Cemetery of Angels (3 page)

The town police said they would watch her block for the next few nights. Once, at 3:30 A.M., she rose from her bed and looked out a window. She saw a police cruiser sitting right in front of the house, like a dark oblong phantom nestled in the falling snow and the muffled moonlight. The car’s engine was running; she could see the exhaust and the light was on within the vehicle. The policeman was probably reading, she figured.

She took the occasion to check Patrick and Karen in their individual bedrooms. Both were safe, sleeping blissfully. Little angels. She kissed them both. Never had she thought that she wouldn’t live to see them grow up. Never had she been more appreciative of being alive.

When she re-awakened at 4:00 A.M. and checked the front window again, the police cruiser was gone. But it was back again at a few minutes past five. Rebecca’s senses were so on edge that, lying in bed, she could hear the police car’s engine.

Then, from five to six-thirty, she managed to sleep. Her clock radio alarm beeped at its usual hour and, heavily fatigued, thinking back on the previous evening as if it had been some horrible nightmare, she rose to get her children off to school.

For the next few days, Bill was greatly indulgent with her, taking care to defer to her wishes on all things, allay her fears, and tell her that he loved her. The police returned the Dodge Caravan a day later. The crime lab had taken the paint sample and searched the vehicle for fingerprints. But nothing had turned up.

Similarly, the baseball bat that Rebecca recalled dropping in the snow revealed no prints other than her own and those of her son. Nor did it even appear to have been in the snow. If it had been moved, it had been moved by a gloved hand. Nonetheless, the Fairfield police continued to keep their block under surveillance. State Police cars came by frequently, too, making a display of their presence.

Detective Chandler made every effort to attain some progress in the case. He sat with Rebecca as she went over thousands of mug shots of violent felons provided by neighboring communities, from the Bronx to Massachusetts. Again, Rebecca found nothing. A police artist did a composite photo from Rebecca’s description of her attacker. The computerized likeness of her assailant was an excellent one. It ran in the local newspapers. There were a few crank calls, but in the end, nothing emerged there, either.

Emotionally, Rebecca was a wreck. Her nerves were shattered. Little inexplicable noises in her home, a cranky radiator or a creaking floorboard, were enough to send her heart racing. Twice in the days after the attack, members of her family appeared in her bedroom quietly and unexpectedly. Once it was Bill, the other time it was Karen. On both occasions Rebecca let out a shriek.

Her husband conferred with the family physician. There was a psychiatrist in Southport, the doctor suggested, named Todd Miller. Dr. Miller had had considerable success helping stressed-out crime victims. The Moores made an appointment. Rebecca felt comfortable talking to Dr. Miller every Thursday morning.

Detective Chandler made a file of every newspaper article Rebecca had written for
Westpress
in her six years as a reporter. He created a list of people of whom she might have written unfavorably. He searched for someone she might have harmed. Some violent sorehead with a grievance. He came up with a dozen names. Ten men and two women.

“Any of these people?” he asked. “Would any of them feel strongly enough to have you attacked?”

Rebecca and her husband narrowed the list to three names, all men. Chandler followed the leads until they disintegrated. There was no progress here, either.

Quietly, Chandler even made inquiries locally about Bill Moore. In Connecticut at least, he had been a model citizen for the last seven years. Chandler dropped that line: it was proving as fruitless as the others.

Looking for a motive for someone trying to kill Rebecca was as elusive as finding bullets in the freshly fallen snow. The bullets and the motives had one thing in common: they just weren’t there. And, of course, neither were the tire tracks. Nor was there blood from the man she had said she had hit. Or any foot prints. Even the paint marks on the front of her van failed to help. The paint could have been from anywhere.

The whole thing seemed elusive. And eventually, it seemed suspicious. That was the only angle, in fact, which began to emerge for Chandler. The absence of everything.

Three weeks passed. Then a full month. April arrived, and with it a thaw from the worst winter of Rebecca’s life. Sergeant Chandler went back to Rebecca’s husband as a suspect. The detective played around with theories again, some of them even involving Bill as the attacker or Bill as the instigator.

But then he ditched them. That line of thought didn’t work. Or at least Chandler couldn’t make it work. Bill Moore seemed so supportive. He needed his wife. He wanted his wife. As much as could be seen, Bill Moore appeared to love his wife.

So where was a motive in this case? Where was financial profit? The Moores had a bundle of life insurance, but who didn’t in Fairfield County? Was sex a motive? Chandler couldn’t make that one fly, either. True, Rebecca had seemed like an intended target. But increasingly, the assault looked like a random act.

It could have happened to any woman. Or, following another theoretical line, had the assault happened at all?

Sergeant Chandler was at his desk one night seven weeks after the initial incident. He put his feet up and kicked back. For almost half an hour, he worked on a theory that he had been playing with but hadn’t voiced.

Then his chair returned to earth. He took out his file and looked through it again, examining Rebecca Moore’s sworn statement from the day following the alleged incident. He examined her statement against the thorough lack of any supporting evidence.

Then he began to fine-tune his theory. Two days later, he saw Bill Moore’s car parked near Hazelwood’s Appliances on Main Street in Fairfield.

Chandler parked his car and waited. Bill Moore came out of a paint store two doors down from Hazelwood’s. He was just placing a hand on his own car door when he heard a familiar voice.

“Mr. Moore? How are you?” Moore turned and, startled, recognized the policeman.

“I’m fine,” he answered.

“I saw your car, see?” Chandler said. “So I waited.” Bill Moore gave the policeman a nervous smile.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Anything new on Becca’s case?”

“Nothing new,” the cop said, “but I need to talk to you.” Now it was Bill Moore’s turn to break a sweat.

“Can we talk here?” he asked.

“Is your wife with you right now?” Chandler asked.

“No. She’s not. So tell me what’s going on,” Moore asked.

Sergeant Chandler walked Moore toward his police car. Bill Moore looked jittery, as if he were going to be arrested. But he had long ago been eliminated as a suspect.

“In a case like this,” Sergeant Chandler began carefully, “we can use computers, work out theories, speculate, make a hundred phone calls, and wear out a lot of shoe leather. But in the end, all we really have is what’s in front of us. We work up all the evidence and draw our conclusions. Still with me?”

Moore was. Nervously, he was right with it.

“Taking your wife’s case,” the policeman continued, “we have a damaged car, deep brown paint on the front left side. The paint, the bump, the scratches. These things could have come from anywhere. Then we had some skid marks in the snow where her car went off the road. And we found some footprints where your wife ran toward the woods. But nothing really in the woods themselves.” There was a long pause. “We have photographs of that. But then again, the snow fell heavily between the time of the alleged attack and the time we went to the woods. And against this, we found no fingerprints, no blood, no footprints, and no witnesses.”

“So what are you suggesting?” Bill Moore asked. Chandler drew a long sigh. “How have you been getting on with your wife?” the detective inquired. “How were you two getting along at the time of the incident?” Bill Moore bristled. He was instantly defensive.

“We get along fine,” he said. “We love each other. Look, where’s this leading?” Moore asked. “What do you want me to say? Rebecca and I have had our bad days like any married couple. But what are you implying? That I attacked her?”

“Mr. Moore? Would she have come to you if she had a serious problem?”

“What do you call this?” Moore asked. “This was a serious problem.”

“You’re missing my point,” Chandler said. “I’m not saying this incident on Tremont Lane didn’t happen,” Chandler said. “But no one can prove that it did happen.”

Bill Moore looked baffled.

“Suppose your wife had an accident, Mr. Moore,” Chandler said, in a kindly tone. “Suppose she’d scraped and dented your new van. Suppose she was afraid to tell you what had happened. So she makes it appear that something different transpired. Suppose she made it look like an attempted abduction. A possible carjacking or kidnapping.”

Bill Moore responded with a stunned silence.

The detective was ready for Rebecca’s husband to go ballistic over the suggestion that his wife had been lying. But Moore almost looked relieved.

“Let me get this straight,” Moore said. “You’re saying what?”

“I’m offering a theory. You’re free to reject it, accept it, or think about it.”

Bill Moore was already thinking about it.

“You think Rebecca might have filed a false police report? And you theorize that she may have done this because she might have damaged the car herself? And she was afraid to tell me the truth?”

Chandler shrugged. Then he nodded. “It’s a theory that works with the evidence.”

Bill Moore pondered it for a few seconds. Then,

“If Rebecca had been in an accident,” Bill Moore said, “all I would have cared about was her safety. We have car insurance just for something like this.”

“Maybe you should tell her that,” the policeman said softly.

“She should know it already,” Moore answered.

“Maybe you should remind her,” Chandler suggested. Another moment passed. Moore watched a couple of high school girls walk into a music store. Chandler watched Moore watch the girls.

“So,” Moore said, thinking as he spoke, and choosing his words carefully, “you can’t find any evidence of anyone trying to harm my wife. No tire tracks. No witnesses. No one who saw the Lincoln in the parking lot. No one who heard one car hit another. No spent bullets in the woods.” He paused. “Absolutely nothing. Is that it?”

“Nothing at all,” Chandler affirmed. “But, as I said, it’s not surprising that there were no witnesses, considering the time and the place. The bullets allegedly fired would have been the best documentation that an incident took place. But we had another snowfall soon thereafter, remember? And another few inches of fresh snow after that. Looking for bullets under those circumstances would be like looking for a needle in six haystacks.” He paused and brought home his point. “People still find arrowheads in these woods. The arrowheads have been lying around for a hundred and fifty years.”

“So you think Rebecca made the whole story up?” Moore asked.

“I can’t come say that,” Chandler said. “Nor do I want to suggest that to my chief of detectives,” he said. “I only offered you a theory. I’m willing to keep the case open and leave it where it is. But it only gets more attention if a similar incident occurs or if we find new evidence.” Bill Moore nodded.

“I hear you,” he said. He seemed to ponder the matter seriously. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “it wouldn’t break my heart if the investigation went inactive. Maybe it would be best that way.”

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Sergeant Chandler said.

“There’s always the chance that you’re correct. That Rebecca had some mental problem. Like you said, no matter how hard you look, you can’t find anything.”

“She’s seeing a doctor now?” Chandler asked. “A psychiatrist?”

“Dr. Miller over in Southport. One of the best in the area.” Chandler nodded. “Have a good talk about the situation with your wife, sir. If you need to get to get back to me, you know the number. “

“I’ll have a heart-to-heart tonight with Rebecca,” Moore said. “And I’ll call you tomorrow.” Sergeant Chandler said that would be fine.

The Moores had their talk that night after the children had gone to bed. But it wasn’t the talk that Sergeant Chandler had suggested.

Instead, Bill Moore asked his wife how she would feel about moving. It was an idea that they had entertained in the past. Now it loomed more logical than ever.

They were both sick of winters and the misery that usually accompanied them. They were tired of chipping cars out of ice, plowing driveways, and struggling across sleet slicked roads to take Patrick and Karen to school.

“Maybe a change would be better for all of us,” Bill Moore said.

“What prompts this?” Rebecca asked.

“We’ve lived here too long,” he said. “The financing fell through for my own business today. But I still have the opportunity with Jack McLaughlin.”

“In California,” she mused. In the past, she had rejected the idea. Now it seemed much more tenable.

“Jack needs a part timer in his office. He’s been after me for years. Maybe now is finally the time.” He paused. “And then there was the ‘incident’,” he said.

“The man? In the car?” she said.

He nodded.

“You’ve been tense as a frightened cat ever since that day, Rebecca. I’d love to see you out of here. I don’t think you’ll ever feel safe in this place again.” She pondered it.

“Los Angeles, huh? Earthquakes. Riots. Floods. Smog.”

“Millions of people are comfortable there,” Bill Moore said. “There are suburbs if you don’t want to be in LA proper.”

She thought about it. On their honeymoon they had traveled the West Coast, driving from San Diego all the way up to the Napa Valley, three memorable weeks of sunshine, wine, great restaurants, beaches, and lovemaking. Now he was reminding her that every day could be like that. Sort of. He took her hand.

“I will try as best I can,” he said, “to make this the best move of our lives together. That’s a promise, Becca.” Half a minute passed. She examined her thoughts, her fears, and her hopes.