She's Not There (23 page)

“Maybe, Joe, those girls were annoying Jake somehow. And maybe his aim with the scissors was better than you want to give him credit for. Maybe—”

Joe's voice rose. “Jake is not the one. That's it.”

“You don't have to jump down my throat.”

Fitzy said, “Poppy, Jake doesn't drive. He couldn't have dragged the girls' bodies to where we found them. So what say we not get off the track. We'll just—”

I said, “Who says he doesn't drive?”

Fitzy again. “Listen, Poppy, we can have a talk with Jake. Why not? But he won't answer us, will he?”

Joe said, “No.”

“Poppy, we'll make a plan for talking to Jake. Okay?”

Joe said, “I know a plan. Throw a net over him.”

“I'm talking a consult with the psycho people in Providence. We'll ask for advice. Being more objective than you, Joe, they probably won't suggest the net idea. Meanwhile, let's put our feet up here and go over what little we've got.”

I said, “I still haven't read the faxes from my assistant. They're out in the jeep. Maybe something more came in from the lab.”

Joe stood up. “You know, I don't fit in here. I've got plenty of stuff that's come in from my own assistant. Something's going down at headquarters. I'm heading back to the cottage. Listen to my own messages, check the fax machine. I've got to see that all's quiet on the home front.”

Then he asked me what I wanted to do. “I'm on the home front right where I am, Joe.”

“Okay, then.”

I asked Fitzy if he'd drive me back later.

“Sure.”

Joe said to him, “Then maybe only one drink for tonight, old friend,” and he walked out.

Fitzy said, “What's with him?”

“He has a very big job.”

I dashed to the jeep to get my faxes before he drove off. Joe had just turned on the ignition. I pointed. He looked down at the seat where they lay and handed them to me. I said, “See you later.”

“Right.”

The jeep zipped away. He didn't even wave.

I went back up the porch steps and into Fitzy's station, reading as I walked, squinting in the dark. I finished reading sitting in the chair where Cass had told her story. Then I read out loud to Fitzy the eight separate conclusions reached by my lab man, Auerbach, and his cohorts. Fitzy was leaning forward, eager for something, anything. He got it.

“One, there were no needle marks anywhere on either of the bodies. Two, no residue of drugs present in any organs. Three, their stomachs were empty; both victims had vomited shortly before death. Four, no semen in any apertures; no evidence of sexual tampering. Five, hearts were strong and sound. Six, slight head injuries, as if both victims had banged their heads against something hard. Seven, spasms occurred after death—cadaveric convulsions.”

Fitzy said, “If we knew what they'd eaten, we might have had something to follow.”

“True. Too bad, I know. Now, about the eardrums, which Auerbach saved till the end. Number eight. Not only were the tympanic membranes ruptured, there was hemorrhage just behind them. And the sensory cells—little microscopic hairs that sway with the sound waves that reach them—had disintegrated.”

“Disintegrated?”

“My man points out that with loud noise they lie flat. Like when kids listen to blasting music all night. But then they come back up again not too long after the music stops. He says if the music doesn't stop, and it's above eighty decibels, some of the cells begin to disintegrate. They'll never stand back up because they're gone. A very slight hearing loss ensues, the loss exponential to the extent of disintegration.

“The sensory cells in the girls' ears had completely disintegrated. All of them. He said they'd tried to protect themselves from the music, or whatever it was; the victims' own clothing was stuffed in their ears. They hadn't gone to wherever they went with earplugs at the ready. He said most kids know enough to do that; how he found that out, I don't know. Says they put lumps of beeswax in their ears. The girls didn't have beeswax, they had pieces of their own clothes stuffed as far back into the ear canals as they could get them.

“Fitzy, here's my guy's conclusions. He says whatever they were listening to exceeded eighty-five decibels, which causes injury to the cochlea, which in turn leads to vertigo, disorientation, and emesis—throwing up. Then he says”—I looked up from the fax pages at Fitzy—“‘Everyone on that island would have heard the explosions. Because explosions are the usual cause of this particular lineup of physical trauma, not rock 'n' roll.'

“Fitzy, do any of the clubs at the harbor play rock music as loud as a five-thousand-pound bomb going off?”

“Nope.”

“Didn't think so. Bottom line”—I looked down again “—according to this fax I've got here,” and I read verbatim,
“Cause of death: unknown.”

Fitzy sighed. “I love fascinating information that's entirely unhelpful.”

“Not entirely. Now we know why the girls ripped off their clothing. So they could stuff pieces of their T-shirts into their ears. How loud can music get, for God's sake?”

“Not that loud. Unless they have some kind of powerful amplifiers I'm not aware of.”

“So maybe it wasn't a sex crime after all.”

Fitzy said, “Could still be a sex crime. He watched them rip their clothes off.”

“Yes. But what in God's name did he do to them to bring about such a thing? Put their heads between two steel drums?”

“Seems like it, doesn't it? Of course, I don't know about
your
superiors, but if I suggest a steel drum theory, mine will tell me to take two aspirin and jump off the nearest dock.”

“There'll be more tests, Fitzy. I'll tell the lab I want scenarios, other cases where people died the way the two girls did. Meanwhile, the campers' parents are going to hear what's in this report. If it's scaring the shit out of me, what'll it do to them? Nobody is going to kill any more of those kids.”

“If they were my kids, I'd have sent them plane tickets after we found the first girl, gotten them the hell out.”

“The parents believe Irwin. He's convinced them that the two girls who died were troublemakers who got what they asked for. The parents want to believe him. Him and all he promises.”

“Parenting ain't what it used to be.”

“How about a can of beer, Fitzy?”

“Sure.” He got up and brought me one.

“Where's yours?”

“I think I just quit.”

I cracked the can. “Fitzy?”

“What?”

“How'd you get control of the gangsters in Rhode Island?”

He sat down again and leaned way back, into his musing position, hands and arms cradling his head, rear legs of his chair all that held him. “Set rat traps. I was undercover. I took a few foolhardy chances. Chances I was told not to take.”

“Like what?”

“Like tapping wires without authorization from the Justice Department.”

“I do that.”

“Figures. How else you gonna have any success? Anyway, there's a million-dollar contract out on my head. Organized crime is still organized. They're just a little less ethnic, that's all. After you convict these Mafia people, there's a period of disruption, new guys all jockeying to be on top. But until you've got a new head honcho you're stuck with a lot of violence. So the job wasn't over and my wife knew it. Couldn't blame her for what she had to do. But me go into hiding? Fuck that, I told the Commish. They find guys in hiding. They find their families too, unless the guys aren't hiding with them. I had no choice.”

“I'm sorry.”

“She's got a new name and a new identity, her and the kids. I don't know where they are.”

“I'm sorry.”

“You already said that.”

“What will you do?”

“I'm doin' it.”

“I mean, really. What will you do now? Seeing as how you've quit drinking.”

A corner of his mouth went up a little. “Apply for a job with the FBI. Now that I've got connections. Now that I'm off the sauce.”

I finished my beer. I said I'd walk back to Joe's cottage. He told me it was on the other side of the island.

“I know.”

We said good night.

I'd only walked five minutes when the jeep pulled up alongside me. Fitzy had called Joe.

*   *   *

Joe and I didn't talk until we got back to the cottage. He didn't want to. He didn't want to hear about the faxes. He wanted to chitchat as if nothing were amiss. He said, “Who'd have thought this? Turns out I'm going back to DC while you get to stay here.”

“You're going back?”

“Yes. Something serious.”

“What?”

“Can't tell you.”

“Okay. Can you tell me what's wrong with you then? Why you won't talk to me?”

“I need to think, that's all.”

“Thinking means shutting me out?”

“Yes.”

The truth does hurt. I supposed a shouting match was in order. But it would have only been for effect. So I said, “You know the phone number. Since it's your phone.”

“I do.”

In the cottage, I noticed his suitcase on a chair. Packed and closed. “It's our last night here, isn't it? Together.”

“Yeah, it is. So what do you want to do?”

“Joe?”

“What?”

“What the hell do you
think
I want to do?”

And that's what we did. Joe and I communicate best through sex, not shouting matches. Fitzy's glib retort in church held some truth. I figured we'd do what we do after sex, lie around naked, entwined, nothing to hide so why not bare our souls too? How else had we gotten to be soulmates? But he wasn't quite as capable as usual, and afterward he got up and went and stood outside the cottage for a long time. Preoccupied.

*   *   *

Joe stayed preoccupied right up until I drove him to the airstrip the next morning. The night before he'd been preoccupied because our island idyll had been spoiled and he was feeling sorry for himself, I guess. Damned selfish of him. And in the morning he was preoccupied over Spike. We couldn't find him.

Joe kept looking at his watch while we searched the cliff top. He said, “Spike just wants to stay. Poppy, I can't hang around anymore. Do you mind seeing to him?”

I didn't mind. It wasn't like I'd have to muck out a litter box. On Block Island, Spike was an outdoor cat.

Joe said, “Around his dinnertime, stand at the door and shake his box of dry cat food. He'll come to that sound.”

“Okay. I only hope no one is watching while I'm outside shaking boxes.”

He took me in his arms. “You're showing a lot of patience with me, Poppy. I can only hope you know how much I appreciate it. I need to work things out.”

“What things?”

“I'll tell you what things when I get back. I promise.”

“After you've worked things out.”

“Yes.”

“I wish you'd let me—”

He hugged me tight. He told me he'd miss me and he'd be back Friday night. We'd have the weekend together and then we'd fly home on Sunday. He said, “You'll have things wrapped up by then, Poppy Rice. I'll bet on it.”

Imagine that. Joe being patronizing.

 

9

The next morning, on the way to breakfast, I went to Esther's to pick up the things I'd bought and to wonder aloud about whether Fitzy had asked any favors of her. I didn't have to wonder. She invited me to have a Bloody Mary with her. “My breakfast when I skip the Patio.”

“Why'd you skip the Patio?”

“I lost my appetite. Fitzy asked me to call all the girls' parents. Of the ones I could reach, a few were coming to get their kids, but the rest were convinced that Irwin had things under control. I didn't know there were so many rationalizations for negligent child care in my life.”

“I've found people believe what they want to believe. Denial, we call it.”

“Or as my grandma used to say, positive thinking. I really hate positive thinking. All lies.”

I told her I was glad she tried and that a Bloody Mary was a capital idea. She apologized for her barware. I hadn't drunk anything from a jelly jar since I was seven years old. I told her not to worry, I liked the feel. I did.

And I said, “Esther, you sure you don't want to change your mind about some scrambled eggs? They go really well after a Bloody Mary.”

“Not in the mood.”

She looked preoccupied. I was damn sick and tired of preoccupied. “There's something else, isn't there? Besides failing to convince those parents.”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“There are a couple of things.” She looked over my head, out into the pine branches hanging in front of her porch. Then she said, “I'm worried about Jake.”

“I think everyone is worried about Jake.”

“Tommy can't control him anymore. And it seems to me he's lost weight lately.”

“Go to Tommy. Talk to him about it.”

She smiled a little.

“What?”

“On Block Island, we don't talk. We beat around the bush.”

I'd just learned that firsthand from Joe. But Joe had talked to Tommy about Jake. I told Esther that.

She picked up her jar and sipped her Bloody Mary. “Joe may be one of us, but he's got another life.”

“You have another life. You're an artist.”

“I throw away my work. But never mind that. I did try with Tommy, not too long ago. I approached from the angle of maybe Jake needing a doctor. Told Tommy that with the weight loss, Jake might have diabetes or something. Told him to take Jake to Doc Brisbane. He wouldn't.”

“Why not?”

“Said Jake's afraid of doctors. I told him everyone's afraid of doctors. I couldn't change his mind, though. Looks like we'll have to wait for an accident to happen, or for Jake to collapse, and then Tommy will have to deal with Jake's fear of doctors, like it or not. I've mentioned around that maybe we should call the Department of Mental Health. That went over like a lead balloon.” She put the jelly jar down. “Listen, Poppy, I'm beating around the bush. I found something.”