Never Look Away (14 page)

"Weird."

"So far, the only person who's saying the wife's suicidal is the husband. Doctor never saw her, her boss says she was fine."

"So the husband, he's laying the groundwork."

"This Bertram guy, the wife's boss, said Harwood took his wife for a drive someplace on Friday. When Bertram asked her where they were going, she said it was a secret or something, a surprise."

"So where you going with this, Detective?"

"You still on shift?"

Campion sighed. "I'm kind of doing a double. Wanna make it a triple? Having a life is hugely overrated."

"You've put out news releases before, right?"

"I've worked that end, yeah."

"I told Harwood we'd put out a release tomorrow, but I think we need to put one out tonight. Shake the bushes, you know? We've still got time to make the eleven o'clock news. Something simple. A picture of Jan Harwood, believed last seen in the vicinity of Five Mountains. Police seeking any information about the woman's whereabouts, contact us, blah blah blah, the usual drill."

"I'm on it," Campion said.

Duckworth thanked her and closed the phone. He was starting to wonder whether Jan Harwood ever even made it to Five Mountains. He was starting to wonder just what her husband might have done with her.

How the hell that fit in with Leanne Kowalski, he had no idea. But two women who worked together, going missing at the same time--that was one hell of a coincidence. He decided to put his focus, for now, on Jan Harwood. Maybe he'd turn up Leanne Kowalski along the way.

SIXTEEN

I was about a half an hour out of Rochester when my cell rang.

"It was on the news," Mom said. "They had it on the TV."

"What?" I said. "What did they have?"

"They had a picture of Jan, and that the police were looking for help to find her. That's good, right, that they did that?"

"Yeah," I said slowly. "But the detective, he said they were going to make a decision about that tomorrow. I wonder what made him change his mind. How much did they say?"

"Not much," my mother said. "They gave her name and age and height and what she was last seen wearing."

From some distance away, my father shouted, "Eye color!"

"That's right. They said what color eyes she has and hair and that kind of thing."

"And where it happened?"

"Just a mention," Mom said. "It said she was last seen near Five Mountains. But they didn't have anything about that man trying to take Ethan. Shouldn't they have had something on that?"

I said, "I wonder why Detective Duckworth didn't call me. You'd think, if he was deciding to change the timing of the release, he would have let me know."

I wondered how long it would be before someone from my own paper called, asking what the hell was going on, how the
Standard
could get scooped on the disappearance of the spouse of one of its own staff members. Even if we didn't have an edition until the next day, it could have gone up on the website.

I didn't have time to worry about that now.

"Are you almost there?" Mom asked. Dad yelled, "Tell him to keep drinking coffee!"

"Pretty close," I said. "I was going to get a hotel, go see Jan's parents in the morning, but now I'm thinking maybe I should just knock on the door tonight. I can't lay in my hotel all night thinking about her. I have to do something right away."

I didn't hear anything on the other end.

"Mom?"

"I'm sorry. I was just nodding. I guess I was thinking you could see me." She laughed tiredly.

"How's Ethan?"

"I just left him on the couch. I'm afraid if I move him he'll wake up and never settle down again. Your father and I are going to turn in now. But if something happens, if you have any news, you call us, okay?"

"I will. You too."

Before putting the phone back into my jacket, I considered calling Detective Duckworth and asking him why he'd decided to go ahead with releasing Jan's picture now. But I was almost to Rochester, and I needed to focus on my upcoming meeting with Jan's parents.

I wasn't exactly looking forward to it, not after all the things Jan had said about them. But I wasn't there to criticize them for how they'd raised Jan. I wasn't there to lay blame, decide who was right and who was wrong.

I wanted to know if they'd seen Jan. Plain and simple. Had she been there? Had she called them? Did they have any idea where she might be?

Just after midnight I got off 90 and headed north on 490. Not long after that, I got off at the Palymra Road exit and quickly found my way to Lincoln Avenue.

The streetlamps were the only thing casting any light at 12:10 a.m. You might have thought, on a Saturday night, that there might have been a house or two with the lights on, a party going on. But maybe this was a street made up mostly of older residents. No lights on after ten on a Saturday night.

I rolled down the street and came to a stop out front of the house I had seen only once before. The Oldsmobile was in the driveway. The house was dark save for one light over the front door.

I killed the engine and sat in the car a moment, listening to the engine tick as it cooled.

I wondered if Jan could be in that house.

If Jan had returned here, it was hard to imagine the kind of confrontation she was likely to have had that could have ended with an invitation to spend the night.

"Let's do this," I said under my breath.

I got out of the car and closed the door as quietly as I could. No sense waking any more people on Lincoln than I had to. I walked across the empty street, up the driveway, and onto the front porch of the home of Horace and Gretchen Richler.

I stood in the glow of the single bulb, looking for a doorbell button. I found it mounted in the right side of the doorframe and pushed on it, hard, with my thumb.

No bell went off inside the house, at least none that I could hear. I glanced over at the metal mailbox hanging from the wall, noticed the "No Flyers or Junk Mail!" sticker. Maybe the Richlers didn't like to be troubled with nuisance callers or mail. One way to deal with that was to disconnect the doorbell.

Or it could just be broken. To be certain, I leaned on the button a second time, but still heard nothing from inside the house.

I opened the metal storm door and saw a tarnished brass knocker on the main door. I rapped it five times. I didn't know whether it would wake the Richlers, but it sounded like five gunshots out here on the porch.

When I didn't see any lights going on after fifteen seconds, I did it again. I was about to do it a third time when I could see, through the window, light cascading down the stairs.

Someone was up.

I rapped two more times, lightly, so they wouldn't think whoever was at the front door had taken off before they'd made the decision to come downstairs. In another moment Horace Richler appeared, in a bathrobe and pajamas, what hair he had pointing in several directions.

Before he got to the door, he shouted, "Who is it?"

"Mr. Richler?" I called out. Not shouting, but loud enough that I hoped he could hear me through the door. "I need to speak to you."

"Who the hell is it? You know what time it is? I gotta gun, you know!"

If he really did, it wasn't in his hands at this moment.

"My name is David Harwood! Please, I need to speak to you! It's very important."

There was someone else coming down the stairs now. It was Gretchen Richler, in a nightgown and robe, her hair also in disarray. I could just make out her asking her husband who it was, what was going on.

"It's about Jan!" I said.

I thought I saw Horace Richler hesitate for a second as he reached for the door, wondering if he heard me correctly. I heard a deadbolt turn back, a chain slide, then the door opened about a foot.

"What the hell is this all about?" Horace Richler asked, his wife pressed up against his back. I didn't know whether she was using her husband to protect herself, or to keep me from seeing her in her nightclothes. Probably both.

"I'm so sorry to wake you up, Mr. Richler, Mrs. Richler. I truly am. I wouldn't do this if it weren't an emergency."

"Who are you?" Gretchen Richler asked. Her voice was high and scratchy, like an old record playing too fast.

"My name's David Harwood. I'm Jan's husband."

The two of them stared at me.

"It would never have been my choice for us to meet this way, believe me. I've driven here tonight from Promise Falls. Jan's missing and I'm trying to find her. I thought, maybe, there was a chance she might come here to see you."

They were still both staring. Horace Richler's face, at first frozen, was turning into a furious scowl.

"You've made some kind of mistake, mister," he said. "You better get your ass off my goddamn porch."

"Please," I said. "I know there's some history between you and your daughter, that you haven't talked to her in a long time, but I'm worried that something bad has happened to her. I thought, if she didn't actually come here, she might have called, or you might have an idea where she might go, some old friends she might try to get in touch with."

Horace Richler's face grew red with fury. His fists were clenching at his sides.

"I don't know who you are or what the fuck your game is, but I swear to God, I may be an old man, but I'll kick your ass all the way down Lincoln Avenue if I have to."

I wasn't ready to give up.

"Tell me I haven't got the right house," I said. "You're Horace and Gretchen Richler and your daughter is Jan."

Gretchen came out from behind her husband and spoke to me for the first time.

"That's right," she whispered.

"My daughter's dead," Horace said through gritted teeth.

The comment hit me like a two-by-four across the side of the head. Something horrible had happened. I'd gotten here too late.

"My God," I said. "When? What happened?"

"She died a long time ago," he said.

I breathed out. At first, I thought he'd meant something had just happened to Jan. Then I assumed he meant that because he and his daughter were estranged, it was as though Jan was dead to him. "I know you may feel that way, Mr. Richler. But if you ever loved your daughter, you need to help me now."

Gretchen said, "You don't understand. She really is dead."

I felt the wallop all over again. I really had gotten here too late. Had Jan already been to see her parents? Had she taken her life here? Was that her final act of revenge against them? To come to Rochester and kill herself in front of them?

I managed to say, "What are you talking about?"

"She died when she was a little girl," Gretchen said. "When she was only five years old. It was a terrible thing."

SEVENTEEN

The woman opened her eyes. She blinked a couple of times, adjusting to the darkness.

She was in bed, on her back, staring up at the ceiling. It was warm in the room--there was an air conditioner humming and rattling somewhere, but it wasn't up to the job--and in her sleep she had thrown off her covers down to her waist.

She reached down and touched her stomach to see whether she had broken out in a sweat. Her skin was cool, but slightly clammy. She was taken aback for a moment to discover she was naked. She'd stopped sleeping in the nude a long time ago. Those first few months of marriage, sure, but after a while, you just want something on.

Light from the tall streetlamps out by the highway filtered through the bent and twisted window blinds. She listened to the relentless traffic streaming by. Big semis roaring through the night.

She tried to recall where, exactly, she was.

She slipped her legs out from under the covers, sat up, and placed her feet on the floor. The cheap industrial carpet was scratchy beneath her toes. She sat on the side of the bed for a moment, leaning over, head in her hands, her hair falling in front of her eyes.

She had a headache. She glanced over at the bedside table, as if some aspirin and a glass of water might magically be there, but all she could see in the minimal light were some crumpled bills and change, a digital clock that was reading 12:10 a.m., and a blonde wig.

That told her she'd only been asleep for an hour at the most. She'd gotten into the bed around half past ten, tossed and turned and looked up at the stained tiles overhead until well after eleven. At some point, clearly, she'd nodded off, but the last hour of sleep had not been a restful one.

Slowly she stood up, took two steps over to the window, and peered between the blinds. It wasn't much of a view. A parking lot, about a quarter of the spots taken. A sign tall enough to be seen from the interstate advertising "Best Western." Off in the distance, more towering signs. One for Mobil, another for McDonald's.

The woman went to the door, checked that it was still locked.

She padded softly across the room and pushed open the door to the bathroom. She went inside and felt for the light switch, waiting until she had the door closed behind her before flicking it on.

The instant, intense illumination stung her eyes. She squinted until she got used to it, then gazed at her naked reflection in the oversized mirror above the counter.

"Yikes," she whispered. Her black hair was stringy, her eyes dark, her lips dry.

There was a small, open canvas toiletries bag on the counter by the sink. A few things had not been returned to it, including a toothbrush, some makeup, a hairbrush. She opened the bag wider, rooted around inside.

"Yes," she said when she had found what she wanted. She had a travel-sized bottle of aspirin. She unscrewed the cap and tapped two tablets into her palm. She put them in her mouth, then leaned over a running faucet to scoop some water into her hand. She got enough into her mouth to swallow the pills. She tilted her head back to ease their passage down her throat, then cupped more water into her hand just to drink. She reached for a towel to dry her hand and chin.

She glanced down at a bandage on the inside of her right ankle and grimaced. That cut wouldn't have healed yet. A couple more days should do it.

At that point, her stomach growled, loud enough that it seemed to echo off the tiles of the tiny room. Maybe that was why she had the headache. She was hungry. She'd had very little to eat the whole day. Too on edge. Wasn't sure she'd be able to keep anything down.

The McDonald's was probably one of those twenty-four-hour ones. Truckers had to have someplace to eat in the dead of night. A Big Mac would do it. She could imagine the wonderful blandness of it. There was nothing left to eat in the motel room. Not so much as a few Doritos or half a Mars bar. They'd picked up some junk to eat along the way, but she'd hardly touched it.

Hungry as she was, she wasn't going to venture out of this motel room. Best to stay put, at least for now. She might end up drawing more attention to herself at night, a woman alone, than she would in the middle of the day.

She put her hand on the bathroom doorknob, flicked off the light before turning it. Now her eyes had to adjust in reverse, getting used to the darkness so she wouldn't stumble over anything on her way back to the bed.

She returned to the window, half expecting to see the blue Ford Explorer out there. But that had been ditched long ago, and far from here. It would surely be found eventually, and it was hard to know whether that would end up being a good thing or bad. Lyall probably would have called the police by now. Useless as he was, he'd notice eventually that his wife hadn't returned home. Drinking to all hours, staying out late with his friends, never helping out around the house, and that damn smelly dog. The Explorer had reeked of that beast. At least Lyall wasn't a mean drunk. Every once in a while, he got this look, like maybe he wasn't going to take it anymore. But it never lasted long. The guy didn't have it in him to fight back.

Someone stirred in the other half of the bed she'd been sleeping in moments earlier.

She turned away from the window. There wasn't much else to do but try to get back to sleep. Maybe, once the aspirin kicked in, she'd be able to nod off. She looked at the clock: 12:21 a.m.

There was no reason to get up early. No job to go to anymore. No one to make breakfast for.

She sat gently on the side of the bed, raised her legs ever so slowly and tucked them under the covers, lowered her head onto the pillow, trying her best not to breathe. If there was anything good about motel beds, this was it. The mattresses seemed to be resting on concrete, not box springs, and you could usually get in and out of bed without disturbing your partner's sleep.

But not this time.

The person on the other side of the bed turned over and said, "What's going on, babe?"

"Shh, go back to sleep," she said.

"What's going on?"

"I had a headache. I was looking for aspirin."

"There's some in the little case there."

"I found them."

A hand reached out and found her breast, kneading the nipple between thumb and forefinger.

"Jesus, Dwayne, I tell you I've got a headache, and then you cop a feel?"

He withdrew the hand. "You're just stressed out. It's going to take you a while to get over this whole Jan thing."

The woman said, "What's to get over? She's dead."