by Julie Cave
“These have been done pretty recently,” said Shorten. “They look pretty new.”
Guido looked over them again. “Yeah. But I don’t recognize the lady in the photos.”
“You don’t think she bought them from you?”
“Nope. For some reason, I’m thinking they were bought by a man.”
“Do you think it was this man?” Elise asked, showing Guido Simon Wakowski’s latest mug shot.
“Nope, wasn’t him.”
“What about this man?” Dinah showed him a picture of Angus Whitehall on her phone.
Guido looked at the picture for a long time. “You know, this guy does look familiar. It could have been him.”
“You got cameras in here at all, Guido?” Shorten asked.
“What do you mean, cameras?”
“Like CCTV. Keeping an eye on your illegal employees?”
Guido smiled, showing a gold tooth. “Nice try. All my employees have the correct documentation, but you’re welcome to look. Yes, we have CCTV in some areas of our business.”
“Would your cameras have seen someone looking for new fake documents?”
“If he walked in the front door, yeah.”
“Great. How old would you say these documents are?”
Guido tossed the documents on the table. “Two years?”
“Great. I need the tapes from two years ago.”
“The whole year?” Guido whined.
“Until I see this guy,” interjected Elise, pointing at Whitehall’s picture.
Guido pouted like a five-year-old girl, but in the end, he agreed.
Outside, Elise suddenly seemed unsure. “It’s going to take me a long time to go through those tapes.”
Shorten smiled. “I’ll help you out. I’m sure there’s some stuff on there I’d like to see and I like helping out two former colleagues.” He smiled.
Dinah couldn’t shake the sensation of running through quicksand, sinking deeper with every step beneath the weight of deception and misery and lifetimes wasted on the sharp end of a needle.
****
The need to find Lola rendered Angus incapable of anything else. Somehow he managed to preach on Sunday morning, though he couldn’t remember what he’d said. He spent Sunday night restlessly tossing in bed, unable to sleep. On Monday morning, he got up early and, with a headache thumping behind his eyes, he drove to the duplex in which Lola had lived.
The proprietor, the elderly woman who lived next door, was watering her flowers and her eyes narrowed with suspicion as he approached her.
“Good morning,” he said. “Mrs. Whittaker?”
“Ada Whittaker,” she confirmed. “You looking for the lady who used to live here?”
“Yes. I spoke to you on the phone a few days ago,” said Angus. “Right after the police came. I’m very worried for her, but the police won’t file a report yet. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”
Ada Whittaker frowned at him. “How do I know you’re not the one who is wanting to do her harm?”
Angus paused. “You don’t,” he agreed. “But if you look at who paid the deposit for this place, you’ll see my name, Angus Whitehall. I am her friend.”
Ada barely blinked. “Yeah, I remember the name. Well, son, I don’t know if anything I tell you will help anyway. I haven’t seen her for two weeks, and she owes a month’s worth of rent.”
“Have you ever had any conversation with her, just in passing?” Angus asked.
“Well, sure,” said Ada. “She seemed a nice lady, though lonely. So I took it upon myself to befriend her a little. She didn’t seem to have any family, either.”
She doesn’t, thought Angus.
“Last Christmas I asked if she would be seeing her folks,” said Ada. “She just shook her head, told me she’d be having dinner at some place called Joaquin’s.”
Angus filed this away — how long had Lola been hanging out at Joaquin’s? How was it that he knew nothing about her life anymore?
“Other than that,” continued Ada, “all we talked about was the weather or something we’d seen in the news.” She suddenly looked stricken. “I hope she’s okay.”
“So do I,” said Angus. “Thanks for your help. I’ll try to find you the money that you’re owed.”
Ada shrugged. “Good luck, sonny.”
As Angus walked away, she yelled: “Hey!”
He turned around. “Yeah?”
“You look familiar. Do I know you?” The old lady stood peering at him with her hands on her hips.
He bent his face away from her. “I don’t think so.”
Angus drove to the temporary placement agency where Lola had received her assignments. On the fringes of downtown, it was a basic office set up to find staff for businesses that needed a temporary worker.
The receptionist had ruler-straight black hair and purple lipstick. She raised one eyebrow when Angus asked about Lola, and suggested laconically, “You need to see the Personnel Manager.”
“Is that possible?”
The receptionist waved him through to an empty meeting room, and a stressed-out woman with frantic eyes joined him moments later. “Hello, sir,” she said. “My name is Megan Marshall. I’m the Personnel Manager here. I’m very sorry about Lola Albright; she was always one of our most reliable workers. If your office has lost money due to her absences, I’m sure we can find some way of —”
“Ms. Marshall,” interrupted Angus, gently. “I’m not from a company. I’m a friend of Lola’s, and I’m concerned for her wellbeing.”
Megan Marshall took a moment to shift gears. “What? You think something happened to her?”
“I hope not,” said Angus. “But as you said, she was usually reliable. Nobody has seen her for two weeks, and it’s not normal for her to simply vanish like that.”
“I see,” said Megan Marshall. “So what can I do for you, then?”
“I’m wondering when you saw her most recently, and if you noticed anything unusual,” said Angus.
“Well, the thing is, I don’t see our temporary workers very often at all. I organize placements for them, and call them to tell them where to go next. That’s pretty much the extent of our relationship.” Megan suddenly looked uncertain, as if she were afraid of getting into trouble.
“Sure,” said Angus. “I understand. Did the office here get any strange phone calls for Lola? Was there any place she didn’t particularly want to go?”
“If there were, she didn’t tell me,” said Megan. “I don’t know about anything like that.”
Angus felt increasingly desperate, but it was becoming clear that Lola Albright held people at arm’s length, not allowing them into her life. He thanked Megan Marshall and drove to the only other place he knew Lola went — Joaquin’s.
Joaquin’s was a Mexican cantina near the edge of town, frequented by blue-collar workers. The groups of eaters were large and noisy, and they barely noticed Angus’s arrival. Lola could have slipped in and out of the place without anybody realizing she’d been there at all, Angus realized. That was probably the attraction of it.
Angus approached the bar and asked the harried barmaid if she knew Lola Albright. The look of confusion and irritation was enough for Angus. This was not a place for building slow friendships, and Lola had probably chosen it precisely because she could be anonymous.
As Angus drove back to the office, he felt adrift, at sea without a rudder or anchor, simply bobbing about uselessly in a vast and unfriendly ocean. He was desperate to know that Lola was okay, but deep down, the tendrils of fear had snaked around his heart. The three of them had fled their past together, creating new lives in this small Virginian town. Now one was dead, the other missing. What did that mean for the remaining person?
Is my life in danger? Angus wondered. Is my family in danger? Are they going to come after me? What does Lola know, if she is still alive? Has she talked to anyone? Does anyone know the truth about me? Why did I think I could ever get away with it?
> The experts say that a marriage built on deceit cannot last. Sometimes, it seems there is no better choice. I could never find the courage to tell Louise about Malia or Lola, because they represent the very worst parts of me. They are women who trusted me, needed me, at times, even loved me. I gave them nothing in return but violence and misery. Lola was the stronger of the two; but Malia was lost from the start. I took terrible advantage of her and destroyed her. I have spent so much time thinking of violent red blooms of blood; the bitter taste of hatred; hasty deals done in the darkness of my heart. I’ve been thinking of lives destroyed, money exchanged for the last breath of life, cheap hotels and needles that rob a person of everything that made her human.
Sometimes I feel like I’ve bathed in other people’s blood, like it’s dripping from me, like it’s staining my skin and darkening my heart. I can’t get rid of it, I can’t outrun it, and I can’t wash myself of it. It haunts my sleep and ghosts my days. Yet, somehow I’ve fooled everyone, haven’t I? Nobody would guess my origins; nobody would believe the things I’ve done.
The truth is that the false life we set up here in Ten Mile Hollow all those years ago became real for me, but it didn’t become real for them.
Malia couldn’t deal with everything we had done — she found a dealer and slipped into her addiction, despite the many times I tried to help her. It was as if she knew that life had nothing else to offer her. We tried the charade of getting her a job, finding her a nice place to live, only to hear a few weeks later that she’d been fired or evicted or both. But I kept going back, trying to help, because it was all my fault, don’t you see?
Lola didn’t fall into the hole of addiction, but she didn’t really settle here either. She only accepted temporary jobs, she moved houses all the time. She didn’t have any relationships or close friends. Perhaps she could sense she was living on borrowed time.
I’ve thought about it for years and years, you know; why I could settle down and live a normal life, and why Malia and Lola couldn’t. I believe there really is no difference between us except for one thing.
The capacity for evil in my heart is much greater than theirs. While their lives were consumed with guilt and horror at what we’d done, my aptitude for denial and self-justification and pride is stellar. The instinct for self-preservation is strongest in me, and I’m so ashamed I can barely stand myself.
Angus shook away his shadowy thoughts, parked his car in the lot at church, and stared sightlessly through the windshield. He knew the truth of it, deep down, whether he was truly in danger or not. He had allowed the two women to be thrown to the wolves, while he cowered behind his family and office.
As I have always been — a coward and an egotist. A bad combination; a dangerous, violent combination.
****
On Monday morning, Chloe was horrified when her mother suggested that they go shopping together during her free periods. Ever since she’d learned to hate mirrors, Chloe also hated shopping. Pale, fat, round girls did not enjoy shopping, Chloe thought darkly.
But for her mom, shopping was an all too rare bonding experience, and Chloe didn’t want to disappoint her. And it was rare that Mom had time off during the week.
Thankfully it usually only happened two or three times a year, as the weather changed. Winter was on the downhill slide toward spring, which meant that Mom instantly decided Chloe needed new clothes.
Down at the mall, Chloe resolved to be as agreeable as possible so that the shopping thing could be finished as quickly as possible. But for some reason today, Mom decided to stroll along casually, looking in almost every store.
“Oh, my!” Mom exclaimed, stopping outside a Kohl’s store. “Look at those adorable dresses. Come on!”
Chloe really wanted to say, I look terrible in dresses, but instead she said weakly, “Sure.”
Like a woman on a mission, Mom gathered up spring dresses left and right, amassing armfuls for Chloe to try on. Chloe looked at the dresses askance, seeing pretty floral prints, and floaty skirts that would look absolutely awful on her.
Still, to humor her mother, she disappeared into the changing room to try on the dresses.
“Make sure you come out and show me!” called Mom through the door.
Chloe rolled her eyes and pulled on a pink and yellow floral dress that only seemed to accentuate her flabby arms and thick ankles. With a deep sigh, she opened the dressing room door.
Her mom looked up with a bright smile and Chloe took a sudden step backward, filled with dread. Standing with her mom were Jessica Hunter and two of her minions, Sarah Mallister and Alice Greendale. All of them wore fake, syrupy smiles to go with their lean, willowy legs and long glossy hair.
“Chloe, your friends happened to be here, too!” said Mom, cheerfully. “Isn’t that great? That’s a lovely dress. What do you think, girls?”
Chloe would have been quite happy to die on the spot. Was it possible to will yourself to death? If it were, she would’ve done it immediately. Jessica grinned, full of spite and glee.
“Hi Chloe!” she said, as if she were an old friend. “Your mom said you were trying on some dresses. We couldn’t resist the opportunity to see you!”
Before Chloe realized what she was doing, she pulled out her cell phone and took a quick photo. “Lovely!” she said, her tone suggesting otherwise. Clueless, her mom beamed.
“Well, I hate this dress,” Chloe announced, and stepped back behind the curtain. She ripped off the dress and pulled back on her regular clothes.
As she reappeared, her mom looked confused. “What about all those other dresses?” she asked. “Aren’t you going to try them on?”
“Yeah,” chimed in Jessica. “You looked so great in the last one. There were some really pretty ones there, too!”
Chloe felt hot, and she was sure her face was bright red. “I don’t want to try on any more dresses,” she snapped. “Let’s go.”
“Chloe,” Mom said, bewildered. “Please don’t be rude to your friends.”
Jessica managed to slide a hurt look onto her face. “Sorry Chloe, I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Chloe felt herself quite capable of physical violence at that very moment. Briefly, she imagined Jessica being consumed by a fire or caught in a tornado or buried in a landslide. Instead, she turned and stormed out of the store.
The tinkling of their laughter followed her as Mom caught up with her and grabbed her arm. “Chloe! What on earth is the matter with you?” she demanded. “You were very rude to all of us.”
Chloe thought of all the things she could say about Jessica and her minions, but instead said: “I hate dresses, okay? I hate wearing those stupid flowery dresses that make me look terrible. I wish you’d stop trying to make me into something I’m not!”
“Chloe, I don’t think —” Mom began.
“Just drop it okay? I don’t want to talk about it,” snapped Chloe. Close to bursting into tears, she turned away.
“I wasn’t trying to make you into something you’re not,” continued Mom, her voice calm. “There’s no need to be rude to me.”
Chloe’s anger and humiliation boiled over. “Why don’t you just admit you don’t know anything about me?” she yelled, oblivious to the people around her. “You want me to wear ridiculous dresses; you don’t even realize I hate them! Those girls aren’t my friends, but you don’t even know that! You have no idea about me at all! Why don’t you just go back to work and leave me alone!”
Her mom looked stunned at the outburst. It was unusual for Chloe, even adolescent Chloe, to explode like that. But she didn’t care. It felt good to tell the truth for once, instead of humoring her and pretending everything was fine.
Chloe stomped back to the car. Mom followed her, a look of tight displeasure on her face. The car trip to school was filled with awkward silence, Mom shooting glances at Chloe every so often. Thankfully, she seemed to sense that Chloe didn’t want to talk and she stayed silent.
At school, Chloe went straight to
the library, shaking her head at her mother’s total ignorance. She sat at a computer cubicle right at the back of the library and logged onto Facebook even though it was against the rules, grimly certain she’d find something posted about her by Jessica. Grotesque fascination made her do it, as if she couldn’t look away. If nothing else, she needed to know what the kids at school would be laughing at all day.
Jessica Hunter didn’t disappoint.
She’d photo-shopped the image of Chloe in the dress, adding crudely drawn fairy wings and a wand. At the bottom of the photo, she’d written: YOUR FAIRY HOG-MOTHER and posted it on Facebook.
Chloe inspected the photo with a harsh and critical eye. She’d been right — her legs were too round and short, her arms soft and saggy. The dress seemed to accentuate every site where flesh squeezed against the seams. She could even see rolls of fat around her stomach, every crease noticeable through the thin fabric.
The jeering comments underneath the photo were coming thick and fast. It seemed that she was fast becoming an object of ridicule not just among Jessica’s minions, but almost everybody at the school.
Chloe closed her computer and sat back in her chair, staring up at the ceiling. She heard the bell calling her to class, but she resolutely ignored it and the consequences, dreaming of a parallel universe in which she was tall, thin, beautiful, and popular.
****
The bank manager called on Monday afternoon, for which Dinah was thankful. Elise had been in a quiet and snappy mood since her shopping trip with her daughter. Dinah didn’t know what had happened, but they’d both arrived home looking unhappy. Since then, the silence in the house had been full of tension.
“I didn’t think you’d be calling until tomorrow at least,” Elise said into the speaker phone.
The bank manager, who had identified himself as Raoul Gomez, laughed. “The vice-president told me to call you as soon as the traces were complete,” he said. “I’ve got the paperwork here. Would you like to take a look at it?”
“Yes, please,” Elise said. “Shall we meet somewhere?”
“Flannery’s is open for a late lunch or early dinner,” suggested Raoul. “It’ll be quiet, seeing it’s a Monday.”