The More They Disappear (29 page)

Mark pushed inside her and she closed her eyes. Her jeans hung useless from one leg as the trees hovered above. A rock burrowed into the small of her back but Mark didn't notice or care. With her head back, Mary Jane's tongue threatened to choke her, and the skin of her tattoo rubbed against the ground, a burning sensation each time Mark pressed down.

She opened her eyes as he worked, an amateur trying to make himself come hard and fast. His arms shook from the effort, but in his eyes there was nothing, a vacant stare, and he started to go limp.

“Quit looking,” he said.

Mary Jane knew they couldn't recover from this. Mark softened but stubbornly continued to push, limp-dick fucking her, not willing to give in. Mary Jane started to laugh, not at him, but at the situation. She'd trusted a boy who didn't even know how to use his cock. She'd thought that he was the one to love her, the one to take her away and give her all the unnamed things she wanted, but he didn't even know his own body. At least she knew hers, had come to terms with it. It was imperfect, ugly even, but she could work it in ways Mark would never be able to work his.

His hand, open, slapped her and came back, knuckles across her cheek. Mary Jane laughed again as he buckled his pants. Mark strained for something to say, but she'd convinced him. Words didn't matter.

As he walked away, Mary Jane pulled her jeans up and let the cool air take the sting from her face. It was over. She'd leave Mark behind like she'd left her parents. She'd search for new places, new people. She'd haunt all their dreams.

She heard the sounds of the party being busted—loud voices, running feet, squealing tires—but she didn't move. The cops found her and two burly arms lifted. Mary Jane made a sound like vomiting, though nothing came out save a pearly white spit that stretched from her slack mouth. “Excuse me,” she said. Her stomach reeled. They asked her what happened but she didn't want to remember. Sex? Sure. Rape? No. Drugs? Of course. Names? She didn't know. She was innocent. Innocent.

The cops sat her in the grass until the ambulance arrived, and when the EMTs loaded her onto a gurney, she lisped, “Hi boys,” but neither cracked a smile. She heard the word
intercourse,
which made her smile. Such a silly word for fucking. The windows of Vince's house were dark as they rolled her to the ambulance, and she wondered if he'd looked for her. “Relax,” one of the EMTs said as he stuck her with a needle. Then the driver pressed the gas and the liquid started to course through her veins—hot and sweet.

 

ten

The doctor pumped Mary Jane's stomach and brought out the night's wreckage as a nurse injected her with knockout, and when she came to, she was greeted by her mother's creased face and thin lips. Mary Jane turned her head away and focused on the IV bag dripping clear liquid down a tube inserted into her forearm. On the other side of a pale-blue curtain the neighboring patient snored.

“You're okay, baby girl,” Lyda said. “I'm here now.” Mary Jane hoped she was dreaming, that she'd wake up in Mark's apartment and everything would be as it was before, but Lyda touched her hair and broke the illusion. “I'm here,” she said again.

“Where's Dad?” Mary Jane muttered.

“He's at home.”

“He wasn't worried?”

Lyda sighed. “That's not fair,” she said. “He's worried but it's been a strange night. And you know your father. He's a little disappointed.”

“That sounds about right.”

“Shouldn't he be disappointed? The doctors said you could have died. And for what?” Her mother's words started to turn sour. “Do you know what it's like to be woken up in the middle of the night? To be told your only child is in the hospital?” She shook her head. “What were you thinking? You weren't thinking, were you?”

Mary Jane yawned and closed her eyes, managed to ignore her mother's questions.

A nurse came by later and informed her that she'd been discharged but that a couple of police officers needed to talk with her first.

Lyda jumped up from her chair and said, “All she did was have too much to drink.”

The nurse unfolded a wheelchair. “I have to usher you out when they're done. It's hospital policy.”

Lyda intercepted the cops in the hallway. Mary Jane tried to listen but their voices were muted by the heavy door. On the other side of the curtain, her neighbor turned and moaned. Mary Jane didn't know what the police wanted but it didn't matter. There was nowhere left for her to run.

Lyda came back in the room. “They said you had sex last night. That you may have been raped?”

“I wasn't—”

“Why didn't you say something?”

“I don't have to tell you about my sex life.”

“Mary Jane, this is serious. If anyone tried to force themselves on you—”

“They didn't.”

Lyda placed a hand on her shoulder. “It's okay to talk about it. There's no reason to be ashamed.”

“I wasn't raped!” Mary Jane screamed. “And I'm allowed to sleep with whoever I want. Just like you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

One of the cops opened the door. “Ma'am,” he said. “We need to talk with her alone. If you could step out into the hallway.”

“But I'm her mother.”

Mary Jane muttered the word “whore,” though she couldn't be sure Lyda heard.

“I understand,” the cop said. “But it's better if you wait in the hall.”

Lyda patted Mary Jane's hand. “Just be honest with them,” she said.

The cops wore cropped haircuts and crisp blue uniforms and strutted like boys she'd known in high school. Cocksure, the both of them, though the one who'd spoken to her mother had a paunch for a belly and puffy, tired eyes. “Mary Jane Finley?” he said, reading her name off a notepad. His partner rested one hand on his baton. He looked like he spent more time in the gym than fighting crime. Mary Jane tried not to shake beneath the covers. “Do you mind if I call you Mary Jane?” She shrugged. “We want to ask you a couple questions. I hope your mother explained that we're here to help.”

Mary Jane didn't believe a word he said.

The second cop started in. “You had drugs in your system. You may not have known what you were taking, but it would help if you told us where you got them.”

Mary Jane sat up, brought her knees close to her chest. “I don't really know.”

The first cop checked his notepad. “It says here you were at a party. How'd you end up there?”

“I walked.”

“Come on now.”

“I mean it. I was walking and followed the noise.”

“So you were alone?”

She nodded. Mark had been two steps behind but it was truer to say she was alone.

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes. I was alone.”

“Had you taken any drugs before you went to the party?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“So you got them there?”

“Yeah. It was really dark, though. Someone handed me a couple pills and I swallowed them. I guess that was a dumb thing to do.”

The cop wrote in his notepad. “The person who handed you the pills. Do you remember them?”

“No.”

“Male or female?”

Mary Jane remembered the mousy girl with the crown of flowers, her soft lips and downy skin. “A girl,” she said.

The cops shared a look. “Did you know her?”

“I don't even live here. I don't know anyone.”

“So you just walked into the party uninvited?”

“Sure. Why not?”

The meathead cop jumped back in. “This girl. Did you get a look at her?”

“Like I said, it was pretty dark.”

“Anything you can tell us would help.”

“I think she had long hair. And a soft voice. I remember that.”

“What was she wearing?”

“I don't know. A dress?”

“You don't remember anything else.”

“We only met for a moment.”

“Strange.”

“Yeah,” Mary Jane said. “Strange.”

Mary Jane's confidence grew with each lie she fed them. They weren't here about Lew. They didn't know her. To them she was just another dumb girl who'd OD'd. She caught sight of her mother's face in the door's sliver of glass and threw her a smile.

“Just a couple more questions,” the pudgy cop said.

She nodded.

“Do you want a glass of water?”

“No thanks.”

“Okay then.” He smiled at her. He was trying his best. “You told the officers last night that you had sex. Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“This is tough to ask, Mary Jane, but was the sex consensual?”

She hesitated.

“What I mean is, did someone force you—”

“No.”

“There's no reason to be afraid.”

“I'm not.”

“A lot of times victims—”

“I'm not a victim.”

“Okay.”

“I wanted to have sex with him.”

“With who?”

“The boy.”

“What's his name?”

“I don't remember.”

The cop sighed. “What did he look like?”

“He was cute.”

“Mary Jane.”

“It was consensual.”

The first cop nodded. “Why don't you go wait in the hall,” he said to his partner. “Mary Jane, we have a kit that lets us test for DNA in case you decide you were taken advantage of. It would help us find that person. It would be a nurse who collected the sample, not me or my partner.”

“I wasn't raped.”

“Your mother thinks we should get the sample.”

“I don't care what she thinks.”

“If we don't do it now, we won't be able to later.”

“I wasn't raped. And if that disappoints you, I'm sorry.”

“Okay.” The cop put up his hands. “Thank you for your time.” He pocketed his notebook and paused at the door. “You know you're lucky we found you. You understand that, right?”

Mary Jane nodded. “I feel very fortunate,” she said. Anything to get him out the door.

*   *   *

Holly had her feet propped up on a box of case files and was playing solitaire. “Quiet morning?” Harlan asked.

“We could use more like this.”

“You
have
looked pretty worn down recently,” he said before suggesting she take the day off.

Holly replied that Harlan didn't look so hot himself and maybe he should keep his opinions to himself. He responded by pulling out a pack of Bugler and said, “I'm going to set in my office and ruminate. Chances are I might roll one of these and I'd appreciate it if you don't harp on me, okay?”

“It's your funeral,” Holly replied.

On the top of Harlan's desk was a folder with a Post-it that said, “Thought this might be of interest.” Inside he found a report on Trip Gaines. Except for a couple of speeding tickets, the doctor's arrest record was clean, but there were loads of documents from the state medical board. Harlan had heard rumors the doctor ran into trouble before moving to Marathon but he'd never paid them much mind. He avoided doctors or anyone else who might tell him to change his ways. Apparently, the board had been split over whether or not to let Gaines practice because of two malpractice suits brought against him in Ohio. There was testimony from Gaines about his troubles with alcohol, and his ultimate recovery through the twelve steps. He talked about raising his son and daughter as a single parent, talked about how his trials and tribulations reminded him why he loved medicine in the first place. He wanted to help people. His father had been a doctor in rural Ohio, the kind who doled out care in exchange for fresh vegetables and baked goods. It sounded like a story out of a movie. Harlan wondered where the Mercedes, designer sunglasses, and holier-than-thou attitude fit in to Gaines's portrait of a selfless medicine man.

He closed the folder and smoked one cigarette after another in silence. He couldn't fit the information on Trip Gaines back into Lew's murder. There was money and shady business dealings but no endgame. The tobacco dried his mouth and the stale smell of tar stained his fingers. The dispatch stayed quiet and the streets outside stilled. Even the fall breeze buffeted down to a whimper. Ash fell onto Harlan's lap, fell to his feet, but he didn't care enough to dig up an ashtray. Time passed. At some point, his phone rang—a shape on the desk screaming out like some wretched child.

“Sheriff here,” he said, his voice creaking like a brittle door.

“Sheriff, this is Sam Boggs over in Deerhorn. I got a couple boys pulled a bag off the creek bank. It's got a .308 in it. Fits the Teletype you sent out.”

Harlan wondered what his murder weapon would be doing in Deerhorn, but without any better leads, it didn't matter. He told Boggs he'd be there as soon as he could.

Deerhorn was a sleepy one-street town a little over an hour from Marathon. The only buildings were a couple of wood-paneled municipals, a Gulf station, and a Rax that served up dry roast beef sandwiches and whipped-cream desserts. Harlan got the sense that the town would never grow again, that, in fact, it would shrink until one day it vanished completely—its last resident dead or moving on like the lone survivor at the end of days.

At the sheriff's department, he found Sam Boggs listening to Dwight Yoakam and sweeping dust bunnies into neat piles. “I must look like the goddamn maid,” Boggs said as a means of introduction.

“I'd trade places,” Harlan replied.

“No deal. I'm too old to go solving murders.” Boggs was silver-haired but fit. He kept his hair cut close and his grip strong. Harlan pegged him for a soldier. Vietnam? Korea? “Thanks for taking this off my hands,” Boggs said as he handed Harlan the transfer document and a box with contents marked in plastic bags.

Harlan noted the rifle. The barreled action had been unscrewed from the stock. It was a common Winchester, could have been bought at any gun show, store, or pawnshop. Beneath it was a tripod and a single bullet casing, a bag with white residue, and some soggy trash.