She's Not There (3 page)

Tommy was between the body and Aggie's front porch, making sure none of her guests got adventurous. A couple of them were taking pictures.

We heard a roar. The car Fitzy had gotten into was now flying up Center Street. It screeched to a stop behind the pickup. The screech made the gulls even more crazed. The noise they made sounded like human screaming. The B&B's guests put their hands over their ears. Fitzy wasn't driving, the rookie was. He looked about twelve. I'm getting old, I guess. My stepfather used to say things to motivate himself, like, “You're as young as you feel.” I was thirty-five. Last few days I'd felt eighteen. Right now I was a hundred and two.

Fitzy dragged himself out of the car, turned, and gave the rookie a dirty look. The rookie quickly emerged and slammed the door smartly shut. He stood by the car, stiff and tall. His uniform was immaculate, the trousers creased, the hat starched into perfect shape. He was also very nervous. His eyelid was twitching. He put on his sunglasses.

The constable walked toward us.

The state trooper said to him, “Okay, fella, what's the story here?”

The gulls were still screaming. Banshees rather than humans. Tommy said, “What?” Fitzy looked up at them, and I swear just his look alone sent the whole flock a little higher into the air. Tommy nodded toward me. “Lady here had Aggie call me. Found this body.”

Fitzy was still looking up into the sky. “Can we do anything about the freakin' birds?”

Tommy said, “No.”

The trooper shook his head. Then his eyes took in the blanket. He scanned the scene. “What's with the broken cup?”

“Figured the lady dropped it.”

He raised his voice. “Figured? Well, you should've gotten me instead of coming out here to figure things. Why the hell'd ya cover the body? Jesus.”

Fitzy grabbed a corner of the blanket. Tommy reached out, but there was nothing he could do to stop him. Fitzy threw the blanket off the dead girl. He went white. Now his voice wasn't so loud, though he let out a string of curse words. “Holy goddamn fucking shit.” He turned to the rookie. “Johnny, get me—”

Johnny, staring at the body, was sagging. He turned his head and vomited his breakfast.

Fitzgerald said. “Wonderful.” Then he looked at me. “How the hell come
you're
not throwing up? Don't tell me you're with the ATF, too.”

“FBI.”

“Oh. FBI. Well, that's good. That's real good. Maybe I can just get my commissioner to turn over whatever the hell happened to this girl to the FBI and leave me be.”

The trooper went to his car and came back with two cellophane envelopes. He squatted down on his haunches and placed one over the dead girl's right hand. Then he taped it closed. He tried to move her other arm. It was rigid. He stood back up. He would leave it to the coroner. The trooper stuffed the second envelope in his pocket.

As he laid the blanket carefully back over the body so that every inch of her was covered, he said, “Damage is done.” My instinct was to tell him not to do that, but he had a point about the damage having been done. Not unusual anyway. When someone comes across a dead body with no clothes on, that person will often throw a coat or jacket over the victim or run to the nearest house, not only to call the police but to get a blanket. The Rhode Island coroner would have to cope. Suspicious death; he'd have to pick out the blanket fibers. Tommy and I watched as, very gently, the cop bent over and went about straightening the edges.

With Tommy distracted, the guests from Aggie's had been creeping closer.

Trooper Fitzgerald stood, put his hands on his hips, and yelled at them. “What the hell are you people starin' at? Get back up on that porch or I'll arrest every goddamn one of you.” Then he said to Tommy, “You too, old man. You disturbed any evidence we're gonna be wishin' like hell we had. And the road is covered with your tracks. Plus now we have my own tire tracks and we got the FBI's … bicycle.”

Tommy said to him, “I saved any evidence. The birds might have started pecking at the body if I didn't cover it.” Now the trooper's face showed frustration in addition to anger. He took a big breath, about to hurl another insult, when the distant sound of a siren filtered in through the gulls' screaming.

Fitzgerald said, “What the hell is that, the CIA?”

Tommy said, “It's the doc.”

“Good. Hope he's got some Maalox.”

Then he squatted down again. He lifted one end of the blanket, exposing just the dead girl's horrifically contorted face. He looked closely at her and said, “Poor kid. Someone sold her some real bad stuff.” Not too terrible a man after all, perhaps. I went over and squatted down too, right beside him. He turned his head to face me. “You an investigator or a pencil pusher?”

“Investigator.”

“Okay then, Agent. She was killed somewhere else and dumped here, wasn't she? Killed sometime last night, wouldn't you say?”

“I'd agree entirely with that assessment.”

“Good.”

“What would you like me to do?”

He looked into my eyes. “Just knowin' you're here is enough for now.”

I have a friend. He's a shrink, a good one. He'd translate Fitzy's words to me—in addition to the expression on his face—as
reaching out
.

Reach out, Fitzy, you've got me.

2

Back in Joe's cottage, I switched from strong coffee to milky tea. I stretched out in a very comfortable chaise on the slate terrace out back and gazed across the ocean toward what I guessed was the direction of the FBI building on Pennsylvania Avenue. Spike had sensed something was amiss and jumped into my lap, tucked his big tail around his body, and made himself comfortable. First time he'd done that. I stroked his fur and closed my eyes. He began to purr. The placid ocean produced soft waves splashing in rhythm on the cobbles far below at the base of the bluff. Slowly, I calmed. To be calm is the reason for drinking milky tea, owning an affectionate cat, and finding a corner of the world with a vista of the wide blue sea.

An instant replay of the three days I'd spent in this once-charmed place scrolled across my brain. I stopped the screen at yesterday morning around ten-thirty, Joe and me hopping out of his jeep at the harborside, strolling along the pier.

Joe had said, “Sloppy chop.”

This is the way people who are around boats talk. I was learning. When a swift and temperate breeze plays across the surface of the water, creating a nonuniform series of waves popping up unpredictably here and there, it's a sloppy chop.

A little fishing boat was tying up—the
Debbie
—a dilapidated wooden tub named after several generations of beagles, all called Debbie. There had never been several generations of the
Debbie
, no
Debbie II
or
III
. It was one very old boat, and the gents who owned her were older still. The latest Debbie beagle bounded onto the pier and threw herself into Joe's arms, licked his face, jumped back down, and ran around in circles. Joe wiped the doggy saliva off his three-day growth of beard with his bare arm. After that especially uncouth gesture, I had to say his stubble remained as sexy as ever. He knew the stubble was sexy, too. Back in DC he warned me he didn't shave on Block Island. I'd said, “Maybe I shouldn't shave either.” He'd looked stricken. I laughed at him, so he laughed at himself, no longer stricken. Rather, relieved.

Billy, one of the
Debbie
's grizzled owners, threw me a line. A line is a rope. Mick, the other owner, hoisted himself onto the dock and tied a second line around a post. He waited. I tied my line too. To
tie
means to loop the line around the post and then bring the end of the line through the loop, a half-hitch. Easy. The post has a nautical name just like the rope does, but I couldn't remember it. That's because nautical names are made up by men, so there is no rhyme or reason to them. I'd needled Joe. “Why is the bathroom the head? Why not the butt?” He'd said, “Poppy, you've just got to let it go.”

Joe helped Billy and Mick's clients onto the dock. Two couples, seasick, which is what a sloppy chop will do to you. Billy held up a neat string of, I think, porgies. He said to the couples, “Don't forget your catch now.”

The greener and more wobbly of the male clients said, “Keep 'em.”

The less green friend said, “I need a few stiff drinks, not dead fish.”

The couples staggered off while Billy happily put the fish in an ice chest. He winked at Mick. Then he said to me, “You enjoyin' yourself, Poppy?”

“I am.”

It was true. After three days on Block Island I'd woken up that morning and my first thought was not how many days were left before Joe would fly us back to Washington. Instead it was: I wonder what we'll get up to today. Each thing Joe planned for us—whether it was fishing or kayaking, biking or hiking, bodysurfing or just plain swimming—was more fun than the last. I even liked building sand castles.

Billy rummaged around in the chest. He came up with two very large lobsters and held them aloft. They waved their claws wildly but ineffectually in the air. He said, “Hey, Joe, how about these babies? Both girls and they're packed full of eggs. Delicious.”

Joe said, “All right!” and then to me, out of the corner of his mouth, “we'll be eating an illegal catch tonight.”

Billy held the lobsters out in my direction. The claw-waving now seemed more discriminate. “What d'ya think, Poppy?”

“All right!” I said.

He put them into a burlap sack, which became animated, and handed it to me. I took it, never flinched. Mick nudged Joe. I'd passed a test.

Joe said, “These lobsters are special. Let me give you a little something.”

Mick said, “Nope,” and he and Billy both tipped their battered, stained Red Sox caps to us.

We got in Joe's jeep, about as old as the
Debbie
. Joe calls it his ragtop. I'd said, “My stepfather referred to sporty convertibles as ragtops.”

He said, “I call it that because it's in rags,” and he pulled at one of the ribbons of canvas hanging down on our heads. “Let's just hope we don't get any rain.”

“And if we do?”

“I drilled holes in the floor.”

Joe's care of his car did not take in the possibility of ruining his hairdo.

We drove across the sandy parking lot, avoiding a boy known as Jim Lane's kid who sold postcards and bait right in the path of tourists getting off the ferries. We waved as we passed Tommy the Constable, who was making sure no one underage was renting mopeds. Jake stood behind him, playing with a box of batteries. We stopped in front of a liquor store.
FRED'S LIQUOR STORE AND FINE WINES
. The
FINE WINES
segment of the sign had been added on with yellow paint, and the word
STORE
had been crossed off with the same paint. Joe pulled himself up and out—the ragtop's driver-side door is forever stuck—and went in to buy beer. With boiled lobster you drink beer. Do something foolish to a lobster, like stuff it, you drink wine.

He came back waving two six-packs wildly in the air. Native habits are contagious on Block Island. Joe climbed back in. The ferry from Point Judith was pulling in. I'd forgotten if there was a term for the action that precedes
tying up
, so I said to Joe, “What do you do before you tie up? Cut your engines?”

He said, “No. That's a given. You dock.”

I see. The ferry was docking, not pulling in. We sat there in the jeep, motionless, mesmerized by the smooth hypnotic operation just like everyone else at the harborside. Lines were tossed and fenders crushed as the ferry came to a stop. Fenders are nothing to do with the four corners of a car; they are oblong fiberglass cushions hanging over the side of a boat that prevent the boat itself from getting scraped during docking. I said to Joe, “Why aren't they called bumpers?” He said, “Bumpers are those old truck tires tied to the dock.” Can't very well tie old rubber tires to your beautiful new yacht. But though the word may be
docking
, essentially, the enormous ferry slid smoothly and gracefully to a stop. I decided right then that the real reason everyone watched the operation so intently was a secret desire to see the boat crash, smashing the dock into a million pieces. Like when you watch a wrecking ball with such delight. Everyone at the harbor had that anticipatory, slightly mad look about them—including me, I was sure.

The cars and pickups came off first and then the stream of passengers, a few of the latter carrying suitcases, but most of them—day-trippers—lugging beach chairs, floats, and canvas bags brimming with towels, paperback books, food, and beer. There were two varieties of day-trippers: those who wouldn't spend a dime on the island because they were equipped with everything they'd need, and those who also didn't spend a dime because they'd come to shop. There are no shops. Just stores outfitted to meet your basic needs—
FRED'S LIQUOR AND FINE WINES, WILLA'S GROCERY,
the pharmacy, and a couple of enterprises that offer cheap souvenirs and even cheaper tank tops. So this second class of day-trippers would ask, “Where's the antique shops? Where's the Gap?” only to discover there weren't any such things.

They'd become disdainful. So the kid selling postcards from his stand would say, “Try Martha's Vineyard.” Then they'd ask their second question: “When's the next ferry out?”

Among the stragglers I'd watched yesterday making their way down the ferry ramp—surely it wasn't called a gangplank—were four teenage girls. Very hefty girls. Campers. Camp Guinevere. The locals referred to it as the fat farm, naturally.

Right there, at that memory, I stopped my brain from scrolling and fast-forwarded to this morning. A few hours ago. I didn't think the dead girl had been one of the four, and now I was sure she wasn't.