Chapter XLII

What I knew about Sabine Drew came from the pair of missing persons cases on which she'd worked, those of Verona Walters and Edie Brook. Both had ended badly, if in different ways, the second of them so traumatically that it had transformed Drew into a recluse. But between those two investigations came a brief period during which she was one of the most conspicuous women in the state, and among the best-known mediums in the Northeast, assuming you accepted the reality of psychic phenomena. If you didn't, then you were probably of the opinion that Drew had come lucky once, but struck out a second time when it mattered.

I wasn't sure what I believed. I knew Ronnie Pascal, because Maine was a big state but a small society, and the law enforcement community was smaller still. Pascal had been perfectly straight with everyone about how the Augusta PD had come to unearth the remains of Verona Walters, although the more peculiar details—Sabine Drew's awareness of what the girl had for breakfast on the morning she disappeared, or her abductor's smell—he retained for private distribution, and the discussions that took place where only police were gathered. Pascal was retired, but his opinion that Drew was the real deal had not altered. Coming to terms with this had cost him, shifting his view of existence in a manner that he struggled to articulate. As far as I was aware, he remained an agnostic, but willing to accept that something more than oblivion might await him after death. Even what happened subsequently with Edie Brook hadn't caused him to doubt her, but by then he was in the minority.

Sabine Drew was broadly unchanged. She had always come across as older than her years, but in seclusion the clock might almost have stopped for her. True, her hair showed more signs of gray, but her face was unlined and bore the ruddiness of a life lived largely in the open air. I put out a hand to her and she grasped it, but her grip immediately dropped away. She swayed, and some of the color faded from her cheeks. I thought she might be about to faint, but as I moved to help her, she waved me back, breaking contact.

"The wine must have gone to my head," she said.

She sat, reached for the water glass on her table, and drank until it was empty. I waved a server over and asked for a refill, as well as a club soda for myself. I'd had enough beer, alcohol-free or otherwise, for the time being.

"They told you who I was, didn't they?" she asked, once the soda and water had arrived.

"Dave, the owner, recognized you. You could have saved him the trouble by just giving your name to Paulie."

"I wasn't certain you'd come if I did," she said, "although the fact that I took the trip down here in the first place means I must have been hopeful. I hadn't necessarily thought the whole business through. I've fallen out of the habit of dealing with strangers. I don't have much of a social life."

I noticed that she was unwilling to look directly at me. It made conversation awkward.

"Do I have something on my face?" I asked.

"Not that I can see. Why do you ask?"

"You're having trouble maintaining eye contact. If you're not incurably shy, or trying to conceal some deception, then I must need a better mirror."

She put down her glass, composed herself, and looked straight at me.

"Is that better?"

"Much," I said.

"I've heard a lot about you."

"Likewise."

"What I've heard doesn't do you justice. Based on what I'd read, I assumed you to be a committed, if sometimes violent man, but you're more than that, much more. You see them, don't you?"

"Them?"

"The dead, some of them—and worse than the dead, even if the dead are bad enough. Forgive my bluntness, but I place a premium on honesty."

I didn't reply. This was not a subject I was prepared to indulge. Sitting with a professed medium, as with a priest, presupposed some discussion of the numinous, but there were limits. As it turned out, Drew wasn't waiting for a response. This was less a conversation and closer to a reading.

"I heard that you died on the operating table after you were shot," she continued. "I can believe it now. When you crossed back, you left part of yourself behind." She frowned. "Or was it always missing? It's hard to be sure. Whatever the truth may be, there's a darkness inside you, like a spot on a lung, but impenetrable. And around you—" I could see her choosing her next words carefully "—traces of the dead, trailing like gossamer."

I sipped my soda.

"This," I said, "may be why you struggle to maintain a social circle."

She laughed spontaneously. It was a lovely, bright sound. The action transformed her face and lit up her eyes, the best and liveliest part of her.

"Too much information?"

"You need to save something for the second date."

The laughter faded slowly, leaving her puzzled by its unfamiliarity.

"I hope you see loved ones," she said, "and that you gain consolation from them. I've never been able to see those to whom I was close. I tried reaching out to my mother after she died because I missed her so, but she was gone. I like to think it was because her death was peaceful and natural. There was little pain to her passing, and no rage. The dead are not meant to vacillate. If they do, it's only because of anger and hurt. In my experience, there are no happy ghosts."

"Do you still see them?"

"Oh yes, but I choose not to engage, for the most part."

I tried to recall an odder recent conversation, and failed.

"I was told," I said, "that you might have some information about the Clark case."

"I think I know where Henry Clark can be found."

"Alive?"

"Is that meant to be a trick? Because I doubt even his own parents believe he's still alive, not with all the blood, though I'm sure they're hoping."

"I was hoping, too," I said.

I meant it, and she saw that it was so.

"I'm sorry, but Henry Clark is dead. Whatever is left of him lies in the vicinity of the town of Gretton."

"How do you know?"

"I hear him crying."

"Why? Do you live near Gretton?"

It sounded sarcastic, which wasn't my intention.

"Are you trying to alienate me, Mr. Parker? If so, you're doing a better job than most."

"I don't know how these things work."

"These ‘things'? Perhaps I've misjudged you in more ways than one. Whatever that black mass inside you is concealing, it's not a surfeit of common sense, or good manners."

She began gathering her things. I raised a conciliatory hand.

"I think you're hearing an insult where none was meant," I said. "I know it must have taken a great deal to bring you here, and it could be that you were primed for rejection. You may not like some of my questions, but I'm asking them only because I don't know the answers."

She wasn't used to compromise. Those who live alone rarely are—I could speak from experience—but I saw that she was still inclined to depart.

"My daughter," I said.

"What?"

"You asked about the ones I see. I see my dead daughter." I lowered my hand. It suddenly felt very heavy. "Among others."