The Disappearance (58 page)

She could carry her daughter now. She slung her over her back in a fireman’s carry and carried her towards the house.

She had murdered her daughter. She had killed her own seed.

But (her mind was racing out of control) her daughter was dead now. She wasn’t going to come back to life, no matter what. So it was whether or not she, too, should die.

Emma wouldn’t want her to die. Emma knew it was an accident. Emma knew she loved her. That her mother loved her, more than life itself.

She threw the body into the car and drove around aimlessly. Then she remembered a hike the two of them used to go on when the weather was nice, up Hot Springs Canyon. Emma loved it there. It would be a nice place for her to sleep.

She drove to the base of the canyon, lifted her out of the car, lugged/carried her up the trail. It was exhausting, but this is where Emma would want to be. She had to do this for Emma.

With any luck, no one would find her until summer, when the creek stopped running. By then all that would be left would be bones. Her soul, her beautiful spirit would have long gone on to a better place.

It wasn’t until she got back to her car and looked down at her feet that she realized she was wearing Joe’s shoes. He’d left them in her car the week before, after their run on the beach. In the dark she had grabbed them by mistake, instead of her own shoes, which still lay in the floor in the back. He had joked with her about how big her feet were, how they almost wore the same size shoe.

Someone had gotten her daughter pregnant. Someone didn’t want anyone in the world to ever know that. Someone had killed her daughter. Someone wearing these shoes.

The next morning she took the key chain. She was going to plant it in his house, with the damning shoes, and make sure the detectives noticed them later on, when they came out to the house to begin their investigation. A few days until the tumult died down. Then she’d sneak over there, and plant the evidence. She had a key. She had been there many times.

He came to the house, to console her. He didn’t know, but he had to be feeling guilty, overwhelming guilt. He was so loving with her, so gentle.

She couldn’t frame Joe. Because she still loved him.

They were lovers now, more than ever. Especially after the divorce, they saw each other all the time. He was still “going” with Nicole Rogers, for appearance’ sake, but she was in love with him, and she knew he was in love with her. He had to be. She still thought of Emma, her wonderful, loving daughter, but days would go by when she didn’t.

He got the new job, in Los Angeles. They were going to move down there, start their life together. In the open, finally.

Except they weren’t. He was going alone, making a clean break. What they’d had had been wonderful, he told her, but it was over. They both had to start fresh. She understood that, didn’t she? It was better, for both of them. He was leaving Nicole behind, too, if that made her feel better.

He was having dinner with her husband and that woman, Nicole. She drank some bourbon to fortify herself. Maker’s Mark, her brand of choice. Then she stole over to the restaurant. She had the bourbon with her, in case she needed more courage.

They were inside, having dinner. Having a great time, laughing. She could see them through the restaurant window. They were probably laughing at her.

The man who got her daughter pregnant had killed her. The man who wore those shoes had killed her. The man who had taken her daughter’s special key ring had killed her.

She went out to the parking lot. There was his Porsche. It was open, the attendant hadn’t locked it. She took one last swallow of bourbon for courage, screwed the cap on, and slid the half-drunk bottle into the car, sticking it behind the driver’s seat, in plain enough sight. Then the key chain, in the glove compartment. Keeping a sharp eye out for the parking attendant, who was on the other side of the lot, listening to the ball game on the radio, not paying attention.

She had a key to his house. She let herself in, planted the shoes. Then out, to the road he would take to come home.

Sitting in her car at the side of the road, waiting. He drove by her, as she knew he would. He was alone. That was good. It would work if Nicole was with him, but this way was cleaner.

She watched his car head away from her, towards Coast Village Road. Then she picked up her cell phone and dialed 911. A drunk driver just passed me, she told the operator, telling her where this had happened. Maybe he’s on drugs, too, you should check for that.

Then she went home, to the house where she lived alone, and passed out into a deep, exhausted sleep.

She stands on the ridge, looking at the house across the ravine. She has her rifle with her. She bought it last year. She’s an excellent shot, she practices. Doug got the ranch property as part of the divorce settlement, but she kept a key to the gate, and came and went as she pleased.

You don’t have to be a great shot at this distance, this rifle is so accurate, so easy to shoot. Doug had the same kind, he was always talking about how great it was to shoot, how easy. Even a beginner could be proficient at it in a short period of time, which she found out was true, she was proficient. And with the night scope it’s like shooting ducks in a barrel. Like it had been out at the ranch, when she had shot him to warn him off.

He hadn’t taken the hint.

He takes a break from what he’s doing. Comes to the window, looks out. Then he slides the glass doors open and steps out onto the balcony, his arms outraised. Stretching? Maybe, she thinks, he’s praying.

She raises the rifle to her shoulder, takes careful aim.

The shot rings out, the crack of the report echoing like a thunderclap across the canyon. The bullet hits home, a clean head shot, knocking the target backwards, dead before it hits the ground.

Across the ravine Luke, hearing the explosive repercussion, hits the deck.

Riva trudges across the hard ground, in her hand the .40 S&W howitzer that her old drug-dealing boyfriend had bequeathed her, which was hidden under the floorboards, just remembered. She looks down at Glenna Lancaster, lying still, a small hole in her temple, blood starting to ooze out onto her cheek and neck.

She had gotten the ice cream, dawdling over her choice, and was leisurely heading home when she saw it: a light, across the barranca, where she had seen the tire tracks.

She had turned around and driven in that direction as fast as the old truck would go, praying she wouldn’t be too late. Stopping down the hill so as not to be heard, scrambling up the dirt road, slipping and sliding, feeling her belly, the life inside it. When she got to the top she saw Glenna standing there, raising the rifle to her shoulder. She took aim, and pulled the trigger.

She kneels down. “You got away with killing your own daughter,” she says to the warm, suddenly inanimate body. “But no way was I going to let you get away with murdering the father of my child.”

R
IVA IS CALM WHEN
she talks to the police back at the central sheriff’s office. She had been driving home, she’d seen a suspicious light across the canyon from their house, she’d driven up to investigate. She had the gun just in case—she hadn’t really expected to find any trouble.

Glenna had heard her coming, she says. She had called out a warning to Glenna to put the rifle down, but Glenna had turned it on her—she wasn’t about to lay her weapon down. She had come here to kill Luke Garrison, she had called back to Riva, and if she had to kill someone else, too, then she would. One, two, or three, it didn’t matter anymore.

Riva had fired out of instinct. Thank God for a lucky shot. If she’d missed, she would be the body lying there on the ground.

Ray Logan interviews her by the book, but keeps it as short as he can. Luke’s by her side, protectively hovering over her.

“Justifiable homicide,” Logan says curtly, when he’s done questioning her. He looks over to Sheriff Williams, who nods confirmation. “We won’t be pressing charges.” He shakes her hand. “I’m sorry you had to go through this ordeal. You’re free to go now.”

Luke drives them home. They sit side by side, silent. Not until they’re safely inside the house does she break down in his arms.

“She was going to kill you,” she sobs. Her body’s shivering, she can’t stop it. He holds her tight to him, as tight as he can. “Five more seconds, and she would have killed you.”

“But you got there, so she didn’t,” he says. “She didn’t.” Holding her head against his shoulder, he asks her, as gently as he can, “Did she really try to kill you?”

She looks up at him. “She was going to kill
you
. What difference does it make?”

He sighs. “None, I guess.”

She looks at him. “I’ve seen the way the law works—and doesn’t. I couldn’t take the chance on that happening again. I wouldn’t.”

The police find Glenna’s diary, tucked away in a desk drawer in her lonely house. It’s all there, the whole story in detail, from the day she accidentally killed her daughter. The oldest story in the world, and still the saddest: two women fighting over sharing the same man. It didn’t work for Sara and Hagar, and it’s never worked since. Definitely not between a mother and a daughter.

Maria Gonzalez hadn’t lied, as she explains to Judge Ewing, the following day, before a packed and hushed courtroom. She hadn’t been guided all the way down the road, by either prosecution or defense. The prosecution didn’t want to know, and because Luke Garrison had been caught flat-footed by her surprise testimony, he hadn’t followed through as thoroughly as he normally would have.

She did see Joe Allison leave, like she had told the court earlier. But then she had heard quarreling, coming from the other side of the lawn, down by the gazebo. The voices of two women. She knew them instantly: Glenna, the mother, and Emma, the daughter. They were at it again, as they had been so many times in the past. The daughter giving back as good as she got. She was a wild child, Emma. Even by this age, fourteen, no one could tell her what to do.

She couldn’t hear what was being said, but she could hear the rage coming from both of their voices.

Then the yelling had stopped.

She had a sick son waiting for her. She had to go home.

If either side had asked her if anything happened after she saw Joe Allison that night, way back when they were first interviewing her, everything might have turned out differently. But no one did. And although she was reasonably sure Mrs. Lancaster had killed Emma, or at least harmed her, she couldn’t bring herself to voluntarily tell about it. She and her family owed their very existence to Mrs. Lancaster.

No one had asked. She wasn’t going to volunteer anything, not in America. She had learned that from day one of being here—never volunteer anything.

The duty officer gives Joe Allison his effects, he signs for them. He had been the victim of a frameup, as he had claimed all along, from the day he was arrested until now.

There is no apology, no admission from the sheriff or anyone else that they’d made a mistake, that they had almost convicted an innocent man. They deal with him in silence. The only thing Sheriff Williams says to him is, “You were on your way out of town when we arrested you. If I were you, I’d make like this hadn’t happened, and keep going.”

Luke meets with Joe, one last time. They’re in the small room in the jail, where they’ve always met. This time is different. Allison is dressed in civilian clothes, and he’s a free man. He can walk out the door anytime he wants—the same door Luke’s been walking out of these many months.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Allison says awkwardly, to a man he may never see again for the rest of his life. “I really owe you.”

“Yeah,” Luke says dully. “You do owe me. But what you paid me—it wasn’t nearly enough.”

Allison looks surprised, and concerned. “It was everything I had. That’s the truth, you know that. I don’t have a job, and I don’t know where or when I’m going to get one.” He forces a smile. “That job you referred to before? When you were telling me how Doug Lancaster could ruin my career—reading weather reports in Nome, Alaska? That sounds pretty good to me right now.”

“I’m not asking you for more money.”

Allison’s confused. “Then what?” He pauses. “You don’t seem very happy, Luke. You just won a huge case, against tremendous odds. No one thought you had a prayer of winning. You ought to be ecstatic. You’re the hottest lawyer around now. You ought to be celebrating.” He smiles. “Let me take you and your lady out to dinner, okay? Anyplace you want, whatever you want. It’s the least I can do for the man who saved my life.”

Luke stares at him. His stomach feels as agitated as it did after his shooting. “I don’t want to eat with you, Allison. I don’t want to drink with you. I don’t want to have anything to do with you, okay? If I never see you again, that’ll be fine with me,” he says sharply.

Allison is slow on the uptake. “Why are you angry with me? What did I do?”

The anger has been rising for months, ever since Luke discovered that his client was lying to him regularly in a case he’d agreed to take on even though it was supposed to be a stone-cold loser.

“Why am I angry with you? What did you do?”

He loses it. Without warning, even to himself, his hands are around Allison’s neck, he’s slamming the man up against the wall, gripping his neck like his hands are the talons of a bird of prey. “What did you do?” he screams. “You killed her!”

Allison is struggling, tearing at the hands that are choking him. “Leggo—” He tries to scream, to get someone to come in and save him, but Luke’s all over him, way too strong, his voice is a hoarse rasp, barely a whisper.

“So you didn’t commit the actual murder!” Luke cries out. He doesn’t care if anyone comes in now. He doesn’t care about anything at this very moment except to get it out, all of it. “But it’s because of you that she died! It’s because you committed statutory rape. It’s because you were sleeping with her mother, a married woman, a sad, unbalanced, lonely woman who was in love with you! That wasn’t Glenna Lancaster that knocked her daughter to the ground, that was you! It never would have happened if you hadn’t slept with a fourteen-year-old girl! You and the other men who took advantage of her!”