Darkness peering (17 page)

"The, too," she said in her most detached, professional manner. "The
apartment looks okay, outside of the usual mess her mother warned me
about."

"I'll send Nussbaum over to vacuum for hair and fibers and dust for
prints."

"So you're classifying the case a kidnapping?"

"What do you think, Storrow?"

"I think we can eliminate the possibility of a voluntary walkaway. She
wasn't on any medication outside of an asthma inhaler, she didn't owe
anybody money, she wasn't depressed ..."

"I'm classifying it as a missing persons for now." She accompanied him
to his car, where a flock of starlings shrieked into the air, and she
tried to connect somehow with their darting reptilian eyes, their tiny
bristling heads.

"This corner of the lot's awfully dark. You think somebody could've
jumped her?" she asked.

"We're scouring the area. We'll get prints off the car, hopefully
before it rains." He glanced at the overcast, celery-colored sky. "I'm
gonna launch a full-scale search-and-rescue."

"Good."

McKissack opened his trunk and took out an evidence collection kit
containing wire cutters, pliers, syringes, plastic bags, a flashlight
and measuring tape. He also pulled out a latent fingerprint kit, then
flipped through his notepad, its pages smudged and chaotic with hastily
scribbled notes. "She ate at the Hurryback Cafe last night. We
interviewed the waitress. Entered unaccompanied around seven P.M." ate
her meal alone, then left around eight P.M. The waitress noticed
nothing odd about her behavior. So far, she's the last person to've
seen her alive."

Rachel arched an eyebrow. "You found a body?"

"Sorry. Slip of the tongue." There was something appealing about his
unaccustomed dishevelment, something dangerous, as if his thoughts were
scattered in a dozen different directions, but she knew better than to
make that kind of assumption. "The Castillos give you friends and
acquaintances?"

Rachel nodded. "I found this in her apartment." He still wouldn't
look at her fully, and she had to thrust the organizer into his hands.
"It's got initials marked all through it."

"Initials?" He thumbed through the calendar section. "Her own private
code?"

"Maybe." She wasn't going to share her suspicions with McKissack
unless it became absolutely necessary. Besides, her brother had an
alibi for Wednesday night. He had been with his head-injured kid.
"And these." She showed him the stack of red envelopes sealed in an
evidence bag. "I think she was being stalked. None of them are
signed. All Bangor postmarks."

"Let's get them down to the station," he said. "I want these
photocopied, then sent to the lab for prints."

"I'm way ahead of you, McKissack."

He smiled self-consciously. "Don't be such a smart-ass, Detective."

"Can't help it. It's a lifetime membership."

He had slipped momentarily, exposing his human side and ruining his icy
pose, but now his face hardened, and his voice, even in its lowest
register, radiated cool detachment. "I want interviews. Friends,
relatives, acquaintances, coworkers. Let's find out who the nut job
is."

"Jim," she said, and he looked away, color blossoming on his cheeks.
"We don't have to act like strangers again, do we?"

He wouldn't answer.

"We made a mistake, and now I'm getting crucified for it."

"What am I supposed to say to that?" he snapped.

She held his eye, shook her head. "Fuck you, Chief," she said and
strode away.

THERE WERE PEOPLE MILLING AROUND OUTSIDE THE HOUSE,

and Nicole Castillo didn't know how much longer she could stand it. It
was raining but the sun was trying hard to penetrate the clouds. She
and her boyfriend, Dinger, were cozily nestled in the pillowed alcove
of her father's study. The door was closed, the lights were off, and
Dinger was holding her hand.

"I don't believe this," she said with an involuntary shiver. "I just
talked to her the other day."

"I know."

"She called me yesterday."

"It's weird."

She could count even pore on his face. A big blue vein stood out on
Dinger's neck, and he wouldn't look at her directly. He

was taller than she by half a foot, with soft formless features, his
blond hair growing out straight but ending in little waves like the
ruffles on a potato chip. His fingernails were dirty and his hands
were callused, and he kept glancing at her as if he expected something
to happen.

"Feels like I've been bad or something," she confessed.

"Why?" he whispered. They'd been whispering all afternoon.

"I dunno." She slid another cigarette out of the pack tucked inside
her sweater pocket. Her mother had promised them complete privacy, so
it felt safe to smoke.

"You should quit," Dinger said.

She looked at him.

"You're gonna get cancer."

She cracked the window an inch and lit up, then exhaled long and slow.
Her breath fogged the window, and Dinger drew a heart in the fog on the
glass. "I don't want you getting sick," he said.

A shudder traveled through her body, making her teeth rattle together.
A tiny black bug crawled up the cold windowpane, and she crushed it
under her thumb. "I just think maybe there's good and there's bad,"
she said, "and if you do bad, then at some point in your life, you get
bad. It's karma."

He smirked. "Please don't squeeze the karma."

"I'm serious." She frowned. "Don't you think it's true? Like if I
snubbed somebody a couple of years back, then I'm paying for it now?"

"No."

"Well, I've done bad things."

"Like what?"

She thought for a moment. "I used to cheat in Sunday school. I ever
tell you?"

"Nuh-uh."

"I never cheated in regular school, but I always cheated in Sunday
school. Isn't that weird? Like I had to defy God or something."

He laughed. "I thought you were gonna say something darker than
that."

She fingered the high school ring he'd given her, which she wore on a
long silver chain around her neck. The amethyst ring she'd gotten for
her fifteenth birthday was on an identical long silver chain around his
neck. "I'm mean to children," she whispered.

"That's not true."

She deflated. "I know."

"See? You haven't done anything bad. You're good." He smoothed her
long dark hair off her face. "You're like an angel or something."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are."

"I've done bad things," she insisted. "I just can't remember what they
are." Sighing smoke, she gazed out the window. "The police've been
asking my mom all these creepy questions, like did Claire own a gun, or
was she depressed, or do we have any rope in the house."

"Rope? What for?"

Her back stiffened. "Haven't you been listening? They think she
killed herself! They must be complete morons. Claire would never kill
herself." Her ears itched. Everything was different now, everything
had changed. She wasn't the same person she'd been last week, or even
earlier this morning. A small crowd of people had gathered outside the
house--volunteers, her mother said. She didn't want them there. She
wished they'd all go to hell.

"I hate this." She hid her face in her hands. She was wearing her
purple cardigan and a Cornershop T-shirt, turquoise plastic sandals
over pink ankle socks, and her mother said she looked like a clown.

Dinger put his muscled arms around her. "Don't cry, Nicole," he said,
but she couldn't help herself.

"I can't breathe." Pushing him away, she opened the window

wider and tossed her cigarette out onto the grass. A wet wind blew
in, and she both liked and hated how it felt on her skin. Three
officers in yellow slickers were standing under an oak tree in the
backyard. One was drinking coffee, shaking his head. The volunteers
were gone.

"I used to believe that good people would be rewarded and bad people
would get punished, but my father says life isn't fair."

"Cold?" Dinger tried to hold her.

"Don't touch me, okay?"

"Sorry." He wiped his hands on his jeans, back and forth across his
knees. He looked dumb to her all of a sudden. Big eared and dumb dumb
dumb.

"I used to have this fear," she said, taking off her sweater and
leaning back against the faux-gazelle pillows, "that if I opened my
legs while I was asleep, then evil spirits would enter my body and take
over my soul."

He squinted. "You're kidding, right?"

"So I always sleep with my legs shut, like this. Never open, like
this." She demonstrated, enjoying the effect it had on him. He looked
really scared and excited at the same time. He looked so silly, she
wanted to laugh.

"Don't get weird on me, Nicole."

She sat up abruptly. "How come nobody tells me anything?"

"Because they don't know anything yet."

She cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled, "What's going on out
there?"

Only nobody heard her. It was raining too hard.

"I feel horrible," she shuddered, "like I can't breathe." Her teeth
were chattering uncontrollably now. "Do you have to go to work
today?"

"I'll call and say I can't make it." He snatched the cigarettes out of
her sweater pocket and crumpled them in his fist. "No more."

"It feels like I've lost something." She couldn't see him

through the blur of tears. Her nose was plugged, and her voice was
coming from somewhere faraway. "What should we do?"

"Nothing." He put his arms around her, and this time she let him.
"Nothing, Nicole. Let's not do anything," he whispered in her ear.
"Let's wait."

BILLY WAS STARING AT HER. "YOU THINK WHAT?"

"I'm not accusing you of anything, Billy. I just have to ask ... since
you work with her ..."

"Jesus, this is like Dad all over again."

"Cut it out. It's nothing like that."

His mouth was set against her. He wore an ancient pair of jeans with
dime-sized holes in the knees, dirty black hightops and a rumpled
tailored shirt. They were sitting in the lime green kitchen of his
rented house, and he'd poured them both a cup of coffee that neither of
them had touched. The house was one of those gingerbread Victorians
that'd long since fallen into disrepair, just your basic Charles Addams
mansion--dark, tall, brooding, crowned with a high, flat-topped tower.
A previous tenant had painted the dark natural interior woodwork
phosphorescent colors in an attempt to brighten up the place, and the
results were spectacularly ugly.

"I've got a few standard questions."

His eyes grew veiled. "Go ahead."

"Where were you around seven-thirty, eight o'clock last night?"

"I already told you, my head-injured kid. Porter Powell. I spend
every Wednesday afternoon and evening with him. I took him to Taco
Bell, then we shot hoops out back, then I drove him to his dorm."

"At Winfield?"

"Yeah."

"And after that?"

"I drove home. Why?"

"What time did you drop him off at the dorm?"

"Nine o'clock, I think."

"You think?"

"I don't remember."

She looked at him. "Can anyone verify the exact time you dropped off
Porter Powell, Billy?"

"Yeah, his aide. Russell something, I don't remember his last name.
He was there in the lounge, waiting to take Porter up to his room. I
signed in at the front desk. The guard saw me."

"Billy," she said, carefully choosing her words, "you might want to
consider hiring yourself a lawyer."

"What d'you mean?" His face deflated. "You think I did something to
her?"

"I'm not suggesting--"

"You think I'd hurt a hair on her head? I was in love with her,
Rachel! I was in love with her for an entire fucking year! She's my
friend, and now suddenly she's like ... in my arms, and I'm going crazy
thinking ... Christ, I could marry this woman. I could actually marry
her!"

He got up from the table, accidentally knocking over his chair. It
landed with a crash, making them both jump. He up righted the chair
and sat again, red-faced. "It's really insulting that you'd even
consider me a suspect."

"Did I say that? Did I say that, Billy?"

"You implied it."

"I'm giving you good advice here. Off the record. As your sister who
loves you. They always consider the boyfriend, the fiance, the
immediate family first. You need to pin down your alibi."

"Alibi? What is this, fucking NYPD Bluer

She sighed defeat. "Billy, I didn't come here to fight."

"This is because of those fucking cats, isn't it?" he said, his anger
raised to such a pitch that everything seemed to blaze. "It doesn't
matter that I'm an entirely different person now, that I was royally
fucked up at the time ... that it's taken me years to straighten myself
out..."

"This isn't about the cats, Billy," she said, masking her own i
uncertainty.

"Listen," he said, "I'm going to tell you something I've never told
anyone before. You don't know about this because you were too young.
I've tried to protect you from the truth, Rachel, but screw it..."

She stared at him, not sure what was coming. Billy was prone to
exaggeration and sometimes joked around and said things he'd later take
back.

"Dad hurt me psychologically and physically from the time I was born
until I was six years old."

She sat in stunned silence.

"You know he used to drink, right? Early on in Mom and Dad's marriage?
You know Grandpa was a drunk, right? Remember how Dad used to say he
never wanted to follow in his old man's footsteps? Well, that's what
he meant."

"Billy..."

"Why do you think there was so much tension between us? Rachel, from
the time I was born, I was not allowed to have a safe feeling. Can you
imagine what that's like? It's different for you. You came along
after he quit drinking, after he pulled his shit together..."