Sharp_Objects (20 page)

The morning my story came out, I stayed in bed and stared at the white rotary phone, waited for it to ring with rebukes. It would be John’s mom, who’d be plenty angry when she discovered I got to her son. Or Richard, for my leak about the suspect being local.

Several silent hours went by as I got progressively more sweaty, the horseflies buzzing around my window screen, Gayla hovering outside my door, anxious for access to my room. Our bedclothes and bath towels have always been changed daily; the laundry is forever churning down in the basement. I think this is a lingering habit from Marian’s lifetime. Crisp clean clothes to make us forget all the drips and dank smells that come from our bodies. I was in college by the time I realized I liked the smell of sex. I came into my friend’s bedroom one morning after a boy darted past me, smiling sideways and tucking his socks into his back pocket. She was lazing in bed, splotchy and naked, with one bare leg dangling out from under the sheets. That sweet muddy smell was purely animal, like the deepest corner of a bear’s cave. It was almost foreign to me, this lived-in, overnight odor. My most evocative childhood scent was bleach.

A
s it turned out, my first angry caller was not anyone I’d guessed.

“I can’t believe you left me completely out of the story,” Meredith Wheeler’s voice clanged into the phone. “You didn’t use one thing I said. You’d never even know I was there. I was the one who got you John, remember?”

“Meredith, I never told you I’d use your comments,” I said, irritated at her pushiness. “I’m sorry if you got that impression.” I jammed a floppy blue teddy bear under my head, then felt guilty and returned him to the foot of the bed. One should have allegiance to one’s childhood things.

“I just don’t know why you wouldn’t include me,” she continued. “If the whole thing was to get an idea what Natalie was like, then you need John. And if you need John, you need me. I’m his girlfriend. I mean, I practically
own
him, ask anyone.”

“Well, you and John, that wasn’t really the focus of the story,” I said. Behind Meredith’s breathing, I could hear a country-rock ballad playing and a rhythmic thump and hiss.

“But you had other people from Wind Gap in the story. You had stupid Father Bluell. Why not me? John’s in a lot of pain, and I’ve been really important to him, working through it all with him. He cries all the time. I’m the one keeping him together.”

“When I do another story that needs more voices from Wind Gap, I’ll interview you. If you have something to add to the story.”

Thump. Hiss. She was ironing.

“I know a lot about that family, a lot about Natalie that John wouldn’t think of. Or say.”

“Great, then. I’ll be in touch. Soon.” I hung up, not quite easy with what the girl was offering me. When I looked down, I realized I’d written “Meredith” in loopy girlish cursive across the scars on my left leg.

O
n the porch, Amma was swaddled in a pink silk comforter, a damp washcloth on her forehead. My mother had a silver tray with tea, toast, and assorted bottles on it, and was pressing the back of Amma’s hand against her cheek in a circular motion.

“Baby, baby, baby,” Adora murmured, rocking them both on the swing.

Amma lolled sleepy as a newborn in her blanket, smacking her lips occasionally. It was the first time I’d seen my mother since our trip to Woodberry. I hovered in front of her, but she wouldn’t take her eyes off Amma.

“Hi, Camille,” Amma finally whispered, and gave me a little curl of a smile.

“Your sister is sick. She’s worried herself into a fever since you’ve been home,” Adora said, still pressing Amma’s hand in that circle. I pictured my mother’s teeth gnashing against each other inside her cheek.

Alan, I realized, was sitting just inside, watching them through the window screen from the living-room loveseat.

“You need to make her feel more comfortable around you, Camille; she’s just a little girl,” my mother cooed to Amma.

A little girl with a hangover. Amma left my room last night and went down to drink a while in her own. That’s the way this house worked. I left them whispering to each other,
favorite
buzzing on my knee.

“H
ey, Scoop.” Richard rolled along beside me in his sedan. I was walking to the space where Natalie’s body had been discovered, to get specific details about the balloons and notes placed there. Curry wanted a “town in mourning” piece. That is, if there were no leads on the murders. Implication being there better be some lead, and soon.

“Hello, Richard.”

“Nice story today.” Damn Internet. “Glad to hear you’ve found a source close to the police.” He was smiling when he said it.

“Me too.”

“Get in, we’ve got some work to do.” He pushed open the passenger door.

“I’ve got my own work to do. So far working with you has given me nothing but unusable, no-comment comments. My editor’s going to pull me out soon.”

“Well, we can’t have that. Then I’ll have no distractions,” he said. “Come on with me. I need a Wind Gap tour guide. In return: I will answer three questions, completely and truthfully. Off record of course, but I’ll give it to you straight. Come on, Camille. Unless you’ve got a date with your police source.”

“Richard.”

“No, truly, I don’t want to interfere with a burgeoning love affair. You and this mysterious fellow must make quite a handsome pair.”

“Shut up.” I got in the car. He leaned over me, pulled down my seat belt and secured it, pausing for a second with his lips close to mine.

“I’ve got to keep you safe.” He pointed over to a mylar balloon swaying in the gap where Natalie’s body was found. It read
Get Well Soon.

“That to me,” Richard said, “perfectly sums up Wind Gap.”

R
ichard wanted me to take him to all the town’s secret places, the nooks that only locals know about. Places where people meet to screw or smoke dope, where teens drink, or folks go to sit by themselves and decide where their lives had unraveled. Everyone has a moment where life goes off the rails. Mine was the day Marian died. The day I picked up that knife is a tight second.

“We still haven’t found a kill site for either girl,” Richard said, one hand on the wheel, the other draped on the back of my seat. “Just the dumping areas, and those are pretty contaminated.” He paused. “Sorry. ‘Kill site’ is an ugly phrase.”

“More suited to an abattoir.”

“Wow. Fifty-cent word there, Camille. Seventy-five cents in Wind Gap.”

“Yeah, I forget how cultured you Kansas City folks are.”

I directed Richard onto an unmarked gravel road, and we parked in the knee-length weeds about ten miles south of where Ann’s body had been found. I fanned the back of my neck in the wet air, plucked at my long sleeves, stuck to my arms. I wondered if Richard could smell the booze of last night, now sitting in sweaty dots on my skin. We hiked into the woods, downhill and back up. The cottonwood leaves shimmered, as always, with imaginary breeze. Occasionally we could hear an animal skitter away, a bird suddenly take flight. Richard walked assuredly behind me, plucking leaves and slowly tearing them apart along the way. By the time we reached the spot, our clothes were soaked, my face dripping with sweat. It was an ancient one-room schoolhouse, tilting slightly to one side, vines weaving in and out of its slats.

Inside, half a chalkboard was nailed to the wall. It contained elaborate drawings of penises pushing into vaginas—no bodies attached. Dead leaves and liquor bottles littered the floor, some rusted beer cans from a time before pop tops. A few tiny desks remained. One was covered in a tablecloth, a vase of dead roses at its center. A pitiable place for a romantic dinner. I hoped it went well.

“Nice work,” Richard said, pointing to one of the crayoned drawings. His light blue oxford clung to him. I could see the outline of a well-toned chest.

“This is mostly a kid hangout, obviously,” I said. “But it’s near the creek, so I thought you should see it.”

“Mm-hmm.” He looked at me in silence. “What do you do back in Chicago when you’re not working?” He leaned on the desk, plucked a withered rose from the vase, began crumbling its leaves.

“What do I do?”

“Do you have a boyfriend? I bet you do.”

“No. I haven’t had a boyfriend in a long time.”

He began pulling the petals off the rose. I couldn’t tell if he was interested in my answer. He looked up at me and grinned.

“You’re a tough one, Camille. You don’t have a lot of
give
to you. You make me work. I like it, it’s different. Most girls you can’t get to shut up. No offense.”

“I’m not trying to be difficult. It’s just not the question I was expecting,” I said, regaining my footing in the conversation. Small talk and banter. I can do that. “Do you have a girlfriend? I bet you have two. A blonde and brunette, to coordinate with your ties.”

“Wrong on all counts. No girlfriend, and my last one was a redhead. She didn’t match anything I owned. Had to go. Nice girl, too bad.”

Normally, Richard was the kind of guy I disliked, someone born and raised plush: looks, charm, smarts, probably money. These men were never very interesting to me; they had no edges, and they were usually cowards. They instinctively fled any situation that might cause them embarrassment or awkwardness. But Richard didn’t bore me. Maybe because his grin was a little crooked. Or because he made his living dealing in ugly things.

“You ever come here when you were a kid, Camille?” His voice was quiet, almost shy. He looked sideways, and the afternoon sun made his hair glimmer gold.

“Sure. Perfect place for inappropriate activities.”

Richard walked over to me, handed me the last of the rose, ran a finger up my sweaty cheek.

“I can see that,” he said. “First time I’ve ever wished I grew up in Wind Gap.”

“You and I might have gotten along just fine,” I said, and meant it. I was suddenly sad I’d never known a boy like Richard growing up, someone who’d at least give me a bit of a challenge.

“You know you’re beautiful, right?” he asked. “I’d tell you, but it seems like the kind of thing that you’d brush off. Instead I thought…”

He tilted my head up to him and kissed me, first slowly and then, when I didn’t pull away, he folded me into his arms, pushed his tongue into my mouth. It was the first time I’d been kissed in almost three years. I ran my hands between his shoulder blades, the rose crumbling down his back. I pulled his collar away from his neck and licked him.

“I think you are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen,” he said, running a finger along my jawline. “The first time I saw you, I couldn’t even think the rest of the day. Vickery sent me home.” He laughed.

“I think you’re very handsome, too,” I said, holding his hands so they wouldn’t roam. My shirt was thin, I didn’t want him to feel my scars.

“I think you’re very handsome, too?”
He laughed. “Geez, Camille, you really don’t do the romance stuff, huh?”

“I’m just caught off guard. I mean, first of all, this is a bad idea, you and me.”

“Horrible.” He kissed my earlobe.

“And, I mean, don’t you want to look around this place?”

“
Miss
Preaker, I searched this place the second week I was here. I just wanted to go for a walk with you.”

Richard also had covered the two other spots I had in mind, as it turned out. An abandoned hunting shed on the south part of the woods had yielded a yellow plaid hair ribbon that neither girl’s parents could identify. The bluffs to the east of Wind Gap, where you could sit and watch the distant Mississippi River below, offered a child’s sneaker print that matched shoes neither girl owned. Some dried blood was found dribbled over grass blades; but the type was the wrong match for both. Once again I was turning up useless. Then again, Richard didn’t seem to care. We drove up to the bluffs anyway, grabbed a six-pack of beer and sat in the sun, watching the Mississippi River glimmer gray like a lazy snake.

This had been one of Marian’s favorite places to go when she could leave her bed. For an instant, I could feel the weight of her as a child on my back, her hot giggles in my ears, skinny arms wrapped tight around my shoulders.

“Where would you take a little girl to strangle her?” Richard asked.

“My car or my home,” I said, jolting back.

“And to pull out the teeth?”

“Somewhere that I could scrub down well. A basement. A bathtub. The girls were dead first, right?”

“Is that one of your questions?”

“Sure.”

“They were both dead.”

“Dead long enough there was no blood when the teeth came out?”

A barge floating down the river began turning sideways in the current; men appeared on board with longpoles to twist it back in the right direction.

“With Natalie there was blood. The teeth were removed immediately after the strangling.”

I had the image of Natalie Keene, brown eyes frozen open, slumped down in a bathtub as someone pried her teeth from her mouth. Blood on Natalie’s chin. A hand on pliers. A woman’s hand.