Chapter LVIII

Mattia Reggio didn't drive directly to the Michaud property, but first took a run through Gretton, mainly with the intention of finding somewhere to take a leak. In the center of town was a coffee shop and grocery store with a parking lot, so he ordered a coffee and scone to go before grabbing the restroom key. When he returned, lighter in spirit and bladder, his coffee and pastry were waiting for him. The skies opened as he prepared to leave, scouring the streets, so he took a seat by the window and watched what passed for life in Gretton. The town, he decided, wasn't much to look at it in the rain, not that it would have been anyone's idea of paradise in the sunlight either. Were he forced to spend his declining years here—he couldn't imagine settling in the place voluntarily—the general low-level melancholy he carried with him would certainly have deepened into outright misery.

The scone was dry and heavy, and he gave up on it halfway through. He was just wadding what remained of it in the paper bag when a man walking on the opposite side of the street caught his attention.

Lars Ungar, thought Reggio. Just when you figured a place couldn't drop any lower, the Nazis move in.

Through his work for Moxie Castin, Reggio was aware of all manner of malefactors, but he was particularly conscious of those who orbited Bobby Ocean, because of the history between the Oceans and Charlie Parker. What distinguished Ocean's cohort from generic haters, the kind who infected the lower reaches of human interaction like a gonorrhea of the soul, was their relative intelligence. Lars Ungar might have been a bigot and a xenophobe, but he could string together a series of coherent sentences without lapsing into spittle-flecked abuse, and might even have passed for a regular human being were it not for the swastika tattooed on his face, a relic of youthful overenthusiasm during a two-year sentence in Maine State Prison for aggravated assault, if none that he saw reason to disown. That was back when the MSP was still located in Thomaston, and prisoners occupied six-by-seven cells in a facility that had been modern when it was built in the 1920s but hadn't aged well.

Reggio, as a much younger and more reckless man, had served time in Thomaston for wire fraud. It was only a six-month term, but enough to convince him of the error of his ways: in future, he would be more careful, and not get caught. Thomaston had burned down twice, once in 1850 and again in 1923, but no one had ever been able to tell Reggio for sure how many prisoners died in the fires. He supposed that nobody really cared, but he'd hated Thomaston, hated it as intensely as any institution in which he'd been imprisoned, and he'd seen the inside of a few in his early years. In the dead of night, he would wake to the smell of burning in his cell, and in those moments the torments of long-departed men touched his soul, taking him as close as he had ever come to worlds beyond this one.

Now here was Lars Ungar, a fellow alumnus, ambling toward a late-model Ford truck parked outside the Rite Aid, heedless of the rain, two bags of groceries in his arms and a pistol on open carry at his right side. The last Reggio had heard, Ungar was living north of Freeport in a house owned by one of Antoine Pinette's sisters. He might even have been sleeping with her, presumably with her brother's knowledge and assent, given that Antoine was staying there, too.

Reggio took out his cell phone and clicked off a series of photographs of Ungar as he climbed into the passenger seat and the truck pulled away, passing the coffee shop as it headed south. Reggio didn't recognize the driver, but he took a picture of him as well.

Reggio felt a presence at his right shoulder. He glanced up to see one of the wait staff also taking in the truck. She wore a full-face plastic shield and a blue surgical mask beneath. A rainbow flag pin was attached to the lapel of her shirt, above a second, larger pin that read, IMMUNOCOMPROMISED AND TRYING TO STAY SAFE!

"You know those folks?" Reggio asked.

"I might." She pointed a finger at the bag containing the remains of Reggio's scone, but didn't look directly at him. "You finished with that, hon?"

"Yes, ma'am." He decided to persist. "Not a fan?"

"Of trash?" Her question could deliberately be taken two ways. "No, sir."

"Me neither," he said. "Would those particular pieces of trash be staying somewhere nearby?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Just curious."

"Curious, huh?"

She didn't believe him, and he could see that she didn't, but she wasn't about to let the lie bother her. She appraised him, and decided he could be trusted.

"They have a camp outside of town," she said, "men and women both. The talk is that more are coming, but we don't want them here—or the majority don't, the ones who remember that we once fought a war to defeat people like them."

"Do they own the property?"

"No, it's Hickman land. Den always did pull where others pushed, but I never took him for a bigot, not until they showed up."

That name was familiar to Reggio.

"Is that the same Hickman whose holdings sit next to the Michaud place?"

"That's right." She was peering at him with interest now. "Are you a Realtor—or a reporter, maybe?"

"Perish the thought," said Reggio. "I just drive, but I take an interest in local affairs."

"Well, if you've any sense you'll keep driving, and let affairs in this locale take care of themselves."

He thanked her for the advice and she moved on. Reggio waited until the rain stopped before returning to his car, but paused by the exit to ask some more questions of the woman with the rainbow flag pin, now that he was on a roll with her.

"How do the Michauds feel about those people living on the neighboring property?"

"Let's just say the Michauds and the Hickmans are neighbors without being neighborly," she replied, "so the Michauds probably don't feel very good about it at all."

"Would the Michauds be willing to talk to me?"

"You sure you're not a reporter?"

"Cross my heart."

"Whatever you are," she said, "I'd leave the Michauds be. Their land is posted, and they don't welcome visitors."

"I can be very persuasive."

"Nobody's that ingratiating," she said, "believe me."

Reggio left the coffee shop. He'd tucked a few dollars extra under his cup because he thought she was a nice lady. His phone pinged as he got in the car: Amara, checking that he was safe. He replied with an OK, and added an X.

A screenshot of the message would be made public after his death.