Stony River (35 page)

She led him into what had turned into a library, with shelves scaling the living- and dining-room walls. Her father had built them for her. It had been either surrender her walls or put up with books on every available surface, including the floor. Miranda was not content to leave them in boxes in the basement. She'd taped little white labels on each spine according to the Dewey decimal system. Written out a card for every book and arranged the cards alphabetically in a recipe box. With a focus that had amazed Doris, she'd spent weeks deciding what category each book fell into, asking Doris's opinion.
Beowulf:
fiction or folklore?
Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race:
religion or social sciences? Doris asked if there was a category for boring. She'd
never been a reader. Neither had her parents, but they'd become sudden converts, borrowing a book or two when they visited, asking Miranda for recommendations. They were captivated by her history. To them she was obviously intelligent, possibly brilliant, but “not quite right,” something they attributed to the abuse she'd suffered; Doris had shared the psychiatrist's report with them. They wanted to “encourage” her. Show how broad-minded they were.

Enzo borrowed books, too, perhaps to compensate Miranda for his insistence she tell him time and time again what she saw about that night the unimaginable had happened. While Doris was grateful for the stubborn, painstaking way he followed every possible clue and kept her informed—she now fully appreciated the significance of bloodstain pattern, size, shape and location to crime reconstruction—his persistence in pressuring Miranda to “see” more of the murder scene drained the girl and made her even less dependable.

Doris pushed aside the pink plastic ballerinas and miniature cars to make space for him on the couch. She took a seat in the chair opposite him, feeling frumpy and too warm in old slacks and Bill's red plaid flannel shirt. She told him about the runaway Bill thought had broken into the Haggerty house.

“Two years ago?” he said. “Curious someone would come forth now.”

“Could the ad have been running all that time?”

“No. I checked. It's recent. Placed by a young woman described as dark but not Negroid.”

Someone might have described Enzo as dark, too. Acne had pitted and stained his angular face the deep purple of plums. It was hard to look at him for long without feeling rude. He'd come to the department with serious credentials—MP experience in Germany and Korea, a degree in criminal justice—but Bill had figured the true secret to the guy's success was that people felt sorry for him and told him whatever he wanted to know.

“You think Ladonna's a real name?” she asked.

“Hard to tell.”

He picked up a tiny red double-decker bus and ran it absentmindedly along his leg, a sensual gesture that made Doris uneasy. “Here, let me get that out of your way,” she said, taking it from his hand. “Sorry for the mess. It's a small house for three kids.” She set the bus on the floor beside her feet. “For what are you advertising, if you don't mind?”

Enzo stared at the little bus as if it might start moving on its own and then looked up at her with a slight frown. “Witnesses. I run the ad once a month. You never know. Someone might recall a gunshot or a car speeding away. Might have tucked the memory into a cluttered room in his mind, not realizing it mattered.”

“It's hopeless, isn't it? Six months and no witnesses, no suspects.” The funeral came back to Doris in a rush. The long, somber procession from St. Boniface to the cemetery: hundreds of officers from across the state in full dress, Chief Durmer presenting her with the flag draped over Bill's casket, the melancholy Taps played by the desk sergeant's nephew. She'd had her private moment before the funeral when they opened the casket for her. Had placed her hand over his one last time and kissed his forehead, already picturing the rest of her life without him.

“We have fingerprints and bloodstains.” Enzo's tone was patient but weary. “We know the bullet that got Bill came from a German gun. With tenacity and time, every case is solvable.”

“That what detective school tells you to say to widows?”

“This is a cop killer, Doris. The department will never give up on it.”

Enzo stood abruptly and smiled past her. Miranda was entering the living room, gliding into it, actually, Carolyn, Mickey and Cian trailing behind like ducklings. Mickey waved at Doris and Enzo with both hands. Cian said, “Hi Dori!” Carolyn wore her five-year-old
pouty look, Miranda a mint-green shirtwaist that highlighted her eyes. She looked less fragile today, as though she'd resolved something in her mind. The years she'd spent away from the world had stamped her with a certain strangeness Doris suspected would never go away, but she was striking, you had to give her that, especially now that her hair was longer. Doris could see how a man might be smitten, particularly Enzo, who likely didn't have women trampling each other to get to him. But he was old enough to be her father. Thinking of that and the psychiatrist saying Miranda had no context for understanding what James had done to her gave Doris the willies.

A smile lit Miranda's face. “I didn't know you were here.”

Cian pulled a tiddlywinks game from under a chair.

“I'm returning Voltaire,” Enzo said. “You're right. The shepherd's tale is perfect for me.”

Doris plucked three tiddlywinks from Mickey's mouth.

“Was he blind in his right eye?” Miranda said.

Enzo slapped his thigh and laughed. Doris didn't get what was obviously a private joke.

“Gee whiz,” Carolyn said, hands on her hips. “Aren't we going to the park?”

“You bet,” Doris said. She felt for Carolyn, who missed Bill terribly and had to wait until Doris got home from work before she could roller skate or ride the big-girl bike the department had given her. Doris had arranged for another kindergarten mother on the street to escort Carolyn to and from school. She wouldn't allow Miranda to take the kids farther than the fenced-in backyard in case she got swept away by some vision. Seeing the girl flat on the basement floor barely breathing had shaken Doris. “You want to show Miranda the ad, Enzo? Pronto?”

He did. “Any idea about this person or what of yours she might have?”

“How could I?”

He laughed and squeezed Miranda's arm. “Good response. If you don't mind, I'd like to reply on your behalf and see who crawls out from under this rock.”

“I mind,” Doris said. “This Ladonna could be a nutcase. Miranda's been through enough.”

“I won't let anyone hurt her. She doesn't ever have to meet the woman if she doesn't want to. I'll simply find out what it is she claims to have and let Miranda know.”

“I'm not afraid, Doris. Do respond for me, Enzo.” She placed a hand on Enzo's arm. “Now, would you be wanting to borrow another book?”

Doris could swear Miranda was flirting. “The library is closed,” she said.

SEPTEMBER 30, 1957
. Tereza saw herself about to enter a movie scene as Ladonna Lange, described in the script as a movie starlet in black heels, gray coat, poufy black wig and fake pearl earrings as big as silver dollars. In the background you might hear music or traffic. Or a voiceover with her thoughts imagining a grateful Miranda, astounded at how Tereza had stumbled across the money. She'd split it with Tereza and they'd be friends forever.

The director would instruct Ladonna to slow down as she passed the bank and approached the building with a big glass window. The camera would pan to the sign above the window:
THE STONY RIVER
RECORD
. As she got close, she'd glance at the window, like it was no big whoop, like it could have been a blank wall for all she cared. She didn't know that the script called for a guy with a dark face to be standing inside the office with his arms crossed, staring out the window. She spotted him the same time he did her. She saw him jerk
to attention. She hurried on by, her heels click-clacking in time with her heart.

A rough voice called out behind her. “Hey! Ladonna?”

She'd picked up the typewritten note the week before.
Meet me at the newspaper office at 10
AM
September 30th. If not convenient, please suggest another date and time in writing to Box 56, The Record
. No signature, but “convenient” seemed a word Miranda would use. Tereza should have realized that a robber could spy the ad and show up instead. Good thing she'd left the money at home, bringing only the acorn and shell necklace to prove to Miranda she was legit.

The robber's footsteps sounded closer. The train station was dead ahead one block. She was running now. Her feet didn't feel connected to her legs, but they found the ladies' john behind the ticket seller's cage. A single. Empty. She ducked in and locked the door. A pain chewed through her gut. Her ass met the cold toilet seat just in time, thank God or whoever. She stared at
JANET SUCKS COCK
on the stall door and wondered if God was like an invisible friend you made up to trick yourself into believing you weren't all alone in the world. Tereza didn't think about God much. She'd been in a church only once when they lived in Florida; Ma couldn't take the heat one Sunday and had dragged her to a cool, dark, high-ceilinged building with whirring fans where people weaved back and forth on their feet, singing and clapping like they'd won on
Beat the Clock
. Dearie wasn't big on church; she'd taken Buddy when he was little but stopped when something scared him. It surprised her when he joined a church in June, but he said that's what A&P managers did. Tereza didn't know if he believed in God. If he were there right now she could ask him. If he were there right now she wouldn't be too chickenshit to leave the john.

The toilet wouldn't flush. She washed her hands in cold, rusty water dribbling from the single tap. She shifted her wig to press her ear against the door but couldn't hear a thing over a rumbling train.
She peered through the crack but couldn't see a soul. The goon might be around the corner, though, waiting to grab her pocketbook. She plucked the necklace from it, slipped it over her head and under the collar of her blouse. He wouldn't get that, at least. Nothing in your pocketbook is worth dying over, Ma said once. Some creep wants it, let it go.

She could smell the day Ma said that, lilacs flowering along the porch railing as they sat thigh-to-thigh on the apartment steps, sharing a smoke, while Allen cycled figure eights on the street in front of them. Ma was full of tips: wipe yourself from front to back, don't knee a guy in the balls unless you can run faster than him after, keep a few bucks tucked away in case your husband drinks up his pay. She'd know what to do if the dark-faced jerk was waiting outside.

“Oh, Ma,” Tereza said softly. “Why'd you have to go missing?” She studied her face in the small scratched mirror above the sink. Ma wouldn't recognize her all done up. Hey, maybe the robber wouldn't recognize her as Tereza. Minutes later she had scrubbed off her makeup and ditched the wig and coat in a corner. The Grace Kelly suit she'd worn under the coat would do. She slowly opened the john door and tiptoed out. The creep wasn't there. Eyes straight ahead, she forced herself to walk as normally as possible from the station. She'd make up a story about how she lost the coat. Clutching pocketbook to chest, she put one foot in front of the other, block after block, street after street, until she faced the bullet-shaped, gray cement building housing the Catalog Club. She arrived as the noon whistle belched workers from its doors. Even though it made no sense, Tereza looked for Ma in the pack as it split into small groups claiming scraps of lawn for their asses and lunch pails.

Inside Tereza found a glass-walled office no bigger than the train station john overlooking a long room with shelves of merchandise and two giant conveyor belts, halted for lunch break. A square-jawed,
crop-haired woman in trousers and a plaid shirt hunched over a desk in the office, tucking into a sandwich.

Tereza knocked on the doorframe.

The woman looked up. “Yeah?” Tereza could see mushed-up bread in her mouth.

“I'm looking for my mother.”

The woman lifted one pale eyebrow. “She on this shift?”

Tereza shook her head. “She don't work here no more. Doesn't. I was wondering if she left an address. You know, for her last pay or something?”

The woman frowned, pursed her lips. “You don't know where your mother is?”

Tereza shook her head, made her hands into hard fists to stop from crying.

The woman narrowed her eyes like she was sizing Tereza up. “Jesus.” She swiveled her chair around and slid open a heavy-sounding file cabinet drawer. “How you spell her name?”

“D-o-b-r-a.” Tereza wasn't sure how to spell Reenie.

The woman pulled out a file folder and turned papers over. Looked up.