The Silent Girls (20 page)

Chapter 43

A
S
R
ACH
EL RACED
down the sidewalk like a mom late for her child’s first recital, her jacket flapping open despite the cold, a woman’s shriek needled the frozen air: “God loves you!” Rachel halted to see a woman, her eyes bulging at Rachel from within a parka’s hood. “But!” the woman cried, “He hates murderers!”

A clot of homely women stood behind a rope to seal them off from passersby, mumbling, “Amen,” their puffy old faces florid as a child’s spanked ass. Revulsion quivered through Rachel, and something else: fear and exhilaration.

Rachel thrust her middle fingers at them and strode on.

A voice raged, “You’re going to hell!”

Rachel yelled over her shoulder, “Like
you’d
know, you
cunt
!” as she flung open the door to the Family Matters meeting.

She stomped her boots on a rubber mat and lifted her eyes to see the faces of six girls who sat in a tight circle of folding chairs, all of them Rachel’s age or younger, but with eyes as tired as those of a middle-aged woman facing trial for murder. Shame flooded Rachel: The Late Girl. The place was quiet; the only sound was that of water dripping from the melting snow on Rachel’s bootlaces. She could feel eyes sizing her up.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, and slumped into a seat. “Sorry.”

A woman in her forties waddled into the room, the frayed hem of her long black wool skirt sweeping the floor as her thunderous hips pendulumed in a manner that made Rachel wince to imagine how chafed the woman’s inner thighs must be. Her trim and flat-chested torso did not jibe with her ponderous ass and legs. It was like the two halves of different women had been screwed together at the waist.

The woman caught Rachel staring and smiled a gummy grin as she heaved into a chair with a groan. She scratched at the back of one rashy hand. “So. Who’s scared?” she said, her voice booming in the quiet room. Several girls flinched. None spoke.

Rachel studied the girls’ faces, trying to commit them to memory. A woman who’d looked at first to be eighteen or nineteen, under scrutiny, seemed closer to twenty-two or twenty-three. She was heavyset, with streaks of purple in her hair. None of the girls was the girl in the photo: Mandy Wilks.

“Well,” the woman leading the group said, “I’m Cathy. And I’m scared. Because whatever decision you make, it will change your life. I know; I’ve been there. I’m forty, and I have a twenty-three-year-old daughter.”

Mouths twisted as the girls calculated how old Cathy was when she’d given birth: seventeen.

A girl with pigtails crossed a leg over her opposite knee and waggled her Chuck Taylors, soaked through from melted slush. All eyes were on Cathy now.

“I was pregnant two years
before
that,” Cathy said. “I won’t lie. This is a place of truth. Part of me wanted to keep that baby. But.” Her forced smile was heartbreaking. “My uncle.” She forced a new smile. Meant to be brave: all the more tragic. “We’re here to give facts and support you with whatever decision
you
make, because, whatever choice you make, you likely aren’t getting much support. Are you?”

Crickets.

“Are you?” Cathy said again.

A girl with braces blurted, “I’m getting jack shit.”

“Right, jack shit,” Cathy said, and smoothed her skirt with fat fingers cluttered with chunky cheapo rings. “If you are getting support, be grateful. If you aren’t, or
weren’t,
you are
now.
”

Purple Hair opened a notebook and started writing in it with a pencil.

“So,” Cathy said, “who’s made up her mind?”

Three girls lifted their hands, cautiously. A fourth and fifth wriggled their fingertips tentatively. Slowly, Rachel raised her hand.

Purple Hair took notes.

“You’re undecided?” Cathy asked Purple Hair.

“I’ve made up my mind.
Not to.
” She cupped a hand on her belly. Nodded at the group,
and so should you.

A girl with a boot cast on her left foot grimaced.

“OK,” Cathy said. “Good.”

“Then why are you here?” Boot Cast said.

“I still need support,” Purple Hair said. “It’s not easy when I think about money and how I am going to manage.” She pulled at a strand of hair.

The girl with braces stood up. “I gotta piss.”

Cathy nodded toward the rear. “Through there. Second door on the left.”

Braces lumbered off, tugging at her red leggings where they’d bunched at the backs of her knees.

“Maybe it’s time for a break,” Cathy said but made no effort to get up. Her body seemed to puddle in the chair.

Rachel got up with the other girls, stretching.

“Make sure you sign in,” Cathy said.

Rachel ambled to a corner of the room and took out her iPhone. She’d received texts from Felix, who was outside in Rachel’s old Civic, keeping an eye out.

Bored! Zip going down in steak out

Rachel let out a muted laugh and texted Felix:

‘Steak’ (sp?) out??? How’d u get in2 skool?

“Nice phone,” a voice said. Purple Hair. She leaned herself against the wall. “You rich, or did you steal it?”

A chill ran through Rachel. “Neither
.
”

Purple Hair gave a loose, easy grin. “I’m teasing. I grew up in a house of smart-asses. Family rubs off, you know? You can’t escape it.”

“Sure,” Rachel said. She’d never be here if it weren’t for her father.

Her iPhone burbled the arrival of a text from Felix.

She read it and knocked out a return.

“Boyfriend?” Purple Hair said.

Rachel nodded. Purple Hair stared. “I’m Rachel,” Rachel said, absently. She’d considered using a fake name, but had worried she’d not respond instinctively to it. She’d use a false last name on the list. Sort of. Pritchard. Her mom’s married name.

“Glad to meet you,” Purple Hair said, without offering her name. “You’re really thinking of . . .
doing
it?”

Rachel touched her fingertips to her belly
absently,
or so she hoped, and cast her eyes downward, trying for a
deeply reflective
look, not having to try too hard after what had happened the past weeks. “Yes.” She felt a shimmer of dread at lying, a sense that she was jinxing herself, messing with her future Baby Karma. “I worked hard to get to college. I can’t mess up
now.
”

“Where do you go?”

“Middlebury.” Lying came easier the more she did it.

“And you ain’t rich?” Purple Hair huffed.

“Scholarships.”

“A brainiac then.”

“I study my tail off,” Rachel said.

“What do you have to get for grades to get in a hoity-toity college like that?”

Rachel didn’t know. Better grades than her 3.2 average, for sure, hard as she worked for that average, and as proud as she was of it.

“You can tell a fellow pregger,” Purple Hair said.

Pregger.
Rachel cringed. “Three point eight.”

“Wheeew. I got like a 2.4. That’s why I ended up in a crap community college.”

Rachel knew girls like Purple Hair, girls who thought even Rachel’s 3.2 was lofty. None of them believed she worked hard at it, thinking it was just some natural gift. Anyone with a 3.0 or higher was a brainiac.

“Some community colleges are very good,” Rachel said.

“This one was crap. Waste of time. But
Middlebury.
What are you doing way out here in the freakin’ boonies? Middlebury’s like a three-hour drive, and not a hundred feet of straight road on the way.”

“I—” Rachel paused to get her lies straight, deciding on a half-truth. “I grew up in the general area. And I’m on break. I didn’t want to risk one of my classmates or professors seeing me down there.”

“God forbid.
Me.
I’m keeping
my
baby. You should think about it.”

“I
have.
”

“I’d think with how test-smart you are, you’d realize how wrong what you want to do to your baby is.”

Rachel felt as if she’d been slapped hard across her cheek, and she could sense her mouth was hanging open. “I don’t think—”

Cathy made a sound like a dog puking up grass. “If you’ll take your seats.”

Rachel stood over the list. She wanted to take a picture of it with her iPhone, compare the handwriting to later lists. Even if Mandy wasn’t here. But she was afraid to get caught. What would happen if she was? Would she be kicked out? Arrested for trespassing?

“Forget your name?” Purple Hair had sidled up and nudged Rachel with her hip. “Hmmm?” Rachel said. “No.”

Purple Hair rocked on the heels of her boots. Why was she just standing there?

“Sign already,” Purple Hair urged, pressing closer. Did she know? Was she onto Rachel? How could she be? Rachel pulled away and signed: Rachel Pritchard.

Purple Hair pushed out her bottom lip like a toddler. “Let’s talk after, outside,” she said, and squeezed Rachel’s wrist.

Rachel rubbed her wrist, feeling the ghost of Purple Hair’s fingers on her flesh. Then she angled her iPhone at her hip and snapped a photo of the list.

After an hour of hearing the other girls’ traumatic stories, and telling a slightly altered version of her own story, still fresh in her memory, Rachel hurried outside, trying to ignore the sensation that her emotions had been sucked down a tub drain and left behind a filmy scum on her heart. Her uterus ached. Her womb. She felt ill as she gulped the icy air.

A hand touched Rachel’s back, and Rachel whirled around to face Purple Hair. “Quit
touching
me,” she snapped.

“Sorry. I’m pushy. I just. I did what you’re thinking of doing, once, and I would never wish it on my worst enemy. You can’t undo it. You know?”

Rachel
knew.
She looked across the road toward her Civic. It was parked under a dark pine trees, so she couldn’t see Felix inside it.

Purple Hair looked up into the black night sky, the stars cloaked by clouds, “I murdered my child,” she said, and jerked her head toward the protestors across the street. “I’m not crazy. Like
them.
” She looked haunted. “And you
.
You’re so lovely. So smart.” Her voice fell to a hush. “You have—” She paused.

“What?” Rachel said, her voice a whimper. Her energy sapped in the face of such a potent plea. “I have what?” she said in a faltering voice.

“Good genes. I thought this baby”—Purple Hair rubbed her belly—“would make it right. But it doesn’t.” Her nose leaked snot. “They tossed it in a medical waste can. Incinerated it.” She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “
You’ll
have to live with that.”

Rachel stared, astonished, feeling scraped out. She wanted to tell this girl the truth. This was an act, she was sorry for exploiting the girl’s pain by playing amateur sleuth.

“Are you OK?” Rachel asked.

Purple Hair shrugged Rachel’s hand off, and Rachel felt deflated. Weakened. But she needed to stick to her script. She needed to continue the lie.

“No. Are you?” Purple Hair said.

Rachel shook her head.

“So you’ll . . . reconsider?” Purple Hair’s eyes begged.

“I can’t just drop out of school.”

“You can go to school. Lots of girls do.”

“I can’t juggle both.”

“You
have
to,” Purple Hair said, and clutched Rachel’s arm, fingers like talons.

“Let go!” Rachel shrieked, and yanked free. She fled across the street, a car horn blaring, its headlights throwing her in a ghastly spotlight.

She dashed to the other side of the road, sobs catching in her throat as she tugged open the door to her car and collapsed into the passenger seat.

“How’d it go?” Felix said, patting her shoulder.

“Don’t
touch
me,” she screamed.

Chapter 44

A
S
R
ATH
HURRIED
into the squad room, Grout looked him up and down and gave a wolf whistle from where he stood looking at the bulletin-board display of missing girls’ photos. “You sure got gussied up,” Grout said.

“Nice threads,” Sonja said as she fixed herself a cup of tea in the microwave.

“I had Larkin look into The Better Society,” Grout said. “Ah, speak of the devil.”

Larkin shuffled in and gave a courteous nod and clasped his hand behind his back. Unclasped them and clasped them in front, as if he were in a pew at church.

“We were talking about The Better Society,” Grout said. “But first, Rath, tell us what’s given you such a hard-on.”

Rath paced, his blood fizzing in his veins.

“OK. Look.” He felt light-headed with excitement, but also from not having eaten. “Mandy saw something outside the Dress Shoppe. Witnesses have told us this. She was upset by what she saw. Well. Just up the street on that day were radical antiabortion protestors.”

Larkin nodded enthusiastically.

“I think Mandy saw some protestors. Perhaps someone she knew but had no idea was such a radical. And she went out to confront her.”

“Her?” Sonja said.

“Or him,” Rath said.

“Or both,” Grout said, nodding to Rath. “Going on your Evil Twins premise that maybe two people were involved.”

“Whoever she saw, it upset her. What else could she have possibly seen?”

No one spoke. They nodded. Were glued to him.

“We have a baby cut from a womb.”

“Fetus,” Sonja said.

“Hear me out,” Rath said. “We think that the fetus, baby, was about eight months old?”

“There’s no way to know,” Sonja said. “If it was taken just before Julia died, then yeah, but it may have been removed at anytime earlier—”

“Say it was taken late. Eight months. That’s a baby.” Rachel was three weeks premature and weighed 6 lbs. 2 oz. A tiny human; most definitely not been a
fetus.
“So. Who wants a baby that way? What possible reason could compel someone to do that to another human being?”

Larkin was nodding earnestly now, his hands unclasped and his fingers working nervously, excitedly in his hair.

“If I may,” he said.

“That’s why you’re here,” Grout said.

“Right. Yes,” Larkin said. He took a laptop from his bag, set it on the table below the bulletin board, and fired up the Web site for The Better Society. They all huddled around it, eyes roving the screen.

Something began to nag Rath. Something someone had said. Or something he’d seen. But Larkin was launching into his tour of the Web site.

“These people are extremist,” he said, speaking fast, keyed up. “See that?” He jabbed a finger at the Mission Statement on the home page. It read:
To confront abortionists and abortion promoters wherever they go: clinics, abortionists’ offices, and even homes.

“Look at some of these bios,” Larkin said, flicking his finger over the track pad. “And they’re
proud
of them. Look at this one for instance.”

He pulled up a page with a photo of a middle-aged woman with big hair like she’d gotten caught in a cotton-candy machine, her face contorted in midscream as she brandished a sign. Under the photo was her bio.

SHARON WALLS: Sharon has proudly protested in front of the White House since the nineties, on the Capitol steps, and all around New England. She has acted as an organizer of rallies for 30 years and has been jailed five times for trespassing and twice for disturbing the peace.

A collective hush overtook the room as they read.

Still, something nagged at Rath.

“And here,” Larkin said, licking his lips.

Another woman, this one early thirties perhaps, quite striking, her blond hair styled fashionably, her dress that of a professional executive. LINDA MARSH.

Her bio mentioned numerous arrests for protests, and then, a quote about the doctor in Amherst, Massachusetts, the one murdered by Knopps in his home for performing abortions? Marsh’s big bold quote, regarding the murderer Knopps, read:

He was God’s right hand, meting justice. A savior who saved with one bullet untold human lives.

“She,” Larkin said, straightening up and raking his long fingers in his hair, “was monitored by the FBI for five years after she said that. Nothing came of it. They found little besides an evangelical, fundamentalist woman who did nothing other than speak her faith. A practitioner of her First Amendment rights.”

He clicked to another page, packed untidily with biblical quotes.

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: It is abomination.

But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.

The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body!

Now, we must rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to death; don’t stand back and let them die.

“That’s our motive,” Rath said. “The last quote.”

Grout read it again. “How?”

“Someone is cutting babies from mothers who plan to abort?” Larkin piped in, pacing, going to the sink, and grabbing a mug. They stared at him. He went to place the mug under the spigot but knocked it against the faucet, shattering it. He held the broken handle and stared at the other detectives staring back at him.

“That’s crazy,” Grout said.

“Yes,” Rath said. “It is.” And it flashed in his mind that his feelings for Preacher were not dissimilar. He would kill Preacher to save others from knowing the pain Preacher caused. He would protect the innocent from evil.

“Then what do they do with the baby?” Grout said. “We’re going on the premise of some sort of sacrifice. Ritual. Jesus freaks sacrifice a baby? No.”

“If they’re Old Testament enough,” Sonja said.

“What about your goat’s head?” Grout said.

“Maybe it’s not a goat’s head,” Sonja said. “Maybe Barrons was right.
You
had doubts.”

“There’s more,” Larkin said. He dropped the mug handle into the sink with a clatter among the other pieces of the mug and came back over to his laptop. “Lots more.”

Rath could feel the energy shimmering off Larkin, a humming electric field.

They were circling now, like vultures over carrion. Still, there was—

“And, the icing,” Larkin said. “I hate to call such an ugly thing that, but. The Better Society has what they call infiltrators.”

“Infiltrators?” Grout said.

“Girls they send to group pregnancy counseling for places like Planned Parenthood and Family Matters. To try to convert the girls to be Pro Life
.
”

“
That
explains the lists,” Sonja said. “But the fact remains it’s Mandy’s handwriting on the lists. She is the link. She is the suspect now. She saw someone outside the Dress Shoppe all right. Someone that scared her or made her take off. But she was at all those meetings long before. How else do you explain her handwriting on all those lists?”

Rath stared at her, feeling the blood drain from his face. “I can’t. But—”

“We’ll get to that. What else you have?” Grout said to Larkin, squinting at the laptop screen.

Rath straightened, his back killing him, and gazed at the photos of the missing girls on the bulletin board in front of him. He let his eyes travel over each of their faces, marking the difference in the two photos of Mandy, the
good
one and the
bad
one. If they kept the girls alive long enough to have the baby, and if Mandy were taken by them, and not a suspect, if shed been at those meeting for some other reason, she would still be alive.
We’ll find you,
he thought.
Alive.

Rath looked at the laptop screen.

“Betty Malroy founded The Better Society,” Larkin said.

“What do we know about her?” Grout said.

“Her husband died in Vietnam, in ’72. She was a nurse at Boston General, living in Framingham, Mass. Pregnant with a son. She was left a pittance and a mortgage on a ranch house. Never remarried. She gave birth to her son at home and raised the boy on her own, homeschooled him. Then, in early ’86, she shipped him off to Europe to some swank private schools.”

“How’d she afford that?” Grout said.

“She started Better Society in ’73 in response to Roe vs. Wade. Women of similar minds met in her house to try to battle it. She became quite the star fund-raiser. Didn’t hurt that she was very attractive. At first she lobbied and rubbed elbows with state legislators. Then she got on AM right-wing talk radio as a recurring guest. Grew a platform.”

“Then?” Grout said.

“She cozied up to neocon politicians. Senator Renstrom was her last. Back when he was just a freshman in the House. Late nineties. She hasn’t been seen in public since. She’d be seventy-two now. She was living in Wayland, Massachusetts, in ’98, but vanished after she sold the place. No trace. No death certificate came up. So, I assume she’s alive. But I’ll deep dive. Unless she’s living under another name. I’ll find her.”

“What else?” Grout asked.

“With or without Betty, The Better Society continues, stronger than ever. They’re sponsoring Renstrom’s stop in Vermont. It costs a lot to pull a candidate of his caliber from states that matter to have him show up in northern Vermont, where most people hate him. His Web site says his fund-raiser speech lasts a half an hour and will start at fifteen hundred bucks a plate, more if you want to shake his hand for a photo op. It’s being held at the Pratt estate.”

“The Pratt estate?” Grout said. He smacked a palm against his forehead, as if his brain had shorted out, and it needed a good thwack, like an old VHF TV. “I ran into a Pratt awhile ago. Boyd. III. I saw him. At the Double Black Diamond.” Grout looked at Larkin. “And his estate is holding the Renstrom thing in a few weeks?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What are the odds?” Grout said. “He lives more than an hour from the Double Black Diamond. What would bring him there? The place is a dive compared to the estate.”

“What if he’s got girls he meets there and things got out of hand with one of them? With Mandy anyway,” Sonja said.

“I’ll get with him. In person.” Grout pointed a finger like a pistol at Larkin.

“Anything else?”

“Yes, sir.” Larkin’s hands were trembling he was so jacked up. He rubbed them together, as if about to perform a magic trick, then clicked on the Web site.

A video came up.

“This is her,” he said, “Betty Malroy, late ’97, introducing then House member Renstrom.” Larkin clicked the arrow on the video:
PLAY
.

“God knows! He does! This is God’s will! Not mine! Not representative Renstrom’s! God’s! We are but disciples. His army of disciples! This is war, and we are its angel soldiers!” Betty Malroy roared in exultation, a crucifix dangling from her necklace against a bosom heaving for air, her arms raised above her head in a V, her hands thrust up and out of her white satin robe, palms outward and quaking, radiant, rapturous. Her black hair shimmered like a raven’s plumage. She was tiny, but she emitted a power and energy unmistakably drawn from a deep reservoir of conviction. And money. Her voice was euphoric. Lunatic. Toxic. It escalated to hysteria now: “We will win this war! We will win this war!”

The crowd chanted back: “We will win this war!”

The picture on the video trembled; the place was rocking like an NFL stadium.

She wagged a finger, and the crowed shushed again, as if she’d cut their throats.

Her face was scarlet with fury. Insanity. A daub of spittle frothed at the corner of her mouth like a spiderweb.

She looked like she might faint from rapturous overload.

Larkin stopped the video.

The detectives stood speechless. Mesmerized. Rath could hear his heart beating.

“Dig more into this nut-job Malroy,” Grout said, clapping Larkin on the back. “You and Detective Test. Together. I want to know everything about this woman, especially where she lives. If she’s even alive. I want to know other entities The Better Society may partner with, other societies or the like they fund. Run her down like a beagle on a bunny.” He turned to Rath, “So. What do we do about Mandy? Detective Test has a point. Mandy was at those Family Matters meetings, but,” he turned to Sonja, “with this news, I don’t think it was as a so-called infiltrator. But something else—”

“No,” Sonja said. “She’s still the common denominator. The link.”

“She was on the pill
,
” Grout said. “These radicals, they aren’t on the pill. They abstain.”

“People who convert to a new radical identity often were just the opposite before the conversion,” Sonja said. “Same addictive personality, different drug. Instead of sex, it’s God.”

“True,” Rath said.

“And it’s Mandy’s handwriting,” Sonja said. “I think she’s more of a suspect than ever.”

“I see it the opposite, Detective Test,” Grout said with a professional decorum previously lacking. “Honestly, my gut tells me”— he glanced at Rath—“Mandy’s dead. Maybe someone was shadowing her and got to these girls
through
her or— frankly, I don’t know.”

“Where’s this leave your pet suspect, that cretin Waters?” Sonja said.

Grout grimaced. “I admit. He looks less likely. Waters was charged with assault on a police officer. But I have nothing on him for Mandy, Julia, or any of the others.
Nada
.”

“So you’re satisfied it’s not him?” Rath said.

“Not at all. Not with his background. But. No evidence.” His eyes flashed. “Here’s what we do. Detective Test, you dig more into Malroy and The Better Society on your own.”

Larkin’s shoulders sagged, nearly imperceptibly.

“Officer Larkin,” Grout continued, “you dig deeper into every crime that has
anything
to do with satanic symbols, flesh mutilation, going back years, decades, from Montreal to Hartford. If you find anything that’s a match or similar to Julia that’s more than a few years old, before our dog-torturing miscreant incident, we may be able to eliminate him. Eliminating a suspect helps gain clarity, although it might open up another Pandora’s box for other possible perps. Which we don’t need. We have plenty to worry about as it is.”