She's Not There (16 page)

Rachel Shaw wasn't as naked as Dana. All the same, what clothes were left on her were in tatters. She had ripped them off, though not as completely as Dana had. Shreds of shirt were in her hands. Fitzy was looking at a sex crime even if it turned out no one had engaged in a sexual attack upon her that left evidence of such. Gave her something that so tormented her she tried to pull her clothes off. And he watched. He watched until she was dead and then he dumped her.

Joe moved his beam of light in an arc around the body and proceeded to retrace the path it had taken from up above to where we stood. We could see, clearly, the line of disturbed growth. And we could see Esther's shadow against the moonlit sky. The clouds had cleared. The end of her cigarette burned red. She was sitting on an outcrop of rock, her head in her hands. She had switched off her own flashlight.

Joe moved the beam out a few inches and formed a new arc, down the trail, around the body, and back up. He repeated his search, each time a few more inches outward.

Fitzy said, “Hold on. Go back.”

The light retraced its path and stopped a few feet from the girl's head. A pair of men's sunglasses were lying there.

Fitzy started toward them.

I said, “You shouldn't disturb anything, Fitzy.”

“Can't be helped.”

“Let the forensic people get them.”

“I know who they belong to. I'll pass them on to forensics once I've finished with them.”

“Fitzy—”

His eyes met mine. “Let me do what needs doing, FBI.” His eyes read,
Trust my instincts
. Okay.

He went and got the glasses and came back to us, never bothering to use a cloth to keep from smearing any prints. Instincts or otherwise, it was a good thing he didn't work for me.

Joe's light traversed the ledge and trail again. Nothing was obvious. Far below, perhaps at the very bottom of the Hollow, we all thought we could make something out. Something different from black-green nothingness. Fitzy and I aimed our flashlights too. It was pieces of cloth, what was left of Rachel's clothes. Whoever had disposed of her body had rolled up her clothes and thrown those down too.

Fitzy said, “That's a sneaker down there.” We aimed all three lights. It was the toe of a sneaker. It had sunk in to the peat, almost completely swallowed up as its mate must have been. “Let's head over to Fred's house. These are his glasses. First, though, we drop off Esther; then we stop at my office and I call the Commissioner and tell him to get forensics out here pronto. And while we wait for them, Fred'll get to answer a few questions. Let's go.” He started back up.

Just as Fitzy had a few moments ago, Joe looked into my eyes. He regretted ever agreeing to come to the Hollow with us. I knew that because an FBI agent worth her salt has to read minds as well as eyes. It had taken me a little longer than it normally does. Joe's mind is not easy to read.

6

While Fitzy talked to his commissioner inside, Joe and I talked too, in the ragtop parked outside the station. About what I'd seen in his expression. Joe said to me, “Here is what you're reading in my face. If we accompany Fitzy while he questions Fred, we are in on this.”

“We're in on this already.”

He put his hands on the steering wheel and gripped it as if he wanted to press the gas pedal to the floor and escape. He spoke to me but aimed his voice at the wheel. “Poppy, these people are family to me. I am feeling emotions here that aren't appropriate to the situation.”

“Joe, it's not a conflict of interest as far as I can see, if that's what you're thinking.”

After a little pause he looked at me. “Fitzy is about to go in and accuse a neighbor of mine of murder. Someone I've known a long time. If that's not a conflict of interest, what is?”

I have to watch myself when it comes to skipping over the obvious. “I'm sorry, Joe. I guess my mind is calculating in its self-absorbed way.”

“Besides that, Poppy, sometimes you forget that I don't investigate murders. It's what
you
do. What
he
does.” His eyes went to Fitzy's door. “Like the man said, Fred isn't smuggling alcohol, tobacco, or firearms. I'm pretty much not interested the way you are. Besides, I don't want to believe this could be happening. I think I said that, didn't I? If that seems selfish, I don't mean it to be. And Poppy?”

“What?”

“I have a tough time understanding how you've got the stomach for it, sometimes. That's selfish, too, I know.”

“Joe, you've been in gun battles.”

“Not of my choosing. I never fire first. Here, I have a choice. I'm not going to be part of this.”

I rested my hand ever so gently on his hard forearm, even though what I really wanted to do was reach over and shake him. And yell, too. As in:
A horrific crime has been committed. What about that dead girl? What about the other girls who aren't dead? Christen and Sam and Kate. They're in danger!

But I didn't shake him. Fitzy and I needed him. So I lied. I said, “Listen, Joe, I understand. I do. But it won't hurt for you to come along with Fitzy tonight. You don't have to say anything, take any active part. Maybe just your being there will give Fred some reassurance. Since, as you say, you've known him a long time. He'll be more apt to be truthful if you're there. Unless, of course, he did it.”

“He didn't.”

Fitzy came back out.

Joe said to me, “Okay. I'll go.” Good.

We drove to Fred's house.

Fred Prentiss and his family lived on High Street, the prettiest street on the island, a hilly lane of Victorian homes—steep peaked roofs trimmed with gingerbread and wide porches shaded by young sycamores. The trees were making a comeback. The houses were all neat and trim and had been converted to bed-and-breakfasts or small inns, updated, gentrified, freshly painted. All but Fred's. Joe and I had walked on this street, stopping for lunch at an inn. The yellow paint on Fred's house—same paint he'd used to expand his liquor store sign—was peeling away from a gray layer beneath, which was peeling away from a brown one. The shrubs were overgrown and the porch sagged. There were children's toys strewn across the porch as well as over the scrubby lawn, plus a few barbells. No one had bothered to put them away at the end of the day—or at the end of many days. There was a sled among them.

On the sidewalk in front of the house, Fitzy said, “Guess I don't have to tell you, Joe, the guy only makes money Memorial Day to Labor Day. And he's got a slew of kids. Maybe one of the older ones sells a mystery drug—got his hands on something really lethal that the FDA hasn't come across yet and enjoys killing people with it. Maybe Fred decided to help the kid get rid of the bodies. Who knows?”

Joe said, “I don't see it.”

“Me neither. I have a real tough time imagining an imbecile like Fred turning out to be a serial killer.”

Serial killer. I'm always glad when someone else says it first. What is inevitably set in motion by using that term requires a lot of personnel, a lot of time, a big chunk out of the budget. You don't want to be wrong about it because there's no going back, though at the same time you don't want to be right, the term so rings of dread. Jack the Ripper and all the rest of them to follow. They just never seem to stop coming.

I said it aloud. “Serial killer.” I had to believe it in my bones. Joe remained silent. He didn't want it in his bones, and he was a man of the law. What was his problem?

It was now long after midnight, as dark on Fred's street as it had been in the Hollow. The moon and stars were covered by clouds. There are no streetlights on Block Island except at the harborside parking lot, so cars driving onto the ferry at night won't plunge into the Atlantic. We went up the porch steps, and Fitzy pulled open the screen door. The bottom was torn to shreds. Pets of the undisciplined variety. From somewhere the scent of cat urine came, an odor I'd almost come to terms with when visiting Joe in his DC apartment. Fitzy knocked on the front door. He knocked again, harder. The curtains in the living room window parted. We all saw it. But whoever parted them to get a better look at us chose not to respond to the knock. After maybe five seconds, Fitzy shouted very loudly, “Fred! You hear me? Answer the goddamned door, or I'll close down your store for selling beer to minors.”

Fitzy turned to Joe and me. “Does it all the time. He sells booze on Sunday too. To me. Illegal in Rhode Island.”

A light came on just inside the door. A woman opened it. Her hair was in pink plastic curlers from a forty-year-old home perm box. She had on a chenille bathrobe—the bottom edge unhemmed and ratty—short black socks, and leather slippers. She lifted her chin high and said, “State your business and get out.” Doris.

Fitzy took hold of the handle on the screen door. But she'd already taken hold of the handle on her side. Fitzy said, “My business is with your old man. Get him.” Then he yanked the screen door out of her grip and barreled past her. Joe and I were right behind him. The woman gaped at me—an alien entering her home—and said to Joe, “I'm surprised at your being a part of this, Joseph.”

Joe said, “Doris, I'm afraid it's pretty serious.”

She humphed.

To the right was the living room. No, the parlor. The slipcovers on the lumpy overstuffed furniture were stretched and faded. By the window, Fred was sitting in a chair in the dark. He'd been the one to part the curtains. His eyes glistened. Fitzy said, “You want to turn on a light for us, Fred?”

Fred pulled the chain on the floor lamp next to him, and a low light came on. The lampshade was pink with yellow stains. Around the bottom of the shade, the last remains of a fringe hung as unevenly as the hem of Doris's robe. Fred stood up. He wore striped pajamas. He was bent over a little so he could hold on to the arm of the chair for support. He smiled a very weak smile, about as weak as the lightbulb in his lamp, and asked, “What can I do for you, Officer?” followed immediately by, “Hello, Joe.” And then he smiled a little more pathetically. At me. “Nice to see you, Patty.”

Fitzy said, “Got your call earlier, Fred. Thought you might like to elaborate on it just a touch.”

Fred's wife came past us, turned, and stood as solid as an oak tree next to her husband. “What call? Fred has been asleep for the last several hours.”

Fitzy said, “Fred, you want to ask your wife to remove herself so we can have a little talk here?”

“Doris? Honey?”

But Doris was planted firmly. Through the door at the end of the corridor I could see the stairs to the second floor. Many children, all in pajamas, lined the banister. When they saw I'd noticed them, they scrambled up the stairs without making a sound.

Doris enjoyed giving orders. “Like I told you people before: State your business and get out.”

Fitzy waved a hand, brushing her off as though she were a gnat. “Lady, go make yourself some coffee, and get your kids to bed.”

“I don't want coffee. And my children
are
in bed.”

“Well, I could use some. And as for your kids, they're all eavesdropping at the top of the stairs.”

She stormed past him, yelling to the children that she would whip them all within an inch of their lives if they weren't in their rooms. Running footsteps pounded above us.

Fitzy held out the sunglasses for Fred to see. “These are yours, right, Fred? Seen you wearin' them.”

Fred looked at the glasses in the palm of Fitzy's big hand. His gaze remained riveted for several seconds until his wife reappeared. He looked at her and then back to the glasses. He let go of the chair and stood straight, taking strength from his wife's presence. He said, “Doris, glasses like those there are a dime a dozen, aren't they?”

She said, “What in God's name are you talking about? What glasses?”

“See, Fitzy,” he said. “That's what I mean. What glasses?” His voice became more firm. “I don't recognize those glasses.”

Fitzy said, “I do. They're yours. I traced them to make sure. I can tell you where you bought them and when. I took prints off them, needless to say.”

Fitzy could lie through his teeth without missing a beat. I was coming to admire him more and more. I watched Fred, waiting to see his reaction. Fitzy was watching him just as intently. He waited for what he knew would happen. And it did.

Fred's forehead wrinkled up like an accordion and then, slowly, his face collapsed. He put his hands to his cheeks and pressed hard. But control was lost. He burst into tears. Doris's eyes widened. Now she looked at her husband as though
he
were the alien. She said, “Fred Prentiss, what do you think you're doing?”

Fitzy said, “He's crying. Fred, sit back down and pull yourself together. Then tell me the entire story and don't leave out one single detail, understand? All I want to do is straighten this out, and then we're out of here.”

Fred's body collapsed too. He pretty much fell into the chair. Fitzy gestured to Joe and me to join him on the sofa, which we did. Doris took hold of the arm of Fred's chair, steadying herself as he had while she stood guard. It was several moments before Fred gained enough composure to get any words out. Finally, when he did, he looked at his wife and came up with an explanation for the chaos surrounding him.

“Honey, she threw herself at me. There was nothing I could do.”

Fitzy said, “The camp girl threw herself at you?”

“Camp girl? What camp girl? She wasn't…” His chin quivered. “Oh, God, not
her
. I didn't have anything to do with the
fat
girl. The fat girl was just
there. Lying
there. All twisted up like some … Like some … I don't know…” He was sobbing again. “Like someone … oh, God, I don't know!”

Fitzy leaned back comfortably into the sofa. He'd been leaning forward like Joe and me, but now it was time to act the part of the person who'd won the upper hand. We followed his lead.