Goodbye Sister Disco (21 page)

Her face flushed with anger and her expression was tight when she answered him. “No,” she said. “Are you accusing me of having something to do with her abduction?”

“No, ma'am.”

“Because if you are, I'll—Gene, are you listening to this?”

Gene Penmark's mouth was open. “I, uh,—”

But she was back on Hastings. “I happen to be on very good terms with the chief, Lieutenant. Very good terms. And I will be taking this up with him.”

“That's fine, Mrs. Penmark.”

“You screw things up and you try to put it off on me by suggesting I, that I—for Christ's sake, that I would have my own stepdaughter kidnapped.”

“No, ma'am, you misunderstood me.”

“You're a cheap, second-rate bastard,” she said. She stood up and walked out.

After she was gone, Hastings turned to Penmark. He still felt sorry for the man, his wife having put him in this position.

He was relieved when Gene Penmark finally said something and put his fears to rest.

Penmark said, “She offered you a job at my company?”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Hastings saw Lexie Penmark conferring with Rook as he walked out of the house, Lexie murmuring something to the security specialist, and Rook probably assuring her that yes, reporting him to the chief would be a good idea. Chief Grassino, a man Hastings respected, might or might not act on it, depending on how he felt at that moment. If he did act on it, Hastings would be questioned by his captain, Karen Brady, and he would have to sit and nod quietly as Karen would tell him about using appropriate social skills with people like Lexie Penmark. As if he had talked smack to her.

Hastings didn't suspect Lexie of anything except being a controller and a busybody and a heartless gold digger, none of which was a crime. It was she who had decided to create that dramatic scene back in the house—
How dare you
—and Hastings took a little comfort in knowing that when she did report him, she would exaggerate what happened and undermine her own credibility in so doing.
He accused me of having Cordelia abducted
. He didn't enjoy lowering himself to having a dialogue with her, but he thought it was necessary to give her a little shove so she would stay out of his way. At least for a while. And as he walked to his car, he believed that he had acted with admirable restraint, because if he hadn't been watching himself, he could have told her,
Your stepdaughter may be dead.

She could be dead right now. And if she was still alive, her time was limited. The kidnappers had not released her. Hours had passed since they'd gotten the money, and there still had been no word about the girl. They had a dead man at the medical examiner's and they didn't know who he was. They had a sketch of a man in a raincoat and they didn't know who he was either. The dead man had come at Hastings with a knife with a determination that chilled even after he had been killed. Hastings believed he would have nightmares about that bathroom the next time he slept and maybe for a while after. A man damn near takes your life in combat and unless you're a hard-bitten soldier you don't forget it anytime soon. But that was for later. The concern now was that the Indian's willingness to kill a cop extended to the people he was working with. That is, if he would be willing to kill a cop, his cohorts would be willing to kill a rich girl they had abducted. This was the reality that Lexie Penmark didn't seem able to recognize. This was the dread that was slowly but surely overwhelming Gene Penmark. They had the money now and nothing would be able to stop them from doing it.

But they had planned things, Hastings thought. They had planned out the drop. The drop had been thought out in advance and well executed. They had sent a man to pick up the money and another man to guard him. And Hastings, the expert crime solver, had not even known about the second man until the man tried to gut him with a knife. So more than one man was involved. Hastings wondered now about the man with the knife, wondered how long he had been the man's prey. Was it on the train that the Indian had decided he would kill Hastings? Hastings the hunted, Hastings the prey without knowing it.

Cordelia Penmark hadn't known she was the prey either. Hadn't known that she was being tracked.

Hastings had done most of his hunting in Nebraska. He liked all of it, the rituals, the cold, the smell, the getting up at 4:00
A.M.
, the draw of the silent places. He had learned at a young age that a gun was a tool to be respected. He remembered some girl at college calling him an “animal assassin,” something he'd never heard back home. He read books about hunting too. Books about professional hunters who went after big game in Africa, India, and South America. Guys going after not deer but lions that if you missed your shot would turn around and come after you and tear your scalp off. Hastings had learned that for the hunter in Africa, it is motion that gives you away, not color.

In the city, there was no long grass to hide in. Had the man who tracked Cordelia Penmark remained concealed? Did he keep his movements hidden?

Hastings called Gabler on his cell phone.

“Hello.”

“Gabe, it's George. Hey, I understand Cordelia has a roommate in her apartment in the loft district.”

“Yeah, that's right. One of our agents interviewed her. Didn't turn up anything.”

“What's the girl's name?”

“Uh, can you hold on a minute?”

“Yeah.”

Hastings started the Jaguar. Let it warm. The sun was coming down now, the beginning of a cold night. Maybe Cordelia Penmark's last. There were only a couple of days left until Christmas. Did the Penmarks celebrate it? Would there be a Christmas dinner at their home, with Cordelia, Lexie, Gene, and Edie?

Then Gabler was back on the phone. “Yeah,” he said, “her name is Lynn Akre. She's a student too, working on her master's in speech pathology. You want her cell number?”

TWENTY-NINE

When Terrill awoke, Maggie was still next to him sleeping. He watched her for a few moments. Then he quietly slipped out of bed. He stepped out into the dark hallway and slowly closed the door behind him.

“Hey.”

Terrill jumped.

“Jesus!”

It was Lee.

Terrill said, “What are you doing here?”

She stood there in the dark, clad in gray corduroys and a dirty yellow T-shirt. Terrill noticed that she had lost weight. She said, “I've been walking around.”

Terrill said, “Inside?”

She shrugged.

“You're supposed to stay inside,” Terrill said.

“Don't worry about it.”

She remained there in the dark, looking a bit like a ghost. Perhaps for the first time, Terrill felt uneasy around her.

Terrill said, “Have you slept at all tonight?”

“No.”

“What about last night?”

She shook her head.

Terrill said, “When was the last time—”

“I told you, don't worry about it. What are you doing out here?”

The sharpness in her voice was new to him.

“I'm going to take a piss,” he said. “Okay?”

She was staring at him now.

Shit, Terrill thought. She's speeding. Walking around, not sleeping, getting hostile and weird. He had started giving her amphetamines a couple of weeks after they left Oregon. He and Maggie had started her out with acid; ten strips dissolving on her tongue, and when that was done they would suggest things to her. Tell her that she was beautiful and clean and try to put her in a different place. After she came down, she would tell them about her hallucinations. The bluish light at the top of her screen, square at first, but then widening out into an onion shape, fat on the sides, and then slimming back down to the base. She said that the onion was the earth, Greenland and Russia large at the top and Antarctica icy and clean and smooth at the bottom. She said it was beautiful at first, but then it became dark and black, the ocean not quite fluid, but gelatined, the continental masses between jagged and rocky. She said she was up there looking down on it and then she was down there herself; seeing herself, in this fucking country, this place, this desert … seeing herself curled up, coiled. She was naked and strong in this vision. She was feral and unbound. They told her, yes, she was wild and free and lovely and aware.

But when she came down, she said she felt gross and dirty. And she was tired. So tired. Terrill started feeding her speed. She started out with a couple of pills a day. Then it was three. And in the weeks preceding the kidnapping, the daily dosage had been increased to seven. Though Terrill himself had not kept track.

Now he said to her, “Hey.” His nice-guy tone. “You're beautiful. You want to come with me?”

“In the bathroom?”

“Yeah. We can share a joint. It's nice in there.”

“Why don't we go to my room?” Lee said.

“Okay.”

In her room, she grabbed at him in the darkness, her hands at his belt buckle, her mouth furious on his. He wasn't ready for it. She had been a soft, timid lover their first few times. Saying his name a lot and giving out little
oh
s … that was before … now she was pulling him down on top of her, wrapping her legs around him, her tongue plunging into his mouth, animal-like, loud and passionate, saying dirty things between her kisses. Terrill feared that Maggie would hear them.

It was soon done. Terrill looked down at her.

Lee said, “You like to fuck me?”

Terrill grinned. Goddamn, to think when he met her that she would talk like this. He felt, incorrectly, a pride in this transition. Henry Higgins to little Eliza.

“Sure,” he said.

Lee said, “Is something funny?”

“No. No.”

“Don't laugh at me.”

“I'm not.”

“Don't patronize me,” she said. “I don't like that.”

“Okay,” he said.

He rolled off her and lay on his back.

After a few moments, he heard her say, “What do we do now?”

“I can't stay the night here,” he said.

“I don't mean that. I mean, what do we do tomorrow?”

It occurred to him then that when she said “we,” she didn't mean all of them. That she didn't mean Maggie and Ray and Jan, all the rest. He pretended he hadn't caught her meaning and said, “I don't know. We'll have a discussion.”

“You and I?”

“No. I meant all of us. Look, it's late and I'm tired. Do we have to talk about it now?”

“We need to talk,” she said. “About a lot of things.”

Shit.
Terrill said, “Why don't we go to sleep?”

“I don't want to sleep.”

“You need to sleep, babe.”

“You want to leave, go back to her, then do it. But if you do, I don't want you telling her about this.”

“There are no secrets here, Lee. We're a family.”

“I
don't
want you telling her about this. I don't want any black stares. I don't want people talking about me. Do you understand that?”

“No one's talking about you, babe.”

In the darkness, silence. Terrill looked over to see her staring right at him. She held her stare but did not smile. He could stare back at her, outstare her, stare her down … but goddammit, he was tired. She had the advantage of taking all those fucking pills. Christ. He needed to weed her off that shit before she locked herself in the toilet and started banging her head on the wall or something. There was no talking sense to her when she was zonked out.

He said, “No one's talking about you, honey. We love you. You're one of us now. We need you and we love you. Okay?”

She held her stare for a few more moments. Then she turned and looked back up at the ceiling.

“Go back to her,” Lee said. “We'll talk about it later.”

THIRTY

There were parents with children, some of them unsteady because they were on skates for the first time. The Steinberg Skating Rink in Forest Park. It was dark now, but the rink was lighted up. It was crowded, people feeling the spirit of the season, and it was cold enough to keep the ice frozen, but not so cold you didn't want to be outside. The rink was near the edge of Forest Park, near Kingshighway, and you could see Barnes-Jewish Hospital looming in the distance.

Hastings walked to the fence separating the rink from the spectators. He watched until he picked out a young woman in her early twenties wearing a red-and-white scarf and a black turtleneck sweater. She was holding a little girl's hand. The little girl wore glasses and she was talking to the young woman, the young woman nodding her head and responding. A young boy, older than the girl, was skating by them, calling out “whoa, whoa” while he pretended to stumble, but was actually showing off, showing them how much in control he was. The nephew, Hastings thought. And the little girl was the niece. Hastings held up his hand and waved to the young woman. She paused, hesitating, then waved back. Then she came over.

They stood on opposite sides of the fence.

The girl said, “Are you the detective?”

“Yes. George Hastings.”

“I'm Lynn,” she said. “But I guess you knew that.”

“You said you'd be here with your niece and nephew.”

“Yes.” Lynn Akre looked down at the little girl with the glasses. “Sadie, this is Mr. Hastings. He's a policeman.”

The little girl looked up at Hastings. He was in plainclothes, so she didn't process it right away. Hastings estimated that she was the age Amy was when he married Amy's mother.

“Hi,” the little girl said.

“Hi,” Hastings said.

Lynn Akre said, “I know this may sound paranoid, especially with all these people around, but I don't want to leave her alone while we talk.”

“It's not paranoid.”

“But I don't want her to hear what we talk about either.”

Hastings said, “We'll talk quietly.”