First Avenue (19 page)

“How are you, Diane?” He tried to speak normally, but found that his voice was also softer.

“Okay,” she said.

The girl might have been anywhere between fifteen and twenty years old, or else she was part of all those years.

“Diane, this is the officer who is trying to find out what happened to Alberta and her baby. He won’t write anything down or put anything into a report unless we say it’s okay. Isn’t that correct, Officer Wright?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want to know?” the girl asked.

“Why don’t we start with Alberta,” Sam said. “When did you meet her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was it a month ago? Six months? A year?”

“A year maybe.”

“Where did you meet her?”

“I don’t know. I just got to know her, that’s all.”

“Were you friends?”

“I guess so,” Diane said. “I used to take care of the baby when she went to work. Ben dropped her when she started showing a lot. He said the baby wasn’t his. Except, he knew it was. Do you want me to tell you about that night he drowned?”

“Sure.”

She began talking with the urgency of someone who had a story to tell and could think of nothing else. He watched her eyes reveal her fear. There were four of them on the boat, she said. Two guys besides Ben—”boys,” he translated for himself. They were out on Lake Washington and going around and around in big circles. Ben sniffed cocaine and drank vodka straight from a bottle. “Shooter” kept laughing at him. Ben got so high that he couldn’t steer the boat, and Jack, the other boy, took over. They were crazy. She became cold and sick and went into the cabin after she started throwing up. Then she heard them yelling. Ben was in the water.

“I ran up to the deck, but I couldn’t see him,” she said. “He was in the water, and it was so dark. I screamed and screamed, but Ben didn’t answer. It was so dark. We couldn’t see him.”

“How did Ben get into the water?” Sam asked.

“He got crazy. Jack said he got crazy.”

“You said he was crazy before you went into the cabin. What happened?”

The girl’s hands gripped the side of her chair as though hanging on to the boat. She looked at Georgia, the person who was supposed to help her, but Georgia did not help.

“Shooter said he jumped.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see it.”

“You told the officers who came that night that Ben fell overboard accidentally. Now you say he jumped.”

“I know. I was scared. That’s what they told me to say.”

Sam wondered how long Ben had lasted in the water—drunk, stoned, shoes and clothes acting like an anchor. Fifteen minutes, twenty? He was glad Mildred Abbott was not there, but perhaps she had heard the story already in perfect detail. Imperfect detail. It was always imperfect.

“How do I find Shooter?”

“I don’t know.”

“What’s his real name?”

“I only know him by Shooter.”

“How about Jack? Where can I find him?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

“Around the Donut Shop?”

“I don’t know.”

Her voice became higher with each denial. He was certain she knew some of the answers. He looked at Georgia, but she was not going to help him any more than she had helped the girl.

“And Alberta? You said she was your friend. You took care of her baby. Where can I find her?”

“I don’t know,” the girl said again. “I thought she had gone back home. I didn’t know the baby was still there.” The girl’s voice had begun the last sentence in strangled sounds as though hands had gripped her throat, but she screamed the last words clearly.

Georgia jumped from her chair and grabbed the girl’s hands. “It’s all right, Diane. It’s all right.”

Georgia looked at Sam. No more questions, she said through the intense look in her eyes. There are many questions, he wanted to reply.
Georgia
lifted
Diane
from the chair and escorted her out of the room, leaving
Sam
alone. “I didn’t know about the baby,” he heard the girl scream one last time from the hallway. Those words were becoming an anthem for all of them.

He got up from the chair and walked over to one of the tall windows. He saw a round cement pond with a fountain squirting water into the air. Around the pond the grass had turned brown. There were many brown spots in the yard.

He had not expected the girl to react that way. It wasn’t a fake outburst to avoid more questions. He imagined
Georgia
would not be pleased or impressed with his tact. It was a mess any way he looked at it.

He heard
Georgia
’s footsteps in the hall, saw her in the doorway, and watched her walk over to the window beside him.

“She’s with
Mildred
. She’ll be okay soon.”

“You should have let me bring
Markowitz
.”

“No. She’ll be all right. She wouldn’t have said anything if Detective Markowitz had come.”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“I am. She seems to know you somehow. I could tell when I told her your name.”

“I’ve never seen her before. Could have, I guess, but I usually remember people. She knows a lot more than she told me. Did she tell you anything else?”

“No. I think you heard everything important she told me—even more. This was the first I heard about her taking care of
Alberta
’s baby.”

“Why is this girl here?” he asked.

“Where else could she be?”
Georgia
asked.

“I don’t know, but this doesn’t look like a shelter for street kids. What’s the deal,
Georgia
?”

“She’s pregnant.”

“I see. And
Ben
Abbott
is again the noble father?”

“It would seem so.”

“So now what?” he asked. “Is she just going to stay here and hide? She needs to tell us the truth.”

“You need her to tell the truth,”
Georgia
said. “I don’t think any of us knows yet what she needs. She’s scared to death.”

“She should be. I’ve got to bring
Markowitz
in on this.”

“Not yet.
Diane
thinks they will come after her if they find out she is talking to the police.”

“So put her someplace. That baby is dead. Alberta, too, most likely.”

“I know. Just give me a day or two with
Diane
and
Mildred
. You can’t imagine how hard this is on them. Just a few days. It will be better if the girl decides on her own.”

“A few days. But talk to the girl. No matter what you say, I think she should tell us everything.”

“I think so, too.”

Georgia was so close to him that the freckles under her right eye stood out like small flags draped over her cheekbones.

“I’m sorry if I didn’t handle this very well,” he said.

“You did just fine.” Her voice was gentle—not a voice that came often between them. They were more likely to tease or joke with each other. “I wish you would have told me about this.”

It was the second time she had said those words.

“Too late now. Besides, you can’t tell the opposing lawyer all your secrets.” His voice held instinctively to the one he knew.

“I wasn’t the lawyer then.”

They had stood like this often—reluctant to touch because someone might see them—balancing their faces with lies. Her face was not balanced.

“I know,” he said. “Show me the way out of here, will you?”

Katherine wished they wouldn’t have to stop, but Sam turned his car into the dirt driveway from the country road and parked beside the last car in a row of cars and old pickups.

“It might not be so bad,” he said.

At the church
Mr.
Sanchez
insisted they come to the house. Everyone was coming to the house, he said. They should follow the cars.

They had followed the cars on a dusty road away from town. Neither of them had said anything, but
Katherine
felt as if she were already out of place in the sad procession. They should have sat in the back of the church and slipped away when the service was over.

What had been the purpose for coming anyway? She had come because
Sam
asked her, but neither the priest’s words, nor the songs, nor the recited prayers could fill the empty space in the church. What could any of them remember about a child none of them knew? The service was strange and foreign to her, and she could not feel any part of it.

She and
Sam
walked toward a giant tree where people had gathered, but then she saw they were only men—mostly old men in old suits, smoking cigarettes and looking at the ground. Women were carrying plates from the house to a table that was off to the side. The table came from the house, or from some other place, but it didn’t belong outside.
Katherine
walked over to the table while
Sam
entered the company of men who surrounded
Sanchez
.

“You must be
Officer
Murphy
,” said a tall woman who stood off by herself. “I’m
Georgia
Winthrop
.”

“Oh yes. You and
Sam
are neighbors,”
Katherine
said.

From the expression on the tall woman’s face,
Katherine
felt she had already said something wrong.

“I came with
Mildred
Abbott
,”
Georgia
said. “
Sam
probably told you about her son.”

“Yes.”

“
Mildred
speaks excellent Spanish. She’s in the kitchen with
Mrs.
Sanchez
. I took Spanish in high school, but I can’t remember any of it.”

“Neither can I.”

Katherine had the feeling that she and
Georgia
Winthrop
were standing apart—the only white people in the yard. It made her uncomfortable.
Sam
was there, she reminded herself. Then she reminded herself that it did not matter. It did matter.

“
Sam
tells me the two of you work the same car.”

“Yes, different shifts.”

“That’s right. You work that horrible night shift. I don’t know how you do it.”

“It’s not so bad when you get used to it,”
Katherine
said. She didn’t wish to talk about the night shift to this lady. “I guess I’ll go in the house and help with the food. That seems to be our job.”

Katherine walked past the men standing close to the tree. It was a magnificent tree, and its branches reached powerfully in all directions. A swing hung from one special branch that ran parallel to the ground. The supporting ropes looked worn and frayed, and she doubted they could be trusted anymore. Below the swing there was a depression in the ground where young feet had once kicked and dragged and scraped away the dirt. It was now covered with grass.

From the swing she could see the country—a brown field of dry grass, green apple trees on the hill, blue, blue sky to the west above the hazy outline of mountains. Beautiful, she thought. Why are we so eager to leave? She realized she had included herself among the young girls like
Alberta
—the swingers of those swings.

She saw the concern expressed through
Sam
’s eyes. He would have come to her then, but she was on her way into the kitchen. She smiled that she was all right, turned away from the men and from the hills, and climbed the porch steps into the house.