A Picture of Guilt

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  “Rachel, sit down.” She ignored me. I tightened my hold on her arm.

  She flopped down at the table and propped up her head with her hand.

  “You’ve been drinking.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  Stay calm, Ellie. You can handle this. “Who were you with?”

  She shook her head in a slow, exaggerated way.

  “I know you weren’t at Katie’s. I talked to Mrs. Shearson.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “Where were you, Rachel?”

  She slouched lower in the chair.

  “Rachel, were you with Carla and Derek?”

  She lifted a finger to her lips. “Shhh. Can’t tell.” Her shoulder dropped and she slumped to one side. Bleary eyes slid from my face to the table, then rolled back in her head and closed. “Rachel, do you need to throw up?”

  She opened her eyes and gave me a lopsided smile. “Nooope. I’m fine.” Then she threw up on the table.

  ***

  I called early the next morning. “Barry, it’s me.”

  “How ya doing, Ellie?” He sounded chipper.

  “I’ve been better.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Your daughter came home drunk last night and puked on the kitchen table.”

  He went quiet. Then, “Is she all right?”

  “She’s still passed out.” I stood up. “Barry, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this. Did you know she’s been hanging around with Carla and Derek?”

  “Marlene’s daughter?”

  “Yes.” I restrained myself from adding her “aerobics queen” handle. “Apparently, she was with them. I wondered if you’d ask Marlene if that’s true. And then, maybe we can all sit down and—”

  “Hold on, Ellie. What makes you think she was with Carla?”

  “Well, for one, she admitted it.”

  “You asked her?”

  “Of course.” I started to pace around my office, the familiar irritation of dealing with Barry surfacing.

  “Well, what did you expect her to say?”

  “The truth.”

  “The truth.” He snorted. “She’d say anything to get you off her back. What evidence do you have?”

  “Evidence? What evidence? This isn’t a court—”

  “Where did she go? Who drove? Who slipped her an ID? Come on, Ellie. Instead of running off at the mouth, show me the evidence.”

  “Running off at the mouth?” I clenched my jaw. “Barry, lose the attack mode, will you? Rachel’s in trouble. We have to deal with it responsibly.”

  “Attack? You accuse my girlfriend’s daughter of corrupting Rachel, and you don’t have a shred of evidence to back it up. You tell me who’s attacking.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to five. No way would I make it to ten. “Barry, I insist that Rachel and Carla stay away from each other. If not, I’ll have to take action. In the meantime, you might want to have a little talk with Marlene, just to make sure she knows where her daughter is when she’s flexing her glutes or abs or whatever else she’s doing all day.”

  A hostile silence followed. Then, “Ellie, you’re the one who doesn’t know where your daughter is or who she’s with. If you can’t handle Rachel, maybe we should reconsider her living arrangements.”

  A swell of fury shot through me. I slammed down the phone.

  I didn’t want to admit it, but Barry was right. I didn’t know where Rachel had been. She’d lied to me. Katie’s mother, too. But up until now, it never crossed my mind not to trust her. I always thought we had an honest relationship. But maybe an honest relationship with a teenager was an oxymoron. I’d been no angel myself, I recalled. If Rachel was dissembling at thirteen, what would she be doing in a few years?

  I sank into a chair. When Rachel was young, I joked about raising children according to the school of bribes and threats. But that was when parenting consisted mostly of cuddling, potty training, and making sure they ate a tablespoon of vegetables a day. Now that she was becoming a person, I felt ill equipped and clumsy. What was the right tack? Cajole or insist? Negotiate or demand?

  I gazed at the picture of her and David on my desk. I’d taken it at the Botanic Gardens last summer. Why wasn’t he here with me? He might not know what to do either, but at least we could muddle through it together.

  ***

  By evening Rachel was a palette of miserable colors: her eyes were yellow, her nose red, and there was a greenish cast to her skin. I brought ginger ale and aspirin and tucked her back in bed. Her bedside lamp threw an arc of light on a clutter of stuffed animals in the corner.

  “Now I know what a soccer ball feels like,” she moaned.

  “Sounds about right.”

  “I’ll never do that again.”

  “You heard her,” I said to a poster of four young men with black T-shirts and tattoos, who were glowering at me from the wall.

  “Why do people get drunk?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “It wasn’t even fun.”

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  She sighed. “Derek got this stuff. Sloe gin. We drove to the park and drank it.”

  Sloe gin fizzes. Tasted like punch but kicked like tequila. The kind of drink you give to underaged kids. I remember worshiping the porcelain goddess myself years ago, thanks to sloe gin. I also remember why my date kept pouring them down my throat. “Rachel, did anything happen—I mean—after you were drinking?” I imagined Derek fondling my baby. Or worse.

  “Carla and Derek started to make out, but then she threw up, and we came home.”

  “What about you? Did Derek try anything, well… inappropriate?” If she answered yes, I’d claw his eyes out.

  “Mom, I was in the backseat. He was driving.”

  I relaxed.

  “I’m sorry, Mommy.”

  “Shhh.” I stroked her forehead. Maybe it had taught her a lesson. Maybe she wouldn’t be so eager the next time. “Try to get some sleep.”

  “Will you read to me?’

  We hadn’t done that in years. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Harry Potter? I never finished number four.”

  I grabbed Goblet of Fire from her bookcase and started in. Harry and Malfoy had set to each other using their wands as weapons, and Hermione’s teeth were growing at an alarming rate. Snape cut off the scuffle in the nick of time, but no one seemed happy it was over. When I looked up at Rachel, she was asleep. I finished the chapter myself.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Rachel and I discussed the consequences of her behavior at breakfast. She was grounded until Thanksgiving: no play dates, mall trips, or evenings out. Especially on weekends. She would write a letter of apology to Mrs. Shearson for lying, and she’d volunteer at the soup kitchen twice a week.

  “What about Science Club?” she asked. “We’re starting chemistry. Can I still go?”

  I thought about it. “Yes, that’s permissible.”

  She beamed and polished off her cereal. I’d pictured her spending her teenage years in a dusty basement, fooling around with transistors, crystals, and diodes. But hey, if it meant she wouldn’t be cruising around raves or getting drunk in the park, I’d throw in a chemistry set.

  After I dropped her at school, I put on my black Garfield and Marx suit and headed downtown. Traffic clogged the expressway, the sky was bleak with hard-edged clouds, and a bitter wind tossed the last of the leaves around. November had arrived. We’d be lucky to see any sun before April.

  Ninety minutes later, I was ushered into Dale Reedy’s office. She was wearing a gray suit, almost a replica of her navy, but either the color was bad or she hadn’t slept well. She looked more chalky than a British complexion would suggest.

  “How are you, Ellie?” She came around the desk and shook my hand.

  “Fine. And you?”

  She led me over to the table. “I’m anxious to see the proposal.”

  No chitchat today. I dug out my copy
, wondering if something was troubling her but knowing I couldn’t ask.

  “I think it turned out well,” I said. “But I do have a couple of questions. I noted them with asterisks.”

  She took the papers. “I’ll just start going through these, shall I?”

  As she read, I looked around. She’d moved the pictures of her boys to a different shelf, and the daily newspapers were stacked in a chair. I didn’t see her running shoes. Had she suspended jogging for the season?

  “This is good.” She pointed to a paragraph on the second page. “Especially the bit about the leadership role we’re taking.”

  You spoon-fed that to me, I wanted to reply. “Thanks.”

  She flipped through the document. “Yes. I think this will do. I’ll have to show it to Tribble, of course, and take some time to—”

  “Tribble?”

  She yanked a finger toward the door. “My boss.”

  I remembered the older, gray-haired man who’d been so cool, even disapproving. My expression must have telegraphed my concern, because she added, “Oh, don’t worry about him. He lets me do whatever I want. He’s usually ripped by afternoon, anyway.”

  We exchanged knowing looks, and she turned to the last page. “Let’s go over the budget, shall we?”

  I cleared my throat. “I wasn’t sure whether you wanted me to take a crew from Chicago or pick up one out there. Either way would work.” I leaned forward. “And I wasn’t sure how much you wanted to invest in postproduction.”

  “Postproduction?”

  “Editing and special effects. And duplication. But the special effects are the prime consideration. If we—”

  “Duplication?” She tapped a pencil. “What are we duplicating?”

  “We’ll need to know—at some point—how many copies you’re going to want of the finished show. We use a duplication service, and the price breaks according to how many dubs you order. I listed them here.” I pointed to a line item at the bottom of the page.

  “Oh, I see.” She gave me a rueful smile. “But tell me. How many copies do you make of the unfinished tapes?”

  “Unfinished?”

  “The tapes that you shoot in the field.”

  “You mean the originals we shoot on location?”

  She nodded. “If that’s what you call them.”

  I shrugged. “We normally don’t make any. Most clients aren’t interested in the elements. They just want the finished product.”

  She frowned. “But didn’t I hear about a copy of a tape you made on the telly?”

  I tried not to react. “That was the tape for the water district. That…that was a special situation.”

  “Did you make copies of everything for them?”

  “No. In their case, we returned the originals. At least most of them.” It was my turn to frown. Where was she going with this? “But the tapes are your property. If you think you’re going to need copies, I’ll be glad to make them.”

  “Well, now. I’m not sure.”

  “Most of our clients are happy to let us keep them in storage. That way they know they’re safe, and they won’t get damaged.” I flinched as soon as I said it, but Dale already had arched her eyebrows.

  I tried to backpedal. “Uh…the water district was an abnormality. An aberration.”

  “Indeed.” Her eyebrows smoothed out. “But you returned all your originals to them?”

  “Not all of them. They only wanted the ones that showed the operation of the filtration plant and the cribs. For security reasons.”

  “Of course. But then—” she paused “—how were you able to use that tape at the trial?”

  A muffled trill cut through the air. “Blast. I thought I turned that off.” She slid open her drawer, picked up a cell phone, and looked at the LED. Then she flipped off the switch. “Sorry. Where were we?”

  “It’s all right. As a matter of fact, the tape that we played at the trial was one of the ones I didn’t have to return. It was a reenactment. We used actors and dressed them up in costumes. The only thing we shot were interiors. We probably could have done the shoot in a hotel room, and no one would have known the difference.”

  She smiled. “But you ended up making copies of it, anyway. For the trial.”

  “That’s right.” I was puzzled by her questions, but she was the client.

  “So, how many—” Her office phone rang. “It never ends.” She looked back at me. “I’ll let my secretary get it. Give her something to do besides read the Enquirer.”

  But the phone kept ringing. She glanced impatiently at the phone, then held up the proposal and tapped the edges of the papers on the table. Finally, the ringing stopped. She laid the papers flat and clasped her hands together.

  “Now…”

  I was about to continue when there was a knock at the door.

  “Yes?”

  The door cracked, and a woman with dark hair and darker skin poked her head in. “I’m sorry, Ms. Reedy, but a Mr. Sam says he needs to talk to you now.”

  Dale’s jaw tightened. “Tell him I’ll call him back.”

  “He was very persistent.”

  “Lavinia.” Dale’s voice was icy. “I told you—I’ll call him—”

  The woman tensed, her face saying she didn’t want to be held accountable if Dale refused the call.

  Dale got it. “Oh, never mind. I’ll take the bloody call.”

  Lavinia withdrew, looking relieved. Dale stomped to her desk. “Twit. Doesn’t even know how to screen calls.”

  I shifted in my seat.

  She picked up the phone. “Yes?” A pause. “No.” Another pause. “That’s correct.”

  I stood up and wandered over to her window, trying to give her some privacy. The cloud cover had lifted to a high overcast. Her window was larger than most office windows, and if I pressed close to the glass I could see both east and west, despite the southern exposure. To the west was the heart of the Loop, a patchwork of irregularly shaped buildings. I could even see the Eisenhower Expressway, which runs west from the junction of the Kennedy and Dan Ryan. Millions of commuters use one of those three highways every day.

  “Listen to me.” Dale’s voice grew more agitated. “I will handle it. Don’t worry. I’ll call you back.”

  I looked the other way. The traffic on Lake Shore Drive was a shifting pattern of dots, and the lake, gunmetal today, looked deserted and cold. Leaning my forehead against the glass, I could just make out the intake cribs in the distance. If I craned my neck farther left, maybe I could see Navy Pier.

  As I looked, I noticed something running the length of the window at the edge of the glass. At first, I thought it was a crack. I reached up a finger to touch it, but it felt bumpy, not smooth, like you’d expect with an embedded break. I ran a finger down its length. A delicate wire, with a clear insulation, was taped to the window. It was barely more substantial than a thread, not something you’d see if you weren’t looking for it…

  I took a step back and followed its path with my eyes. Down to the floor, across the baseboards, around the corner, behind Dale’s desk. I looked up. Dale was watching me, her phone in her hand, but when she caught me looking at her, she flicked her eyes away and returned the phone to its base.

  She didn’t say anything.

  Neither did I.

  ***

  Rachel’s Science Club teacher had said antennas were flexible. You could put them anywhere. But why would Dale Reedy have an antenna in her window, I wondered on the way home. Did she have a radio setup there? Was there some connection between the oil company and the cribs?

  There must be another explanation. Maybe Dale had a shortwave radio. Or a ham setup. Maybe she used it to keep in touch with her boys back in England. Families did things like that when they were separated by distance, didn’t they?

  But then, where was the rest of the equipment? And why didn’t she say anything about it? Because it was clear from her expression when I found it that I wasn’t supposed to. In fact, her beh
avior during our entire meeting was strange. Our discussion about the video was perfunctory. The enthusiasm she’d mustered during our first meeting was gone. The only thing she’d been interested in was the duplication of the tapes.

  I thought back to our conversation. How she’d seemed to have trouble grasping the difference between originals and edited shows; how she kept coming back to the water district tape. Wanting to know how many copies we’d made. Whether I’d returned the original. My stomach tightened. She was pumping me about the tape we’d shot at the cribs! The tape with the RF on it.

  The familiar landmarks on Ontario Street took on a sinister aura as I headed west. Buildings were darker, more hulking, cars and trucks more aggressive. Pedestrians wore menacing leers. What was so frigging important about that tape? First LeJeune. Now Dale Reedy.

  But Dale had a wire on her window. And a direct line of sight to the cribs.

  ***

  When I got home, I dug out LeJeune’s card and punched in his number at the Bureau. His voicemail picked up. I left a message, telling him I needed to talk to him about my meeting at Great Lakes Oil. I was still uneasy two hours later, and on the way home from school, I quizzed Rachel. “Sweetheart, remember those radios your Science Club teacher brought in for Parents’ Day?”

  “Sure.”

  “What are they used for?”

  “Which ones?”

  “Wasn’t there something called a packet?”

  She nodded. “Packet’s awesome.”

  “Why?”

  “Once you hook up a computer to it, you can do just about anything. Transmit voice, data, send signals to make things happen.”

  “Yeah?”

  She twisted around. “We told you all that at Parents’ Day. Weren’t you listening?”

  “I was, and you did a great job.”

  She nodded, as if the compliment was her due. We pulled into the garage.

  “But tell me something, Rach. Can you send just one signal with radio if you want? You know, just one blast at a time?”

  “Of course.” She pointed to the garage door opener. “That’s what that thing does.”

  “Gotcha. But you’d still need an antenna with a line of sight between the two points, right? Even with only one signal?”

  “Uh, duh.”