Mother's Day (2 page)

“No news?” asked the chief as they reached one another.

Walter shook his head. “Looks like just the one.”

“How many men have we still got in there?” he asked.

Walter squinted back in the direction they had come.

“About a dozen, I’d say.”

Dale pulled up his gloves and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his gray flannel overcoat. “We’ll keep looking until sundown,” he said. “Did they take out the remains yet?”

Walter and the doctor nodded.

Dale looked at Doc Jansen. “Homicide, I presume.”

Doctor Jansen shrugged. “We’ll have to see what we turn up in the autopsy. If we find a bullet, all well and good, but as it stands we’ll be lucky to ever even ID this one. There’s nothing left to her.”

The chief shook his head, but he could not help thinking that he did not need an insoluble case in his lap in these early days of his tenure. “So, all we know is what you told me this morning?”

The doctor nodded. “White, female, teenaged. That’s it. What’s left of the clothing you’ll need a fiber expert to describe. Of course there’s always dental records.”

“Any idea how long she’s been in there?” asked the chief.

“The lab’s going to have to pin that one down for you, too. A few years at least, I’d say.”

The chief grimaced.

“What’s that all about?” Walter asked, pointing toward the knot of protesters who had waylaid the chief and were now talking animatedly to a female reporter and photographer from the local paper who had been on the scene most of the day.

The chief sighed. “Bird lovers. They want us to call off the search because we’re disturbing the birds’ habitat.”

“Good God,” said Dr. Jansen angrily. “What’s wrong with people? They’re unbelievable, aren’t they? There are parents of missing children out there wondering if their little one might be dead in that marsh. Don’t they ever stop to think what it must be like for those people? The suffering it is to lose a child. And all these wackos can think about is ruffling a few feathers.”

Chief Matthews nodded uneasily and stole a look at Walter, who stood by stoically, his face unreadable.

Both of Walter’s children were killed years ago in a freak car accident. Walter’s wife was driving and she lost control of the car on a rain-slicked causeway. The car plunged into the bay. Both children died, but she survived. Walter never mentioned it, but it was one of the first stories that had been whispered to Dale when he arrived in Bayland. He had never asked Walter about it because, well, it simply was not the sort of thing you asked a person about. But Dale often thought of it as he watched Walter go quietly, efficiently, about his job.

In a way, Dale had to admit, that long-ago accident was part of the reason why he was chief and Walter Ference wasn’t. Walter had seniority on the force, and he came from a well-respected family in Bayland. He was a good officer, highly regarded, the kind of candidate who might have slipped easily into the chief’s job. But it all came back to that business of diplomacy. A chief’s wife had to be able to hold up her end of the social duties. And there was no way that Emily Ference could do it. It was common knowledge that she’d become a closet drinker after the accident, and who could blame her? I’d drink too, Dale thought, shuddering at the idea of the mental anguish she must have suffered. He thought gratefully of his wife, Denise, and their daughter, Sue. The perfect family. And Denise was a whiz at entertaining.

“By the way,” he asked. “How’s the little girl that found her?”

Walter’s distant gaze became focused once again. “I called the hospital a little while ago. She’s doing better. They just wanted to watch her for a bit, make sure she’s over the shock of it. They’re going to let her grandparents take her home tonight,”

“Poor little kid,” said the chief.

“Special-interest groups,” Dr. Jansen raved on. “That’s what’s ruining this town. Hell, it’s what’s ruining the country. Nobody cares about the other guy anymore. They just want to lobby for their own little piece of the action. It just galls me.”

A green Ford pulled into the parking lot and a man and woman emerged from the car. “Who’s this now?” Dale wondered aloud.

Walter peered at the couple. “Some of the people you’ve been talking about, Doc.”

Doc Jansen looked at Walter inquiringly. “What’s their beef?”

“I didn’t mean that,” said Walter. “I mean they had a child disappear on them.”

“Oh, God,” said the doctor woefully.

“Their name is Emery. They had a teenaged daughter who up and vanished some years back.”

“Oh,” said Dale solemnly. “They must have heard on the news about the body.”

The aging couple walked toward the cluster of officials. The woman wore glasses, a pale, mauve-colored raincoat, and running shoes. She came toward them with grim determination. The man, who wore a snap brim hat and a lightweight baseball-style jacket, hung back, fiddling with the keys on his key ring. They jingled like bells in the damp air. The wife was clearly in charge of this visit, and he was a reluctant participant.

“How many years back?” Dale whispered as an afterthought.

Walter stopped to think. “Must be…thirteen or fourteen years now. They come around the station periodically to ask…I know them. They go to my church. My wife’s church, that is.”

“This one hasn’t been in the water any fourteen years,” said the doctor abruptly.

“Excuse me,” said Alice Emery. “Oh, Detective Ference.”

“Hello, Mrs. Emery,” he said. “Mr. Emery.”

Jack Emery mumbled a greeting but did not look up. He was a wan, frail-looking man with rheumy eyes. His fingers continued to work the keys on their ring as if they were rosary beads.

“We heard you found a girl,” said Alice. There was a quaver in her voice, but her tone was matter-of-fact.

“Detective Ference tells me you have a daughter missing,” said Dale solicitously.

“Yes, our Linda. Of course it’s been quite a while,” she admitted.

“This isn’t Linda,” Walter said bluntly.

“How can you be sure?” Alice pleaded. “What was she wearing?”

Walter grimaced. “It’s hard to tell anymore. But, the doc here says this girl hasn’t been in the water that long.”

“It’s not her, Alice,” said Jack Emery gruffly. “Let’s go.”

“Do we have all the information about your daughter on file at the station?” Dale interjected.

“Yes, we do,” said Walter automatically.

“Let’s go, Alice,” Jack repeated.

“We’ll be sure and let you know if there is any indication that it might be your daughter,” the chief said soothingly.

Alice struggled to regain her dignity. “It’s just that it’s been very hard on us. All these years. Especially on my husband.”

Dale placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “We understand,” he said.

“Thank you,” Alice whispered, and turned away, now the reluctant follower as her husband headed toward the car. The female reporter and her photographer pounced on the Emerys as they reached their Ford.

Dale shook his head in disgust. “That Hodges girl is a pest, isn’t she?”

Walter smiled and nodded. “Would you believe her dad used to be on the force? I remember her growing up. She was always one of those irritating kids that none of the other kids wanted to play with. She’ll probably win the Pulitzer Prize someday.”

Dale nodded. He did not like ambitious women. There was something unnatural about them, although he did his best to disguise that feeling. You had to, these days.

Dr. Jansen watched the Emerys extricate themselves from Phyllis Hodges and her cohort and lock themselves in their car. He shuddered. “Nothing more terrible than not knowing if your child is dead or alive. It’s easier just to deal with their death than to live in limbo like those people.”

Dale felt suddenly irritated at the old doctor. It had been a long time, but surely he knew about Walter’s loss. He’d been in this town his whole life. The chief glanced furtively at Walter. As usual his expression was impassive, but Dale suspected that a loss like that did not get much easier to bear with time. There was no need to rub it in.

A redheaded officer in waders emerged from one of the nature trails into the parking lot, and the chief welcomed the opportunity to change the subject.

“Larry,” he called out to the young cop, who was availing himself of the makeshift coffee wagon that had been set out for the searchers. “Anything?”

“Nothing, Chief,” the young officer called back.

Chief Matthews looked at his watch. He had a meeting at City Hall with the town councilmen in twenty minutes. “I’d better get going. Walter, stay on top of this until dark?”

Walter nodded. “Sure will.”

“We really aren’t going to be able to do much about finding the killer until we know who the victim is,” said the chief. Homicide was definitely not an ordinary occurrence in a town like Bayland. The truth was that he didn’t have much hands-on experience with a murder investigation, and it was daunting to start out with so little in the way of information. But the people in this town were going to be panicked by the thought of a murderer in their midst. Someone who had killed a young girl and dumped her off in this desolate place. Dale sincerely hoped it was a family member. Even the most inexperienced cop knew that that was usually the case. All they had to do was put a name to these bones and they’d be halfway home. “We’ll get him,” he said, as much to convince himself as anyone else. “Just find out who she was, Doc.”

Doctor Jansen sighed. “Easier said than done,” he said.

Walter gazed thoughtfully back in the direction of the dunes and relentless rushing tides beyond. “The sea doesn’t leave you a lot to go on,” he said.

May

“Which tie do you think?”

Karen Newhall, huddled in her bathrobe on the edge of the tub, turned to look at her husband, Greg, who had opened the door and was holding a red club tie in one hand and a green-striped tie in the other. He was dressed in a blue blazer, chino slacks, and a crisp, white shirt. “You look nice,” she said.

“Hey,” he said gently. “You better have your shower. Our reservation is for one o’clock.”

Karen nodded absently and smoothed out the lap of her robe.

“Honey, do you feel all right? Why are you sitting there?”

“I’m fine,” she said quickly. “I was just resting a minute.” The grave look in his eyes made her feel guilty. “I’m perfectly all right,” she said. “I like the green tie.”

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“Well,” she said lightly, “the red is nice, too “

“You know what I mean.”

“Go put your tie on. I’ll be ready in no time.”

“Okay.” Greg went back down the hall to their bedroom, and Karen closed the door and slowly untied the sash on her robe and hung the robe on a hook beside the shower.

Every Mother’s Day for the last six years or so, Greg always took Karen and Jenny, their daughter, to the Bayland Inn for lunch. In this family they joked that anything you did more than twice was a tradition, and the Bayland Inn on Mother’s Day definitely qualified.

Karen looked ruefully at herself in the full-length mirror behind the door. At thirty-eight, her body was lean and trim, thanks to years of teaching dance to young children. Of course when she was in her early twenties, trying desperately to conceive a child, the doctors had blamed that lean, disciplined dancer’s body for her failure to ovulate, her inability to become pregnant. Karen had given up dancing for two years, gained twenty pounds, tried every suggested treatment, but nothing worked. Finally, she and Greg had begun the process that led to the adoption of their only child, Jenny.

And then, less than a year ago, a routine brain scan for persistent headaches had revealed a tiny, benign tumor on Karen’s pituitary gland. The drug she took to eradicate the tumor had another, most unforeseen effect. Within a few months Karen was pregnant. The doctor had explained to the astonished parents-to-be that Karen must have had the tumor for years, and that it had probably been the cause of her suppressed ovulation. But in the years when Karen was trying to conceive, they did not have the technology to detect it. Karen and Greg had left the doctor’s office in a happy daze, stunned but elated by this unexpected gift. They had rushed home to gently break the news to Jenny that she was going to have a baby brother or sister.

Karen stepped into the shower and let the hot water rush over her, stinging her. Under its steady beat, the tears that formed in her eyes mingled and fell with the water, dripping off her face. She had quit work immediately, rested each day, taken the prescribed hormones, and eaten every vegetable in sight. And then, just two weeks ago, when it had finally felt almost safe to look at baby clothes, to think of names, she awoke one morning with wrenching cramps and a feeling of terror resting like a boulder on her chest. By nightfall it was over. The wondering, the dreaming, the hope against hope. Life returned to normal.

She stepped out of the shower, dried herself off, and rubbed a window in the steamy mirror to check her eyes. She did not want Greg to see that she had been crying again. She knew that it was a kind of torture for him, not to be able to fix it for her, a painful reminder of those early years of their marriage when they first learned of Karen’s infertility. And then, when Karen had adjusted to that reality, they began three years of frustration and anguish as would-be adoptive parents. Those years were a nightmarish blur in her mind of frustrating bureaucratic procedures and emotional upheaval as, with one baby after another, their hopes rose and then were dashed. Each disappointment left her more depressed, and time and again Greg bucked her up, prodded her to go on, never dwelling on his own pain. Karen could remember as vividly as if it were yesterday the day when they finally got their baby and brought her home. Karen had cradled her Jenny in her arms, and the sleeping infant’s tiny hand had curled around Karen’s pinky and held on tight. Although Karen and Greg had always dreamed of having a couple of kids, she vowed on that day that she would not try to adopt any more children. She would never forget the anxious, haunted eyes of the other couples who clogged the waiting rooms of the lawyers’ offices and adoption agencies where they had been on their odyssey. It would be greedy to seek another child when so many people were waiting.