Cemetery Girl (8 page)

Liann still looked like she wanted to say something, but she didn’t. I didn’t care about their back-and-forth, their little power plays and gamesmanship. I wanted to know something else, something most important to me.

“Ryan, wait,” I said. “I forgot to ask her something, that woman in there—Tracy.” I searched for the right words. “I wanted to know if she thought . . . did she think Caitlin was . . . I know she wasn’t okay, of course, but . . . was she—is she okay?”

Ryan came over and placed his big hand on my shoulder. Beyond a handshake, I don’t think he’d ever touched me before. I felt like a little boy being comforted, and it was reassuring.

“Wait here with Liann,” he said. He gave me a couple of good pats and started back toward the door. “I’ll talk to you when I come out.”

Chapter Eight

L
iann refused to sit. As soon as Ryan went inside, she started to pace back and forth. It was like some portion of my nervous energy had been transferred to her.

“I know what he’s doing in there,” she said. “It’s the way the police operate, especially male cops. He’s in there trying to knock all the supports out from under her story. He’s trying to get the whole thing to collapse. That’s his goal, Tom—make no mistake about it. He doesn’t want to believe her. He wants to doubt her.”

“I don’t think so, Liann. This is it. This is real. Once he talks to her, he’ll see it.”

She spun toward me and jabbed her finger toward the door of the Fantasy Club. “The cops are the ones pushing the possibility that Caitlin ran away. You know that, don’t you? It’s shown up in the papers, right? ‘Police department sources say . . .’ Maybe it’s not Ryan himself. He may not think that. But cops like to push the runaway theory. It makes it easier on them. It gets them off the hook.” She slowed down and turned away. She seemed to be cooling off a little. “It’s what the police always do. They criminalize the victim. They blame her.”

“But could she have run away? What if what Tracy said in there . . . ?” I made a futile gesture behind me, toward the club. I couldn’t say it, but Liann knew what I meant.

Caitlin, on her knees in front of that man . . . Doesn’t that mean she wanted to be there?

“No, Tom.” Liann came back over and sat next to me, her index finger raised like a stern schoolteacher’s. “You can never think that,” she said. “That’s the way the police think. You know your daughter. Do you think she ran away? Really?”

I shook my head. “No.”

I wished I could get the image out of my head, the picture created by Tracy’s words. But I did want to know
him
. I wanted to see the face of that man, the one who took Caitlin.

“You can’t waver, Tom. I’ve been telling you that from day one. That’s why you needed to hear that story in there. You can’t forget what this is about.”

“Right,” I said. “It’s about finding Caitlin.”

Liann nodded, but not as vigorously as I would have expected. It seemed like she was holding something back, some other part of the answer that I hadn’t provided. Before I could ask for clarification, my phone rang. I allowed myself to hope, for just a split second, that it was Ryan calling from inside the club, needing me to come in and participate, to hear some key piece of information he’d just uncovered. But the name on the caller ID screen made much more sense.

Abby.

I told Liann.

“Are you going to answer?”

“No.” I silenced the ringing. “She’s going to be mad.” I looked over at Liann. “I skipped out on the service at the cemetery today. I went out for a drink with my brother.”

“Jesus, Tom.”

“It’s worse. I didn’t tell her. I just didn’t show up.”

Liann shook her head. “You have your work cut out for you. Of course, you have this news to tell her. You could call her back and let her know.”

“I’ll tell her when we know more from Ryan,” I said. “Besides, I’m not even sure how much Abby will care about this. She wants to turn the page. It might interrupt her mourning.”

Liann fiddled with the large bracelet on her left wrist. “I’m not a big fan of Abby’s decision to move on, either.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I just think that closure isn’t the best thing in a case like Caitlin’s,” she said. “You don’t want anyone—not the police, not the community—to think you’re ready to move on until you really are. And I don’t think you’re ready to move on, Tom.”

“I guess it was different for you. You knew Elizabeth was really gone.”

“We had a body,” she said. “And a real funeral. Not a memorial or whatever you had today.” She raised her index finger to make the next point. “And we had a conviction. Don’t forget that. We got the guy.”

“Did that really help?” I asked.

Liann kept her finger in the air. “It didn’t hurt,” she said. “It sure as hell didn’t hurt.”

“What about your marriage?” I asked. “I don’t want to be a fucking cliché, you know? The parents of a missing child who can’t keep their marriage alive. How did you two do it?”

She lowered her hand and shook her head. “It’s a long road, Tom,” she said. “A long, long road.”

It took Ryan nearly an hour to come out. An hour, or what felt like twenty twangy thumping songs I didn’t want to hear, and by the time Ryan reemerged I was cursing the first person who’d ever banged on a drum to create music. Liann and I stood up when we saw him.

Ryan’s face was unreadable, obscure. “Tom,” he said, and made a gesture indicating he wanted me to move a little ways off and talk to him alone.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Liann can hear.”

He didn’t look at Liann. “I’d rather talk to you alone.”

“Liann is a friend,” I said. “She knows all about Caitlin’s case. She’s been there from the beginning. I’d like her to hear. I’d like the extra set of ears.”

Ryan’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes shifted so that he considered me with a sideways glance.

“Okay,” he said. “What do you want to know, Tom?”

“I want to know what you thought of her story. Do you think she saw Caitlin?”

“Well, I like to take a long view of these things,” he said. He stood with one hand in his pocket and the other rested on his belt. “I’m skeptical of stories like these—”

“Here we go,” Liann said.

Ryan took a deep breath and went on, ignoring her.

“I’m skeptical of these stories that show up in the wake of an event like Caitlin’s service today. This woman says she saw the story in the paper and remembered, but it’s just as likely the story in the paper suggested something to her that wasn’t already there. It happens all the time in these cases.”

“But she’s not talking about what’s in the paper,” I said. “She’s telling a different story, one that no one else has heard.”

Ryan nodded. “I agree. She does tell an impressive story. It’s well detailed, convincingly so.”

“You’re saying it’s just that, a story?” I asked.

“I’m saying consider the length of time that passed before she came forward. Six months.”

“She didn’t know—”

Ryan raised his hand, cutting Liann off.

“Six months later. And consider her profession. A dancer in a club like this.” He turned to Liann. “No doubt with a record?”

“Criminalization of the victim,” Liann said.

“She’s not the victim,” Ryan said. “She’s a witness.”

“She’s been a victim in the past,” Liann said.

“She has?” I asked.

“Most of these girls have been.”

“She’s a witness now,” Ryan said, “and who she is counts just as much as what she says.”

I waved my arms, cutting them off. “So you’re just going to do nothing?” I asked.

The door opened behind me, and we all turned. Two men in suits strolled out, and they turned and looked at us, almost coming to a stop. They didn’t say anything, and when Ryan gave them the stare down, they moved on, chuckling to themselves over our little show.

When I spoke again, I tried to keep my voice under control. But I couldn’t keep the desperation out of it. “This is our only hope right now, Ryan. Shit, this is the only hope we’ve ever had.” I spoke through gritted teeth. “You’ve got to do something, goddamn it! Ryan—” My voice almost broke. “This is it, you know? This has to be it.”

“She’s agreed to meet with a sketch artist from the Columbus PD,” he said. “We’ll set it up in the next day or two. We’ll get the sketch out to the media.”

“Is that all you can do?” I asked.

“The sketch should get us a lot of attention,” Ryan said. “We’ll hear things, but not necessarily the right things. It’s not a magic bullet. I don’t want you to think it is.”

“You need to get behind the sketch, Ryan,” Liann said. “You need to push it to the press like you believe in it. And no mention of Tracy’s occupation or past criminal history. It’s irrelevant.”

“Tom,” Ryan said, “I don’t want to downplay what happened here tonight. It’s a good lead, maybe the best we’ve had. We should all be glad about that, and we’ll work it as far as it will take us.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got another case we’re wrapping up, so I have to get back, but if you or Abby”—he emphasized our names, excluding Liann—“have any questions, please call. Anytime, just call.”

I fell back onto the bench, my weight carrying me down. I let my elbows rest on the tops of my knees and watched Ryan go around and open his car door. He stopped before he climbed in.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t at the church today,” he said. “I meant to be. I try my best to attend those events, but this other case . . .”

He didn’t finish the thought. He started the engine, and the tires kicked up gravel while Liann and I watched him go.

Chapter Nine

A
light burned in our living room when I came home, and at the end of our driveway sat two cars—Abby’s and Pastor Chris’s. He must have driven her home after the graveside service and the potluck, and he must have stayed to keep her company while waiting for me. A knot of jealousy twisted in my gut. Buster was right—there was little or nothing left between Abby and me. In fact, for the past six months, I’d been sleeping alone in the guest room. Our hand-holding at the church felt, just hours later, like a forced gesture, one given in to out of the emotion of the moment.

I entered the kitchen through the back door. The house was quiet, the kitchen clean. The red light on the coffeemaker glowed, and the rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee hung in the air. I remembered the evenings I came home from work when Caitlin was still a toddler. The excitement I felt at just coming through the door, being with my wife and child. The comfort of having such a secure and solid home and family. I thought it would never end.

“Abby?”

I moved down the hallway to the front of the house, past a wall of framed photos. Our wedding. Caitlin through the years, including the one I carried with me at all times, the one I’d shown Pete at the Fantasy Club. But I also saw the empty spaces where Abby had removed some photos of Caitlin—her kindergarten portrait, a photo of her as a newborn, a snapshot of her soccer team. Pieces of Caitlin disappeared before my eyes as I walked down the hall.

Abby sat on the end of the couch but didn’t look up or meet my eye. Pastor Chris did. He sat legs crossed, a mug of coffee in his hand, and when he saw me he smiled, his face full of cheery judgment.

“Evening, Tom,” he said, as though he and I were old friends getting together to shoot the breeze on a fall evening.

“I need to talk to Abby,” I said.

“Of course,” he said.

“Alone.”

Abby kept her head down. She held balled-up tissues in her hand, and her cheeks looked blotchy and raw. I waited, my lips pressed tightly together.

Pastor Chris leaned in close to Abby and whispered something I couldn’t hear, even in the small room. She nodded her head in response. The intimacy, the closeness of the gesture, carried out as it was right before my eyes made me mash my lips together even tighter.

Pastor Chris set down his mug, uncrossed his legs, and stood up. He placed his hand on Abby’s shoulder.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Abby,” he said. He nodded at me. “Tom.”

“You won’t see me tomorrow,” I said.

Pastor Chris didn’t blink or appear thrown off stride. He held his smile and considered me with the perpetual placidity of the truly certain.

“But our door is always open to you,” he said, and left the house as though he didn’t have a care in the world, leaving Abby and me alone.

“Abby?”

I settled into an overstuffed chair across from her.

“Abby, I have something to tell you. Something pretty amazing.”

“You humiliated me today, Tom.”

Her words hung between us, a thick cloud of recrimination. I knew the way Abby acted when she was angry or hurt. She was a lot like me in that regard. She seethed, quietly.

“I know, but—”

“Everybody wanted to know where you were, why you weren’t there with us. What was I supposed to tell them?”

“Tell them you lied.”

“What?”

“All that bullshit at church, all the stuff about heaven. Pastor Chris saying I believed Caitlin was in heaven.”

“I don’t have control over what Chris says.”

“Right.”

“I don’t.”

“Okay,” I said. “Okay.” I didn’t want to fight; I wanted to tell Abby about Tracy, about my conversation with Ryan, about the sketch. I forced a calm into my voice that I didn’t feel. “I felt trapped there, Abby,” I said. “It felt like I was watching a play, and I was in the play but I was also watching myself. And I felt no connection to any of it. It didn’t seem like they were talking about me anymore, about my life, so I needed to leave. I should have told you. But I found something out. That’s what I came home to tell you.”

“You left me standing alone at our daughter’s grave.”

“It’s not her grave. Don’t say that. It’s not her grave at all. That’s what I’m telling you. Someone saw her. Someone I met today. They saw Caitlin. Alive. She’s alive. The police came, Ryan came, and he took a statement, and they’re going to do a sketch and everything, and it means she’s alive.”

Abby looked at me for the first time. Really looked at me. The tip of her nose was red from where she’d rubbed it with the Kleenex. Something stirred inside me for this woman. Not as simple as pity, which I might feel for a stranger. It was something more complicated, something deeper. The thick roots of love and resentment tangled together and were almost impossible to unravel. I thought I was reaching her.