She's Not There (8 page)

We headed toward the door. The little bell up above had been wrapped in duct tape. I knew something was amiss but I hadn't been able to put my finger on it till just then—the little bell hadn't tinkled when we'd walked in. Willa saw me looking up at it. “Bell was bothering Jake.”

We went outside into the hot sun. Out around the store, the sidewalk was giving off a glare in the white light. Joe said, “Fitzy has a point. It's hot. How about a swim instead of a walk?”

Sounded good to me.

*   *   *

We went to the bathhouse at Crescent Beach, changed into bathing suits, and stepped over the strand of cobblestones, smooth almost circular granite disks, pastel-colored, once harvested by islanders in the nineteenth century. They were shipped across the narrow band of sea to the mainland and then sent north to Boston, south to New York and Philadelphia, all the way down to Washington and beyond—Charleston and Savannah—where they were used to pave the city streets along the eastern seaboard. Our first time on the beach, Joe told me it was good luck to find one as close to a perfect circle as possible and take it home. I found a dozen in about two minutes. He'd laughed.

Now we walked across the just-warming sand. Joe said there used to be more sand and a lot fewer cobbles, but the island had lost most of the sand to the perfect storm, which exposed the cobbles beneath.

“Really?
The
perfect storm?”

“The very one.”

We had the long curving expanse of beach to ourselves. We swam about a yard before the oatmeal dragged us to a stop. We put off swimming. Instead, we lay on the beach blanket Joe had dug out of the back of the ragtop and watched as the Point Judith ferry showed its great hulk, bearing down from around the cliffs at the end of the beach. We would soon be inundated with merry day-trippers. We agreed we wanted more beach time but without the volleyball games, so we got back in the jeep and drove to the northern tip of the island, Sandy Point. Leading out to the point was a two-mile sand spit. I hadn't been there yet. We found a few mopeds parked where the road ended, overnight tourists from one of the inns. We stopped the jeep beside the mopeds and walked along the spit past four vacationers, who nodded at us from their blankets. We didn't stop until we were twenty yards from the point, the whole stretch deserted. Joe spread his blanket.

He said, “Beautiful.”

“Yes.” But my enthusiasm had diminished to its former state.

“Look, Poppy, the very end of the spit is a gull rookery. See that thing sticking up?”

I did. It looked like a wide dead tree trunk, all its branches eaten away.

“The remains of an old lighthouse. It's completely covered with guano. They nest in there.”

“I don't see many gulls.”

“Hatching season is almost over. Not many young left in the nests. Except for the last of the new parents, they're all out doing what gulls do: scavenging.”

I didn't say that I'd seen some very frustrated gulls disappointed in their scavenging routine twenty-four hours earlier.

Joe was lying on his back, propped up on his elbows. So was I. “Poppy…”

“What?”

“You've left something out, haven't you?”

ATF. Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. His job was detecting secretive behavior. For example, why was David Koresh secretive? That was an easy one. Because he had an arsenal so extensive it could have equipped an army division.

I closed my eyes, let the sun sink into my pores, and officially allowed myself to think, to observe more closely what I'd seen, if only from memory. Scrolling. Immediately, a frame of the film came to me. The girl's hands. She'd torn her clothes off herself. It was why the trooper had made sure to wrap one of her hands at least, even if he couldn't get to the other one. There were fine shreds of fabric between her fingers. Her T-shirt had been dark blue. The band around her neck matched the shreds in her hands.

“Joe, it wasn't rape I saw. A sex crime, maybe.” And I told him what detail had just come back to me.

“She ripped her
own
clothes off? And you're only remembering that now?”

“Yes. Because of your rules training. Because I wanted to be a normal person having a real vacation. I've been having such a good time, Joe. I resisted my usual habits. Selfish of me, wasn't it?”

He looked at me. “Not selfish. Self-protecting. You've been through an awful lot this year.” He smiled. “But I didn't think I'd be creating a monster.”

I wanted to smile too. But I couldn't. I couldn't rid my consciousness of the image of the dead girl. “She was just a kid, Joe.”

He rolled toward me onto his side and brushed my hair off my forehead. Wound a frizzy tendril around his finger. “I understand.” He unwound it and took up another one. “But why would she tear her clothes off?”

“I don't know that yet, but I will. Or maybe Ernie is right—crazy party, she was stoned and wanted to swim, had trouble with her shirt, so she just ripped it off.” I squinted at the dazzling dark blue sea. “Tell me about this camp of theirs.”

He sighed. “There's not much to say about it. They opened last year. It's a miserable excuse for a camp, though. The buildings are left over from World War Two, when there was a training program here for the Air Corps. A metal Quonset hut and a few wood barracks. It was all left intact—deserted by the guy who owns the land. It's swampy and too far inland for any ocean views. Guy grabbed at the chance to rent it. Heard he got a couple thousand dollars for the summer.”

“Who would send their children to such a place?”

“I suppose parents desperate for their overweight daughters to be skinny. Can't be fat in America, remember? Or maybe the girls wanted to go there themselves. Desperate too. Agreed with their parents to give it a try.”

“And one bored miserable girl went out looking for drugs.”

“Yeah. Unfortunately, she found some.”

He'd finished playing with my hair. He laid his warm hand on my shoulder. Kind of gave me a spot massage.

“You've been there?” I asked him.

“Where?”

“The camp.”

“I was around there before it was a camp. Used to go snoop when I was a kid—pretend I was in the Airborne.”

“You came to Block Island as a child?”

“Yes. Couple of times. With my parents.”

“And you dreamed of having a place of your own here?”

“Exactly.”

A small brownish gull followed by two very large ones—snow-white, the way gulls are supposed to be—flew over us. The brown one seemed to be having trouble. He landed clumsily in the water. The two white gulls dove at him.

I sat up. “Look, they're trying to rescue him.”

Joe looked. “Speaking of the Airborne … they're dive-bombing him, actually.” He looked at me. “Poppy…”

Several times the two white gulls flew up and then zoomed back down, knocking the brown one under water. He came up squawking each time.

Joe said, “He's young. He must be sick. Or injured, maybe. They're killing him.”

“They're what?”

“Euthanasia.”

I pulled myself up to my feet. “Then we should rescue him.”

The two white gulls landed next to the brown one, floated along, one on either side, and started pecking him. I turned away.

Joe stood next to me, put his arm over my shoulders. “Mother Nature. I'm sorry. It's that or he starves to death. Probably can't get food on his own.”

“Joe?”

“Yes?”

“Can we go see it?”

“See what?”

“The camp.”

“When?”

“Right now.”

“I don't see why not.”

We reorganized ourselves and threw on T-shirts and shorts over our bathing suits. Before we headed back to the ragtop, I looked out on the water. The little brown gull was gone and the two big white ones were soaring back to the rookery.

4

By deciding to visit the camp, I'd begun an unofficial investigation. Shortly, I'd have to file a report and then it would be official. That's what my director required of his independent investigators. I could enter or begin any investigation, and my first filing, in addition to describing the physical aspects of the crime, was mainly to explain why I believed the FBI should be involved. Sometimes it was for the usual reasons—wire fraud, a crossing of state lines—and sometimes outside the usual reasons, through a loophole, as in: She was from Connecticut, and she came to Rhode Island with contraband. Then my director and I would talk. He would play devil's advocate. Once he'd said, “Poppy, the devil is not much of a match for you.” He hadn't denied me thus far. And of course he owed me for getting the disastrous crime lab in order, the reason I was first hired. The rest of his departments … well, he was an extremely busy man. Which worked to my advantage, as did his trust.

We got on well, my boss and I: got on well during my stint running the lab, got on well since I'd first told him I wasn't happy being a desk jockey. After all, once I had the lab up and cracking, what was left for me to do? He granted my request to return to the field, one of a handful of independent operators. The only time I'd gotten annoyed with him was when he'd backed Joe and insisted I take a leave after last year. He said, “We've reached a point where I ask little of you. I do not interfere when you deem a case important to investigate or reopen. All I expect is that you will do your job, and that's what you do. Superbly. Allow me this one exception.” The two of them wore me down—not too difficult, considering the state I was in. And considering Delby, who said, “Do it, boss.”

Forced leave.

The entrance to the camp was a track through a dripping wet web of vegetation that looked like a mangrove swamp. I asked Joe what the growth was. He said, “Bracken.”

There was a large professionally constructed sign by the track, brand new, poodle pink and white. Superimposed on a large heart were the words,
CAMP GUINEVERE
and, in smaller print beneath,
For Young Ladies Whose Hearts Are Set on a Trimmer Figure
.

We drove through. Within yards we came to a clearing. Joe braked the ragtop. The sight was miserable. Two dozen teenage girls were slumped on the ground in groups, leaning on—or sprawled upon—their backpacks. Some girls were really big, though by no means morbidly obese. And there were a few who were just a little bit pudgy. All the rest fell somewhere in between. Two thin girls were trying to get them moving.

We listened to the protests.

“It's too
far
.”

“I hate and detest that beach.”

“No. N-O! I am totally not going.”

One of the counselors said, “Listen up. If we go to the beach today, we'll have pizzas from town tonight. For dinner. I promise. I'll go pick them up myself.”

The promise worked. The campers pulled themselves to their feet, helped one another with their backpacks, and followed the counselors to a path beyond the clearing, more a dank green tunnel than a path. Amid their chatter, one of them called to the leader, “There better be extra pepperoni on mine.” The counselor, though, was already attempting to redirect the focus. She was singing “Be Kind to Your Web-Footed Friends.” The campers chose not to join in. We watched as the tunnel swallowed them up.

Joe said, “The weight-loss counselors bribe them with pizza?”

I redirected my focus too—on the shocking condition of the camp. The metal Quonset hut was rusted and all four barracks were tilted, their windows dirty and cracked. A couple of panes were gone, the openings covered with newspaper. The only thing new in the entire place were the signs, one on each of the buildings: on the Quonset hut,
BLAIR IRWIN, DIRECTOR
; the four barracks,
MERLIN HOUSE, LANCELOT HOUSE, KING ARTHUR HOUSE
, and
ROUND TABLE DINING HALL
.

I said to Joe, “How about first we see this Irwin?”

He wanted to do that too. We got out of the ragtop and walked across the clearing.

“Joe, do you see any facilities at all?”

“Yeah. There are four Porta-Potties behind the so-called dining hall. I hope they have running water. I'm not seeing electric wires, are you?”

He was right. I couldn't believe it was possible. If you wanted to lose weight, was living in a variation on a homeless shelter the answer?

We knocked on the director's door. A pretty girl opened it, a thin girl, college age. She smiled. “Yes?”

I said, “Is Mr. Irwin here?”

She said, “May I tell Dr. Irwin who's calling?”

Joe was fast. “Mr. and Mrs. Everett. We just happened to be spending a few days on the island and thought we'd inquire about a camp stay for our daughter.”

“Hold on.”

A man appeared behind her, middle-aged, wearing a Palm Beach suit and a tie. His thin hair was sprayed into position across the top of his head. He smiled at us and said to the girl, “You may go along on the beach hike with the others, Liz.” He spoke as if he had a mouth full of marbles. He thought sounding like William Buckley was impressive.

The girl's own smile left her face. “But you promised I could—”

“Run along now.” He nudged her out the door as he held it wide for us. “Please come in.”

I heard the girl mumble
Fuck
, under her breath.

We went in. He took in our attire: beach bum. My hair was still wet. Someday I would cut it and liberate myself.

He said, “We have no empty slots here at Guinevere for the moment, but one could come up if any of our August girls decide to cancel. I would doubt that though, alas.” He gave us a look of huge sympathy.

He led us into a room sectioned out of the hut. It was his office; his name was engraved on a length of chrome at the front of his desk: B
LAIR
M. I
RWIN
, P
H
D. Behind the nameplate was a dinosaur of a computer from Radio Shack. He had a file cabinet, some furniture upholstered in yellow vinyl, and a generator. Irwin had electricity. He also had an air conditioner in his window, which was on, humming loudly and vibrating, giving it an added loud knocking. Air-conditioning is almost unnecessary on Block Island, the constant sea breeze is always refreshing. But sea breezes couldn't reach the swamp where the camp with its decaying buildings was located.