell-phone
conversations could be monitored or traced, and Angel and Louis were the kind
of individuals who sometimes dealt in delicate matters upon which the law
might not smile too gently. Angel was a burglar, and a very good one, although
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he was now officially resting on the joint income he had acquired with
Louis. Louis's current career position was murkier: Louis killed people for
money, or he used to. Now he sometimes killed people, but money was less of a
concern for him than the moral imperative for their deaths. Bad people died at
Louis's hands, and maybe the world was a better place without them. Concepts
like morality and justice got a little complicated where Louis was concerned.
The phone rang three times and then a voice with all the charm of a snake
hissing at a mongoose said, Yeah? The voice also sounded a little
breathless.
It's me. I see you still haven't got to the chapter on phone etiquette in
that Miss Manners book I gave you.
I put that piece of shit in the trash, said Angel. Guy who laces his shoes
with string is probably still trying to sell it on Seventh Avenue.
Your breathing sounds labored. Do I even want to know what I interrupted?
Elevator's busted. I heard the phone on the stairs. I was at an organ
recital.
What were you doing, passing around the tin cup?
Funny.
I don't think he meant it. Louis was obviously still engaged in an
unsuccessful attempt to expand Angel's cultural horizons. You had to admire
his perseverance, and his optimism.
How was it?
Like being trapped with the phantom of the opera for two hours. My head
hurts.
You up for a trip to Boston?
Louis is. He thinks it's got class. Me, I like the order of New York. Boston
is like the whole of Manhattan below Fourteenth Street, you know, with all
them little streets that cross back over one another. It's like the Twilight
Zone down in the Village. I didn't even like visiting when you lived there.
You finished? I interrupted.
Well, I guess I am now, Mr. Fucking Impatient.
I'm heading down next weekend, maybe meet Rachel for dinner-late on Friday.
You want to join us?
Hold on. I heard a muffled conversation, and then a deep male voice came on
the line.
You comin' on to my boy? asked Louis.
Lord no, I replied. I like to be the pretty one in my relationships, but
that's taking it a little too far.
We'll be at the Copley Plaza. You give us a call when you got a restaurant
booked.
Sure thing, boss. Anything else?
We let you know, he said, then the line went dead.
It was a shame about the Miss Manners book, really.
Grace Peltier's credit card statement revealed nothing out of the ordinary,
while the telephone records indicated calls to Marcy Becker at her parents'
motel, a private number in Boston which was now disconnected but which I
assumed to be Ali Wynn's, and repeated calls to the Fellowship's office in
Waterville. Late that afternoon I called the Fellowship at that same number
and got a recorded message asking me to choose one if I wanted to make a
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