Chosen for Death (9 page)

He threw his napkin down on the table. "Yes, you are." His voice was still controlled, but he was angry. "You give out information grudgingly and sparsely. You want to control the information and you want to censor the content. Your whole family is like that. On Sunday I was handed a charming version of your sister. The picture of family solidarity was pleasant, too, but I couldn't get a true feeling for what Carrie was like. The only glimpse was when your mother talked about their quarrel, and once she'd said what she wanted to say, she didn't want to discuss it any further."

"But it was your fault," I burst out. "You didn't try hard enough; you didn't ask the right questions. I was angry with you. I wanted to tell you what you should ask, so that you could get a picture of Carrie, but you gave up and went away." He had a lot of nerve, blaming us for his failure.

"It wouldn't have worked," he said.

"Why not?"

"Can you get your mother to discuss things she doesn't want to talk about?"

I had to tell the truth. "No, I can't."

"And who controls the family dynamics?" he asked.

"I don't know what you mean," I said. "More bread?"

"Two slices, please." I cut two for him and one for myself. It was unreal. In the midst of this long, raucous quarrel, we were both eating like pigs. The steaks had been large, and both our plates were clean. But then, the whole day had an element of unreality. "I mean," he said, "if your father is talking about something your mother doesn't want him to discuss, what happens?"

"She shuts him up. Politely. With a distraction. Or she just starts talking through him, until he gets the message."

"And what about you?" he said. "Does she control you, too?"

I thought about that. I don't usually spend much time analyzing my relationship with Mom. She's a wonderful woman. I've always envied her energy and organization, her generosity. She was always helping people. I didn't like what Lemieux was suggesting, but he was right. None of us discussed things around her if she didn't want them discussed, and challenges were masterfully diffused. Carrie was the only one she hadn't been able to muzzle. He passed me the salad. "I'm here, aren't I?" I said.

"I'm not surprised they sent you," he said. "I knew someone would have to come up, and I had only two candidates. You or your uncle Henry. There seems to be an attitude in your family that you will take care of things. Is that right?"

"Bear with me for a minute," I said, rubbing my temples wearily. I wished he would just go. I was so tired and I needed to save my energy for tomorrow. Packing Carrie's things would not be easy. "I am really confused. Everything you are saying is so insightful. You seem to understand us all very well, which makes sense, in your line of work. So explain this to me. If you read all of us... if you read me so well, why did you do what you did to me today?"

He hit himself in the forehead with the heel of his hand, mocking the classic how-could-I-be-so-stupid gesture. "I'm just a dumb cop, right? I lost my temper."

I recalled his impassive face. His cool voice. The determined, methodical way he had thrust the pictures at me. "You did not," I said. "You were cool as a cucumber."

"Wrong!" He slammed his fist down on the table so hard the wineglasses rocked. "I don't have to do this every time I get mad. I've got self-control, just like you. But sitting there watching you—beautiful, exhausted, so obviously sad about your sister—acting like the president of the Junior League confronting a difficult housewife, refusing in your prim, pigheaded way to tell me anything useful, while you pretended you were being helpful and I was being prurient, made me furious. Mad enough to try and shake you out of that role."

"Oh fudge you, you anthole," I yelled, slamming my own fist on the table.

His angry face was transformed by an astonished grin. "What did you say?"

"I said, fudge you, you anthole. Sounds nasty, doesn't it? It's a remnant from childhood, when swearing wasn't allowed. Michael came up with that one, and it's still one of my favorites. Listen, in your job, you have to exercise self-control even in the face of provocation. Besides, I've never been called prim before, and I resent it. I resent everything about you. I resent this whole blatant attempt to manipulate me when I'm vulnerable. I think it stinks and I wish you'd leave!"

Now he was looking a little more animated. "I don't blame you," he said, ignoring my request that he leave. It didn't surprise me. He was about as malleable as a pit bull. "Prim doesn't suit you, but you were being prim. I don't want to know about your sister's favorite colors, or what she liked to read. This isn't a fanzine interview. I'm investigating a sex crime. I don't want to write her profile, I want to find the person who killed her. To do that, I need to get inside her head. I need to know how she was with men. Was she a tease? Did she confuse them about the nature of her involvement? Was she willing to sleep with more than one man at a time, or was she monogamous? Was she practical about birth control? What kind of men did she choose? Was she likely to pick up strangers? I know I offended you, but I don't know of any graceful way to ask about sex practices. No one talks about that stuff easily."

It was quite a speech. And he was right. I hadn't understood why he was asking those questions. Still, it wasn't all my fault. I'd been tired, impatient, and anxious to protect Carrie, but he'd been cold and awkward. "You didn't try very hard, you know," I said. "You could have practiced being human."

He looked genuinely bewildered. "I'm not human?"

"Well, I did wonder if you might be from another planet. What I mean is that you didn't show you cared about any of it. First you were impassive and then you were cold and angry, like I was an adversary or I'd already offended you. You didn't try to help me understand why you needed to know that stuff about Carrie. The pictures were just the final blow. For such a smart man, you've got some big blind spots. And now I wish you'd go...""Mea culpa," he said. "I confess to being human. I'm sorry about the pictures, I really am. I was trying to shock you into cooperating."

"I know. I can't imagine that ever works."

"You'd be surprised," he said.

"Please spare me any more of your surprises, OK, Detective? I don't think I could take it."

"Look," he said, sounding somewhere between aggrieved and apologetic, "I said I was sorry."

"Sometimes sorry isn't good enough," I said. "I felt so violated today in your office. Do you mean you do this routinely to people when their loved ones have been killed? Show them graphic pictures of the bodies?"

"No. Of course not. Look, I told you. I was frustrated. I was angry...""And that's supposed to make things OK, is that it? Cop loses it, cop brutalizes witness, so what? I thought you guys saved the Gestapo tactics for the bad guys."

"If you're trying to make me feel guilty," he said, "you're succeeding." I almost fell off my chair. "Look, before you throw me out, can I tell you a story to try and explain why I did what I did?"

I hesitated, still angry, still not trusting him, even though he had a boyish, pleading look on his face that seemed genuine. I desperately wanted him to find Carrie's killer but I was afraid of his tricks and his traps and his brutality. I wanted—I needed—some kindness and comfort, and he'd offered that in the form of food. I wanted to trust him. Maybe he was going to give me a reason to. I folded my arms protectively against my chest. "OK," I said, "why did you do it?"

"Two years ago I investigated the apparent suicide of a twelve-year-old girl. Excuse me, but I'm going to be very graphic here. It's not a nice story. Not nice at all. If you want me to stop—anytime—just say so and I will." His dark eyes bored into me, daring me to refuse.

"Go on," I said.

"There wasn't any doubt that she'd killed herself," he said, "and when we got the autopsy results, there wasn't any question why, either. That little girl—and she was little, too, under five feet tall and she weighed about ninety pounds—had been sexually abused, vaginally and anally. She'd been beaten and tortured. Her body was covered with scars and burns. And she was pregnant." He paused, his face tight with anger. "Everything pointed to the stepfather. He was a vicious drunk who beat everyone in the family. But no one—not his wife, the neighbors, the teachers at school—no one was willing to risk his wrath to tell what they knew. The mother claimed her daughter was promiscuous and must have been sneaking out to meet an abusive boyfriend. The neighbors said they'd never noticed a thing. Neither had the teachers. And there was nothing I could do..." He stopped, studying my face. "That's why I did it, you see."

But I didn't see. "I'm sorry," I said. "It's an awful story. But I don't see what that has to do with me. Why the fact that someone brutalized that girl justifies your brutalizing me..."

He rubbed his forehead with long, blunt-tipped fingers. "I'm not doing this very well, am I? OK, here's why. Because that girl had a little sister. Still living in the house with that monster. And now she's almost eleven years old and you know what that means?" He leaned across the table and grabbed my wrist. "It means that any day now he'll start doing the same things to her, until he kills her or she kills herself, and there isn't a damned thing I can do about it because everyone is too scared or too lazy to get involved and protect that child."

He spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. "I'm sorry. I know it's no excuse for what I did to you. For a minute I pictured your sister lying there helpless and violated and I flashed on that other little girl—she had those blond curls like your sister—and I just couldn't bear to let you sit there all complacent and uninvolved when you might actually be able to help me. It was cruel and I was wrong and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you sick."

For the first time, I saw him as a human being and not the enemy. I didn't know that many men, cops or otherwise, who'd be willing to tell on themselves like he was doing. I was still angry and wary and I was still hurt, but the situation felt different. "That was kind of counterproductive, wasn't it?" I said.

He nodded. "We have a common goal. To help your sister." He pushed back his chair and stood up. "Now I'll leave if you'd like..." He hesitated. "But please consider talking to me, frankly, about your sister. I need to know her better." Then the solemn face vanished, chased away by the trace of a smile. "Or we could call a truce and I could stay and do the dishes. Maybe you'd like some dessert. I brought something good. You'll be surprised..."

"I've had all the surprises I can stand today."

"That's too bad," he said. "It's the ultimate in chocolate decadence..." His story had explained a lot. Not that I exactly forgave him, but it made his behavior more understandable. Now, as a peace offering, there was chocolate, and I was a hopeless chocoholic. He picked up our plates and carried them to the kitchen. I followed with the salad bowl and the bread. There was only an end left. "Truce?" he said.

"Truce," I agreed.

"This is your lucky day," he said. "We have a chocolate mousse cake that will knock your socks off."

I looked down at my bare feet. "Too late," I said. He set the cake on the counter and reached into the cupboard behind me to get some plates while I got out forks. As he did, his hand brushed my shoulder. I felt a tingle, like an electric shock. He was staring at me with astonishment, and I knew he'd felt it, too.

"Excuse me," I said, and fled upstairs to the bathroom. I stared at my face in the mirror. It looked just the same, too pale, with dark smudges under my eyes. My mouth was still too wide, my hair too wild. And my heart was pounding. I washed my face with cold water and went back downstairs, prepared to accept his truce, tell Lemieux what he wanted to know, and get him out of there as quickly as possible. I hadn't felt a shock like that since David, and I wasn't going to take a chance on something like that again. It hurt too much.

Chapter 7

We had our cake and coffee in silence—a more comfortable silence this time—and adjourned to the living room. I chose the sofa; he sat across from me in a big chair with the coffee table between us. I think we both needed that physical barrier. Neither of us had mentioned it, but that brief touch had created something between us that lurked on the fringes like an unasked question. I was determined that it would remain unasked.

Fatigue lay on me like a layer of heavy fog, clouding my brain. My body felt heavy and useless. Despite the coffee, I knew I couldn't stay awake much longer. I wanted to get this over with, get Lemieux out of here, and sleep the rest of the weekend. "OK," I said, "ask your questions, and I'll try to answer them. I hope you won't be disappointed." Even though I'd decided to be cooperative, I was uneasy. He was right. People do have difficulty talking about sex. It's hard enough with someone you know well; it was going to be much harder with a stranger. It still seemed wrong to discuss personal things about Carrie with an outsider. But if that was the only way to find her killer, I would have to do it. At least fatigue had a numbing quality.