The River Killings (13 page)

“Sure.” Why not? I hugged her and stood, amazed at how quickly her mood had reversed itself. If only the promise of syrup-flavored ice could affect everyone that way.

“From Harry,” she went on. “Not the other guy. Harry’s is better—he scoops it out fresh.”

“You got it.”

We walked along Pine Street and passed the quaint historic row houses of Society Hill, Molly waxing eloquent upon issues of water ice. The merits of fresh versus prepackaged, the assets of cherry versus mango or root beer. She continued her monologue all the way to Karen’s, where Nicholas was waiting on the porch. As soon as he saw us, he ran down the steps.

“Finally.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her to the door. “You took forever to get here.”

“I had to pack my swimming stuff,” Molly explained, but Nicholas had moved on, talking about the bicycle he was getting for his birthday, asking if she could come to his party, telling her about the magician who was going to entertain. The two, lacking front teeth, had matching lisps, and they were still exactly the same height, although Molly had slimmed down while Nicholas had grown sturdier and stockier. They’d met in a play group when they were ten months old and had been fast friends ever since.

“Come in and cool off.” Karen hugged first Molly, then me. “Thank God for air-conditioning.”

“Did you hear about my mom?” Molly sounded boastful.

“What, sweetie?” Karen hadn’t heard the question.

“ ‘Course we did.” Nicholas was positive.

“My mom found a drowned person in the river.”

Karen’s mouth opened, then closed again.

“Molly,” I began, “that’s not something—”

“No, she didn’t.” Nicholas was loud, almost shouting. “She did not find a drowned person—”

“Nicholas.” Karen frowned. “Remember? We agreed we were not going to talk about that.”

But Molly’s hands were on her hips, indignant. “Yes, she did. Ask her. Mom? Tell him you found a drowned—”

“Nicholas. Drop it.” Karen spoke through her teeth.

“No, Molly,” Nicholas interrupted. “You’re wrong. Your mom didn’t find a drowned person—”

“Yes, she—”

“She found nineteen. Nineteen drowned people. Everybody knows that.”

“Nineteen? Uh-uh. You’re making it up.” Molly turned and gaped at me, stricken. “Tell him, Mom.”

Karen watched with wide, tortured eyes.

“Molly,” I fudged, “it was like I told you. Our boat flipped on one person.” I’d made an omission, but that wasn’t really a lie, was it? “But it turned out there were more people in the water with her.”

She eyed me, wounded and suspicious. I recognized that look; I often wore it myself.

“You told me one person drowned.” “Molly, I never said how many.” “You lied.” She was near tears.

“No, I didn’t. I’d never lie to you.” Oops—damn. Another lie. “We just never talked about how many people there were.”

“There were nineteen,” Nicholas announced again. “Look, I’ll
show you. I have pictures from the newspaper.” He ran into the living room. “Come look, Molly.”

“Nicholas, wait—” Karen called, but he was gone.

Molly kept staring at me. And in her eyes, I saw them again— floating women, all dead. Someone’s daughter. Someone’s sister. Someone’s lover or friend.

“Molls. When we talked about it, I didn’t know yet that there were nineteen.” Actually, I’d thought there were hundreds. “And it was awful that even one person died. I don’t see why it’s important how many there were.”

“But Mom, it’s important that you tell me the truth.” Who was the child and who the parent? Not for the first time, Molly seemed older, more savvy than her years. “So, if you’d known how many there were, would you have told me nineteen?”

I closed my eyes and lied again. “Yes. Of course.”

“Swear?” She pouted.

“Swear.” I kissed her head, feeling awful. I hated lies, even small, friendly ones. Even lies meant to protect her, make her feel secure, keep the peace, explain the inexplicable. I tried always to be truthful with Molly, but one simple omission had led to a chain of lies, and now I couldn’t seem to stop adding links. Hell, I was even lying about lying. “Now go and have fun at the pool. I’ll see you later.”

“Molly!” Nicholas called from the back of the house. “Come look at the pictures. Your mom’s in the paper!”

“Coming.” She pounded off after him. “ ‘Bye, Mom.” She kissed me and ran off.

“How about some coffee?” Karen sighed, studying my face.

“Thanks, I can’t. I’ve got to take off.” I couldn’t begin to explain why.

“How are you holding up? Have you recovered from the shock? It must have been awful.” “I’m fine.”

She shook her head. “How could that happen here, in this country, in this century? All those women … Does anyone know
who they are? Aren’t their families searching for them at home? The press says they’re all unidentified. I can’t imagine.”

I answered that I couldn’t either, hiding behind glib answers and shrugs, not mentioning my break-in or Susan’s car-jacking, not wanting to revisit the past day even in conversation. Instead, I steered Karen’s attention to the new Spanish tiles in her kitchen, then to Nicholas’s approaching birthday. And, as soon as I could without being rude I took off, alone, heading home.

I P
LANNED
TO S
TAY
I
NSIDE
F
OR
T
HE
R
EST
OF T
HE
DAY,
ALONE,

feeling sorry for myself, talking to no one. I collapsed onto my big purple sofa and sat curled up in a fetal position, sulking. I stayed there for a while, but moping was no help. My mind ricocheted from topic to topic, crashing into an idea and bouncing away. I should finish cleaning, I thought. I hadn’t done the office yet, or the laundry room. Crash—zoom. I should call the glazier to fix the window from the break-in. Duct tape wouldn’t provide much protection from a slave cartel, but then, glass hadn’t either. Crash—zoom. What was going on with Nick? What had been going on with the computer? And was he ever going to ask me to marry him? Crash—zoom. Poor me. I’d worked hard, earned a master’s degree, recovered from a divorce, adopted a child, created a home. And now my home had been invaded. My entire life—everything I’d struggled to build—was falling apart. Crash—zoom. I should relax. I shut my eyes and saw the blackness of the river, felt cold water swallow me and bumped slippery flesh. Trying to breathe, I gagged on a mouthful of wet hair. Crash—zoom.

Stop it, I told myself. You’re just beating yourself up, making yourself miserable. Do something productive. Get off your butt and take charge of your life. Look forward. Be active, assertive. Make a plan. Okay, I thought. A plan. A plan was absolutely what I needed.

I got up, pacing, brainstorming randomly, and without even
knowing what sort of plan I was trying to make, found myself in front of the bathroom mirror, silently talking to myself. You can do this, I told my face. You’re tough. Independent. Strong. Pull yourself together and deal.

No, the face whimpered. I’m not strong, not tough. Not really. I’ve been faking. Pretending. underneath, I’m a wimp, scared to death. A fraud and failure. I was a failure at marriage, so I got divorced. I couldn’t make it as an artist, so I did art therapy. And I had no business adopting Molly; I don’t know the first thing about raising a child. After all, look what I’ve gotten us into—trouble with some huge invisible international multibillion-dollar slave cartel? The face dissolved into tears, proving how weak and utterly pathetic it was.

I watched myself cry with a mixture of contempt and pity, feeling distant, regarding myself objectively. Crying, I decided, didn’t go well with my face. It was aesthetically wrong. I was too old, had too many streaks of gray in my hair to be crying like a child. My cheekbones were prominent, bones too strong for weeping. And the smile lines around my eyes contradicted the tears. Physically, the face in the mirror was mixed up, full of in-congruence. I pulled my hair back and dried my eyes, staring into them, seeking strength from my own gaze. Hazel eyes probed themselves, searching for a core, a source to connect to. Breathe deeply, I told myself. Stand up straight. Find your center.

“Zoe?”

I jumped, startled. I hadn’t heard Nick come in. I checked the mirror for telltale smears or blotches of red.

“Nick. I wasn’t expecting you.” I stepped into the hall.

“I had a few minutes, so . . .” He touched my cheek. “I. . . well, I wanted to make sure you were okay. I mean, last night, you seemed . . . we were both . . . it was . . . kind of strange.”

I hugged him, partly to hide the new wave of tears threatening to gush. I nodded. We’d been like beasts. “I’m okay. Are you?”

“I’m fine. If you are.” He seemed tentative.

“I just spent an hour wallowing, so I’m better.”

“Wallowing?” A hint of a smile brightened half his face; the scarred side remained ruggedly stoic.

“Yup.” I rubbed my eyes, trying to erase any lingering puffiness.

He watched me closely; I felt like a specimen slide in biology class.

“Really, I’m okay.”

He kept studying me, apparently unconvinced. “I got sick of feeling sorry for myself, so I stopped. I’m fine now.” I moved away, feeling exposed. “Just like that?”

“Just like that. Never underestimate the value of a really good hard—”

“—Believe me, I would never.”

“I was going to say ‘a really good hard wallow.’“

“Yeah? I like mine better.” Again the half-grin.

“Okay.” I smiled. “That, too.” I headed into the kitchen. There was chaos to clean up in there. “How long can you stay?”

“A few minutes only.”

“Well then, for a few minutes you can help. Here.” I handed him a pile of baking pans. “These go in the high shelf over the oven.”

“Zoe,” he complained. “Can’t this wait?” But he put them where they belonged.

“Be careful with these.” I handed him a stack of Aunt Edith’s flower-patterned china plates and pointed to the top shelf in the corner. “They go up there.”

He put the plates away. “I have some news about the case.”

I froze, a blender in my hands. “About the women? What?”

Nick reached for the soup bowls without being asked.

“Yeah. I thought you should know before it hits the news.”

So he hadn’t come home to see how I was; he’d really come to tell me some news. Why couldn’t he just have said so? When would he just be honest? Angry, I shoved the blender into a cabinet and grabbed a colander. I was racing to put my kitchen in order, not wanting to know anything more about the women, not being able to resist finding out.

“The preliminary autopsy reports are in.” Nick lifted the saucers onto the shelf. “They didn’t drown. They were dead before they hit the water.”

I held still, hugging myself, feeling chilled. “Then what happened? How’d they die?”

Laying a stack of soup bowls beside the saucers, he turned to look at me. “They fried.”

The colander slipped from my fingers, clattering onto the floor. Fried? What was he talking about? Oh, God. I stooped to pick up my colander; Nick got to it first. I grabbed it from him and held it against my belly.

“You okay?”

“Sure.” How could I be okay? Was he kidding? “Just clumsy.”

“It looks like it was the heat. They literally baked to death. Probably locked in a closed compartment in the hot sun, most likely a truck or a van. It’ll be on the news, so I’m giving you a heads-up.” He put the cups away gently, two at a time.

They fried? My skin itched. I couldn’t breathe. “Thanks. Thanks for telling me.” Out the kitchen window, the sun beamed white heat. Vans were parked everywhere along the street. Construction vans. Delivery vans. Vans with unknown purposes. All were locked and closed up tight. I crossed my arms, trying not to imagine being left inside in the heat, what it would be like, dying that way.

“You ever use any of this stuff?”

Stuff? Nick was pointing at the china.

“Not really,” I said. “It was my aunt’s.”

“We should use it.” He held up a cup, examined the delicate roses on its side. “It’s nice.”

He put it back on the shelf, and after replacing canisters and stoneware, cutlery and cans, Nick promised to be back after work, kissed my cheek, and left. I stopped sorting silverware to call a glazier about the office window. But I got stuck, phone book in hand, and stood in my kitchen, looking out at the street, watching steam rise off sweltering parked vans.

J
UST
B
EFORE
F
IVE
O’CLOCK,
I P
ICKED
M
OLLY
U
P
A
T
KAREN’S
AND drove Nick’s car to the river where, as promised, I took Molly to Harry’s water-ice stand. The sun was relentless and there wasn’t a hint of a breeze. Harry’s helium balloons hovered motionless over his truck like dabs of color in a still life.

“Cherry, please.” Molly held up the dollar I’d given her. “Small.” Harry’s small dishes were the size of Molly’s head.

“How are you, little lady? Nice to see you.” The unofficial mayor of Boathouse Row, Harry tended to ramble. “It’s sure been busy, with all this heat. Believe me, people can’t get enough to drink. You don’t want to get dehydrated. It’s dangerous. You want to keep drinking. And if you have a pet, be sure to give him water. Don’t leave him in the car. It’s too hot. This early in the year… who’d have thought it would be so hot in June? What’s August going to be like if this keeps up?”

Harry went on, maintaining a nonstop one-way conversation as he scooped out generous mounds of red slushy ice and handed the overflowing cup to Molly, whose eyes had widened with each scoop.

“Say,” he addressed me. “Didn’t I see your picture in the paper? What’s your name again? Wait—I’ll remember.” He clapped his forehead, thinking. “Something different. Zoe? That’s it. Zoe Hayes, right? The lady who found all those floaters? Those dead women?”

I nodded, starting to usher Molly away.

“She is. That’s her.” Molly was bragging. “My mom thought there was just one, but really there were nineteen.”