Edge of Midnight (15 page)

*   *   *

When she got home, the heat inside the house made her think of Death Valley. She turned on the window cooler. Getting out while the house cooled and the thought that exercise might help her sleep better moved her into a walk. Nearly eight-thirty, with warm breezes and mosquitoes. She slapped at the back of her neck and walked slowly, letting thoughts amble through her mind. Why had Kelby Oliver used a ficitious name? Why wouldn't she call her sister? Would Ida make a good cop?

Late evening light slanted through the maple leaves. Shouts and laughter from the young girls playing tennis floated on the humidity in the air. Through the fading light, Susan spotted Jen sitting alone on a bench, looking like a sprite that might flit away at any moment. Blue shorts, cheerful, red-striped tank top. Typical teenage garb, but her misery made it all seem wrong, pulled all the brightness from the autumn light and made the shirt seem dark. Her pain was so deep Susan could almost feel it in the air.

“Hey, Jen. Mind if I join you?” Could this child possibly be fourteen now? Time did those tricky things that made you unsure of when things occurred and ages got blurred.

Jen shrugged without looking up. “Sure.”

A more unwelcoming invitation couldn't be imagined. Susan perched on the end of the bench. Jen, looking as forlorn and desolate as a lost kitten, had a book open on her lap, her backpack on the bench beside her. Her misery was so palpable Susan was pulled into it. Complete and utter absorption of despair that only an adolescent can fall into weighed over them both and squeezed the oxygen from the air.

Jen stared at a page, the very picture of being engrossed in the story and not wanting an interruption. Susan knew she wasn't reading, and also got the message. Go away and leave me alone. When did Jen turn in to such a teenager? “Why aren't you playing tennis, Jen? Aren't you feeling well?”

Jen shrugged. “I'm okay.” She scrunched further in on herself and slapped the book shut, but not before Susan saw a spot that looked like a raindrop. Jen hooked a forefinger and rubbed it under the eye that betrayed her. Gaze averted, she poked around in the pockets of her backpack and found a tissue which she squeezed in her hand.

“What is it, Jen? Tell me what's the matter?”

A long shuddering sigh. “There's nothing you can do.” The words were so soft Susan had to lean closer to hear.

Hot anger built in Susan's chest along with a fierce urge for revenge. Who hurt this child? Impotence followed, bringing a sinking feeling that this was one of those teenage things she couldn't do anything about. She was only Jen's friend, an adult friend at that, and only God and other teenagers had access to the teenage world. “Jen?” she whispered.

Jen looked up, eyes bright. “It's just this book.” She flipped open the book and stabbed at a page. “I have to finish. It's due today.”

She had much to contend with. Parents divorced a couple years ago. Grandfather's mind slipping away into Alzheimer's. Mother who didn't like conflict, dripped pretty pink paint over strife and pretended everything was rosy. She invested most of her time and energy in the new husband and Jen was left to fend for herself.

“What's the book about?”

“The railroad.” She showed Susan the cover.

“Are you interested in the railroad?”

“I've been reading to Grandpa. Sometimes reading calms him down.”

“Do you like reading to him?”

“Mostly he doesn't recognize me. Do you ever have nightmares?”

There was a wealth of meaning in the question Susan couldn't interpret. She wasn't good at this, she wished Hazel were here, or George or even Osey. “Sometimes. How about you? You ever have nightmares?”

“Grandpa does. He wakes up screaming.”

“He had some horrible experiences—”

“He was tortured. Beat up, shocked on his—you know.” Jen touched her lower abdomen. “Made him pee on himself. And forced to stand naked in the snow for hours.”

“He talks about this to you?”

“All the time. Certain things really set him off. Like uniforms. And yellow. I don't know why it makes him rant. Something to do with armbands, I think. I never wear yellow when I go see him.”

“Jews were forced to wear them.”

“How did he survive that?”

“I don't know, Jen. He was very brave.”

“What's it like to be brave?”

What the hell kind of question was this? What was going on in this kid's life? Susan leaned back, stretched out her legs, and hooked her elbows on the back of the bench. “I thought we were friends.”

“So?”

“So friends talk to each other. Friends tell each other what's bothering them. Friends ask each other for help.”

“You can't help.”

“You never know.” Susan stared at her ankles and wiggled the toes of her shoes. “Come on, Jen, let me try.”

Jen shook her head, brown eyes apprehensive that Susan might blunder into whatever the problem was and make it worse. “I gotta go.” Jen got up like a decrepit old person about to take her last breath, and slumped off, a picture of total dejection.

Susan crossed campus, went to Eleventh Street, then up Walnut and home. Despite the exercise, troubled sleep brought the usual dreams. This time Jen was in them. Gunfire. Somebody shot. She needed to find out who. Dear God, please not Jen.

There! Body face-down! Dead.

She knelt to turn the victim over. Before she could see who it was, she woke.

 

18

After five days with no sign of Cary, Mitch began to seriously believe she was dead. Her car parked at Albertson's was the last trace of her. The crime scene guys had gone all over the vehicle and come up empty. Traces of blood on the front seat, a smear on the steering wheel, but not enough to indicate serious injury. She simply disappeared. When he dealt with grieving parents whose daughters went missing, or boyfriends whose girlfriends disappeared, the first response was another female pissed off at parents or boyfriend and teaching them a lesson by taking off, sunning herself on the beaches in Baja to let them simmer, then coming home.

The whole department came through for him, piled everything they had in the search and there was not one trace of her. The rage that seared through him the first two days had pretty much burned itself out and now he missed her. He got mad all over again when he didn't have clean socks, or he had to get his own dinner, or there was no beer in the house, but mostly he just felt hollow inside.

The fog was depressing. Neon lights bled colors onto slick pavements. He watched for Cary wherever he went. His eyes automatically searched every face on the street. He called her former boss to ask if he'd heard from her, went back again and again to the library where she'd spent so much time.

He'd spot a blonde with long hair, curved mouth, and hurry up behind her only to see a stranger. Anywhere he went, he was always looking, always searching. At work, the guys eyed him, making sure he wasn't cracking up. When he wasn't on the job, he spent hours going through her books again, looking for a trace, a clue, a small arrow that pointed at somewhere she might go. Like any addict, she had stashed a hidden supply, under the bed, in closets, behind shoe boxes, in the suitcases. He would move a stack of towels and there'd be books. He even found the damn things behind the cereal boxes.

He went through every freakin' one more than once, hoping for a note in the margin, an underlined word, a receipt used as a bookmark. The hours spent looking got him nothing. A whole bunch were psychology books of one kind or another. Psycho-shit. If only they'd had a baby. That would have kept her from trotting off to the library all the time. He'd been suspicious of all those hours she'd spent there. Reading, she claimed. He'd followed her a few times, watched to see who went in behind her, who she talked to, who came out after her.

People had habits. If Tuesday was library day, they went on Tuesday. He ran a few license plates, but no likely males swam across his radar. Plenty of elderly or homeless. Not good candidates for running off with his wife. No matter how hard he worked at it, he couldn't find squat to tie anyone to Cary. Still, with all the fucking books she lugged home, why did she have to go to the library to read?

“The ones I'm reading can't be checked out,” she told him when he complained about it.

“What ones?”

“Expensive art books.”

Sounded like a stupid lie to him, but he'd gone in one time and asked to check out one and was told those didn't circulate. He tried to stop her buying any, explaining they couldn't afford it, but nothing did any good. She always had to have more.

He noticed the plants on the desk looked dry and wilted. Dying. Like Cary? Alone and dying? Or dead, rotting, and covered with maggots. His Cary with the soft blue eyes and compliant nature. Maybe he should water the plants, maybe that would prolong their lives, maybe they'd survive until she came home to take care of them.

*   *   *

Saturday had Mitch cursing under his breath and fuming with impatience through his shift. Why did he keep turning up on the job? Plodding through shit as though it made a damn bit of difference to Berkeley, or California, or the fucking world, if Mitchell Black turned up for work every day. When the light turned green, he tromped the accelerator and peeled away like better luck awaited him today.

Just as he'd been doing every day after shift since that broad approached him in Albertson's, he drove to the El Cerrito Plaza with a six-pack on the passenger seat, parked where he could watch the entrance, and waited. He popped a tab and took a long swallow. Should have gotten her last name and address, wouldn't be wasting time.

Cary ran off with some man. It was the only thing that made sense. Women talked with their friends. They probably giggled about him, Mitch the sucker, who didn't know what was going on under his own nose. Last night he'd dreamed about her. Her perfume drifted over to tickle his nose. When he reached for her, the dream turned dark, the perfume heavy and thick, choking, vile. He put his hands on her, but instead of his soft, eager-to-please wife, he touched something putrid and slimy, hair matted with mud from the grave. He'd make her pay for what she was doing to him. Sleepless nights, falling behind on the job, the guys looking at him with sympathy but not getting too close, like what he had might rub off.

Reassuringly, he patted the Glock on his hip. When the time came, it would be there for him. Maybe he couldn't count on his wife, but, by God, he could always count on the Glock. People went in and out of Albertson's, but no sign of the broad he was looking for. He'd taken to sleeping with the television on, trying to ward off dreams of a bloated, stinking Cary in bed with him. Real horrors he'd actually been involved with at work folded down over the dreams, and he'd see Cary's face on a rotting corpse hauled from some stinking basement. Empty eye sockets would wink at him, skeletal fingers would reach for him. He'd rear up from sleep, heart pounding, dripping sweat, and hear some asshole on TV whining about his miserable life.

Made him wonder if he was losing it, if he'd had too much of the job and maybe should take some vacation time, maybe go somewhere … There! Wilma—Wanda—
Velma!
Yeah! Getting out of a green Lexus and stuffing keys in her purse. Jeans stretched over a broad butt, gray sweatshirt, New Balance running shoes. She hitched the purse strap higher on her shoulder and went inside the store. He waited.

And waited. Jesus, what was she doing in there? Buying food for an army? When she finally came out, she pushed a cart piled with grocery bags. No wonder it took her so long. She loaded the bags in the trunk. When she pulled out, he followed her, up the hills and along Arlington Avenue. Just past the huge rock in somebody's front yard, she took a right onto Rifle Range Road and signaled a left into the driveway of a two-story stucco, new and expensive. She hit a remote that opened the garage door. He parked on the opposite side of the street and jogged across. She'd popped the trunk and was bending over to retrieve grocery bags when he walked in the garage. She whirled.

“Sorry. Didn't mean to startle you. Mitch Black. You spoke to me a week or so ago. At Albertson's. About Cary. My wife.”

“Oh, Mr. Black.”

Officer, but he didn't throw that in.

She patted her chest, like he'd scared her heart into pumping. “Yes, of course, I remember. Is there any word?”

“No, not yet.”

“I'm so sorry,” she said.

“Let me help you with these.” He started gathering up bags.

“Oh, well—that's not really—oh, thank you.”

Arms loaded with grocery bags, he stood at her heels while she fumbled with the key, and stuck like glue as she headed through a sun porch, or some such room, and into the kitchen. All white and shiny modern, with stainless steel stove and refrigerator. This was some house. Probably worth upwards of a million and a half. “I know you've probably got things to do, but would you have time to go for a drink?” When he saw her tensing, he quickly added “or coffee, or something.” He did the defeated, crushed, poor husband in agony, worried about his missing wife. “If you're too busy, I understand. I just wanted to ask you about her.”

He plopped bags on the counter. The kitchen was huge with a stone fireplace taking up one wall. Another wall, almost all window, looked out on Wildcat Canyon. Messy housekeeper. Bag of disposable diapers on a chair, table littered with tiny, folded garments. Dishes in the sink, sticky stuff all over the floor. Sour smell, like she hadn't emptied the garbage in a while. He started rifling through groceries, pulling out perishable items, as an excuse to see what she bought. Nothing that told him anything, except she was one of those health nuts with organic this and tofu that.

“I already told the police everything I know. Nothing, really. We just had coffee once after exercising, you know? Cary and Arlette and me.”