The Girls She Left Behind (12 page)

“Like us,” she said as the steel ball hit the building again and the walls began falling.

“Like us,” she repeated, and I didn't know what she meant.

But later I did: bashed, broken, ruined.

Oh, yes. Later, I understood just fine.

“L
ittle jerk,” fumed Lizzie a few hours after her interview with Jane Crimmins.

If you could call it that. For Lizzie it had been more like an experiment to learn how pissed off she could get.

“Turns out she's no help, but boy, was she ever happy about the attention she was getting while I was taking her seriously.”

Sipping her wine, she leaned back into the plush upholstered sofa in Trey Washburn's living room. To judge by the work he did it should have been rugged, but instead the room was an understatedly gorgeous, impossibly comfortable haven of dark, highly polished wood, thick jewel-toned rugs, and gleaming brass lamps.

In response to his gentle probing she'd spent the early part of the evening telling him about her troubled family history. It was a rough subject, one she usually shied away from: growing up motherless and with an abusive father, then running away from home with her sister, Cecily, and promising to take care of her. After that she'd lost touch and found out too late that Cecily was dead, her body discovered floating in the bay near the quaint fishing village of Eastport, Maine, and her infant mysteriously missing.

But somehow Trey had made it easy. Maybe it was his quiet interest, not interrupting or commenting until she had finished. Or his sympathy when she expressed her guilt over what had gone down when she wasn't paying attention, too busy with her own life to notice that Cecily's was circling the drain.

Or maybe it was that he was simply a genuinely decent guy. “Thanks for dinner, by the way,” she said. “It was nice of you to let me cash that raincheck. And I'm sorry I'm in a mood.”

The books on the shelves covering the walls were an eclectic mix of history, veterinary science, and popular fiction, and she happened to know that Trey had read them all. Carrying his glass of the good Cabernet he'd opened to go with the tenderloins he'd grilled, he settled beside her on the sofa.

“No problem. Cooking your dinner, that's what I'm here for. Or one thing I'm here for, anyway,” he added mildly, then changed the subject.

“But this woman you went to so much trouble over today, you mean she was no use to you at all?”

He bent to smooth the ears of a liver-and-white spaniel, one of the pair he kept. Trey
liked
being helpful and supportive, she realized; he actually enjoyed being a decent person.

She'd heard of that. “Not unless you think there's a revenge plot going on,” she replied. “But for that you'd need at least one of his victims to be planning and carrying it out, wouldn't you?”

She closed her eyes and drank a little more wine, trying to let her frustration with Jane Crimmins evaporate. After all, this wasn't the first time a supposedly crucial interview had turned out to be a bust
.

“But three of the women Henry Gemerle grabbed and imprisoned all those years ago are down in New Haven where they belong,” she went on, “not up here in Aroostook County conspiring to kill him the way Jane Crimmins claims. I know that because I checked.”

Trey's pale eyebrows raised skeptically. “But it's still what she says is happening?”

“Yeah, that's her story, all right. And she's sticking to it no matter what.” On the hearth rug before a cozily flickering fire in the fireplace, the other spaniel stretched luxuriously in his sleep.

“Jane says the girl she took care of, Cam Petry, wants to kill Gemerle. But not,” Lizzie said, “until after she tortures him for a while, as payback for the horrific abuse he put her and the others through for all those years.”

“So it's Cam that Jane wants to get out in front of. That's why she was trying to get Gemerle's location from you, to head Cam off at the pass?”

Lizzie nodded tiredly. “It's what she insists, yes.”

“And you know that's not true because…”

“Because I called Cam Petry at the number listed for her in New Haven,” Lizzie replied, “but she didn't answer. So I tried the hospitals down there—according to Jane, Cam's been in very shaky health—and sure enough, Yale–New Haven has her.”

Trey poured more wine as Lizzie continued. “In critical but stable condition, unable to communicate, much less travel, according to the admitting clerk I talked to, who had the records in front of her. And since Cam Petry can't very well be in two places at once—”

She took a breath and said, “She's not here hunting Henry Gemerle or anyone else. So you tell me, why is Jane Crimmins lying about all this?”

Trey listened thoughtfully but without any immediate reply. That was another good thing about him, that when he listened, he wasn't just waiting for his turn to talk.

“Not that in general the whole thing couldn't be the way Jane said,” Lizzie added after another sip of her Cabernet. “I mean luring your intended victim out of their comfort zone and then offing them…it's classic.”

Which was also what Jane claimed, that somehow Cam Petry had facilitated the forensic hospital escape, then persuaded Gemerle to come here.

“But as it stands now her story's just not credible. Also, Jane really could have heard all about Gemerle being here while she was in the ER this morning, where the paramedics were probably gossiping about it.”

She put her glass down. “She could be on a fishing expedition to find out what the cops already know. Or—”

Another thought hit her suddenly. “Or this is all just a clever smoke screen. What if she does already know his location? And she wants to be sure we don't, so we don't swoop down on him while she's—”

“Doing something to him, herself,” Trey finished astutely. “Maybe to get back at him for what he did to this Cam person that she took care of?”

He drank the rest of his own wine. “So she tries to find out whatever she can from you, by floating a bogus story past you.”

She nodded, tight-lipped. “That's possible, too. All of which is why I'm back to square one, again, because as soon as she found out that we
don't
know where he is she clammed up again. Got all dithery and indefinite, then complained of a headache.”

Trey nodded sympathetically. The dinner, the fireplace, his solid presence…relaxed on the soft couch, Lizzie felt she could have stayed forever. But there was still too much to do tonight, she told herself.

“Anyway, thanks for letting me blather on.” The clock in the hall struck ten; in the kitchen she sat to pull on her boots.

“So did this Jane Crimmins person say why Bearkill?” Trey wanted to know. “I mean, why Henry Gemerle came here, and what Tara Wylie's supposedly got to do with any of it?”

Lizzie shook her head, yanking on her other boot while the dishwasher across the room hummed pleasantly. “Nope. I asked, but she didn't have any answers to any of that, either.”

Pulling on her jacket, she followed Trey out to the enclosed porch that ran along the whole south side of his big, beautifully maintained white-clapboard farmhouse. The porch, a many-windowed refuge of bentwood chairs and wicker plant stands, was cozily lit by wall-mounted hurricane lamps and warmed by a purring propane heater.

“Meanwhile the New Haven cops have been faxing me stuff all afternoon,” she said. “So now I'm going home to read all of Henry Gemerle's hearing transcripts and the notes from the investigation in New Haven, and try to come up with something that makes sense.” Because the one thing she did know for sure was that Tara was still out there somewhere, missing and almost surely in danger.

“Yeah,” said Trey. “Same way in my work. Sometimes the real key to what's wrong is in the history, you know? Not the current complaint.”

His hands rested briefly on her shoulders as she zipped her jacket. “But isn't the kind of paperwork hunt you're planning sort of…clerical?” he asked. “For someone with your experience?”

As she turned, he wrapped his arms around her and held her. He smelled like Old Spice, which ordinarily she didn't enjoy.

But when he wore it she did. “You don't know many cops,” she said, stepping back from him reluctantly.

The New Haven material she'd requested was nothing compared with some cases she'd had, whose documents filled whole rooms. And the problem with anybody else reading it for you, an assistant or a secretary, was simple:

They didn't know what to look for. Even she didn't until she saw it, sometimes. Even if they did know, they couldn't think about it for you.

“Anyway, I'm just a deputy,” she added when she'd explained this, “so officially at least I'm out of the loop on all of it.”

Trey followed her to the door, shaking his head in sympathy. “Must be hard having your hands tied like that.”

“I'll get over it. Meanwhile I've told all the right people about Jane Crimmins: my boss, the state cops, and the FBI. And I've got her safely stashed in a motel room for tonight.”

The motel was not one of the modern ones near the highway. It was an old relic from the 1950s. Its buildings had been remodeled, an indoor pool installed, and a restaurant added; its hand-painted sign, lit by a string of Christmas bulbs, still read
AUTO COURT.
But it was more suitable for Lizzie's purposes.

“So with any luck,” Lizzie finished tiredly, “tonight will be uneventful.” She looked wistfully back into Trey's large, well-appointed kitchen, gleaming with copper pans and stainless steel.

The fire had backed off again, its whimsical advance-and-retreats driving everyone nuts but so far at least not devouring any houses, people, or livestock. “Anyway, thanks again for dinner.”

“My pleasure.” He reached out to ruffle her hair, a gesture that if anyone else had tried it they'd have gotten a bite wound for their trouble.

“Stick around longer sometime,” Trey said. The moment lengthened. “And listen, I'm sorry about Cecily. That's a tough one, losing a sibling. Still…”

It wasn't your fault,
he was about to say. But when the moment passed, he hadn't said it, and she liked him for that, too.

Out over the valley the moon hung in a blur of smoke, the hills below black cutouts on the hazy sky. A star peeped through and vanished.

“I really do have to say good night,” she murmured, and moments later in the rearview mirror he was a burly silhouette, waiting until she was safely out of the driveway.

Which is nice,
she thought, driving home through the rural darkness.
That he cares enough to—

But the thought got cut off as she neared her own driveway and saw the vehicle parked in it. Lights were on in the house, which they shouldn't have been, and Rascal was out, which he shouldn't have been, either, bounding across the shadowy yard after a glow-in-the-dark Frisbee that someone had just thrown for him.

Slowing, she turned in and saw who it was.

Dylan, of course.

“H
ope you don't mind my going in when you weren't here.”

And if I did, would it matter?
He knew her spare key hung on a nail driven into an old cedar post in the backyard.

“Poor dog was going crazy in there, hearing me,” said Dylan, “so I—”

“Don't worry about it.” Inside, she hung up her jacket and bag, then went on to the kitchen.

“I see you came prepared.” Back in the old days when he let himself in, he brought roses and champagne. Now on the counter she found two liter-sized bottles of Coke and a dozen doughnuts.

Leaving him in the kitchen to wrestle ice cubes out of their trays, she ran a brush through her hair and put on fresh lipstick.

When she got back he'd opened the Coke, filled glasses with ice, and set the doughnuts on a plate.

He'd already spread out his paperwork, too: crime-scene material from the car in the rest area this morning, photographs and DMV printouts and so on. And her own research was there; she'd last seen that material in a jumbled heap on the coffee table in the living room. Organizing all this stuff, he'd knocked hours off her workload and added hours to his own.

“So,” he said briskly, “let's review: If Tara left with Aaron DeWilde like we think, that means for at least part of the time she's been gone she was with him. But there's been no sign of him or his bike, no cell phone activity or credit transactions, no ATM activity. And nothing in the hospitals for either one of them.”

Of course Dylan would have checked all that. Lizzie nodded, frowning down at a patrol report sheet. “Right. And since they're both gone, you gotta wonder if maybe something happened to both of them. Still, though…”

He picked up on her thought. “You're right. Nothing says for sure that's what went down. And I've been wondering too if maybe we should be thinking about something else. What if she was already on her way home when something happened?”

He paused. “And that reminds me, I got news about the cell phone.” But the news wasn't good. “Tower picked it up last night; it was on for about a minute. Local tower. Phone was in Bearkill or right nearby. But since then, nothing at all.”

Lizzie sighed heavily. “Yeah, I guess that would've been too easy, huh? Just follow the pings like breadcrumbs, and—”

“Sure. But she was near here. Or the phone was, anyway. So she could've got snatched on her way home. Picked up hitchhiking, or even flat-out abducted.”

She nodded slowly. “Okay, let's assume for a minute that's what happened, and it was Gemerle who took her. Why, we don't understand yet. Or how, actually. Like, what vehicle?”

He paged through his notes, looked up. “There was a van stolen in Allagash yesterday. Gray Econoline.”