The Seduction - Art Bourgeau (13 page)

She could see Marie running ahead, crossing Front
Street and going toward the ice-skating rink built under I-95 near
Federal Street.

"Marie, wait," Laura called as she hurried
after her. Marie slowed down, as though she wanted Laura to catch up
with her at the rink.

Laura, winded, was relieved that the deserted rink
was at least out of the rain, under the overhead section of I-95.

Marie waited for her, leaning against the waist-high
yellow rail around the rink. Laura approached her cautiously. Marie
knew more about Terri's death than she was saying, that seemed
obvious. The question was, why was she holding back? Didn't she want
to help catch Terri's killer? After all, Terri was her best friend .
. .

Laura realized she had no good idea how to begin with
Marie, to get some answers. For all the contact she'd had with
teenagers, they might as well have been Martians. As for how she'd
felt as one, that was too many years ago in dusty Texas, years with
about as much relevance to this girl and her situation as a
"Gunsmoke" rerun. But she knew one thing—she had to make
the first move. She took a deep breath and said something she
realized was inanely chatty; "Thanks for slowing down. I don't
know about you, but I've had enough exercise for a year"

Marie gave it the silent treatment. Laura said,
abruptly, "it hurts to lose someone you love. Is this the first
time for you?"

"Yes." A small voice.

"It's never easy."

Not surprisingly, Marie didn't respond to that
profound statement. Laura was getting edgy. Come mi, Marie, give me a
break . . . But Marie wasn't about to make it easy. Okay, then we'll
go back door . . .

"Marie, do you believe in God?"

"What? God? Sure . . . what's that got to do
with——?"

"Do you believe that this was how God wanted
Terri to die?"

"No, I mean, I don't know," Marie said,
turning away from her to hide the tears she felt coming.

"Well, I do. This was not God's intention. What
killed Terri was evil and deserves to be punished for it."

"I know that."

Laura figured she just couldn't stop sounding stupid.
Of course Marie knew that. She'd rushed this like it was her first
interview. She needed more time to win Marie's confidence, but she
also felt she'd painted herself into a corner. There was nothing left
for it but to cut the stuff and get to it . . .

"You have to help, you know."

Silence.

"Whatever it is you're holding back is making
you very unhappy. You'll feel a lot better if you get it out."

When she'd just about given up hope, Marie said, "I
saw the car. It's a silver Datsun 300ZX with a Bruce Springsteen
bumper sticker on the rear bumper." The words came in a rush.

Laura was excited, but had to probe. "Do you
know a lot about cars?"

"No."

"Most girls don't. In fact, most of us don't
know one car from another. How did you know it was a 300ZX?"

"Because there's a little sign on the back that
says that's what it is," Marie said, and turned away.

"But how could you see a little sign at night on
a silver car?"

Then, waking up . . . "Unless the car was
stopped?"

Grabbing Marie by the arm, she spun her around, and
looking in her face saw she was right. "You saw the car when it
was parked, didn't you? Where? Where did you see it?"

In a voice filled with shame, "At the depot."

It took a moment to sink in. "Oh, my God."
She resisted asking why Marie hadn't spoken up sooner. This wasn't
the moment. Instead, as Marie burst into tears, Laura drew the girl
to her and put her arms around her.

When the sobs quieted, Laura said, "Tell me what
happened."

Marie took off her glasses, wiped her eyes with her
sleeve.

"You were right. I knew about the depot but I
hadn't seen it. All I knew was that Terri had told me about it . . ."

"Go on."

"Things weren't going like Terri wanted. She
wanted to get married but he seemed to be losing interest or
something. Anyway, she got scared it was going to be over unless . .
."

"Unless she slept with him?"

"Yes, but it wasn't like that, not exactly. I
mean, before Peter, Terri was going out with Joey from the
neighborhood, only she wouldn't let him, so he left her for Lisa.
Then one night her mother and father got in a fight at the dinner
table and afterward they went up to their room and . . . well, Terri
knew they were doing it. They did it a lot, I'm talking about a real
lot, and it always made Terri feel weird to think about it, them
doing it, but not this time. She said this time it all sort of made
sense and that's when she decided to do it with Peter . . ."

"Who came up with the idea of the depot?"

"Terri . . . we know that a man won't respect
you if he does it to you in the car, and Terri didn't have a place,
so she picked the depot."

"But you didn't see it."

Marie hesitated again. "Not then, not when she
was fixing it up. I wanted to but she wouldn't let me. She said it
was their place and she didn't want me to see it yet."

"And this made you feel a little left out
maybe?"

"No. Well, yes, maybe a little, but I wasn't
jealous or anything. I just wanted to see it . . ."

"How'd you feel about Terri doing it with Peter
. . . what did you say his last name was?"

"I don't know what his last name was. Even Terri
didn't know. Peter, that was it. Anyway I didn't like the idea and I
told her so. The sisters taught us it's a sin to let a man do stuff
before you get married."

"What did Terri say about that?"

"She said it wasn't a sin if you were going to
marry that person, and that's what she and Peter were going to do."

"So she believed they were going to get married.
Then what happened?"

Marie turned and again leaned against the yellow rail
surrounding the ice rink. Laura was acutely aware of how wet and cold
she was. Her boots were soaked through, water had dripped in around
her collar. But it was worse for Marie, who had no raincoat and who
was carrying around a load of guilt and grief large enough to chill
her insides.

"Then I did a bad thing—I went to the depot."

"That Saturday night, the night Terri was
killed?" Laura was afraid to believe what she was hearing.

"Yes . . . look, I wasn't trying to spy on them
or anything. I just wanted to see what the place looked like . . .
what he looked like. After all, I was her best friend—"

"Marie, you did not do anything wrong. There's
nothing wrong with being curious about the person your best friend is
going with . . . Were you outside or inside the depot?"

"Outside. I thought about going inside but I
decided it would be wrong."

"Okay, can you tell me about it?"

"I got there early, before they did. That's when
I thought about going inside because Terri had told me about the
place and I knew how she got in."

"But you didn't."

"No, I found a hiding place where they couldn't
see me, but I could see them when they pulled up."

Laura held her breath.

"They came, and he pulled the car up in that
little dead end. Terri got out, opened the window and went inside and
opened the door."

"What about him, Marie?"

"He stayed in the car till Terri opened the
door, then went inside."

"What did he look like?"

"He wasn't real tall but he was taller than
Terri. They made a sort of good couple. He had dark hair and a beard,
and he was wearing dark glasses. Oh, and he had on a leather jacket
and a white scarf. Terri said he always wore them."

"Anything else . . . I mean about the way he
looked?"

"Just that he really was good-looking, like she
said."

From the description Laura thought he could have been
wearing a ski mask, with a beard attached. There was no way even an
eyewitness like Marie could identify him for certain with a
description like that. Even if it wasn't a mask, the beard could have
been a phony, or if it was real he could have shaved it off right
after . . .

"What happened then?"

"They closed the door."

"So that's all you saw . . . But what about when
they came out?"

"I didn't see them then. It was starting to rain
and I thought they'd be in there for a long time, maybe all night,
and I didn't feel like getting soaked, so I left."

"What did you think when Terri didn't show up
for school on Monday?"

"I was sick then, I didn't go to school on
Monday."

"But you already knew she was missing, didn't
you? Her parents must have been going crazy."

Laura could see her tightening up and realized she
had hit a nerve . . . the reason Marie was feeling so guilty.

"Why didn't you tell anyone about this until
now?" Laura said.

"Because when Terri told me about the place and
what she was going to do, she made me promise not to tell anyone,
especially her parents, because if everything worked out like she
hoped she was sure she and Peter would run away and get married."

"Didn't you worry?"

"Yes . . ." and she began to cry again. "I
was afraid for her, she was my best friend, I didn't want her to do
this—"

"Did you talk to the police?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell them, or your parents?"

Crying harder now, Marie said, "I was afraid
everyone would hate me for what I did. Sneaking around like that,
spying . . ."

Laura reached out and put her arms again around the
girl.

"Never mind. It's all right. You didn't do
anything wrong. You didn't, believe me," and she held her like
that until she was quiet. "But you will have to talk to the
police, Marie, and this time you'll have to tell them everything."

"I know . . ."

As they walked back into the rain together Laura was
thinking that her day wasn't over yet. First she had to call Sloan
and tell him about Marie, and then call the news desk. After all,
there was nothing in her bargain with Sloan to keep her from using
the account of an unnamed witness in her story.
 
 

CHAPTER 10

THE CORNER of Broad and Locust was a madhouse as cabs
discharged passengers under the flickering gaslights of the Academy
of Music. Ordinarily waiting in line for anything drove Missy
wild—but not tonight. Alone with Felix in the backseat of Wakefield
and Pollack's limousine she felt almost serene, an unaccustomed
condition for her.

It was also in stark contrast to how she'd felt when
she'd left her mother's Monday night. She had driven back into town,
crying in rage, bashing the steering wheel, and on the rain-slick
East River Drive she had spun out, nearly hitting the stone arch of a
bridge abutment, winding up in a riverside parking lot near a closed
concession stand. Only her well-conditioned reflexes had saved her
from serious injury or death.

Once back in Center City she had stopped at a pay
phone and called a connection for cocaine, and after she'd picked it
up, had headed for Christian's, a bar on Sansom Street in the same
block with the White Dog Cafe and La Terrasse. After throwing back
several Cuervo Golds, she'd picked up four Penn students—three
cleancuts in their junior year, and a nineteen-year-old female whose
black turtleneck, long straight hair and copy of Atlas Shrugged had
given her an almost timeless coffeehouse-beatnik look. Carl wasn't
the only one who occasionally needed younger flesh to prop up a
bruised or demented ego. Everyone was getting theirs, including her
sainted mother, for God's
sake . . .

From the bar she'd taken them to her house where, the
stress, drugs and alcohol all melding, she had proceeded to undress
in front of the four and perform oral sex on each. At first the girl
had been reluctant, but with the pressure of more drugs and good old
peer pressure she had gone along. And so it had gone through the
night and into part of the next day, with the once-reluctant girl
becoming a most responsive subject for Missy's ministrations. But
when they had finally gone, she'd realized the party was over in more
ways than one . . . she had had each of them doing as she wanted, but
in the end it hadn't changed anything. She'd still been alone,
feeling broke, and no one in the world gave a good goddamn.

As she'd reluctantly changed to go to work, she'd
flicked on her answering machine and heard a message from Felix. In
the upset of the past night and day she'd forgotten their date for
Monday night, and his taped voice had sounded both irritated and
concerned. He'd called before she'd gotten back to her house with the
college kids. As she'd listened to the short message, she'd decided
she was wrong; she wasn't alone; someone out there apparently did
care.