‘No, they wouldn’t. They also prefer not to leave guns lying around. They’re evidence, whatever way you look at it.’
‘Maybe Farrell sent a backup, just to be sure,’ said Engel. ‘We’ll ask around. For now, an operation that started half a decade ago is nothing but dust: years of effort for no result. Maybe if you weren’t such a lone wolf we could have got to Lonny Midas in time to use him as bait. We could have been waiting for Morris when he came.’
‘You’re forgetting that you had an agent in place all the time. It seems kind of harsh to put the blame on my shoulders when all Dempsey had to do was pick up a phone.’
‘Morris kept him out of the loop on this, right until the end.’
‘Maybe he didn’t trust him so much after all.’
‘We’ll never know.’
‘Right. And Anna Kore is still missing. You forgot to mention her, but then she was never a major concern of yours, was she?’
‘We’re going to search Randall Haight’s property – my mistake, Lonnie Midas’s property, given what we’ve now learned about him. It’s possible that he might have had an accomplice. Right now, it’s the best lead we have.’
‘Allan gave him an alibi,’ I said.
‘I know that. Do you have any reason to doubt it?’
I took out my cell phone, opened the message folder, and showed him the anonymous missives about Chief Allan. He read through them, then handed the phone back to me.
‘Why didn’t you mention this before?’
‘I tend to be careful about potential slanders. I prefer to look into the possible truth of them before I go disseminating their substance.’
‘And what did you discover?’
‘Chief Allan has a girlfriend in Lincolnville. She’s young, and she has a child. If Allan is the father, then she was either barely legal when she became pregnant, or not legal at all if he was having sex with her for any length of time before she conceived.’
‘When did you discover this?’
‘Just yesterday, but then it was a day of discoveries for all of us.’
‘You have a name for the girl?’
I gave it to him, along with the address of the apartment building and the number of her car’s license plate.
‘And your thinking is that Chief Allan is a man with a taste for young women, in a town where another young woman has gone missing?’
‘That’s the thinking of whoever has been sending these messages.’
‘You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you? We’ll talk with Allan. We’ll get a warrant to search his house as well.’
‘She’s not at his house,’ I said.
Engel raised a quizzical eyebrow.
‘Dubious angels,’ I explained. ‘If Allan does have her, then she’s someplace else.’
Engel thought for a moment.
‘All right. Anything else, while you’re unburdening yourself of secrets?’
‘One more thing: Allan made a call from a pay phone at the gas station on Main in Lincolnville at 8:34 p.m. yesterday.’
‘Just before a lot of men with guns descended on Pastor’s Bay,’ said Engel.
‘It would be interesting to know who he called.’
‘Wouldn’t it? You know, you might have made a good cop if you’d stuck with it, if you’d had the self-discipline and the ability to tame your ego. Instead you’re a mercenary who withholds information and makes bad judgment calls.’
A horse-faced woman wearing a blue FBI windbreaker entered the room, a younger, preppy-looking guy hovering behind her with a gun at his waist. Engel nodded at them and stood. His mouth formed a moue as he looked down on me.
‘You should leave while you still can, Mr. Parker, before somebody takes it into his mind to put you under arrest. You didn’t behave well here. None of us did, but you in particular have done nothing to enhance your reputation.’
I didn’t argue with him.