Shame (17 page)

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said. “I assumed you heard me come out of my room.”

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” Caleb said. “I couldn’t sleep, and I thought some milk might help. But I intend to pay you for it.”

“You didn’t wake me, and you’re not going to pay me for the milk. My refrigerator, such as it is, is yours.”

Caleb hesitated at the entrance of the living room, not sure whether he should continue down the hall or take a seat.

“Would you like some light?”

“No,” he said, “that’s not necessary,” then found himself sitting down on the sofa, albeit as far away from Lola as the room allowed.

“I’ve been meaning to go shopping. I doubt whether you found much of interest in the fridge.”

She kept her voice low, little more than a whisper. It made the room feel smaller, more intimate. Her Southern accent was soft and beguiling, gentle and unaffected, and very feminine.

“I wasn’t really hungry anyway,” Caleb said. “I just thought I should put something in my stomach.”

“When was the last time you ate?”

“Before this all began.”

“Milk’s a good start, then. And I suppose it’s been a while since you slept?”

He shrugged, not sure if she could see the motion but not willing to comment further.

“The secret is not putting pressure on yourself to sleep,” Lola said. “If you find yourself getting tired, just tell yourself that you’re going to take a little nap. That way you don’t feel as if you have to perform to some standard, and it lessens the stress.”

“Do you suffer from insomnia?”

“Suffer’s not the right word. Sometimes I have trouble sleeping, but that’s all right. My mind’s just telling me it wants to do some thinking. Outlook is everything. It’s a way of turning trials and tribulations into blessings.”

Caleb wasn’t in the mood for Norman Vincent Peale, and Lola read his skepticism in the silence.

“You’ve never been in therapy, have you?” she asked.

“No.”

His eyes had gradually adjusted to the dark room. He could make out her figure but not her face and assumed he was similarly cloaked from her. The darkness comforted Caleb, offering anonymity.

“Did your sleeplessness bring you any answers?” Lola asked.

“No. Just questions.”

“Such as?”

“Who’s doing this to me, and why.”

“Any theories?”

“No. If I believed in the supernatural, I’d say my father’s come back to ruin my life again.”

“That almost sounds like wishful thinking.”

“I can assure you, it’s not.”

“I’ve known people who would be lost without their villains. Their villains are their reason to exist.”

“That’s not my case,” Caleb said emphatically.

“Was your father abusive?”

Caleb didn’t want to talk about him but forced himself to. “He never hit me, if that’s what you mean. But he wasn’t around very much while I was growing up.”

“So you felt abandoned?”

“I’m not keen on psychobabble. His going to jail wasn’t what made my life a hell. It was how people responded to his crimes. In his absence, I became their target.”

“Did your father love you?”

“That’s a silly question.”

“Why is it?”

“Psychopaths can’t love. They can only mimic love.”

“How do you know your daddy was a psychopath?”

“He murdered seventeen innocent women.”

“That still doesn’t rule out his loving you.”

Caleb didn’t try to hide his anger. “You make a mockery of the word,” he said. “How could someone like him possibly love?”

“I know he was sick,” Lola said, “but that doesn’t mean all of him was rotten. I suppose it’s easier, though, to picture him as a totally bad human being. If he did love you, that would only make everything hurt all the more, wouldn’t it?”

He didn’t answer.

“How old were you when he died?”

“Fourteen.”

“I lost my father when I wasn’t much older than that. But he didn’t die like yours did. He just kicked me out of our house and told me never to come back again. He meant what he said.”

“Are we supposed to be sitting here comparing sob stories?” Caleb asked.

“No. I guess I’m just saying in a roundabout way that you don’t have a monopoly on pain. Lots of people can’t walk out the door without being suspects for one reason or another: their skin color, their looks, their disability, their sexual orientation. Those people can’t do anything about their situation. You can.”

Rather than make a case for his own misery, Caleb returned to her biography. It was easier that way. “Where was your mother while your father was kicking you out?”

“Right behind him, subtly encouraging him to do it. Nothing too overt, you know. That wouldn’t have been ladylike. But she was always ashamed of me. I was much darker than my mother. As an adult, I hear myself described as
exotic.
As a child, everyone just called me
ugly
. And when it was clear I was
different,
my father began to blame my mother for how I turned out. One of his favorite laments was that he never should have married a ‘half-breed.’ My mother never argued with him. She had fancied herself a very refined woman, and to her mind I was proof she had something to be ashamed of. And that was even before my femininity shamed her.

“Shame: that word was such a part of my early life. I think that’s why your father’s use of it had such a terrible appeal to me, and others as well. He made us confront our own shame.”

“Serial murder therapy.”

“That wasn’t my inference.”

“I know. I was trying to be clever. But I’m not good at being clever.”

“I don’t agree. Maybe you’re too good at it, and that’s what scares you. I think your whole life you’ve been thinking things but not saying them. You didn’t want people to know there was
a growl in you, because you figured they might start looking for teeth. Maybe the murderer was counting on that. Maybe you’ve already surprised him.”

“How?”

“By not rolling over and playing dead. By not immediately becoming that perfect patsy.”

“He’s spun me like a top,” Caleb said.

“But you’re still spinning. You’re not down.”

“He watched me,” Caleb said, unsuccessfully fighting the tremor in his voice. “He knows about me.”

She heard his sense of violation and anger. And something else. There was bedrock way down there.

“What are you going to do?” Lola asked.

“I’m going to become acquainted with my father,” he said.

T
HE SHERIFF’S PRESS
conference was held in the Ridgehaven sheriff’s main conference room. The only thing missing from the opening announcement was a lit fuse. Even from the press, with whom showing surprise is considered bad taste, his revelation was met with gasps. Around the room one word was repeated: “Shame.”

Everyone found their voices at the same time and began shouting, “Shame’s son, Sheriff? Shame’s biological son?”

And all the while one word continued to come out of disbelieving lips:
“Shame, Shame, Shame, Shame...”

An awakened hive, all abuzz. It reminded Elizabeth of the time she had visited an ashram and heard a room of penitents chanting, “Om.” The power of their chorus had been astounding, with the sounds detonating around her, human voices raising thunder. She had been incredulous that such power could come from the repetition of a single word. Now another word was being invoked, if not as loudly or by as organized a chorus. But still, it was producing a similar electricity.

In the front of the room, behind a lectern with a microphone, stood Sheriff Campbell. He was flanked by Sergeant Hardy on one side and Lieutenant Borman on the other. They all looked somber, funereal.

“A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Gray Caleb Parker,” the sheriff said, “aka Caleb Parker, aka Cal Parker. He is wanted for questioning in the murders of Lita Jennings, Teresa Sanders, and Brandy Wein.”

The shouting match started: “Sheriff!”

Campbell held up a hand. “I ask that each of you refrain from asking questions until we’ve all had a chance to finish our briefing.”

Elizabeth looked around the room, tried to take down details like a courtroom sketch artist. Flushed faces, she wrote, people unconsciously hugging themselves. Around me a shifting of bodies and heads. The reaction in here couldn’t be much more extreme had the sheriff announced that Jack the Ripper was alive and well and relocated in San Diego.

It was the mythology of Shame at work, she thought. For whatever reasons, Gray Parker had found his way into the modern psyche. His bloodstains had been harder to scrub out than most.

Elizabeth was glad that helping Anna Parker hadn’t made her persona non grata at the Sheriff’s Department, even if she no longer had special privileges. Earlier that morning, press credentials had been issued to her, but her request to go behind the scenes had been politely refused. Now that the secret was out, she no longer had leverage.

She sat through the short briefing and heard nothing new. The media were apparently going to get only the sketchiest of details. Elizabeth resisted an urge to leave, her curiosity piqued by the two shrouded easels to the right of the lectern. A sheriff’s deputy had been positioned in front of the easels, his presence prohibiting any peeking.

Elizabeth didn’t have to wait long for the unveiling. Campbell did the honors, pulling back the coverings and revealing two blown-up black-and-white photos. Gray Parker’s face still found its way into enough public forums to be recognizable. A stir passed through the room.

The sheriff patted one of the photos with his left hand. “Gray Parker Senior,” he said, paused a moment, then patted the other photo with his right hand, “and Gray Parker Junior.”

In her pad Elizabeth wrote, “The response by the Fourth Estate would have pleased a lynching mob. Did I condemn as easily? The sheriff’s presentation feels like a magic act. Only it isn’t a woman being sawed in half and put on display, but Caleb Parker.”

“Questions?” asked the sheriff.

“Is apprehension imminent?” a reporter asked.

“We are confident of an early capture,” the sheriff said.

“Was the word
shame
written on all the San Diego victims?”

“We will not be commenting on the crime scene or answering any inquiries addressing the demise of the victims.”

The magic act was over, she thought, though the sheriff tried to give the impression that there
was
still something up his sleeve. As the questions heated up, the sheriff quickly proved to be generous about handing off inquiries, especially the sticky ones, to his subordinates.

Elizabeth found her attention divided between what was going on in front of the room and what was going on in the back. Cell phones had been pulled out, and stations and papers were being called.

“That’s what I said, Shame’s son...”

“Big story? No shit, Sherlock...”

“Serial murders, three linked so far...”

“Parker, spelled P-A-R...”

An Asian American woman finished her call and dropped her phone into her handbag. She wore a lot of makeup, the better for the television camera. She was young but tried to appear older, had a face too serious for her years. The woman looked at Elizabeth, dismissed her, and then after a long moment came back to her again. Her expression asked, Where do I know you
from? Elizabeth looked away, pretending interest in the press conference. The woman approached anyway.

“Excuse me.”

Elizabeth was forced to look up. Their eyes met.

“Lisa Wong, KGSI-TV. I wonder if we might talk.”

The reporter spoke very quietly, but her expression said,
Gotcha.
It was apparent she didn’t want to announce Elizabeth’s name in front of anyone else for fear of others recognizing her find.

“Later, perhaps,” Elizabeth said, pantomiming interest in the news conference.

The tactic didn’t work. Lisa took a seat next to her.

“I still don’t understand,” asked a reporter, “how the suspect was in custody and then released.”

“As I’ve already stated,” said the sheriff, “the suspect came in voluntarily while we were still in the process of gathering evidence. As for particulars, Lieutenant Borman might better answer those....”

“Can we set a time?” Lisa whispered. “And I’d like to make this an exclusive interview.”

Shoe on the other foot, thought Elizabeth. Now she was the one who wanted to duck the spotlight. “Let’s talk outside for a minute,” she said.

Lisa signaled to her cameraman that she’d be back, then walked out of the room with Elizabeth. With no one around to overhear, she asked, “You
are
Elizabeth Line, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What are you doing here?”

“The same thing you are.”

Lisa didn’t buy it. “But you’re not from around here, are you?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Then you had to have some foreknowledge of the story. You knew something was going on.”

“Like you,” said Elizabeth, “I don’t know nearly as much as I’d like to.”

“Are you working with the Sheriff’s Department?”

Not anymore
. “Only to the degree that you are.”