"Don't make me come back, old man," I said quietly.

"I didn't make you come here to begin with, and I sure ain't makin' you come back. I got nothing to say to you. Now I'm tellin' you for the last time: get off my land."

I shrugged, turned and walked away. There was nothing more to be done, not without the risk of getting my head shot off. I looked back once to find him still standing on the porch, the shotgun in his hands. I had other people to talk to, but I figured I'd be back out to see that old man again.

That was my first mistake.

CHAPTER TWENTY

After I left the old man I drove south. His words bothered me. It could have been nothing, I supposed; after all, he might have seen Ricky and Ellen together in town, and the news that someone was concerned that they were missing would have spread pretty quickly, even as far as the boondocks where the old man lived. If it turned out there was more to it than that then I knew where to find him, if I needed to.

I made my tour of the towns, Guilford and Dover-Foxcroft taking more time than the others, but I came up with nothing. I stopped at a pay phone to call Dave Martel in Greenville and he agreed to meet me at St. Martha's in order to pave the way with Dr. Ryley, the director. I wanted to talk to him about Emily Watts.

And Caleb Kyle.

"I hear you've been asking about the Cole girl," he said, as I prepared to hang up.

I paused. I hadn't been in contact with him since I arrived back in Dark Hollow. He seemed to detect my puzzlement.

"Hey, it's a small place. News gets around. I had a call from New York early this morning, asking about her."

"Who was it?"

"It was her father," continued Martel. "He's on his way back up here. Seems he got into a shouting match with Rand Jennings, and Jennings told him to keep away from Dark Hollow if he wanted to help his daughter. Cole called me to see if I could tell him anything that Jennings wouldn't. Probably called the county sheriff and CID as well." CID was the Criminal Investigations Division of the state police.

I sighed. Giving Walter Cole an ultimatum was like telling the rain to fall up instead of down.

"He say when he was going to arrive?"

"Tomorrow, I guess. I think he's going to stay here, instead of in the Hollow. You want me to give you a call when he gets here?"

"No," I said. "I'll find out soon enough." I told him a little about the background to the case, and how I had become involved at Lee's instigation, not Walter's. Martel gave a small laugh.

"Hear you were out there when they found Gary Chute as well. You sure lead a complicated life."

"You hear anything more about it?"

"Daryl brought the wardens out to where he found Chute-hell of a trip, from what I hear-and the truck's being brought back for examination, soon as they can clear a road through the snow. The body's on its way to Augusta. According to one of the part-timers who was down here this morning, Jennings seemed to think there was some bruising to the body, like he'd been beaten before he died. They're going to question the wife, see if she might have run out of patience with him and sent someone to take care of him."

"Pretty lame."

"Pretty," he agreed. "I'll see you at the home."

Martel's car was already pulled up outside the main entrance to St. Martha's when I arrived, and he and Dr. Ryley were waiting for me by the reception desk.

Dr. Ryley was a middle-aged man with good teeth, a well-cut suit and the oily manner of a casket salesman. His hand was soft and moist when I shook it. I had to resist the temptation to dry my palm on my jeans when he had detached himself from me. It wasn't hard to see why Emily Watts had taken a shot at him.

He told us how much he regretted what had happened and advised us on the new security measures that had been introduced as a result, which seemed to consist of nothing more than locking the doors and hiding anything that could be used to knock out the guards. After some to-ing and fro-ing with Martel, he agreed to let me speak to Mrs. Schneider, the woman who occupied the room next to that of the late Emily Watts. Martel decided to wait in the lobby, in case we spooked the old lady by arriving as a team. He sat, drew a second chair in front of him with the tip of his shoe, then put his feet up and seemed to fall asleep.

Mrs. Erica Schneider was a German Jew who fled to America with her husband in 1938. He was a jeweler and brought enough gems with him to enable him to set up in business in Bangor. They had been comfortable too, she told me, at least until he died and the bills that he had been hiding from her for the best part of five years resurfaced. She was forced to sell their house and most of her possessions, then fell ill from stress. Her children had put her in the home, arguing that most of them were within visiting distance anyway, although this didn't mean that any of them actually bothered to visit her, she said. She spent most of her time watching TV or reading. When it was warm enough, she walked in the grounds.

I sat beside her in her small, neat room with its carefully made bed, its single closet filled with old, dark dresses, its dressing table covered with a limited selection of cosmetics that the old woman still carefully applied each morning, as she turned to me and said: "I hope I die soon. I want to leave this place."

I didn't reply. After all, what could I say? Instead, I said: "Mrs. Schneider, I'll try to keep what's said here today between us, but I need to know something: did you call a man named Willeford in Portland and talk to him about Emily Watts?"

She said nothing. I thought for a moment that she might start to cry, because she looked away and seemed to be having trouble with her eyes. I spoke again. "Mrs. Schneider, I really need you to help me. Some people have been killed, and a young girl is missing, and I think that maybe these things are connected to Miss Emily in some way. If there's anything at all you can tell me, anything that might assist me in bringing this thing to a close, I would appreciate it, I truly would."

She gripped and twisted the cord of her dressing gown in her hands, wincing. "Yes," she replied, at last. "I thought it might help her." The cord drew tighter and there was fear in her voice, as if the rope was tightening not around her hands, but around her neck. "She was so sad."

"Why, Mrs. Schneider? Why was she sad?"

The hands still worked at the cord as she replied. "One night, perhaps a year ago, I found her crying. I came to her, and I held her, and then she spoke to me. She told me that it was her child's birthday-a boy, she said, but she had not kept him, because she was afraid."

"Afraid of what, Mrs. Schneider?"

"Afraid of the man who fathered the child," she said. She swallowed and looked to the window. "What harm can it do to talk of these things now?" she whispered softly, more to herself than to me, then turned her face to mine. "She told me that, when she was young, her father… Her father was a very bad man, Mr Parker. He beat her and forced her to do things, you understand? Sex, ja? Even when she was older, he would not let her leave him, because he wanted her near him."

I nodded, but stayed silent as the words tumbled out of her like rats from a sack.

"Then another man came to her town, and this man made love to her, and took her to his bed. She did not tell him about the sex, but, in the end, she told him about the beatings. And this man, he found her father in a bar and he beat him, and told him that he must never touch his daughter again." She emphasized each word with a wag of her finger, carefully spacing each syllable for maximum emphasis. "He told her father that if anything happened to his daughter, he would kill him. And because of this, Miss Emily fell in love with this man.