The Abduction of Mary Rose (10 page)

Being in Lisa's tidy house had given Naomi a shot of domesticity. She tidied the living room, fed Molly, pushed sheets into the washing machine, in the laundry room, which had once been a pantry. As she added detergent, she continued to listen for the ring of the phone. She'd just let the clothes soak awhile, she told herself, in case she didn't hear the ring over the sound of the motor. She didn't want to miss it again if it did ring.

They'll call back, she told herself again, casting a watchful eye on the phone. The clothes soaked and the house stayed silent.

* * *

An hour later Norman Banks drained the beer in his glass, wiped the foam from his mouth with the back of his hand and once again left the barstool to make his way unsteadily to the phone out in the dingy, urine-smelling hallway of the bar where he'd been for the past few hours. It had been a very long time since Norman had hung out in bars, but reading that article had gotten to him, made him anxious and nervous, affected his sleep, and he'd needed to dull the edges.

Looking at the girl's photo, learning who she was, had brought back the memory of another girl all those years ago. Another lifetime. This girl's resemblance to her mother was slight, but it was there. He was just a kid himself when it happened, barely twenty, but he'd never forget the fear in her face, or her terrible cries for help that had often wakened him in the night. That he'd done nothing to stop the attack was something he could never forgive himself for. He didn't have the guts back then to help her. If he had it to do again, he'd take his chances and slam something across that bastard's head. But life didn't allow for do-overs.

In the next room, two old guys were playing billiards, balls clacking sharply over Willie Nelson's "To All The Girls I Loved Before", giving him a headache. As Willie sang on, Norman rubbed sweaty hands down the sides of his olive green workpants, glancing over his shoulder a couple of times to be sure no one was spying on him. Satisfied that he went unobserved, he managed to steady his shaking hand sufficiently to dig out the folded square of newspaper, now wrinkled and smudged from being in his pants' pocket. Unfolding the paper, he held it up to the greasy light by the black wall-phone although he'd already memorized her number and tapped the number out, almost gingerly. But again, before anyone could answer, he hung up. Forget it, he told himself. Let it go. Let the past stay buried. If it was just him, he wouldn't hesitate. He might even go to the cops. But what about Deb and the kids? Thinking of how they would look at him: the shock, the disappointment and finally, disgust when they found out was too much to take. I can't, he thought. I can't do it. He went back to his barstool and ordered another beer.

His face in the mirror behind the bar was pale and haunted, and accusing.
You still ain't got no guts, Banks. You're just as much a coward as you ever were.
He didn't like to think of the nickname 'Weasel' some of the kids at school gave him, but now he thought fit just fine.

Chapter Fifteen

Naomi lowered herself onto the kitchen chair, poem in hand. She felt a sense of wonder knowing she was about to get a deeper look into a young girl's heart through her own words. The words of Mary Rose Francis, who had given her life.

The sheet of lined paper rattled as she opened it, and she realized her hands were trembling. The smell of years locked in darkness floated up from the paper. It was like opening a treasure chest, long buried in the earth. The writing was neat and cursive, in blue ink.

She let out a soft breath and began to read.

very wrinkled tracing back through time and time

to the teepee and circle fires and laughter,

and later the peace-pipes and white men that lied to his father

and grandfather before him.

Crystal waters rush over pink and grey stones,

sparkling like golden coins.

A speckled trout gives himself up for our supper.

Grandfather's eyes remember other times

and he is sad. But the sadness does not stay.

When he sees me his eyes crinkle and he laughs.

Sitting on the stoop, carving the deer bone into treasures

for the tourists.

I have the best one.

I wear the white moon around my neck

and am never in darkness.

by Mary Rose Francis - Age 16.

The last line had brought tears to Naomi's eyes, because the white moon that she held dear had betrayed her in the end, proved impotent against the darker force of evil. It was merely a thing of decoration: lovely, but without powers.

Mary Rose wrote this poem on a day when the blood ran like sap through her young veins and the world held sweet promise, despite whatever challenges she faced on a daily basis. Naomi was no expert on poetry, but she thought this was a good poem, an honest one. Who knows what she might have accomplished in her lifetime.

Lisa said she had had a nice singing voice. She might have written songs for others to sing even if she'd been too shy to perform them herself. And who's to say she wouldn't have gotten over her shyness, or just learned to rise above it in the way of many, if not most, performers.

But someone had ended those possibilities, silenced her song forever. Her tears were also for the man who inspired the poem: Mary Rose's grandfather, Naomi's great-grandfather. She felt as if she knew him a little now.

She would find a special frame for the poem. In the meantime, she slid the sheet of paper between the pages of a coffee table book to smooth out the fold marks. As she closed the book, she glared at the silent phone. Ring, she commanded it. When it obeyed, she literally jumped.

She snapped up the receiver and pressed it to her ear. Country music was playing in the background, nothing she could identify, but a familiar tune.

"Hello."

There was a long pause, in which she could hear only the music, coupled with his breathing over the line. Then, "Is this that girl whose picture was in the paper … Naomi...?" The caller's voice was whispery, frightened, as if he were worried about being overheard.

Her entire body hummed with anticipation, even while a cold dark wind swirled round her heart. This was it. "Yes, this is Naomi Waters."

* * *

Three beers after he made the call to the girl's daughter, whose name the paper said was Naomi Waters, Norman was heading home from the bar. Knowing he was well over the legal limit, he drove slowly, with caution. The last thing he needed was to get stopped by the cops. He wasn't supposed to be drinking at all, what with the diabetes. Deb would be really mad at him for going against doctor's orders, but reading that story in the paper had really freaked him out. What if the cops could get a voice print, or trace the number? Had someone been watching him when he made the call? He'd been careful to look around him, but you never knew.

His hands were sweaty on the wheel and his stomach was twisted like the pretzels he'd eaten; the beer he'd consumed burned like acid in his gut. He needed to talk to someone. Ordinarily that someone would be Deb, but not this time.

There was only one person he could talk to about this. The one whose awful secret he'd kept all these years. The one he'd been with that night. The night they took a girl's life.

Spotting the McDonald's sign at the next corner, he slowed and pulled into the parking lot. Spotting an empty slot between a pickup and a green Volvo, he eased the car into it, turned off the ignition and sat for a few minutes. Then he got out of the car.

In the restaurant's alcove, he looked up the number in the battered phone book, and was almost surprised to see it there. As if in reality, the man existed only in some nightmarish place in his mind. On some terrifying alternate planet. But his existence was only too real. He was a part of Norman's past. A past he had tried to forget, but could not. The newspaper article had made it fresh again.

The phone rang and rang. Norman was about to hang up, getting a happy reprieve, when he heard the pick-up, and his heart slipped down into his stomach as he heard the words, "Your nickel."

Same thing he always said when he answered the phone. Same thing he said more than two decades ago when Norman called him. The acid in his stomach was burning its way through the lining. He had a mother of all headaches pounding away in his skull. The smell of frying grease didn't help.

Ordinarily he would have been craving a cheeseburger, but now he wondered if he'd ever eat again. As it was he hadn't eaten anything but those pretzels all day. Not good for his health. Neither was this. He was swept back in time, to a cold, ugly place. It wasn't a good feeling.

Maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all. But it was too late now. He had no doubt his old cohort would have caller ID. This is a public phone, for Christ's sakes. Maybe the number wouldn't come up. But he wasn't sure. Anyway, he'd already identified himself, already said hello.

* * *

The man who picked up the phone lived on River City's west side on the second floor apartment of a faded red-brick building, close to his work. He'd just stepped out of the shower and had a towel draped about his waist, a smaller towel in his hand. He admired his reflection in the long mirror in the hallway. He was a big man, trim and muscular at fifty-three, owing to many hours spent at the local gym pumping iron. The hair-transplant he was leisurely drying with a second towel was a good one. Undetectable to the average eye. Should be, it cost him enough.

As he clutched the phone, the blue and gold owl's eye tattooed on his left upper arm, winked at him in the mirror.

"Hey, Weaz, long time no see," he said in his good ole boy fashion. "What's up?" But he knew what was up. He'd read the paper. He knew why the Weaz was calling.

"We gotta talk," his caller said quietly.

Same old Weaz. Scared of his shadow. "Yeah, figured you'd call. I have to admit, reading that story in the local rag hung me out there too. Who'd a thought the bitch would live long enough to have a kid. She sure as hell looked dead enough when we left her, eh, Weasel?"

When you left her,
Norman thought, but didn't say. But that wasn't exactly true either. He was right.
I left her too.
"I wish you wouldn't call me that," he said. "No one does anymore." The beers he'd had all but worn off. Just the headache left. He felt cold, and sick in his gut, and it wasn't the beer that was making him feel that way.

"Yeah, sure, sorry. Take it easy, okay? You sound bad. Like you're coming apart at the seams."

"Maybe you shouldn't say things on the phone. Might be tapped."

He laughed that ugly laugh of his. Norman heard that laugh in his darkest dreams. How could he have taken up with him?

"Get a grip, man," he was saying now. "Why would the phone be tapped? It happened nearly thirty years ago. The cops don't know squat. You still living in the same place?"

The question caught Norman by surprise, followed by a jolt of panic. He sure as hell didn't want him knowing where he lived. Didn't want him anywhere near his family. "No, we bought a house out in ... the country. Look, I gotta go. I'll meet you somewhere. Friday night, okay? The wife works until ten on Fridays."

"Sure, Weaz Norm. Whatever you say?"

Norman swallowed. Tentatively, he said, "She's your daughter, Mac."

"Who? What are you talking about?"

"That girl. Naomi Waters. She's your child." He was hoping the reminder might trigger some normal human feeling in the bastard. Norman might not be any hero, but he had kids himself and he'd die for any one of them. But the icy vibes that came through the line froze any such hopes. He wasn't really surprised. He shouldn't have called, he thought again. Why was he meeting him anyway? What was the point? But he let himself be carried along.

Just like he did all those years ago.

"Deb know you called me?"

Hearing his wife's name coming from the man's mouth to his ear made the hairs stand up on the back of Norman Banks' neck, terrified him. He'd met Deb only that one time, before they were married. How the hell could he remember her name? It didn't seem possible. Had he been keeping track of him all these years? Maybe he knew exactly where he lived.

"No." He could barely get the word past the boulder in his throat.

"You never talked to her about that night?"

"You crazy? She's still with me, isn't she? Anyway, I didn't do nothin'. You know that."

"Don't matter. They get me, they get you." Ice in his voice. It melted a little as he said, "But it ain't gonna happen. So don't worry, Weaz … Norm. It'll be fine. We'll meet, like you said. We'll talk, okay?"

Mac glared at his phone as if it were a black serpent with poisoned fangs, oblivious to the fact that he was dripping water onto the carpet, that his eyes had narrowed to slivers of grey ice. He turned away, caught his reflection in the mirror and grinned. Like he always did, even when he didn't realize it, he admired himself in the glass for a couple of seconds, then headed for his bedroom to get dressed and think more on his conversation with his old buddy. His dangerous old buddy.

He didn't miss the Weaz's surprise that he'd remember his wife's name after all these years. No reason he should have remembered. Nothin' memorable about her that he could recall. Pretty enough, but a mousy broad. But the Weaz was nuts about her, like she was something special. Even bought her a diamond ring. He didn't see much of him after that.

The Weaz was trouble. He'd cave. I'll die in a cage, and no way in hell that was going to happen.