‘Oh,’ I said, keeping my voice as neutral as possible. I didn’t like Jeff, but it didn’t matter. Jeff liked himself enough for both of us.

‘Daddy!’ said Sam. ‘You don’t have to pretend you’re sad.’

Jesus.

‘Are you sure you’re just in elementary school?’ I said. ‘You’re not studying psychology on the side?’

‘Mom knows psycottagy,’ said Sam.

‘Yes, she does.’ Not enough of it to avoid dating a jackass like Jeff, but solving other people’s problems was often easier than taking care of your own. I considered sharing that insight with Rachel, but decided against it. Maybe I was learning at last that discretion was the better part of valor. ‘Just put your mom back on. I’ll see you when you get back.’

‘Bye. Love you,’ said Sam, and my heart broke a little.

‘Bye, hon. Love you too.’

I chatted with Rachel for a minute or two more. She seemed happy. That was good. I wanted her to be happy. If she was happy, Sam would be happy. I just wished Rachel could be happy with someone other than Jeff. It reflected badly on her good taste, but then there were those who might have said the same about her time with me.

‘What are you working on?’ asked Rachel.

‘Nothing much. Process serving. Errant husbands.’

‘Is that all? It won’t keep you from mischief for long.’

‘Well, there’s this thing with a homeless guy too. He hanged himself, and I can’t figure out why.’

‘I’ll bet he didn’t pay you in advance.’

‘You know, it’s funny you should say that, but someone in this city might have the money that he would have used to pay me.’

‘Do I need to tell you to be careful?’

‘No, but it always helps.’

‘I doubt that, but for the sake of your daughter …’

‘I’ll be careful.’

‘You in a bar?’

‘Rosie’s.’

‘Ah. A date?’

Macy arrived. She had some photocopied pages in one hand and a mug in the other. Like me, she had sought coffee.

‘No, I wouldn’t say that.’

Rachel laughed. ‘No, you wouldn’t, would you? Go on, get lost.’

I hung up. Macy had been hanging back in an effort to give me privacy. Now she stepped forward and laid the papers on the table as she sat.

‘You can read,’ she said, ‘but I’m not leaving them with you, okay?’

‘Understood.’

It was the ME’s report on Jude’s body. I could probably have bargained a look at it from the ME’s office, but this saved me the trouble of a trip to Augusta.

The rope used in the hanging was cotton, with a running knot placed over the occipital region. Rope fibers and remnants had been found on a table nearby, along with marks in the wood consistent with the cutting action of a sharp knife.

‘Did you find a knife at the scene?’ I asked Macy.

‘No, but it could have been with the other possessions that were taken.’

‘I guess.’

Rigor mortis and postmortem staining on both legs, distal portion of upper limbs, and area of waist above the belt line. Both eyes partially open; conjunctiva congested and cornea hazy. Mouth partially open, tongue protruding.

I moved on to the ligature mark. The ME found that it encircled the whole neck apart from a small gap beneath the knot, consistent with the drag weight of the body. The ligature ran backward, upward and toward the occipital region. The ligature marks were slightly wider on the left of the neck than the right, but only by about a fifth of an inch. Dissection of the neck revealed no evidence of fracture of the thyroid cartilage or hyoid bone, as is often the case in forced strangulation, which seemed to rule out the possibility that Jude had been attacked. Likewise, there was no extravasion – forced flow – of blood in the neck tissues. The ME had concluded that the cause of death was asphyxia due to suicidal hanging by ligature.

The only other noteworthy inclusion in the report was a list of bruises, scars and abrasions to Jude’s body. They were considerable enough to make me wince. As if to compound the issue, Macy slid another sheet of paper across the table. It was a color copy, and the quality wasn’t great. This was a small mercy, given what the two photographs on it revealed about the battering that Jude had taken over the years. Falls, fights, beatings: all were recorded on a map of skin and flesh, and all concealed beneath the trappings of a thrift-shop dandy. Anyone who was dumb enough to imagine that life on the streets of Portland was some kind of state-funded outdoor vacation just needed one look at the picture of Jude’s torso and limbs to be set straight.

‘The ME says some are recent, but most are pretty old,’ said Macy. ‘One or two might have been received in the hours prior to his death. These ones here are interesting.’

She pointed with her finger to marks on Jude’s upper right and left arms.

‘What are they?’

Macy handed over a final sheet. She had a fair for the dramatic. The pictures showed enlargements of the marks.

‘They look like grips,’ I said, ‘as though someone held him hard from behind.’

‘That’s what I thought,’ said Macy. ‘But it doesn’t mean they’re connected to his death. This was a man who took knocks on a regular basis.’

‘You going to ask around?’

‘I wasn’t until you showed up. Look, I still think he took his own life, but I’ll admit that you’ve raised enough questions to make me wonder again about why he did it. Might be useful if we could find the contents of his pack, though, or better still, talk to whoever made that call. You never know what we might learn.’

‘You try asking around?’

‘Nix did, as best he could. If anybody knew anything, they were keeping quiet. But if I came across a dead man, and then rifled his belongings and stole what little money he had, I’d probably keep quiet about it too.’

Macy gathered up the photocopies and finished her coffee.

‘So, you doing much pro bono work these days?’

‘No, but I hear it’s good for the soul.’

‘Which is why you’ll keep on this – for the good of your soul, and the fact that you think you might owe Jude some hours?’

‘Whatever I owe him, it’s not hours,’ I said.

‘You still have my number?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. I thought you might have lost it, seeing as how you never called and all.’

‘I’m sorry about that.’

‘Don’t be. It was a good dinner, and you did pay for it.’

‘It was, but I still should have called. I don’t know why I didn’t.’

‘I do,’ she said. ‘The same things that stopped me from calling you. Life. Death.’

She stood.

‘You know how to find me,’ she said. ‘I’d appreciate a heads-up if you learn anything.’

‘Done,’ I said.

She turned back briefly as she walked away.

‘It was good seeing you again.’

‘And you,’ I said.

I watched her go. A couple of other guys did too. Damn.

15

Morland sat on one side of the kitchen table, Hayley Conyer to his right. Harry and Erin sat on the other side, facing them. The Dixons had never entertained Hayley in their home before. They had never entertained her anywhere. Neither had they ever set foot in her house. They had heard that it was beautiful and ornate, if gloomy. Erin was secretly pleased that, while their own home might not have been anything special, it wasn’t lacking in cheer. The kitchen was bright, and the living room that connected to it was even brighter. There was a shadow over all of it now, though. Hayley Conyer seemed to have brought something of the night in with her.

‘You have a lovely home,’ she said, in the manner of one who was surprised at how far the little people could stretch a nickel, but still wouldn’t want to live like them.

‘Thank you,’ said Erin.

She had made coffee. She had a vague recollection that Hayley Conyer preferred tea, but she deliberately hadn’t offered her any. She wasn’t even sure that there was tea in the house. If there was, it had been there for so long that nobody would want to drink it.