Authors: C.E. Lawrence

Silent Kills (18 page)

BOOK: Silent Kills

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CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Driving down Route 202, Lee opened the car window and breathed in the soft, decadent air of September. The landscape lay around him in late-summer drowsiness. The farm fields were already beginning to turn the tawny yellow of early fall; the leaves on the trees looked as if they had grown weary of clinging to their branches. There was something compelling about these last days of summer, as the still-soft earth drew into itself in preparation for the coming autumn.

He inhaled deeply, savoring the thick, humid air, and felt the knots in his shoulders loosen.

Lee felt protective of his home state. He was occasionally impelled to tell people that it deserved its reputation as the Garden State—it did after all contain thousands of acres of public parks and nature preserves. In counties like Morris, Essex, and Sussex, Jersey had its share of rich people too. The sprawling estates around Morristown were horse country, and Upper Saddle River, to the north, was the last residence of former president Richard Nixon. Not something to be proud of, perhaps, but it did indicate a certain level of opulence.

By the time he pulled into the driveway of his mother’s house he was feeling better, as his body relaxed into the rhythms of country life, softer and slower than Manhattan, which came at you hard and fast. Its relentless pace could take your breath away and pull you down if you weren’t ready for it.

There was a boulder in the front lawn, dear to him from many hours of playing with his sister. At some point in their childhood they christened it Turtle Rock—he forgot which of them had come up with the name. It was fitting, though—from a distance the rock did resemble a giant tortoise, the broad grey hump curved in an angle suggestive of a turtle shell. In the magical world of childhood, the boulder became many things: a sailing ship, a horse, a gypsy caravan. It had not lost its ability to evoke the sweetness and innocence of those early years, before tragedy folded its great black wings around their little family, sweeping them into its dark embrace.

Years ago, when his mother talked about having the boulder removed, Lee and Laura managed to talk her out of it. And so the rock remained, a relic of their childhood together—and now his niece stood waiting for him on that same patient, stolid piece of granite. With the sun in his eyes, it appeared that the small, lithe figure on the rock was his sister, but it was just a trick of the light. Laura’s hair was black like his own, not blond—Kylie had her father’s coloring.

“Uncle Lee!” Kylie cried, launching herself into his arms before he had time to close the car door. Children moved with such careless grace, like the young animals they were, at home in their bodies. He hugged her, inhaling the lemony scent of her hair. She pulled away with the heedless ease of the young and skipped toward the house, humming to herself.

Fiona Campbell stood on the front steps, shielding her eyes from the glare of the midday sun. Her back was as straight and stiff as if she were a military officer. Physical superiority was part of the family mythos—as well as a general impatience that Lee suspected was genetic. He didn’t have her drive to maintain a pose of invulnerability, but he did have her restless, kinetic nature.

His mother had plenty of friends—strong, sturdy women like her. Some of them were widows and some had gotten divorces after years of marriage, leaving their men behind like discarded luggage on railway platforms. And yet she was essentially a solitary creature, wary of closeness with other human beings. She seized her only son by the shoulders and gave him a brisk, muscular hug. His mother was not a demonstrative person; too much physical contact made her uncomfortable. Kylie didn’t seem to mind, though. She wove her finger around a lock of her hair, twirling it absently. Seeing a Hula-hoop in the front yard, she dashed over to play with it.

His mother watched her go, then turned to her son. “There now!” she said with her trademark brittle cheerfulness. “How about a decent cup of tea after that long drive?’ Fiona Campbell was a curious combination of Old World charm and impeccable good manners grafted onto a loose-cannon personality.

Lee smiled. “Sure, why not?” He followed her into Brigadoon. In the manner of natives to the British Isles, Fiona had given her house a fanciful name—so unlike her in some ways, but in keeping with her emotional ties to the land of her birth. The rooms were small, and dark in the winter, but she loved the house. She sometimes talked dreamily of having “a wee cottage” somewhere on the outer islands of Scotland—the Orkneys, perhaps, or the Shetlands—with a small herd of sheep and “a wee border collie” to look after them. When she talked of these things, the faint curve of her r’s became more pronounced, the rolling landscape of her birth tattooed into her speech patterns.

He ducked to get through the door leading to the living room, with its French Impressionist still-life paintings and British hunting prints. Fiona Campbell was not one for putting up family photos—even before Laura’s death, Lee hardly ever saw pictures of friends or family scattered around the house. There were a few prints of Kylie stuck to the refrigerator with magnets, but that was about it.

His mother put on the kettle and carefully arranged a dozen ginger cookies on a blue willow china plate. She liked things just so, and had exquisite taste. No estate sale within a hundred miles was safe from her. Her instinct was remarkable—she would zero in on the best bargains on the best items, and then talk the seller down from that price. She always got what she wanted.

“Now then, how are you?” she said once they had settled onto the front porch with their tea. “You look thin.”

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Are you eating?”

“Yes, Mom, I’m eating.”

It was a little dance between them, a ritual that had remained unchanged over the years. She would say he was looking thin, and he would respond that he was fine. Out in the yard, Kylie was struggling with the Hula-hoop.

“Less movement, Kylie!” his mother called to her. “Don’t wiggle your hips so much!”

His niece rolled her eyes and tossed the Hula-hoop aside, running to play instead on the swing under the broad oak tree.

“The other night when you called,” he said, “I had the feeling something was on your mind.”

His mother looked out over the sloping lawn leading down to the springhouse. Watercress grew wild along the stream bank, and Laura had loved to pick it for salads when she was Kylie’s age.

“I’m a bit worried about Kylie.”

He translated in his head: She was very worried.

“Why?”

“She’s been talking about ... Laura.”

“Anything in particular?”

“She’s been asking when she’s coming back.”

She lowered her voice, even though Kylie had disappeared around the corner of the carriage house, in pursuit of the neighbor’s surly white Persian, Sayeed. Kylie loved cats.

“What did you tell her?”

“The truth—that I don’t
know
,” she said, her voice caught between a whisper and a sob. Lee knew she hated talking about Laura’s disappearance. She would prefer the subject remain closed until the day she returned (a day his mother seemed certain would arrive).

“Do you want me to talk to her?”

She grasped his arm, an uncharacteristic gesture. Her fingers were strong, desperate. “Don’t tell her your sister is dead! Can you promise me that?”

“Look, Mom—” he began. The argument between them was always the same. She thought Laura would return someday, while he was certain she was long dead. He understood her need for hope, but he was tired of her refusal to face what he saw as an obvious truth.

They were interrupted by the arrival of Stan Palog-gia, Fiona’s next-door neighbor and boyfriend—at least in his own mind. She insisted she was too old to have one, but Lee knew she was just trying to keep him at arm’s length. She had stopped trusting men the day her husband walked out.

But Stan was safe enough. A short, thickset Italian, he was as unlike the tall, elegant Duncan Campbell as anyone could be. Stan was the son of a butcher and proud of it, and could do anything with his hands. And he was hopelessly in love with Fiona.

“Hello there!” he bellowed from across the lawn. “Looks like I’m just in time for tea!”

“You are!” Lee called out, though Stan struck him as more of a coffee drinker.

Stan bounded across the lawn. With his bandy, bowlegged gait, he moved like a sailor. He hopped onto the porch without recourse to the stone steps and grasped Lee’s hand, enclosing it in both of his. His handshake was as warm and energetic as he was, the palms rough and callused, the hands of a working man.

“How ya doin’, Lee?” he said, kissing Fiona on the cheek.

“Fine,” said Lee. “And yourself?”

“No point in complaining—no one would listen anyway,” he answered cheerfully, helping himself to tea. Stan recycled bons mots like library books. Every once in a while a new cliché made it into his collection of stock phrases, becoming worn and dog-eared over time. Lee had heard this particular one well over a dozen times.

Stan held up his teacup and winked at Lee. “Got anything stronger?” he asked Fiona.

She frowned and looked at her watch. “Isn’t it a little early?”

Stan grinned. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

She sighed and got up from her cedar Adirondack chair, one of her recent estate-sale prizes. “I’ll see what I can find.”

Stan winked at Lee again. “She’ll find something, don’t you worry.” He leaned back in his chair and sighed with contentment, locking his hands behind his head. His forearms were furry, thick with dense black hair. Fiona pretended not to hear him. She stalked into the house, banging the screen door behind her.

When she was gone Stan dropped his pose and leaned forward. “She’s worried about your niece, you know,” he said in a low voice.

“I know,” Lee answered. “Is she overreacting, do you think?”

Stan swatted a mosquito trapped in the thick forest of hair on his arm and flicked it onto the stone porch. “Hard to say. Could be, I guess, but that’s not Fiona, is it?”

“Not really.”

Stan was right. Fiona Campbell subscribed to the school of Scottish stoicism. If something hurts, ignore it as long as you possibly can, on the chance it might go away. That attitude had helped to land Lee in the mental ward of St. Vincent’s Hospital, but old habits are hard to break, and he was more like his mother than he cared to admit.

“So you really think your sister’s dead?” Stan asked.

The bluntness of the question took him off guard. It seemed inappropriately intimate—but then, that was Stan. He didn’t finesse, and he never sidestepped the hard ones.

“Yes, I do,” said Lee.

“How come?”

“The odds against her being alive are—”

“Forget the odds,” Stan said. “What does your gut tell you?”

“That she’s dead. And my training—and everything I know about her and about the nature of—”

“Serial killers?” Stand said. “That’s what you do, right? You study these sickos, the dregs of humanity, and you catch ’em.”

“That’s one of the things I do. My job entails other—”

“Yeah, yeah—I know,” Stan interrupted. “You don’t spend every hour of every day doin’ that, just like my dad didn’t spend every minute cuttin’ up meat in his shop—but that’s what people think of when they think of butchers. And that’s what people think of when they think of criminal profilers.”

“Your point?”

“My point is that your brain works in a certain direction. You seen these guys in action, and you know how they operate, so you think one of ’em got Laura. It’s only natural for a guy who does what you do, right?”

“Whether or not it was a serial offender, the chances of her being alive—”

Stan waved his hairy arms in the air. “What I’m talkin’ about is
possibilities
. See, that’s what your mom holds on to. The
possibility
that you could be wrong.”

“I understand that, but at some point you have to be realistic—”

“Who says? Is there a rule book about how you’re supposed to handle the disappearance of someone you love? Some kinda etiquette of proper behavior? ’Cause I’m thinkin’ there isn’t, you know?”

“It’s just that logically—”

“Yeah, yeah—I know what you’re gonna say. If you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras, right?”

“Something like that.”

“But you’re losin’ sight of one important fact.”

“What’s that?”

“Sometimes you hear hoofbeats, and when you look up, you don’t see horses—you see zebras.”

From inside the house came the sound of a phone ringing, and shortly afterwards Fiona appeared at the door with the phone in one hand and a beer in the other. She gave Stan the beer and handed the phone to Lee.

“It’s for you. Some woman with a German accent.”

Lee took the phone from her, vaguely wondering how Krieger had gotten this number, but his mind was far away. He was thinking about zebras.

BOOK: Silent Kills

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