Little Girls

by Ronald Malfi

  We all know the score, she thought. Are we trying to kid each other?

  “You said yourself there had been speculation that Tanya Albrecht might have known her abductor,” she said to Detective Freeling. “My father sold his share of the mill and retired sometime in the early eighties, but he would still have known some of the folks working there in 1989. He knew the layout of the property, knew the workers . . . but he lived out here, removed enough from their society to be forgotten.”

  “But what reason would he have to abduct the girl?” Ted said. He was trying damn hard to not only convince her but to convince himself, Laurie could tell.

  “What reason does anyone have for abducting and murdering anyone?” she retorted. “It would have been so easy. He lived here alone, no one ever came to visit him, and he had access to that whole facility even after he’d left. Maybe her death was an accident—I don’t think it was, but I guess it’s possible—and he just stowed her away in that garage. Maybe he meant to go back for her once things settled down. And maybe enough time finally passes and he figures, what the hell, and leaves her in there to rot.” A final thought struck her like a mallet to a gong. “Maybe he even forgot about her. After all that time, I mean. The dementia . . .” She looked intently at Ted. “Maybe that’s why he had been tearing this house apart. Maybe he was looking for the key, but in his dementia, he had forgotten what he’d done with it.”

  It felt like bolts tumbling into place inside her head.

  “Laurie . . .” Ted stood up.

  “Wait.” She lashed out and gripped him just above the wrist. “The last phone call I had with him back in Hartford. He began talking nonsensically, or so I thought at the time—”

  “Laurie, he was sick.”

  “He called me Tanya,” she said. “Twice. On the phone. I didn’t think anything of it then—who would?—but now . . .”

  Ted went silent. Slowly, he lowered himself back in his chair. Across the table, Detective Freeling’s eyes volleyed between the two of them. After a moment, he said, “Mrs. Genarro, are you sure about that?”

  “As sure as I am sitting here. As sure as there’s the body of a dead girl in that garage in Sparrows Point.” But then she paused. She glanced down at the open case file and at one of the old school photos of Tanya Albrecht. “I’ve seen this girl before,” Laurie said.

  One of Freeling’s eyebrows arched. “Yeah?”

  “Hold on.” She stood up and left the room. When she returned less than two minutes later, she carried with her Myles Brashear’s photo album. She set the album on the table, opened it, and flipped to the appropriate page. “Here,” she said, pointing to the photograph of a young girl peeking out from beneath the shade of a highway overpass. “That’s her. That’s Tanya Albrecht.”

  Freeling spun the album around so that he could get a better view of the photo. He said nothing as he looked at it, although the exhalations from his flared nostrils were quite loud.

  “Holy Christ,” Ted muttered. He looked ill.

  “Yeah,” Detective Freeling said eventually. He nodded, though he seemed saddened to do it. “Yeah, that’s her, all right.”

  “I think there’s more, too,” Laurie said. She went to her purse on the counter and dug out the manila envelope she had found clipped to the back of her childhood scrapbook back in that horrible place. She opened it and upended it, scattering the photographs about the table. “Tanya wasn’t the only girl I found back at that storage facility.”

  Both Ted and Detective Freeling picked up a photograph each. A deafening silence fell down upon them. It lasted for several heartbeats.

  “Who are all these girls?” Ted said eventually, setting the photo down on the table.

  Detective Freeling looked up at her. “These were with your father’s stuff?”

  “Yes.”

  “What does this mean?” Ted said.

  “I know,” Laurie said. “I know what it means.”

  When she didn’t continue, Detective Freeling rubbed his forehead and, peering down at the display of photographs once more, said, “There were a rash of disappearances back in the eighties throughout the Delmarva area. All of them young girls. Nine, I believe, in all. Including Albrecht. None of them were ever found.”

  “He was stalking them,” Laurie said. “Taking pictures.”

  “Jesus,” Ted said. The word juddered out of him. “These can’t be the same girls.”

  “There’s eight different girls in all those photos,” Laurie said. Then she pointed to the photo of Tanya in her father’s album. “Tanya Albrecht makes nine.”

  Ted just shook his head. His eyes looked distant, unfocused.

  “I’ll need to take these as evidence,” Detective Freeling said. “We can ID them at the station.”

  Laurie handed him the envelope.

  With a sigh, Detective Freeling filed the papers into the case file and then closed it. Along with the photos of the girls, he had included the photograph of Laurie’s father and the two other men, but she didn’t protest. When he requested the photo of Tanya from the album, Laurie took it out from its plastic sleeve and handed it to him. He stared at it in unabashed amazement, then slid it, too, into the case file.

  “I’d like to have you come down to the station tomorrow and give a formal statement,” Detective Freeling said. “Whenever is most convenient for you.”

  She nodded. “Of course.”

  “I can’t promise you what will come out in the newspapers in the next few days, though I presume you’ll be heading back to Hartford sooner than later?”

  “As soon as we have a realtor look at the house,” Laurie said.

  “These things can be . . . tough . . . on families.” There was more than just a hint of compassion in Detective Freeling’s voice. “I’m sure you understand.”

  Both Laurie and Ted nodded.

  Detective Freeling stood. “I’ll see myself out. And of course I’ll keep you both apprised of anything else we uncover.”

  “Will you let me know if you’re able to contact any of Tanya’s relatives?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thank you, detective.”

  Smiling wearily, the slender blue case file tucked beneath one arm, Detective Freeling wished them a good night.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Ted said. When she didn’t answer, he said, “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Whatever you want,” she said. She emptied the coffee cups in the sink, then wiped down the counter. Exhaustion pulled on her shoulders like a backpack full of sand. After leaving Sparrows Point in a fit of panic, she was halfway along the beltway toward home before she was able to regain some composure. When she had glanced up at her reflection in the rearview mirror, she wasn’t at all surprised to find that she had been crying. Now, just a few hours later, that trip out to the desolate factories of Sparrows Point seemed like it had happened in another lifetime.

  Ted stood up from the table. “Your mind must be reeling. I can’t imagine what this is like for you.”

  “I don’t need your compassion or your sympathy,” she advised him. “This changes nothing between you and me.”

  “I’d like to talk about that, if you’ll let me.”

  “I don’t think so, Ted. It’s very late and I’ve been through enough bullshit this evening.”

  “Maybe you should rethink coming with me on Friday. You and Susan.”

  “There’s nothing to rethink. Susan and I will be fine here on our own. And I think you should leave tomorrow instead of waiting till Friday.” She looked at the clock on the microwave. It was after midnight. “Today, I mean.”

  “I don’t like the idea of leaving you two alone in this house.”

  “It isn’t the house. There’s no menacing spirit here. I’m a grown woman and I can take care of myself.”

  She threw the crusty dishrag in the sink. On the counter, the remaining items that had been recovered from the well still sat on the paper towel. There were half a dozen more k
eys among the swag. How many other doors were there? How many other locks waited to be opened? The possibilities were horrifying.

  “At least let me come to the police station with you tomorrow,” he said.

  “I can handle that on my own.”

  “Laurie, you’re being pigheaded.”

  “Am I?”

  “Stop it. Please. Let’s talk.”

  “I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

  Her back was toward him but she could hear him sigh loud enough. She knew the look that would be on his face—that hurt, pouty, boyish look of indignation. She had seen it plenty of times in the past.

  “It’s like you don’t even care,” he said. “Any other wife would have . . . would have asked questions about . . .”

  She turned and smiled coolly at him. It took all her strength. “You want me to ask who she was? When it happened? How did it start?”

  “At least we’d be talking.”

  “I don’t want to know those things, Ted. I’m tired and I’m sad and I’m lonely. Thing is, I’ve been lonely for a while now. Why is it you care all of a sudden?”

  “I’ve always cared.”

  “Have you?”

  “Stop answering me with rhetoric.”

  She rinsed her hands beneath the faucet, then dried them off on a fresh dishtowel. The decapitated head of the plastic baby doll watched her from the counter with blank eye sockets. “You should get some rest if you’re going to drive back tomorrow.”

  “I can leave Friday morning instead, just like we planned.”

  “We planned nothing.”

  “You know what I mean. Come on. Cut it out.”

  Folding her arms across her chest, she turned around to face him as she leaned back against the edge of the counter. “Here’s the deal. You leave tomorrow for your big meeting. You stay there when it’s done. Once I’m able to get a realtor out here to look at this place, Susan and I will take a train back. I’ll use the money we’ve made already from the sale of the furniture, so you won’t feel it in your bank account.”

  “This isn’t about money, Laurie.”

  “No. It’s about fidelity. Or your lack thereof. Either way, once Susan and I get back to Hartford, you and I can talk. I think that’s reasonable. We’ve got a daughter to think about in all this, and it would do her no good for me to scream and shout and throw your shit out into the street. Which, truth be told, is what I’d really like to do.”

  There was nothing for him to say to this. He simply stared at her, a dumbstruck look on his face. For the first time since she had known him, he actually looked his age. There were dark patches beneath his eyes with spidery crow’s feet at the corners. His skin looked sallow and nearly transparent. Blood vessels as thin as hairs networked across his cheeks. His appearance gave her some dark satisfaction.

  “Okay,” he said at last, and left the kitchen.

  Though exhausted, she needed a shower. While under the tepid spray, she wept quietly for a full ten minutes, her sadness confused by the fusillade of betrayal she’d felt in the past forty-eight hours. A husband whose infidelity forced her to reexamine herself. A father whose black, unfathomable secrets had just floated to the surface. The only solace she found, which beckoned to her like the pinprick radiance of a distant star, was in the probability that she had been wrong about Abigail Evans after all. Sadie Russ had come back all right, but it hadn’t been to continue tormenting and torturing her. She had come back to reveal a truth that had long been hidden—that her father had done unspeakable things to little girls. Perhaps it was Sadie’s way of atoning for the evil she had brought unto Laurie when they had both been little girls. Perhaps this was Sadie Russ’s salvation from beyond the grave. With some despondency, Laurie wondered what would happen to Abigail Evans now that Sadie’s work was done. Would the girl return to her normal self, no longer the vessel needed for Sadie’s handiwork? Or would the girl simply blink out of existence altogether, as if she had never truly existed in the first place?

  Chapter 28

  Ted left before noon. Laurie was asleep upstairs, on the mattress that had been left on the floor after McCall’s haulers had taken the bedframe. Ted had spent the evening on the sofa downstairs, and he had already relocated his luggage to the foyer so that he wouldn’t disturb Laurie when he left. As it was, she had already been awake for about an hour, hearing him fumble around downstairs, until she finally heard the front door open and close. A moment later, she heard the Volvo’s engine start up. The urge to go to the window and watch his retreat was strong, but she resisted. Once the sound of the engine dissipated, she lay on the mattress staring at the shapes that seemed to coalesce then disengage in the stucco ceiling.

  At two-thirty, an unmarked police car pulled up the driveway. A fresh-faced cop in a frumpy brown suit knocked on the front door. Laurie had just finished showering and her hair was still wet. She pulled her hair back into a short ponytail as she hurried to the front door.

  “Hi, Mrs. Genarro. Detective Freeling said to pick you up and bring you to the station for your statement.”

  “I’m just a few minutes behind,” she said, propping open the door and waving him inside. “Would you like something to drink?”

  “No, ma’am.” He spoke with a heavy Baltimore accent that stretched out his words and made them sound lazy. “I’m just fine, thank you.”

  Upstairs, she poked her head into Susan’s bedroom. Susan sat on the edge of her bed lacing up her Keds. The girl looked despondent. Laurie wondered how much of the discussion her daughter had overheard last night.

  “You okay, kiddo?”

  “Tummy feels yucky.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It just feels yucky.”

  Laurie pressed her lips to the girl’s forehead to gauge her temperature. “You don’t feel hot.”

  Frowning, Susan shrugged.

  “There’s a cop downstairs waiting to take us to the police station. You ready to go?”

  “Will he turn on the lights and sirens?”

  “Probably not, but it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

  The cop, whose name was Freddy Shannon, did not turn on the lights and siren, though he did seem amused by the request. Instead, he let Susan sit up front and listen to the squawking radio while Laurie sat in the back.

  “Have you ever been in a car chase?” Susan asked.

  “Nope,” Shannon said.

  “Have you ever shot somebody?”

  “Nope.”

  “Have you ever done that thing where you give somebody electric shocks?”

  “You mean a Taser?”

  “Yeah, that’s it!”

  “Nope.”

  “Oh. Well, have you ever seen a dead body?”

  “Sure have,” said Shannon brightly.

  “Really? Oh, wow, was it all nasty like in the movies?”

  Laurie cleared her throat and said, “Susan.”

  “No, ma’am,” Shannon said to Susan, though his smiling eyes glanced up at Laurie in the rearview mirror. “Wasn’t nasty at all.”

  “No?”

  “Nope. Was quite peaceful and nice. The fella was done up in his favorite suit and tie and there were all these beautiful flowers all around him.”

  Susan made a face that suggested she smelled something awful. “Who was he?”

  “Uncle Hubert,” said Freddy Shannon. “Was a real nice funeral.”

  The police station was a squat redbrick building with flagpoles out front. Freddy Shannon led them inside, through a vestibule where women sat behind bulletproof glass, down a hallway carpeted in garish fire-retardant berber, and into a small office. The office was empty of personnel, but there were two desks piled high with clutter. A dry erase board hung from one wall, the ghosts of ancient cases still faintly visible despite having been erased. The only photo on the wall was of the governor.

  “Can I get you guys a soda or something?” Shannon said.

  “No, thanks,” Laurie said before Su
san could interject. “We’re good.”

  “Detective Freeling got caught up with some other business, but he should be here in a couple of minutes.”

  “Thank you.”

  When Shannon left, Laurie sat down in one of the two empty chairs that faced the nearest desk. Susan went over to the dry erase board and picked up one of the markers. She popped the cap off, then looked at her mother. “Will they care if I draw?”

  “They might arrest you for vandalism.”

  Susan snapped the cap back on the marker, then claimed the empty seat beside Laurie.

  When Detective Freeling arrived a few minutes later, he had his shirtsleeves cuffed to the elbows and a hasty air about him. A gun and gold shield hung on his hip. He apologized for keeping them waiting. “Things popped up this morning, which I’ll tell you about momentarily,” he said.

  “More information about the girls?”

  “Not exactly,” Detective Freeling said as he dropped down behind the desk.

  “Mommy, what girls?”

  “Detective, is there a place where my daughter can wait while we do this?”

  “Of course.” He jumped up and went to the door, opened it, and shouted someone’s name down the hallway. When he turned back around, his face was red. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.”

  “Not a problem.”

  “Will Mr. Genarro be joining us?”

  “My daddy left,” Susan said before Laurie could respond. “He went back to Hartford without us.”

  One of Detective Freeling’s eyebrows went up. He looked at Laurie.

  “He had a business meeting in Manhattan,” Laurie explained.

  “Oh,” said the detective.

  An attractive young woman with a boyish bob of hair appeared in the doorway. She wore sensible rimless glasses, a tweed pantsuit, and a lanyard around her neck. She smiled brightly at both Laurie and Susan.

  “Susan,” Detective Freeling said, “this is Miss Debbie. She just intercepted a whole shipment of illegal unicorns, princess gowns, pixie dust, and mermaids. Would you like to go with her and take a look?”