The Mortal Groove (27 page)

Under normal circumstances, Peter would kill to be part of a project like that. But at the moment, his attention was divided. “Let's talk when I get back.”

“Sure,” said his dad. He pressed a hand to Peter's shoulder, then pulled him into his arms. “I probably don't tell you this often enough, son, but I'm so proud of you.”
Randy was working at his Cathedral Hill office when his secretary buzzed him.

“Mr. Turk, you've got a call from your brother in Arizona.”

Randy was just about to say he didn't have a brother in Arizona when it dawned on him who it was. “Put him through.”

A moment later he heard, “Hey, dog, how's it hangin'?”

“This is my office! If the police—”

“Don't worry, bro. I'm using another crap cell. Bought it at Target not ten minutes ago. Can't be traced.”

“What do you want?”

“You could be a little nicer, you know. I been down in Waldo, working my ass off protecting yours. Good thing I was there, too, because two women were in town crawling all over that old homicide.”

“Who?”

“One's name is Thorn. She's like this battleship with curves. A real solid sexy earth mama.” He whistled. “She's a friend of Melanie Gunderson's. The other is . . . get this: Ray Lawless's daughter.”

Jane?

“Yeah. I don't know what they found out, but they sure made the rounds. They're long gone now, though, thanks to me. I sent them a little present, told them to back off.”

Randy dropped his pen. “What did you do?”

“Nothing much.”

“Tell me.”

“I tossed a brick through the window of their motel room. Attached a note.”

“That's all?”

“If they do as they're told, keep their noses clean, nothing more will happen to them.”

“You listen to me, Larry. You don't touch either of them. Got it? You hurt them and I'll hunt you down across time and space and make you sorry you were ever born.”

“I'm already sorry.”

“Promise me you won't touch them. On your honor.”

Larry laughed. “You and I both know I ain't got any honor.”

“Then swear on our friendship, on what we've meant to each other all these years.”

He sighed. “Oh, all right.”

“Say it.”

“I promise I won't hurt either of them. But I'm still gonna watch them. If it looks like they're gonna keep digging—”

“No. Just leave them alone. I'll handle it.”

Larry laughed again. Only this time, it was loud and mean. “You're the weak link, man. What you gonna do?”

Randy had always given Larry a huge pass when it came to his behavior. Maybe he was naive, but they were buddies and that's what buddies did. Sure, Larry tended to act without thinking and it got him in trouble, but then who hadn't acted without thinking? Randy believed that the good in Larry—his loyalty, humor, protectiveness—outweighed the bad. Until recently. Until that man was found murdered in his burned car. Against his will, Randy was beginning to see the shape of a consciousness that was both unnatural and violent. Not only was Larry a danger to himself and others, but he was looking more and more like he might be a danger to Randy—and Del. Even though Larry insisted he wasn't the one who'd knifed Melanie Gunderson, Randy's gut told told him a different story.

“I think you should leave town,” said Randy. “Get as far away from here as fast as you can.”

“Yeah, I thought about it.”

“Do it,” said Randy. He wanted Larry to evaporate. He never wanted to see or hear from him again.

“Hey, man, I know how much you and Del love the Big Ten. Iowa had a pretty decent team this year, so I bought you each a Hawkeye T-shirt. I'll mail them to you.”

“Where are you staying?” asked Randy.

“Here and there.”

“In town?”

“Last night, yeah. But I been on the road. I found me a real sweet deal.”

“Where?”

“Not anywhere, really. Out in the woods. A place where a man can howl at the moon and nobody cares—away from the cops, away from everybody.”

“You're camping?”

“Not quite that rustic.” He laughed. “Look, I gotta go. Too many cop cars.”

“Throw the cell phone away and just . . . just disappear, okay?”

“Be sweet, bro. I'll be in touch.”

 

Peter landed at LaGuardia just after seven, New York time. He had to wait around for his bag at the baggage claim area, but once he was outside, he found Nolan standing next to the entrance, smoking a cigarette. Jane was right about Nolan still looking like a cop. He was a tall black man in his midsixties, with gray hair and a thick gray mustache, an imposing figure with his heavily muscled shoulders and arms—and those cop eyes that missed nothing.

“How was the flight?” Nolan took one last drag off the smoke, then dropped it to the ground and stepped on it.

“It landed. That's the best thing I can say about commercial airlines these days.”

“Couldn't agree more,” said Nolan with a thin smile. He motioned for Peter to follow him.

They walked through an endless sea of parked cars until they found Nolan's rented Ford Crown Vic.

“Get in,” said Nolan, unlocking the car and hefting Peter's bag into the backseat. “I've got some papers I want you to take a look at.

As Nolan sipped a Dr Pepper, Peter read through the file. Margaret—who had been given the name Mia Smith by her first caseworker—had been officially taken into New Jersey child protective custody on February 19th, two days after she'd been dropped off at a facility in Jersey City. She was placed in a group home and was registered as available for adoption.

Peter read silently, learning that Mia had initially appeared to be in good health, but that she didn't speak and didn't respond to sounds of any kind. She was examined by a doctor who found her to be severely hearing impaired. There was nothing in the written record about the cause of the impairment, and nothing was mentioned about other learning disabilities.

According the the record, Mia remained at the group home for two years. She adapted reasonably well, but kept to herself and didn't make friends. Further physical and psychological testing was done during that time, but everyone seemed to be in a wait-and-see mode—hoping she'd get adopted. When she was about to turn five, she was placed in a residential program for deaf and emotionally disturbed children and adolescents. She stayed there for four months. At that point, a notation appeared in the record about cost. The writing was almost illegible. When Peter turned the page, Mia had been placed in a foster home.

“God,” said Peter. “The poor kid. She was kicked around like a football.”

Nolan didn't respond.

Mia stayed with this foster parent until the age of eight. All the caseworker reports—seven in all—were essentially positive. Mia was attending a school for the hearing impaired and doing well, leaning how to sign. She'd formed a positive bond with her foster mom, although she still wasn't communicating much. But everything seemed to be going well enough until the woman suffered a stroke. Mia was moved out immediately to a group home, where she stayed for a period of three months. There were many notations about her emotional problems, her silences, her tantrums. At one point, she apparently stopped eating. She was eventually placed in another foster home—this time, with a family in East Orange.

For the first year, there were extensive caseworker visits. Mia was not doing well. The words ADD and ADHD started to appear in the notes. She was having difficulties at school, trouble with the other foster kids in the home. And then the records began to dwindle. When she was nine, there was only one visit made by a caseworker.

“Nobody's been out to see her for over a year,” said Peter, flipping back and forth through the pages. “How can that be?”

Nolan shook his head. “Laws aren't written by people who care much about poor kids. Fact is, I hear more screaming in this country about protecting the unborn than I do about protecting the ones that are already here. We pat ourselves on the back all the time about what a great country we are—compassionate conservatism and all that crap. But kids aren't a political constituency. They have no political or financial clout, so they might as well be invisible. Our child care system is one of our dirty
little secrets, but hell, children don't vote and don't start revolutions, so who the fuck cares?”

Peter returned to the file, looked through the last few pages again. “Have you driven out to East Orange to see her?”

“Yeah,” said Nolan. “Yesterday.”

“And?”

“It doesn't look like a good situation to me. I talked to a guy who shall remain nameless. Seems Mia ran away from home a few weeks ago, but the police caught her and brought her back. He said the foster father isn't around much. He comes home to collect an occasional welfare check, then takes off for God knows where. The mom is a drunk, although she has a steady job. Works in a supermarket. There are four other foster kids—the oldest, a fifteen-year-old boy, has been busted for drugs, petty theft. A girl at his school said he'd tried to rape her, but she couldn't prove it so nothing was done. He's a junior thug who's ready to graduate to the big leagues. He seems to be the dominant male in the family.”

Peter closed his eyes. “What can I do?”

“Quickly? Nothing. You could start adoption proceedings, but that could take up to a year or more. In the meantime, Mia is at the mercy of a predator, an absent father figure, and a booze-hound mother. I don't know much about the other three kids. At least they haven't had any run-ins with the law. I assume the parents pretty much live on the money that's supposed to go to support the kids. It's not unusual.”

Peter checked his watch. “I suppose it's too late to go see her now.”

“Best chance will be tomorrow afternoon. She lives about seven blocks from her school, usually walks home alone. It'll be tricky, but I think that's your best chance. I booked you a
room at the Fairfield in East Rutherford. That's where I'm staying.”

“Good,” said Peter, his mind barely registering Nolan's words. All he could think about was Margaret—or Mia. On the plane from Chicago to New York, he'd struggled to understand why his enthusiasm to find her had been almost completely erased by an intense sense of dread. But now he saw it clearly. He was afraid. Against all odds, Mia had been found. But now that the miracle had happened, he was terrified that he might not be able to protect her.

And that would kill him.

 

 

T
he photos of Sue Bouchard had sealed it. Without a face, without a sense of the physical presence, the wires didn't quite connect. But now that Jane had seen the pictures of Sue in her mother's photo album, registered the enormity of what was lost, she couldn't forget. Sue's eyes haunted her, crying out for someone to care enough to bring the man who murdered her so violently to justice. And yet the difficulty of finding the truth this long after the fact seemed impossible. Add to that the possibility that Jane might die trying and the smart thing to do would be to let it go. And that's what she'd done. But when she forced the thoughts out of her mind, there was Sue's face again, inside her now, like a permanent weight in her chest.

Jane ended up leaving the club early on Thursday afternoon because she couldn't concentrate. Better to go make stupid mistakes somewhere else.

When she got home, she showered and changed into ratty
jeans and an old sweatshirt, and then she called Kenzie. She just needed to hear her voice. They ended up talking for almost an hour, which most of the time would seem like a long conversation but today seemed too short. Jane wanted nothing more than to be happy and unconcerned about anything other than the woman she loved. It hurt like hell to turn her back on Sue Bouchard, but it was the way it had to be.

As she lay on the couch, she closed her eyes. For a moment it was as if Kenzie were there, lying beside her in the darkness. But then Kenzie said she had to go. She had a meeting with a student in town. Jane said good-bye reluctantly, said she'd see her soon, the end of next week, that she'd be driving down. She lay on the couch for a long time, motionless as a lizard, listening to the street noises outside.

Later, when she was in the kitchen heating up some soup for dinner, her father called.

“Are you back?” she asked, pouring the soup into a bowl. Mouse was lying on the rug by the back door, chewing on a beef bone.

“Got back around three.”

“How'd it go?”

“Have you talked to Peter?”

“Not yet. Hey, I had a dream the other night that you couldn't make one of your speaking engagements, so Peter went in place of you and he was such a smash that people started talking about running him for governor instead of you.”