Undone (35 page)

He used the backs of his hands to wipe his tears. At last, he said, “Olivia was bulimic. I think she might still be anorexic, but she swore to me the purging was under control.”

Faith realized she had been holding her breath. Olivia Tanner had an eating disorder, just like Pauline McGhee and Jackie Zabel.

Will asked, “When did it start?”

“Ten, eleven. I don’t remember. I’m three years younger. All I can recall is that it was horrible. She just… She just started to waste away.”

Will only nodded, letting the man speak.

“Olivia was always obsessed with her looks. She was so pretty, but she never accepted…” Michael paused. “I guess Dad made it worse. He was always pinching her, teasing her, telling her she needed to get rid of her baby fat. She wasn’t fat. She was a normal girl. She was beautiful.
Was
beautiful. Do you know what happens when you starve yourself like that?”

Michael was looking at Faith now, and she shook her head.

“She got pressure sores on her back. Big, gaping wounds where her bones rubbed holes in her skin. She couldn’t ever sit down, couldn’t get comfortable. She was cold all the time, couldn’t feel her hands and feet. Some days she didn’t even have the energy to walk to the bathroom. She would just defecate on herself.” He stopped as the memories obviously flooded back. “She slept ten, twelve hours a day. She lost her hair. She would go into these uncontrollable shaking fits. Her heart would race. Her skin was just… it was disgusting. Flaky, dry scales would just fleck off her body. And she thought it was all worth it. She thought it made her beautiful.”

“Was she ever hospitalized?”

He laughed, as if they couldn’t begin to understand how horrible the situation had been. “She was in and out of Houston General all the time. They would put her on a feeding tube. She would gain enough weight so that they would let her leave the hospital, then she’d go back to purging herself again as soon as she got out. Her kidneys shut down twice. There was a lot of concern about the damage she was doing to her heart. I was so angry with her then. I didn’t understand why she was doing something, willingly doing something so awful to herself. It just seemed… Why would you starve yourself? Why would you put yourself through…” He looked around the room, the cold place his sister had created for herself. “Control. She just wanted to control one thing, and I guess that one thing was what went into her mouth.”

Faith asked, “Was she better? I mean, recently.”

He nodded and shrugged at the same time. “She got better when she got away from my father. Went off to college, got a business degree. She moved here to Atlanta. I think the distance helped her.”

“Was she in therapy?”

“No.”

“How about a support group? Or maybe an online chat room?”

He shook his head, certain. “Olivia didn’t think she needed help. She thought she had it all under control.”

“Did she have any friends, or—”

“No. She had no one.”

“Is your father still alive?”

“He died about ten years ago. It was very peaceful. Everyone was so pleased that he just passed in his sleep.”

“Is Olivia a religious person? She doesn’t go to church or—”

“She would burn down the Vatican if she could get past the guards.”

Will asked, “Do the names Jacquelyn Zabel, Pauline McGhee or Anna mean anything to you?”

He shook his head.

“Have you or your sister ever been to Michigan?”

He gave them a puzzled look. “Never. I mean, I haven’t. Olivia has lived in Atlanta all her adult life, but she might have taken a trip there I wasn’t aware of.”

Will tried, “How about the words, ‘I will not deny myself Does that mean anything to you?”

“No. But it’s the exact opposite of what Olivia does in her life. She denies herself everything.”

“How about ‘thinspo,’ or ‘thinspiration’?”

Again, he shook his head. “No.”

Faith took over. “What about kids? Did Olivia have children? Or want children?”

“It would have been physically impossible,” the man answered. “Her body… the damage she did to herself. There was no way she could carry a child.”

“She could adopt.”

“Olivia hated children.” His voice was so low that Faith could barely hear him. “She knew what could happen to them.”

Will asked the question that was on Faith’s mind. “Do you think she was doing it again — starving herself?”

“No,” Michael said. “Not like before, at least. That’s why she called me every morning, six sharp, to let me know she was okay. Sometimes I’d pick up the phone and she’d talk to me; other times, she’d just say, ‘I’m okay,’ and hang up the phone. I think it was a lifeline for her. I hope it was.”

Faith said, “But she didn’t call you yesterday. Is it possible that she was mad at you?”

“No.” He wiped his eyes again. “She never got mad at me. She worried about me. She worried about me all the time.”

Will only nodded, so Faith asked, “Why did she worry?”

“Because she was…” Michael stopped, clearing his throat a couple of times.

Will said, “She was protecting him from their dad.”

Michael kept nodding, and the room got quiet again. He seemed to be working up his courage. “Do you think—” He stopped himself. “Olivia would never change her routine.”

Will stared him straight in the eye. “I can be kind or I can be honest, Dr. Tanner. There are only three possibilities here. One is that your sister wandered off. People do that. You wouldn’t believe how often it happens. The other is, she’s been in an accident or she’s hurt—”

“I called the hospitals.”

“The Atlanta police did, too. They checked all their reports and everyone’s accounted for.”

Michael nodded, probably because he already knew this. “What’s the third possibility?” he asked softly.

“Someone has taken her,” Will answered. “Someone who means to do her harm.”

Michael’s throat worked. He stared down at his hands for a good long while before finally nodding. “Thank you for your honesty, Detective.”

Will stood up. He asked, “Do you mind if we look around the house, check through your sister’s things?”

Again the man nodded, and Will told Faith, “I’ll check upstairs. You take down here.”

He didn’t give her time to discuss the plan, and Faith decided not to argue with him, even though Olivia Tanner probably kept her home computer upstairs.

She left Michael Tanner in the living room and wandered into the kitchen. Light poured in from the windows, making everything seem even more white. The kitchen was beautiful, but just as sterile as the rest of the house. The countertops were completely bare except for the thinnest television Faith had ever seen. Even the cords for the cable and plug were hidden, snaking down a thin hole in the lightly veined marble.

The walk-in pantry had very little food. What was there was stacked neatly in line, boxes face-out to show the brands, cans all turned in the same direction. There were six economy-size bottles of aspirin still in their packaging. The brand was different from the one Faith had found in Jackie Zabel’s bedroom, but she found it odd that both women took so much aspirin.

Yet another detail that did not make sense.

Faith made some phone calls as she searched the kitchen cabinets. As quietly as she could, she requested a background check on Michael Tanner, just to clear him from the picture. Her next call was a request to borrow some patrolmen from the Atlanta police to canvass the neighborhood. She’d put a phone dump on Olivia Tanner’s home phone so they could see who she had been talking to, but the woman’s cell phone was probably registered to the bank. If they were really lucky, there was a BlackBerry somewhere so they could read her email. Maybe Olivia had someone in her life that her brother didn’t know about. Faith shook her head, knowing this was a long shot. The house was a showplace, but it didn’t feel lived in. There were no parties here, no weekend get-togethers. Certainly, no man was living here.

What had Olivia Tanner’s life been like? Faith had worked missing persons cases before. The key to finding out what happened to the women — they were all usually women — was to try to put yourself in their shoes. What were their likes and dislikes? Who were their friends? What was so awful about their boyfriend/husband/ lover that made them want to pick up and leave?

With Olivia, there were no clues, no emotional anchors to pounce on. The woman lived in a lifeless house without a comfortable chair to sink into at the end of the day. All her plates and bowls were unscratched, unchipped and looked unused. Even the coffee cups were sparkling at the bottom. How could Faith relate to a woman who lived in a perfectly kept white box?

Faith returned to the kitchen cabinets, again finding nothing out of place. Even what she would’ve considered the junk drawer was neat — screwdrivers in a plastic case, hammer resting on a ball of twine. Faith ran her finger along the inside seam of the cabinet, finding no grit or dirt. There was something to be said for a woman who dusted her kitchen cabinets inside and out.

Faith opened the bottom drawer and found an oversized envelope like the kind used for mailing photographs. She opened the top and found a stack of glossy pages that had been neatly cut from magazines. All of them showed models in various stages of undress, no matter whether they were selling perfume or gold watches. These weren’t the usual women you found in sweater sets and pearls as they cheerily dusted their houses and cleaned up after adorable children. These models were meant to convey sex, wantonness and, above all, thinness.

Faith had seen some of these bone-thin models before. She skimmed the pages of
Cosmo
and
Vogue
and
Elle
just like every other person who ever waited in line at the grocery store, but seeing these anorexic women now, knowing that Olivia Tanner had chosen these pictures not because she wanted to remember to buy a new eye shadow or lip gloss, but because she considered the airbrushed skeletons an attainable goal, made Faith feel sick to her stomach.

She thought again about Michael Tanner’s words, the torture his sister had put herself through in order to be thin. She couldn’t figure out why Will was so certain the woman had been trying to protect her brother. It seemed unlikely that a man who raped his daughter would go after his son, but Faith had been a cop too long to believe criminals followed a logical pattern. Despite her own teenage pregnancy, the Mitchell family was fairly normal. There were no abusive alcoholics or sex-crazed uncles. In matters of severe childhood dysfunction, she always deferred to Will.

He had never outright confirmed anything, but she guessed that he had suffered a great deal of abuse as a child. His upper lip had obviously been busted open and not allowed to heal properly. The faint scar running down the side of his jaw and going into his collar looked old, the type of thing you got as a kid and lived with for the rest of your life. She had worked with Will during the hottest months of the summer and never seen him roll up his shirtsleeves or even loosen his tie. His question about how Olivia Tanner punished herself was especially revealing. Faith often thought that Angie Polaski was a punishment that Will continually brought down on himself.

She heard footsteps on the stairs. Will entered the kitchen, shaking his head. “I hit the redial on the upstairs phone. I got the brother’s answering machine in Houston.”

There was a book in his hand. “What’s that?”

He handed her the slim novel, which had a library band on the spine. The jacket showed a naked woman sitting on her haunches. She was wearing high heels, but the pose was more artistic than kinky, sending the distinct message that this was literature, not trash. So, not the type of book Faith would ever read. She skimmed the back copy and told Will, “It’s about a woman who’s a diabetic meth addict and her abusive father.”

“A love story.” He guessed the title.
“Exposé?”

He was close enough. Faith had figured out that he generally read the first three letters of a word and guessed the rest. More often than not, he was right, but odd words threw him off.

She put the book facedown on the counter. “Did you find a computer?”

“No computer. No diary. No calendar.” He opened drawers, finding the television remote. He turned on the set, tilting the screen toward him. “This is the only TV in the house.”

“There isn’t one in the bedroom?”

“No.” Will flipped through the channels, finding the usual digital offerings. “She doesn’t have cable. There’s not a DSL modem on the junction box in the basement.”

“So, she doesn’t have high-speed Internet,” Faith surmised. “Maybe she uses dial-up. She could have a laptop at work.”

“Or someone could’ve taken it.”

“Or she just keeps her work at the office. Her brother says she’s on the job from sunup till sundown.”

He turned off the television. “Did you find anything down here?”

“Aspirin,” Faith said, indicating the bottles in the pantry. “What did you mean about Olivia protecting Michael?”

“It’s what we were talking about at Pauline’s. Did your parents have much time for your brother when you got into trouble?”

Faith shook her head, realizing what he had said made perfect sense. Olivia had drawn all the negative attention away from her brother so that he could have some semblance of a life. No wonder the man was racked with guilt. He was a survivor.

Will was looking out the back window, up at the seemingly vacant house behind Olivia’s. “Those curtains on the door are bothering me.”

Faith joined him by the window. He was right. All the blinds were closed on the back windows except for the curtains that hung open on the basement doors.

Faith raised her voice. “Dr. Tanner, we’re going to step outside a minute. We’ll be right back.”

“All right,” the man returned.

His voice still sounded shaky, so Faith added, “We haven’t found anything yet. We’re still just looking.”

She waited. There was no response.

Will held open the back door and they both walked onto the deck.

He said, “Her clothes are all size two. Is that normal?”