Free A Song of Shadows by John Connolly Page A

evidence.’
    ‘I know that,’ said Karen, and Bloom detected the note of annoyance in her voice. Clearly there was something here that Bloom wasn’t fully understanding, but it would sure help her a whole lot if Karen would just get around to telling her what it was, which Karen duly did.
    ‘It’s the private detective,’ she said. ‘It’s Charlie Parker who’s standing out at Mason Point.’
    Bloom parked at the edge of the strand. She knew better than to drive down onto the beach, even with the Explorer. That damn sand was treacherous, and not a week went by in the summer without some dumb tourist ignoring the signs about not parking on the strand, and being forced to call Smalley’s Towing Service to get a vehicle back on terra firma.
    If Parker heard her pull up, he gave no sign. He simply continued to stare out to sea, and she might have thought it nothing more than a man seeking a slight change of surroundings on a cool evening in late spring were it not for the fact that he was standing almost exactly on the spot where the body had washed up. He was wearing a dark overcoat that hung just below his knees, the collar raised to cover his neck. The wind created sand specters, and Bloom felt fine grains sting her cheek.
    Only when she was almost within touching distance of him did he turn slightly to acknowledge her approach, speaking her name at the same time. She wondered how he had known. In all the time she had been watching him, his gaze had not left the sea.
    ‘Chief Bloom,’ he said, and she experienced a kind of nervousness, a sense that the world had shifted slightly off-kilter. He had about him a conflicted air, a fusion of contradictions: pain, yet peace; rage, yet equanimity. She caught the white patterns in his hair, the suffering etched in his face.
    And his eyes … Had she been on more friendly terms with Bobby Soames, they might well have found common ground in their impression of Parker. She had only ever seen pictures of him before he arrived, but she wondered if his eyes had always been so haunted, and so haunting. They were the eyes of someone who had witnessed events beyond the comprehension of others, and perhaps even beyond his own. She knew that his heart had stopped three times after the shooting, and he had been resuscitated on each occasion. Perhaps the victim of such traumas lost a little of himself every time, and left part of his being behind in the darkness. Or perhaps he brought something of the darkness back with him. Yes, that was it. These were not the eyes of a man who was less than he once was. No, they were the eyes of one who was much more.
    ‘Mr Parker,’ she said. ‘You mind if I ask what you’re doing out here?’
    ‘Did I miss an ordinance about not enjoying the view?’
    He didn’t speak testily. He sounded only amused.
    ‘We haven’t passed that one yet, although there are some folks in town who’d like to find a way to charge for it, if they could. No, I’m simply wondering if it’s a coincidence that you’re filling your lungs steps from where, as I’m sure you know, a body was recently washed up.’
    ‘Do you have a name yet?’
    She noticed that he hadn’t answered her question, although in a way, he just had.
    ‘We haven’t made an official identification, but we’ve found what we believe to be his vehicle.’
    He waited. She sighed. This wasn’t the way that it was supposed to go, but, damn, the man had a way about him.
    ‘Bruno Perlman, forty-five. Resident of Duval County, Florida.’
    ‘Long way from home. Rental?’
    ‘No, it’s his own.’
    ‘He drove all the way up here from southeast Florida?’
    ‘It seems so.’
    ‘Just to throw himself in the ocean?’
    ‘We haven’t yet made any determination on that.’
    ‘You sound like you’re already practising your lines for the press.’
    ‘Maybe I am. We’ll be releasing the name once his family has been informed. It’s just that—’
    Again, he simply waited.
    ‘Well,’