Lost Girls (10 page)

And Murdoch no different from the rest. In fact something classical about it, the humility that comes with all failed experiments. Shingles flapping off the roofs to be replaced with smearings of tar. Uncertain-looking houses with nylon curtains permanently drawn in the upstairs windows and a single porch light packed tight with moth wings. Above the main-street storefronts the by-the-week apartments where the whiskey bachelors peer down with faces you can never clearly see, as though a ghost or a minor character in a complicated dream. Below them, the good citizens of Murdoch scuffing by. Hardworking if there's work to be done, honest if asked directly, skeptical of good fortune. People not so much friendly as prepared to help if called upon.

At the end of the street there's the high school, the brick a dirty yellow instead of the houses' dirty red. Nobody outside except a couple guys in Guns n' Roses Tshirts, energetically smoking as though it might make them warm. At one of the classroom windows a teacher points at a map of Europe, the heads of her students hung low from note taking or sleep.

I check my watch. Nine thirty-seven.

Left at the lights and right at the courthouse and then out of town on the main highway north which follows the shore of Georgian Bay, although now, even with most of the leaves off the trees, it's still too far off to be seen. I keep an eye out for signs but still come to the turn almost too late to make it: LAKE ST. CHRISTOPHER, RIGHT 50 YARDS. The Lincoln leans off onto the crunch and bump of the single lane that quickly disappears, behind and ahead, into the trees.

The map calls it Lake St. Christopher, but it used to go by Fireweed Lake. At least that's what the couple of handpainted direction signs nailed onto roadside pines still call it, erected in the days before some poet at the Chamber of Commerce changed its name. From what I can tell Fireweed Lake is more appropriate, though, for instead of the dramatic rock formations or clear, sandy beaches that dignify many of the other settled lakes an hour or so to the south, this one could claim only a slow and soggy decline into the reed-ridden muck. It's a big lake with limited road access and plenty of cheap land surrounding it, but the same could be said of a hundred other lakes up here that don't suffer the blight of duckweed and quack grass as this one does. And then, after forty or fifty brake-pumping turns, it's there before me, a glimpse of reflected cloud between an entanglement of brown trunks.

The road rises, falls, and jerks, occasionally exposing the entrance to a cottage driveway marked by some cutesie name burned into a hunk of driftwood. Mayonnaise Manor, Monarch Point, Bucky's Palace. But there aren't many of these, and the spaces between them are dotted with realty signs crippled from the rot setting in at their bases. The map is spread out beside me on the passenger seat and I pull over to trace the final part of Tripp's path. A red dot to mark the place where he supposedly stopped, halfway around the circumference of the water. If the lake runs about three miles from end to end and three quarters of a mile across at its midsection, and judging from how far I must have gone already, I've got to be pretty close. But it seems I have to continue on another quarter of an hour before, with the cresting of a final steep incline, the woods on the right are set off by the yellow plastic of a police line fluttering over the road.

Roll down the window and suddenly my ears are filled with a high-voltage hum. An orchestrated layering of clicks and gulps and tweets that together is louder than the car's engine.
Over here
. All society of nature calling out to each other, to itself.
I'm over here
.

It's beautiful. Even I can recognize the beauty of it. But as it goes on it becomes increasingly mechanical in my ears. A primitive, poorly lubricated machine producing some hard and common product, and soon all I can hear is noise.

I turn off the car and step out onto the road, look down into the woods in the direction I know the lake to be, but it's not visible from here. The map showed that at this point the road wandered from the lake and left a wide margin of land between them, maybe a quarter mile of exposed rock of a size only retreating glaciers could move. All things considered it would seem an impractical place for Tripp to stop: no cottages nearby to give rise to the concern of potential witnesses (even if anyone was up here at this time of year, which they apparently aren't) and from this starting point the walk down to the water would be an unnecessarily prolonged pain in the ass. Why here? Did he come this far out of nervousness, choosing caution over convenience? Or was the nature hike part of the fun?

Step onto the pulpy bed of pine needles and leaves which gives off the damp odor of living fiber turning into something else. Clouds of flying things enter at collar and sleeve only to explode from their own gluttony, leave dark smears over the backs of swatting hands. The going is slow. But despite the absence of any clear markings the path is obvious. The gray rock faces shift to one side as I pass, the thorny branches arch high enough to let me through.

When it finally comes the water takes me by surprise, a sudden leveling out that laps up to the rim of the rock I stand on. A foot below on either side is the beach, which is less a beach than the meeting of earth, weeds, and runoff the color of mustard left too long out of the fridge. There's no way you could jump in without getting covered in it, without legs sinking into the softness of whatever collection of half-dissolved things it was that settled on the bottom. How could Tripp have deposited the girls here without having them float in the exact spot he'd left them? There wasn't enough current in this place to shift a fallen branch six inches, let alone take two loads of 120-pound human being out to the middle. Did he get in there up to his armpits himself, swim out a bit to where it got deep? That would explain the first one maybe, but not the second waiting patiently on the rock for Tripp to paddle back and send her off the same way. And what if he had to carry them down--

My thoughts are cut off by the idea of a sound just behind me. Turn, but there's nothing there. A rush of blood past the eardrum. A lick of wind sounding as a whispered name.

I jump off the rock and land funny on the pebbles below, the bolt of pain from a twisted ankle shooting up to my crotch. Then I'm rolling to the ground while some woodland rodent chatters down at me from the network of trees overhead. Wait there on the poking stones for the throbbing to pass to the point that I can get to my feet. But there's the voice again. Blown thin through the clacking branches. Not a name at all but the first call of alarm, startled and high.

Lift myself as much with arms as legs and hop back up to the path. Wishing I could move a little faster but both the hill and my useless ankle hold me back. Although I know there's nothing but the water cut off by the trees behind me I don't turn around, keep my eyes on my feet stubbing over roots and stone, the wind now a distant laughter in the remaining leaves. By the time I reach the Lincoln and scrabble for the keys in my pocket I'm surprised by the choking tightness of my lungs.

The road is too narrow to turn around so I'm forced to reverse to the first cottage driveway and on the way I scrape the passenger side past a fence post that, with a sound like clicked fingers, neatly lops the mirror clean off the door. Watch it scuttle down into the ditch, sending back a glimpse of my own blanched face. Consider stopping to pick it up but my foot doesn't move from the pedal. Add it to Mr. Tripp's disbursements.

It's only on the main highway back into town that I check my watch. Eleven-forty-two. Nearly two hours from start to finish.

When I get back to the honeymoon suite I pull out a blank legal pad with the intention of taking down a physical description of the crime scene to help with cross-examination somewhere down the line. But nothing comes, and instead I find myself writing the heading SPECULATIVE HYPOTHESES at the top of the page and beneath it the following three theories:

The first would suggest that Tripp is in fact a man possessing remarkable (however hidden) physical strengths as well as extraordinary patience in carrying out the transport and disposal of his victims. The second theory admits some degree of voluntariness on the part of the girls, who perhaps up until the final moments were under the impression that they were on a field trip out for an inspirational gazing over still waters.

The third theory is that he had some help.

After a breakfast of toasted bagel discovered deep inside the pocket of my overcoat I head back up to the courthouse for my conference with a Mr. Goodwin, the Crown attorney assigned to the trial. I'm feeling a little sluggish, having limited myself to only a single line of wake-up coke, but the fatigue seems to come from a different source. Since arriving in Murdoch my sleep has been degraded to a series of five-hour toss-and-turn marathons. Waking lacquered in sweat or balled up in shivers, eyes opening at the imagined scrape of the window lifting open. A rattling breath joining my own in the dark room.

I make a mental note to buy pills.

When I find Goodwin's office I take a second before entering to finish a heaving yawn and guess at what sort of opponent I'm about to meet. ''Never heard of him,'' Graham had e-mailed back when I'd asked if Goodwin was a known quantity. ''They assign the weird ones up there.''

And he is weird, if being startlingly fat satisfies the definition. A peony-faced water retainer jammed behind a desk occupied by neatly arranged columns of documents. He's still straightening them carefully from top to bottom when I come in, fingers rolling down their sides as if sculpting pottery on a wheel.

''Hay-lo, you must be Bartholomew Crane. Pete Goodwin,'' he says, his mouth sounding as though there's something in it but there's not, just his thick tongue banging up against the inside of his teeth.

''Good morning, Mr. Goodwin,'' I say, and try at a brisk smile. There's a moment when a handshake is mutually considered, but because it would be a stretch for me to reach him across the broad desk and because his position there appears more or less permanent, I simply take a seat.

''So, this is it?'' I nod toward the fondled papers.

''That's right. Of course, you'll have to review all the materials in whatever detail you deem fit, but I thought in the meantime I might provide you with a summary. The main highlights, as it were. By way of courtesy.''

''Sure, yes. Courtesy. Give me your best shots.''

Goodwin pushes his chair back and stands, revealing his full immensity. Panting a little, he takes a black marker from his jacket pocket and begins to make point notes on the white presentation board on the wall behind him.

''First, there's the fruits of our search of Tripp's apartment. Not sure if you've seen the place--it's your standard one-bedroom above the corner store at Brock and King-- and pretty tidy when the police arrived. Your typical single-guy setup, I guess.''

''Was he always that way?''

''Tidy?''

''Single.''

''I would've thought you knew.''

''No, I don't. That's why I'm
asking
.''

Goodwin pauses as his brain registers my sarcasm, but for the moment he does nothing more than file it away.

''Tripp was divorced three years back. We've provided a list of witnesses, among whom are people who knew him before and after the split who will testify as to the terrible strain the whole thing put on him. Stopped calling friends or going out, noticeably distracted at school staff meetings, diminished performance in the classroom, things like that.''

''So he was depressed. The wife left him. Is that considered unique up here?''

''Not on its own. But he didn't just lose his wife. The man lost his family.''

''What family?''

''Well, his wife left in something of a hurry--I really would've thought you knew this--and took their daughter with her. Then a prolonged custody hearing over the girl, Melissa I think her name was.
Is
. A real backstreet brawl, I understand. And it got personal. Tripp accusing the wife of sleeping around and the wife accusing Tripp of becoming obsessive over the daughter, constantly taking photos of her, not letting her play with other kids, that sort of thing. So one day she just packed up and took the girl with her.''

''Still, I don't get--''

''There's a bit more to it, Mr. Crane.'' He smiles uncertainly, little teeth huddled beneath a glistening lip. ''Melissa was only ten years old when she left, and the accused's only child. That's bad enough. And then a year later he lost all his visitation rights after she told her mother that Daddy wanted her to bring her big suitcase and passport next time because the two of them were going to go on a long trip. Mother went to court, changed address, got a restraining order, and all of a sudden Tripp's totally out of the picture. After that he dropped everything and kept to himself. Except for some of his favored students, of course.''

This last bit isn't meant as provocation, you can tell just by looking at the basset hound arc of Goodwin's brow. But I clear my throat threateningly anyway to let him know I've taken notice.

''Next on the list are the photographs of the accused's bedroom that show the catalog pages he'd ripped out and plastered over his wall,'' Goodwin continues, adding a long dash and PICS to the list on the board. ''All girls, aged ten to eighteen. And as the photographs indicate, Tripp selected pages showing their subjects in underwear, pajamas, or revealing sportswear.''