Whisper to Me (36 page)

        1.    The whole thing with you and swimming and music? That’s going to come up again. When I see your dad, later in the story. I want you to understand it all from my point of view. I want you to see why I did the things I did. I told you: I want you to forgive me.

        2.    I didn’t say it then; I mean I would have been too embarrassed, but that day on the roof of the Flamingo Motel … that was the best day of my life, since my parents took me to Disney World for my eighth birthday. I think it was the day I fell for you, properly. It was like a game of tag. You tagged me—and after that I had no choice but to follow you. Anyway. I thought I would write about it. Because it’s all pretty dark from here on in.
Hey!
I said two reasons and I actually
gave
two reasons!

Dr. Lewis had been crying.

I was less surprised than I was by Dr. Rezwari, but still, it was pretty remarkable. I mean, he wasn’t her family, he wasn’t a
friend
—he was a psychologist. But four days after Paris had disappeared he was still crying.

We didn’t really talk about me, we just talked about Paris, tried to convince each other she was still alive. I didn’t tell him about what you and I were doing, about our private investigation. I thought he would probably tell me not to do it. Which would have been good advice.

At the end of the half hour, I didn’t stand up. “I want to stay for group,” I said.

“That’s not a bad idea,” said Dr. Lewis. “There are a lot of people here who loved Paris. Love Paris.”

“Yeah,” I said, though that wasn’t why I wanted to stay. I was out of leads, and Dwight was the only one who might have some more information on Paris. I wanted to grab him once group was over.

But Dwight wasn’t first that day, and I worried that he wasn’t going to come. Five people, maybe, turned up, poured themselves coffee into their plastic cups and then sat down on plastic chairs in the circle.

He’s not coming, he’s not—

But then he did. He rushed in, wearing that
NJPD SOFTBALL
T-shirt he was always wearing, sweat patches under the arms. His jeans had food stains on them; on his feet were old Nike sneakers. He looked stressed.

“Hey, everybody,” he said. “Cass! You’re staying for group today?”

“Yep,” I said.

“Cool.”

He sat down, and Dr. Lewis got people to talk about how they were doing. We heard about the Red Voice and how it had been very aggressive all week, had made Rasheed burn himself with cigarettes.

“My dad’s voice has been bad this week too,” said Dwight. “Telling me I’m worthless. Telling me I’ll never amount to anything. That I don’t care about … don’t care about …”

“It’s okay,” said Dr. Lewis. “Go slow.”

“That I don’t care about Paris.”

“We all care about Paris,” said Dr. Lewis. “The voices can’t change that.”

“We all care. But we’re not all
cops
,” said Dwight.

Dr. Lewis nodded. “You feel a personal sense of responsibility.”

Dwight: “**** yeah, I do! I know what people say. That we don’t care about the whores, that we’re not doing anything. But we have nothing. We have no clues. Nothing. ****. I shouldn’t be talking about this.”

“This is a confidential environment,” said Dr. Lewis. “You’re in the circle of trust.”

“Anyway,” said Dwight. “I
do
care.”

“In this instance, then,” said Dr. Lewis, “the voice is representing the opinion of some of the media. That the police are incompetent.”

“I guess.”

“So tell the voice what you would tell the media. That it doesn’t understand the facts. Remind it of your schedule. You have it down to once a week, yes? The voice can talk on Fridays?”

“I did,” said Dwight. “Before …”

“Paris,” I said. I didn’t mean to speak, I just did.

“Yeah. Your voice bad too?” said Dwight. His zits had come back hard, fresh new red spots over his scars.

I forced myself back into the moment. “Yeah. Before … before, I had a big victory.” I looked out at the faces of the people. This was the first time I had spoken in group. They were looking at me with love, it seemed to me, their faces shining, some with hands clasped together. Willing me on. I smiled to myself. “The voice wanted me to cut off my toe and said it would kill my dad in the night if I didn’t. I didn’t. I couldn’t sleep all night, but in the morning my dad was alive.”

“That’s amazing, Cass,” said Dr. Lewis. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“No,” I said. “I get that the voice doesn’t have the power it thinks it does. But then Paris … and then it started being nasty again. Insulting me. Telling me—”

“That you’re a nobody little ***** and everybody hates you.”

That was the voice.

Obviously.

“—telling me bad things,” I finished lamely.

“Anyone else?” said Dr. Lewis. “Let’s talk about how Paris’s disappearance has impacted our voice hearing.”

Blah.

Blah.

Etc.

Here’s the important part:

After the group was finished, I hung back. I was bursting with my insight; I was such an idiot. So naive. Thinking I could get Dwight to help me.

When Dwight was leaving I kind of followed outside the bowling alley to the 7-Eleven. At the coffee counter where the sugar and stuff was, I touched his arm. He had a bag slung over his shoulder.

“You’re working on the Houdini Killer case, right?” I said. “With Agent Horowitz and the other guy, the fat one?”

“Cass! I shouldn’t—”

“But you are?” I had told Julie not to talk to the cops, but I trusted Dwight. I had heard him talk about his voice, about the way his dad abused him. I
knew
he wasn’t the Houdini Killer. I knew that. I thought I knew a lot of things.

He sighed and nodded.

“There must be something I can do.”

“Leave it to the police,” said Dwight. “That’s what you should do.”

“She could be … being killed. Right now.”

“Or she could have run away. Gone back to New York.”

“Horowitz said that too,” I said. “But why would she? She left New York because her dad … because her dad …”

“I know,” said Dwight. “I was in group with her, remember?”

“So what about him?” I said. “Have you checked him out?”

Dwight nodded. “Parents say they haven’t seen her. And the dad has an alibi. A woman from his work who’ll swear he was with her.”

“You believe her?”

“It’s not like a movie,” said Dwight. “When people lie it’s not obvious. Point is, it’s a dead end. We have her photo with every police precinct on the East Coast. If she turns up, she turns up. Other than that, we have nothing. No evidence, no clues. Nothing.”

“He’s lying,” said the voice. “He’s a ******** liar. He knows something, but he’s not telling.”

“After six p.m.,” I said quietly to the voice.

“Your voice?” said Dwight.

“Yeah. And it’s saying that you’re a liar. That there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“There’s an ass-load I’m not telling you! I’m a cop. This is all confidential stuff.”

“It’s Paris,” I said. “If you know something important, I need you to tell me.”

“I don’t know something important.”

“But you suspect something.”

“No! Leave it, okay?”

“Dwight, please …”

“Jesus, Cass. I shouldn’t even be having this conversation. And I have nothing more to tell you; nothing that will help you or Paris. I promise.”

I sighed. I could sense I wasn’t going to get anything more out of him voluntarily.

So I held my breath for as long as I could—I mean, literally held it in my lungs.

“Cass, you okay?”

I was, but I was hoping I looked pale. I let my eyes go droopy and slumped a little. “I get … low blood sugar,” I said. “Would you get … some candy?”

“Candy?”

“Yeah. It has to be …” I kept my body floppy, kind of leaned on the counter, as if to hold myself up. “… nut free. Can you check with them?”

Dwight hesitated.

“Please?”

“Sure,” he said finally. He dropped his bag on the floor by my feet and went over to the cash register. I saw him talking to the Mexican guy there, finding out what was safe.

“Quick,” said the voice. “While his back is turned.”

I took out my cell phone and reached down for his bag.

And there it was, inside his briefcase. A thick brown file, closed with loops of elastic:

OAKWOOD PD ACTIVE FILE LF-098

I flipped it open quickly, took as many photos as I could, turning the pages. I got maybe twenty, and then I saw Dwight coming back over—a rack of Jersey Shore car magnets was partially shielding me—and I dropped the file back into the bag and straightened up.

“Skittles,” I said as he leaned against the counter and handed them over. “My … favorite.”

The next morning I was sitting at home on my bed with my cell. I started paging through the photos of the case file. I hadn’t been able to check what I was capturing—had just pointed and shot, getting as many pictures as I could. You would have been proud of me. I mean, I had to learn to use the camera function specially, practiced the previous night, taking pictures of my wall, pages from my books.

Almost immediately I stopped cold. Staring at the photo in front of me, of maybe the very first page in the case file.
I should have known
, I thought.
It should have been obvious.

It was right there in black and white on one of the first pages:

Investigation into the disappearance of Lily Eleanor French
.

Lily.

Eleanor.

Not Paris. She must have taken the name for herself, maybe when she started … working. Because of her surname being French, maybe? Or before that, I don’t know.

I remembered her saying to Shane that she was more Paris, Texas, than Paris, France, and now I thought:
not Paris at all.

I wondered if Julie knew she was really named Lily. I figured it didn’t really matter anyway. She wasn’t Lily to me. She was Paris.

Minutes passed. I was still looking at the name. Somehow it struck me as the saddest thing of all, this revelation. It was like … like an invasion of privacy. I mean, any investigation
is
an invasion of privacy. But.

So, after a few minutes of just sitting there, getting used to this new reality, I made a simple decision: I was going to un-know this information. I was going to keep thinking of her as Paris. Because that was how she wanted me to think of her.

I started going through the photos again. There was nothing else in them I didn’t know already—there was no evidence at the house; no fingerprints other than Paris’s; no blood. Her father’s alibi, in stark print.

Mr. French was with me all night. We ate beef bourguignonne with an excellent Bordeaux.

Her mother:

I haven’t seen Lily for two years, not since she moved down to that awful town of yours.

There was Julie’s witness statement too, the first part of it—I hadn’t managed to get any more with my phone camera.
She went into the house. After that I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up she was calling my phone
 …

I skimmed the rest. I already knew it.

I clicked to the next picture—my wall.

I was back to the start.

I had quite literally hit a wall.

I put my phone down. I felt even more sorry for Paris. Somehow, knowing she was really Lily … it made her seem smaller. More exposed. Younger.

She wasn’t much older than you
, I reminded myself.

There was nothing in the case file, absolutely nothing. Like Dwight had said. Paris had just disappeared, and there were literally no clues to follow. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe I just had to … stop.

“You’re not giving up that easily?” said the voice.

“Huh?”

“On finding her. You’re not giving up, are you?”

“What do you want me to do?” I said. “The police don’t know anything.”

“So?”