The River Killings (6 page)

“What I’m telling you stays here, Zoe. Not even Susan—”

“Of course.” I nodded.

Nick had confided in me. I was flattered, amazed. But Nick frowned and stared into the air, eyes smoldering. Oh, God. Was there more? I almost didn’t want to know.

“Nick?” He was scaring me. “Are you okay?”

He looked at me, surprised, almost as if he’d forgotten I was there. “Sorry. It’s the damned FBI. I can’t stop them from yanking the case, but until they do the paperwork, as far as I’m concerned the case is mine. There were nineteen homicides committed in this city and I won’t give up on them. Not yet.”

I didn’t know what to say. Nick had just warned me about the slave cartel, how dangerous it was. Why couldn’t he stay out of this mess and let the FBI do their job? I sat beside him, feeling hot anger radiate from his skin. No, Nick wouldn’t let go. He couldn’t. Not when nineteen dead women with tattoos and shackle marks had been found floating down the Schuylkill River.

A horn honked outside, and I realized it had been honking repeatedly for a while. Oh, Lord. I hadn’t been paying attention. It was the bus from Three Corners School.

“M
OLLY
-” I C
ALLED
.

Molly didn’t answer.

“Molls—” I called again, hurrying to her room, finding it empty. “Molly?”

Damn. She was ignoring me. Refusing to go. Being strong-willed and stubborn, hiding to avoid school. I ran downstairs, opened the front door to wave at the bus driver.

“Ms. Hayes—Zoe Hayes?” Someone shoved a microphone into my face.

I recoiled instinctively, shoving it away.

“Zoe, can we ask you about the events at the river—”

“Just one minute—she’s coming!” I yelled to the driver, and slamming the door on the microphone, I raced through the house, calling Molly, reminding her that she’d agreed to go, pleading with her, threatening her, even bribing her, using every ploy I could think of to get her to come out. I searched the powder room, my studio, the living room, the coat and broom closets, the kitchen.

“Find her?” Nick called from upstairs.

I looked up at him and shook my head, eyes tearing. No, I hadn’t found her. I was tired, aching, bruised, and suddenly overwhelmed. I’d survived a cold swim with nineteen dead women and was able to face a media frenzy, but an obstinate six-year-old was reducing me to tears.

“Molls,” Nick called. “Yo. Hop to. The bus is waiting.”

From out of nowhere, Molly bounced into the kitchen, all smiles and sunshine. Grabbing her backpack, she hugged Nick,

then me. “See you later, Mom. ‘Bye, Nick.” And lightly kissing my cheek, she skipped out the door, bumping into the cameramen.

“Um—Mom?” She stopped on the steps, confused.

“Hi there,” one of them began to interview her. “What’s your name?”

“Ignore them.” I pushed the door open and stepped onto the porch beside her. “Don’t even talk to them—”

At the sight of me, reporters started calling, “Ms. Hayes? What were you doing on the river last night? Can you answer a few questions?”

Molly stood still, warily eyeing the news crews. Sheltering her with my arms, glaring fiercely, I forged a pathway through the squawking crowd, led Molly down the front steps and walked her to the bus. When she was safely on board and the bus had driven off, I turned back and faced the throng. And once again, having no choice, I closed my eyes and plunged, swimming blindly through a mass of bodies—hands, heads and arms—in order to get home.

T
HE
H
OUSE
W
AS
F
INALLY
QUIET,
E
XCEPT
F
OR
T
HE
R
INGING
phone, which I’d begun to tune out. I sat on a stool at the kitchen counter and stared out at the street, watching traffic and pedestrians pass the lone television truck that was still parked outside. Nick had managed to convince most of the press to go away before he left for work, but a persistent young news reporter remained, recording her segment over and over again with my house as her background, doing take after take because the breeze blew her hair into her face. Or a truck grumbled too loudly up the street. Or horns honked and people hooted because they recognized her. I sipped coffee, ignoring the incessant ringing of the phone, hoping the news team would finally get it right and go away.

I moved to the sofa, my limbs weighing tons, my head pounding, my whole body wanting to crawl back to bed and hide under the comforter. But instead I picked up the phone and made a call.

“Thank God,” Susan breathed. “Where’ve you been? I’ve been calling you all morning—”

“I didn’t answer the phone. I thought it was the press—”

“Oh, God. It’s been a damned circus here. All we needed were dancing elephants. The contractors couldn’t get past all the cameras and trucks. And, right in front of the microphones, the bathroom guy tells me that our plumbing’s so old, they’re going to have to replace all the pipes with copper. It’ll cost a fortune. And the deck guys are scurrying around carrying saws and lumber, so
I’m waiting for someone to break a camera or a head, and—guess what—I’d be liable—”

“Susan, stop.” I had no patience, couldn’t listen to her tales of household repairs.

“Sorry, I’m going nuts.” She raced, manic. “Tim’s ballistic. You know how private he is. When he saw the press at our door, he started cursing and threatening to sue. His veins popped out like sausages. I thought he’d have a stroke.”

I pictured stocky Tim with strings of purple hot dogs in his forehead.

“And the school bus couldn’t get through. The kids got tired of making faces out the windows, so they went upstairs and—oh my God—Julie and Lisa threw water balloons at the TV crews.”

“You’re kidding.” I couldn’t help laughing. “Really? They hit anyone?”

“Dead-on. Some reporter from Channel 10 was drenched. So, I’m screaming at the kids, and Tim’s screaming at the press, and the press is screaming at all of us—dear Lord, I can’t imagine what they’ll write about us—”

Headlines flooded my mind. “Press coverage all wet. Man’s head explodes into kielbasa.”

“If they air what went on here, we’ll have to move.”

“No, you won’t, Susan. If they show it, their ratings will soar. And you’ll probably get your own reality show.”

“Not funny, Zoe. None of this is funny. And maybe we shouldn’t discuss it on the phone.”

Why not? Were our phones tapped? Who was listening in—the feds? INS? The slave traffickers?

“I’ll meet you at the deli.” She didn’t offer an option. “Before we do anything, we’ve got to get the boat back—”

“No, it’s done. Nick took care of it.”

“Really? We don’t have to row it back?”

“No. He got Tony to do it.” Thank God. I couldn’t imagine rowing again. Not yet. Not ever.

“Great. Then let’s go eat.”

I couldn’t think about food, either. “You’re hungry?”

“What does hungry have to do with it? Be ready. Ten minutes.”

I looked at the clock. Almost nine thirty. As we hung up, the phone rang again. I picked it up reflexively, expecting Susan again, hoping for Nick, ready for a reporter.

“Hello?” I heard background noises, but nobody answered. “Hello?” I said again.

Nothing. Hanging up, I hurried to get dressed.

O
NLY
A F
EW
P
EOPLE
S
AT
A
T
B
OOTHS
IN T
HE
DELI;
A
FTER
NINE,
the place generally quieted down until lunch hour. Susan and I sat in the middle aisle near the back, away from the others.

Shadows circled Susan’s dark eyes; her normally shiny dark hair was pulled back, tucked under a baseball cap. She wore tan baggy capris and a too-tight-under-the-arms-and-around-the-bust pale green T-shirt advertising Smokey’s Bar-B-Q Ribs; probably, she’d thrown on some of her daughter Lisa’s clothes. She’d picked me up in Tim’s Lexus and hadn’t stopped talking for a moment.

“So I was up all night,” she continued as we slid into the booth. “Baked banana bread at four in the morning, washed the kitchen floor and the Venetian blinds. And then the phone started around six, with the press calling, and the phone woke up everyone but Tim, who can sleep through an earthquake. Worse than that, he can sleep through his own snoring. The kids got up, though, so it turned out good that I had the banana bread. And then the contractors started showing up. pure chaos. And, sometime, I have to get to the office; I have to prepare depositions for the Jason White case.” I had no idea who Jason White was, maybe a defense client, maybe a murder victim. Susan rattled on in an adrenaline rush until Gladys, our waitress, interrupted.

“What’ll it be?” Gladys was usually glum, but that morning she actually smiled, revealing the stainless-steel star on her right front tooth, and offered a “How ya doing?” in my direction.

I ordered for us both; Gladys had a long-standing grudge against Susan and hadn’t spoken to her for years. No one, probably
not even Gladys, could remember why. But if Susan was to eat, I had to order her food.

“Bitch,” Susan said when Gladys left. She always said “Bitch” when Gladys left. “Here—have you seen this?” She took the paper from her bag and shoved the front page at me. There were photos. The river lit by spotlights, body bags lined up on the dock. Headlines screaming, “Nineteen Bodies Floating in Schuylkill.” And a subheadline, suggesting that the women, all Asian, had been intended sex slaves.

I scanned the article. Authorities estimated that a million people each year were sold into slavery. … Human trafficking was a thriving worldwide industry. Someone from INS said that the deceased women had probably been brought to the United States to be forced into prostitution. …probably had been told that, if they went to the authorities, they or their families would be killed. Last night, nineteen women had been found…. And then I stopped reading. My eyes froze, staring at the newsprint, unable to go on.

“Zoe Hayes,” it said. I gazed at the newsprint, blinking, seeing “Susan Cummings” in the same sentence. Oh dear. Our names were in the paper. In print. On the front page.

“We got ink.” Susan clasped her hands together, her knuckles white. A criminal defense attorney, Susan generally saw publicity of any kind as a good thing. But today she seemed edgy, bothered by it. “people know who we are.”

People? Did she mean traffickers? Gladys swooped by, dropping two mugs of coffee in the center of our table as she passed.

“So, tell me,” Susan asked. “What did Nick say?”

I hedged, reaching for a mug. “Not much. You know Nick.”

“But he must have said something.” She poured sweetener and cream into her mug.

All I could think of were the things I’d promised not to mention. The hat from Humberton Barge. The tattoos on the women’s shoulders. “Nick was pretty wiped when he got in. I mean, there were nineteen bodies to process.” I shivered.

“Yeah, I know. But what about the slave thing?” She pointed to the
front page. “They were being sold right here, in philadelphia—didn’t he even mention that?” Her voice was too loud. I didn’t look around, but I could feel scattered stares.

“Of course.” I kept my voice low. “But mostly, he was pissed that the FBI and INS are taking over the case. Because of the international stuff.” I hated being in the middle, having to hide what I knew. “But honestly, I wasn’t in shape to hear many details last night.”

“So what do you think?” She lowered her voice. “How’d a bunch of Asian sex slaves end up in our river?” I had no idea.

“Do you think they drowned? All together? That doesn’t seem possible. I mean, they’d have made a racket kicking and splashing. They’d have screamed for help—unless . . .” She stopped to think, taking a sip of coffee.

“Unless?”

“Unless they were unconscious when they hit the water. Maybe drugged or something. But why? I don’t get why they’d kill them. It’d be bad for business. You wouldn’t throw a truckload of cattle into the water on the way to market.”

My head was throbbing again. “Cattle?”

“From the trafficker’s point of view, the women were just like cattle or cabbages. Or soda cans—”

“I get it.” She was probably right. But my stomach was in a knot, twisting as she continued her list.

“—Or heating oil. They were just a product to be marketed. So, instead of selling them, why would they dump them and lose the profit?”

I rubbed my temples.

Susan wouldn’t stop. “Unless—maybe they were damaged goods. Unsuitable for market. Maybe they all had AIDS—”

A gust of lilac announced Gladys’s return. “French toast, bacon, OJ, toasted bagel with.” Our plates clattered onto the table. “Anything else?”

“No, thank you, Gladys,” Susan said.

Gladys ignored her and stared at me, waiting for my reply. “We’re fine, thanks,” I managed.

Gladys winked at Susan. “Enjoy your meal.” She smiled. “What was that?” Susan asked. “Did you see that? She spoke to me!”

“Who knows. Maybe she spit in your food before she served it.”

“Eeww. She wouldn’t, would she?” She picked up a piece of bacon and turned it over, eyeing it closely.

“It’s probably okay. Gladys’s saliva can’t be as toxic as the river water we swallowed.”

“Yes, it can,” she shuddered. “The woman’s venomous. Speaking of river water, though”—Susan rotated a forkful of French toast, looking at it from all sides—”we can’t let this defeat us. We need to get back on the horse. The longer we wait, the harder it’ll get.”

Oh, no. She wanted to row again. “We haven’t waited all that long, Susan. It’s been like fourteen hours.”

“That’s not the point. We should have gotten into the boat last night and rowed the damned thing back to Humberton.”

I watched her chow down, knowing better than to argue. I recognized the signs. Normally, Susan was a powerhouse, capable of dictating legal briefs into a recorder while kneading pie dough, braiding Emily’s hair and organizing repairmen while composing a closing argument. But, for all her routine energy, there were times when Susan had dramatic mood swings, flipping in a heartbeat from elated to glum, energized to enervated. She was probably a touch manic-depressive, and when she was at either extreme of up or down—which she seemed to be at the moment— reasoning with her was futile. She could be at once fragile and ferocious; it was best to let her mood run its course. I regarded my toasted bagel in silence without appetite and took a sip of coffee, its murkiness reminding me of another dark liquid, how it had immersed me, flooding my throat, my nose.