The Remains (17 page)

Set beside the bed was a vital functions
monitor. There was the steady, mechanical up-and-down green line
that represented Robyn’s heart rate. It reminded me of the one that
had been attached to Molly before she died.

“Early this morning,” June went on, “I was
woken up by a phone call. It was the police. They’d responded to a
9-1-1 coming from the Cocoa Motel near the airport. They found my
Robyn curled up on the motel room floor. She was beaten, bleeding,
half unconscious… my poor Robyn.” She paused, hesitating, crying.
“Two of her ribs are broken, plus one finger on her right hand. A
clump of hair was pulled out of her head.” She choked on the next
words. “What kind of animal does something like this, Rebecca?”

I knew full well what kind of animal did
that. Why was it so hard to believe in a benevolent God but so easy
to believe in the presence of real evil? Robyn was the reason; the
evil things that had been done to her.

“What about the police?” I said. “Do they
have any clue who could have done this?”

Michael squeezed my hand, as if I’d just
asked June if the cops suspected Whalen.

She dried her eyes, turned slowly around to
face Michael and me.

“Robyn was able to give a decent description
before they sedated her.”

“Cops get a name?” Michael pressed.

“It’s a young man, posing as a salesman on a
business trip. Makes contact over an online dating service like
that computer “Match” thing, arranges a date, flies into town,
wines and dines, gets the date to bed. Then he does something like
this.”

She turned back to her daughter and ran an
open hand over her body as if to better demonstrate her point.

“The police establish any kind of trail,
June?” Michael continued probing. “Any kind of a lead on his
whereabouts?”

“He’s already flown out. He’s operating under
so many aliases they don’t know where to start.” Biting her lip,
she looked over my shoulder at Michael. “Albany Police claim that
it’s an FBI problem now. That they’ll get to him soon enough.”

“I know they will,” I whispered. But I wasn’t
sure I believed it.

Soon enough…

June tried to plant a semblance of a smile on
her face.

“The police said that it took some guts for
Robyn to cooperate the way she did, especially with that animal
still out there; that the reason this man is able to get away with
so many attacks is that most of his victims are too ashamed to come
forward, approach the police.”

“Or too scared.” I deduced, feeling a
boulder-sized lump in my throat. Once more my eyes caught the
monitor; the thin, never stopping up-and-down green line.

June stood up straight.

“Rebecca,” she said, “can I talk with you
privately?”

Michael let go of my hand.

“I’ll go get some coffee,” he offered,
stepping around the curtain.

After a few weighted seconds I could see that
June was crying again. I went to her, put my arm around her, my
eyes peeled on the ever still Robyn.

“What is it?”

“
My
baby,” she whispered. “My Robyn. She didn’t use protection.
Rather,
he
…”

I knew what she was trying to say. It hit me
like a sledge hammer to the stomach.

“They retrieved seminal fluid during an
internal,” she explained, before bursting into tears.

Just what was Robyn thinking?

I couldn’t help but think that she had been
sleeping with lots of men while using nothing to prevent pregnancy
or worse, contracting some horrible STD. But then, what if this
creep forced it on her before she had the chance to even speak of
protection?

“Have the doctor’s run any further tests?” I
begged.

At first, June said nothing. Then she set her
cold wet hand on mine.

“Robyn is six weeks pregnant.”

AT MY
URGING WE drove from the Albany Medical Center in the direction of
the South Pearl Street precinct. We might have been riding in
silence but my thoughts screamed at me. My mind kept shifting from
the horror of Robyn’s rape to the shock of her pregnancy.
Was it possible
that she had no idea about it?
I’d never before been pregnant. But I did know that by the
time six weeks went by you had to be suspecting something. Your
body went through changes. Your inner voice spoke to you. I could
only wonder just who the father was? The stockbroker? Or someone
she met weeks before him? I wasn’t entirely sure of the timeline or
the course of events in Robyn’s dangerous love life.

I spoke up as we approached State Street and
asked Michael to make a pit-stop at the school of art on the way to
the police. In light of Robyn’s condition and Whalen’s unexpected
homecoming, I wanted to leave a note on the front door explaining
that the place would be closed for the rest of the week due to a
personal emergency. I also wanted to change the answering service
message to reflect the same message.

When it was done, I got back in the truck and
Michael pulled out onto the main road, heading further into the
city. When we arrived at the APD, I carried the new ‘Smell’ canvas
in with me. We learned that Detective Harris wasn’t in, but that
same gray-haired watch commander was at the counter to greet us. He
said that if we wanted to wait, Harris would be back within the
half-hour. I knew then that I should have called the detective, let
him know we were coming. But it was too late now.

The precinct smelled bad. Not altogether
different from that sewer-like smell I recalled from the house in
the woods. The watch commander must have noticed our sour faces
because he pinched his own nostrils together, said, “Plumber’s on
his way. Old cast iron pipes in this building just can’t keep up
with the flow anymore… If you know what I mean.”

I nodded.

“Tell you what. Jack’s Diner is just across
the street. Excellent home cooking, real good coffee. Why don’t you
wait for Harris there? When he comes back, I’ll have him give you a
call right away.” The big man smiled.

“Sounds good, Sergeant,” Michael said.

“Course it is,” the gray-haired cop said,
waving his hand rapidly in front of his face, as if it were
possible to wave away the stench. “Stay here much longer you’ll
lose your cookies.”

I asked the watch commander if I could leave
the painting behind.

“Sure thing,” he answered. “We could use a
little culturing around here.” Then he said, “Hey John Grisham, you
got a new book comin’ out?”

“Workin’ on it,” Michael said, not without a
grin.

We departed the APD, headed across the street
to the diner where we sat ourselves in a corner booth that
overlooked South Pearl Street and the red brick police station.
Michael ordered us coffee and toasted hard rolls with butter. I
managed to drink the coffee, but only picked at the hard roll.

We sat and waited for Harris’s call.

And waited.

When my cell phone chimed, it nearly made me
jump out of the booth.

Taking charge Michael picked up the phone,
answered. While he listened, he laser-beamed his eyes into
mine.

“Right away, Detective,” he said, hanging
up.

Sliding out of the booth, he stood, slid a
five and two ones from his pocket, tossed them onto the table.

“What did Harris say?” I asked.

“He wants to see us now. He’s got news.”

I felt my pulse race.

Whalen.

“This time we tell him about the texts.
Agreed?”

“That’s why we’re here.”

JUST LIKE YESTERDAY WHEN we first met with
him inside his private office, Harris politely asked us to sit.
Only this time, instead of seating himself behind his desk, he
perched himself on the desk’s edge, one foot hanging off, the other
planted firmly on the floor. Today he was wearing a tan blazer over
a white button-down, no tie. The bulge under the left breast pocket
told me he stored a pair of reading glasses inside the interior
pocket. He crossed arms over chest. Over his right shoulder I could
see that the previous calendar day had been neatly X’d off in blue
ballpoint. The precinct still stunk like a sewer. But no one
mentioned a word about it.

“The paintings,” he began to explain. “Thus
far the Albany labs see nothing to indicate Whalen had any kind of
contact with them whatsoever. My guess is that the only people to
lay hands on them—besides present company of course—is your
student, Francis, perhaps his mother, maybe your partner, Robyn.
But no Whalen.”

When he said the name Robyn, I felt a tug in
my stomach. I wondered if he was aware of the overnight attack on
her at the Cocoa Motel. I wanted to ask him about it. But not
yet.

“I’m not surprised,” I said. “Although I am
somewhat relieved.”

Harris raised his eyebrows.

“You suggesting Francis could have somehow
been working with Whalen?”

I shot a glance up at Michael where he stood
beside my chair. His eyebrows were raised just like the
detective’s.

I shook my head.

“Not a chance,” I insisted. “Franny would
never do anything to hurt anyone. He also knows right from wrong
and Whalen is definitely wrong.”

“Francis having direct contact with Whalen
would certainly answer the question of how the artist is able to
paint your memories.”

The tug in my stomach intensified. I felt
like all the oxygen in the room had been sucked out through the
vents, leaving only the foul odor.

“What about Whalen?” Michael pressed. “Did
you make contact with his parole officer?”

The detective looked up.

“I did,” he confirmed. “Whalen’s been
employed at the Hollywood Carwash on Central in the west end. He
lives in a half-way house on Clinton not a block away from work.
Fully registered with sex offenders, as you well know. Shows up for
the early and evening meals per state regs, where’s a monitoring
bracelet around his right ankle. It’s house-arrest from that point
on until work starts the next morning. Lights out at ten. If I
didn’t know any better, I’d say Whalen is a model parolee; a system
success story.”

“So what you’re trying to say detective?”
Michael posed. “That there’s no reason to suggest Whalen has been
acting in anyway suspicious? You don’t see him as a threat?”

Harris shook his head.

“Not an immediate threat,” he stressed. But
then raising his right hand, pointing an extended index finger at
the painting I’d brought into the office with me. “I remain
however, more than a little curious about Franny the artist.”

The Hollywood Carwash…

“Wait a minute,” I broke in. “I had my car
washed on Tuesday morning.”

Michael and Harris immediately turned their
attention to me as if an alarm had just gone off.

“I had my car washed and an older man dried
it. The Hollywood Carwash on Central. A small white-bearded man
with a head full of white hair. He smiled at me, spoke to me. I
gave him a five dollar tip because I felt sorry for him, for having
to work in a car wash.”

Harris looked at Michael. Michael looked at
me. Both their faces looked pale.

“I can only assume that’s him,” Harris said,
standing up straight. “Did he give you any reason to suggest he
knew you? Did he use your name?”

My head was spinning.

“No,” I said. “The man didn’t say much of
anything.”

“What made you go to the car wash in the
first place?”

“I get Molly’s car washed every Tuesday
morning, whether it needs it or not. It’s what Molly always did.
Every Tuesday, rain or shine or snow. It was her ritual.”

“Dollars to donuts,” Harris said, “if that
was in fact, Whalen, he knew you were coming. He would have planned
it that way.”

“I’d never seen him there before.”

“That’s because you weren’t aware of him
until recently.”

An explosion came from outside precinct
walls. Thunder. Loud enough to cause all three of us to glance at
the far wall, as if there was a window to see out of.

“Tell him about the texts,” Michael
insisted.

I looked up at my ex-husband, then shifted to
Harris.

“Someone unknown has been sending me texts
over the period of a few months.”

Harris raised his eyebrows.

“What did the messages say?”

I told
him. “Just my name at first. Then later on,
rebecca
. My name in the lower case.”

He jotted down some notes in a small notebook
he stored in his shirt pocket.

“You saw him in the carwash on Tuesday,”
Harris recalled. “Did his face ring any kind of bell
whatsoever?”

I felt my stomach drop. Did the face of the
nice old man match the face of the rapist in the ViCAP
database?

“Not at all,” I said. “Not with all that
hair. I guess I might have seen the same white-haired man there a
dozen times before over the course of a few months. But only on
Tuesday did I feel the need to pay attention to him.”

“The texts,” Harris went on. “What was the
number left on your caller ID?”

“That’s just it,” Michael spoke for me.
“Unknown Caller.”

Harris transferred himself behind the
cluttered desk. He shifted his eyes back to me.

“I’m going to check into the possibility that
Whalen could be texting you, Rebecca. If he’s got the money for a
cell phone, he’s allowed a cell phone. Simple as that. You save the
messages?”

I told him I had.

He asked to see my phone.

I handed it to him from across the desk.

He pulled his reading glasses from inside his
jacket pocket, slipped them on. Then he flipped open the phone,
thumbed some buttons. Although I couldn’t see exactly what he was
getting at, I knew he had to be looking at the messages. I knew he
was trying to get something from their accompanying information. Or
in this case, non-information.