The Silent Girls (14 page)
Authors: Eric Rickstad
“I
THINK
W
ATERS
did Julia,” Grout said, as he and Rath sat in the Bee Hive, working on their third beers. “I don’t know about Mandy.”
“What happened to your fingers?” Rath said, nodding at the finger splints.
“Waters kicks like a girl,” Grout said.
Rath drank his Molson. Pain spiderwebbed from either side of his spine, so he felt he was cracking open out of his own skin. He needed to stop in and get his Vicodin. The prescription had been delayed another day because the pharmacist had been unable to read Snell’s handwriting, and he’d had to contact Snell to confirm it.
Grout fished a couple pretzels from a wicker basket, crunched them down.
“What makes you think Waters is the doer?” Rath said.
“What
doesn’t
? Carving up dogs, the Satanist bullshit. I hate to admit it, but your angle looks better than mine about now. Still, I don’t see how Mandy fits. Yet.”
“Is the carving the same on the dog as on the girl?”
“We’re talking flesh carvings here, not paint by numbers. And I still don’t see any damn goat head or whatever. But—” Grout looked at Rath. “What? You don’t think he’s our boy now? As soon as I come around to your line of thinking.”
“I didn’t say he wasn’t—.”
“But?”
“It doesn’t feel like something someone does alone. Carve up a girl, torture her, and the fetus thing.” Rath rolled his beer bottle between his palms. “It lends itself to the alchemy of two sickos prodding each other. Two halves of one evil. Like those two who did the professors. Waters did the dog with his buddy, probably because they fed off each other. Now. His buddy is in Afghanistan so is he going to have the guts to act alone?”
“OK. So it was two perps. So maybe Waters got a new recruit,” Grout said, latching onto Rath’s theory. “The kid
is
evil. The type to prey on weaker, troubled kids, lure them in— I’d buy that, put it on Lay-Away at least. And Waters has no alibi.”
“Whoever did it, won’t need an alibi. Can’t even be expected to have an alibi for eight months ago. There is no fixed time of death.”
“She disappeared March 11, that’s a concrete date.”
“But not a concrete time. And you said yourself she could have run away on that date. Been abducted later. There’s no way we can tie Waters or anyone else without hard physical evidence.”
“Why are you shooting holes in this?”
“Don’t get defensive.”
“I’m
not
, I’m looking at the facts.”
“That’s the problem.”
“Looking
at facts,
that’s the problem?” Grout shook his head angrily. “Or is it because
I
found Waters?”
“I’ll walk now if you want. I’m fine with that,” Rath said, though he wasn’t fine. He wouldn’t extract himself from the case even if he were kicked off it. He’d pursue it on his own. “Look,” he said. “I know you want Barrons’s desk. And should get it—”
“What the hell did he tell you in his office?” Grout said.
“Nothing you have to worry about.”
“I’ll decide what I need to worry about.”
Rath jabbed a finger onto a cork coaster and spun the coaster around. “The only thing you need to worry about is this case. Not politics. Not positioning. Not who came up with what lead first. Not your kids’ basketball games or gymnastics. If you want to get ahead, focus. And take more chances. It’s not just the facts, it’s how you
interpret
them.”
“
You
can say that. You can follow any old hunch. You don’t have a career or wife to lose.”
“You think I waste time on any old hunch? I get a hundred hunches a day and ignore a hundred and one of them. You don’t think maybe I’d like to find who’s cutting up girls? You think maybe I haven’t seen enough of that?”
They sat in shrieking silence.
“Of course not,” Grout said. “No.”
“Say it is Waters, and some other degenerate. Do you think lowlifes like that could keep quiet under pressure?”
“I haven’t turned the screws that tight yet.”
“What did the search of his apartment show?”
“Nothing.”
“His truck?”
“Nothing, but—”
“Computer?”
“Larkin’s only halfway there with it. But nothing so far. But he fits. He
does.
More than anything you have. I don’t give a shit if he’s going to AA. For all I know, maybe he’s trolling the bottom of the barrel for fucked-up chicks to get a girl involved. Maybe this is some sexual thing with a sick chick. It happens.”
It did. Too often. And AA was full of lost types ripe for the picking.
The waitress brought over Grout’s Bud, and he stared at it without picking it up.
“I admit you’re right about one thing. I can spend as much time on more unlikely scenarios of a case because I have no life. Darts and deer hunting.” Rath raised his beer. “Here’s to my thrilling life.”
“Try being married with kids.”
“Married. I haven’t had a date in sixteen years.”
Grout stared in disbelief.
Rath slid his Molson from one hand to the other. “I was never interested. I’d see other single parents bringing home dates, having someone move in with them and their kids. I never wanted to do that to Rachel.” He finished his beer. “If married parents like you and Jen can’t find more than their anniversary to get out on a real date, how could I justify dating as a single parent?”
“Who says we get out on our anniversary,” Grout said, breaking the remaining tension with a laugh.
“There may be a woman now,” Rath said. “Maybe. She works at a dress shop and called to see if Rachel liked the jumper she helped me pick—”
“She called to ask if you liked what you bought? Jen has single and divorced girlfriends cackling all the time about this shit. Women don’t waste a second with any man unless they’re interested. That’s not gut
.
That’s fact. Call her.”
I
N THE PARKING
lot, Rath dialed the Dress Shoppe.
“Dress Shoppe,” a woman’s voice said.
Rath realized he was holding his breath. He exhaled. “Is Madeline there?” he said, his voice cracking like a twelve-year-old Peter Brady.
“Speaking.”
“It’s Frank.”
The silence of a nunnery at 3
A
.M
. He considered hanging up. “Who?”
“Frank Rath. The father who bought his daughter the jumper.”
“Oh. Yes. What can I do for you?”
Christ, what a blunder.
“Hmmm?” he managed.
“What can I
do
for you?” she said.
“I was wondering. What are you doing Friday?”
“Friday day?”
“Day. Night. Either.”
Silence. Then voices in the background, muffled by a hand over the phone.
“Sorry, customer,” she said. “Friday. Well.”
“Look, I think maybe I got my wires crossed. I—”
“You didn’t.”
His pulse quickened. “No?” he said.
“No.”
“So, are you free?”
“No. But I could change that if you’re asking me out. Are you asking me out?”
“I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I am. I am asking you out.”
“So. You’re just shy?”
“Shit no.”
She laughed.
He relaxed. Some.
“So . . . day or night?” she said.
“Evening. Seven?”
“Where?”
“I hadn’t thought that far.”
She laughed harder, a spirited laugh that caused all the stress to flow out of him, leaving him loose. Humming.
“What do you like to eat?” His voice was thick, from the back of his throat.
“Depends on my mood.”
Every word seemed an unintentional double entendre now. It was a sticky web of flirtation, and he felt tangled in it.
“Comfort food,” she said. “So, where do you want to take me?”
“Some place quiet.”
“How about the new place, Bistro Henry?”
Bistro Henry was fine. Bistro Henry was perfect.
R
ATH STOOD BEFOR
E
his living-room wall. He’d taken down his two Proseck prints and two deer mounts to tack up all the information he had about the missing girls. He’d tried to lay it out on his PC, but the computer’s screen was too small, the windows overlapped, and his mind ended up a tangled confusion of barbed wire. He needed to see the information laid out before him, big and bold and sprawling.
He’d taken a copy of the good photo of Mandy from Grout and tacked it to the wall, around which he’d pinned the photos and info of the other missing girls. He studied the photos of the girls up close, then backed away and took them all in at once.
Look.
He’d been looking for five hours now. It was one in the afternoon. He had been at it since four in the morning.
Look.
The girls looked back. Silent.
Nothing in common besides sex and age.
No one close to the girls proved suspicious under interrogation. If even one girl had a relative or friend as a genuine suspect, it would put a hole in the theory that they were linked. But not one of the disappearances could be even remotely tied to someone they knew. Each of them had to have known someone, the same person. Or one person had known them. Fiona Lemieux had been seen by the owner of the corner store, getting into a nondescript car. Why? Had she and the other girls had their instincts to help others used against them? Maybe. Maybe.
But. How did one person, or even two people, choose these girls? And why?
He looked at the photos of Julia’s corpse. They were hard to stomach. He focused on the close-up shots of the carving. What sort of evil were they dealing with? Someone who wanted to leave such a mark on a girl, to show just how depraved, how evil, they were, while the girl was still alive. He poured over the biographies as he glanced at the photos.
Sally Lawrence: Lived with a single mom. Poor, obese but confident, honor roll.
Rebecca Thompson: Working-class, loving parents, well liked, ordinary looks, extraordinary athlete.
Fiona Lemieux: Wealthy, influential family, petite, pretty, gifted musician, golden voice.
Julia Pearl: White-collar parents, teacher mother, CPA father, only child. Pregnant.
Mandy: Average grades. Emancipated. Asshole father. Private. Gorgeous.
The girls shared nothing
except
dissimilarity.
He let his mind wander. Fishing. At times, you hunted with focus. Other times, you fished, let your thoughts cast about and see what your unconscious mind hooked.
He considered the good photo of Mandy. It was much better than his first photo.
Her warm, caramel eyes were flaked with gold, inviting and intimate; they suggested secrecy, a promise, a sense that she had a confession to whisper in your ear, to you and you alone. It was a look that could confuse the wrong person into believing he was exceptional. Chosen. And anger in him when he found he wasn’t either.
Rath stared at the photos and his notes, feeling a thought begin to rise to the surface, like a trout about to sip down a mayfly. He closed his eyes and waited. The connection was just about there, a fine, clear theory, when his phone buzzed on his desk. He let it go to voice mail, but the thought had been submerged. He kept his eyes closed, trying to find a tranquil state and let ephemeral thought materialize into a concrete image he could use.
The phone buzzed.
He ignored it, breathed.
The phone buzzed again. A bee in his ear.
The thought was gone.
He grabbed the phone:
PRIVATE
.
He answered.
“Yeah?” he said, distracted, his voice the snap of a branch.
“Mr. Rath?”
“Yes.”
“Dr. Snell. I remembered where I saw the girl.”
Rath caught his breath and felt his legs go weak.
“I don’t know if it will be of any help or not,” Snell was saying.
“Where are you?” Rath reached for his jacket.
“My office.”
“I’d like to speak in person as soon as possible.”
“I’m straight out all day. My last appointment is at five. I have some paperwork, but should be done by seven. Just let yourself in.”
DR. S
NELL’S OFFICE
was as quiet as the deep woods on a winter night. The recessed lights dimmed to leave the office in a perpetual dusk. Rath had let himself in, as instructed. He peered around the empty waiting room, looked for a bell or something to get the doctor’s attention. There was nothing. He cleared his throat, the sound loud as the crack of a whip in the dead silence.
“Out back!” a voice shouted from down a hall.
Rath pushed the gate at the reception area open and worked his way down the hall to find Dr. Snell in a spacious, high-ceilinged office adorned with an Executive Mission desk of quarter-sawn red oak and hammered-copper hardware and accents. The bookcases were crafted of the same handsome oak. Pricy, heirloom pieces. Alongside the diplomas on the wall, hung oil paintings of desolate, windswept landscapes with decrepit barns and lonely farmhouses, bringing to mind Wyeth. Rath’s favorite. The paintings weren’t prints. They were originals, each lit from above with a pair of sconced lights set at exact angles. The gilded frames alone must have run a couple grand each.
The place was a long ways from the impression Snell gave of himself to patients, with his Carhartt jeans and flannel shirts and Merrells.
Snell finished buttoning up a smart slate blue tailored shirt, then tucked it into designer jeans held up by a polished, hand-tooled leather belt. He nodded at a chair that looked like a Stickley, all dark oak and sumptuous leather.
Rath sat. Damn, what comfort. He thought he might never want to get up again. The pain in his back vanished. He’d sell the farm for a chair like this. It’d probably cost him that, too.
“Drink?” Snell said.
“Why not?” Rath said.
“Ice? Water?”
Rath always took ice, but he sensed, somehow, such practice was taboo in this office, so shook his head.
“Good man,” Snell said, and pulled down the top of what looked like a small rolltop mail desk to reveal a full bar of top-shelf liquor. Clever. Snell took a bottle of Caol Ila 18 and poured two fingers into a snifter he handed to Rath, then poured the same for himself.
His snifter was solid and supremely balanced in the hand. A regal specimen of lead crystal. Rath took a sip. Fine scotch from a fine glass. The familiar glow spread through him and slowed the world to a more manageable pace.
Snell sat behind his desk, set his drink on the chair’s generous arm.
Rath rested his drink on his knee. He wanted a second sip but decided to hold off until Snell took his.
“So,” Rath said.
“The girl,” Snell said. “Yes.”
“Where’d you see her?” A feeling of insecurity crept down Rath’s spine. Such sensations were foreign to him. Could it be because he sat amid an abundance of wealth and success that, although displayed tastefully, was nevertheless meant to put a visitor in his place? No. He’d interviewed plenty of people who could buy the doctor fifty times over without this reaction. Some were friends. So, what was it?
“I met the girl in a hallway,” Snell said.
“Can you be more specific?”
“The Northern Medical Center.”
Snell put his nose in the snifter, breathed, swirled his glass but did not drink.
Rath kept his glass fixed on his knee. “Tell me,” he said. “Leave nothing out.”
“I don’t plan to,” Snell said. “Leave anything out.” He rolled his glass between his palms. “It’s simply that. While I saw her in a hallway, it’s where she went into that might be both helpful to you, but also . . . Let’s say if circumstances weren’t what they were, I would never—”
“Circumstances are what they are, Dr. Snell. In my business, one thing you learn is to accept circumstances as they are and to recognize that cruel acts are done by the hands of some against the will of others, often only to get supreme satisfaction from the cruelty.”
Snell took a long drink of scotch. “I saw her going into the office of a Dr. Langevine.”
Rath sipped his drink, let the mellow smokiness dissolve into his tongue and further soften the edges of the world. “Dr. Langevine?”
“A general practitioner with a focus in gynecology.”
Rath resisted the urge to stand and pace. “Not so unusual then,” he said flatly.
Snell raised an eyebrow. “True. But. I saw her again, later that day. That’s why she stuck with me. That and she’s quite—” He seemed unsure how to say it, struggled with the implications. “Exquisite. It took me a while to realize she was your girl. That photo you tote around isn’t—”
“I’ve got a better one now.”
“Anyway. I saw her later the same day. Coming out of Family Matters.”
Rath sipped, mulling over what he was hearing, trying to make sense of it. “Are you saying . . .”
“I’m not
saying
anything. I don’t
know
anything. Except that I saw her at these two places in a matter of a few hours.”
“What was the date?”
“A few Tuesdays ago. October fourth.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I was down there for a meeting.”
What was Mandy Wilks doing at these places? Was she pregnant? Was this what she shared with Julia? His mind was a hive of theories, each a buzzing bee on a cold morning, twitching its wings and wanting, but unable, to take flight. Yet.
“What time?” Rath said.
“At Langevine’s, anywhere from nine to eleven in the morning. I was in the hallway several times. That afternoon, the best I could say was between two and three.”
It struck Rath that as disparate as all the girls were, they did have one thing in common. It had stared him in the face the whole time, and he’d thought of it just before Snell had called. It had been the thought that had escaped him as the phone buzzed. Regardless of the girls’ upbringings, talents, tastes, or looks, they all had had boyfriends. They
could
all have been pregnant. George Waters couldn’t know that the girls were pregnant when the girls hadn’t known each other and would have been pregnant at several different times? How would any one person know that? Perhaps a doctor, like this Langevine? Except the girls lived too far apart to share the same doctor, and doctors would have no access to each others’ patients’ files. It made no sense. If true, of course, it would eventually make sense. Logic pulled back the veil of mystery that clouded every crime. Always.
“I hope I was of some help,” Snell said.
Rath finished his drink and stood.
Snell remained seated, as if he might stay there and ponder for some time the cruelty and exquisiteness of the world while he put a good dent in his bottle of Caol Ila.
