by Joy Fielding
It is also obvious that beauty runs in the family, for Cindy Carver, despite the anguish of her situation, is still, at forty-two, a very beautiful woman. As she perches on the end of one of two exquisitely appointed tan leather sofas, one can see traces of Julia in her face, in the tilt of her head, in the soft fullness of her lips, in the determination of her gaze. “My daughter will be coming home,” she says, and I ache to believe her.
The odds, of course, aren’t good. Young women who go missing rarely come home. Once lost, they are rarely found. And if they are, it is usually in shallow graves, after weeks, months, even years of soul-destroying searching. One has only to think of the grisly discoveries on that infamous pig farm in British Columbia, or the recent rash of kidnappings south of the border. One has only to mention the names Amber and Chandra. One has to pray that the name Julia will not be added to the list.
“What do you think has happened to your daughter?” I ask gently, thinking of my own daughter, age five, safe at home.
Cindy shakes her head, dislodging several fresh tears, unable to formulate a response, to say out loud what must surely be going through her mind, that her beloved firstborn child has fallen victim to the kind of senseless violence that is so much a part of big-city life, that her daughter’s sweet smile might have been misinterpreted by a mind unhinged by alcohol and drugs, that her natural exuberance might have acted as a red flag waving in the face of insanity.
“Julia is so full of life,” her mother says lovingly. “She’s got all this energy, all this drive. You take one look at Julia and you know she’s going to be a success at whatever she decides to do.”
What she’s decided to do, of course, is act. Julia, according to the woman who is her biggest fan, is an extremely gifted actress whose talent and beauty are matched only by her determination to succeed. Indeed, according to famed Hollywood director Michael Kinsolving, no stranger to beautiful, talented women, and the man for whom Julia not only auditioned on the morning of her disappearance, but who may have been the last person to have seen her, Julia had stardom written all over her. “An extraordinary talent,” he confides later over cocktails. “Gorgeous, of course. But more than that. She has that extra something that defines a star.”
What does Julia’s mother think of the rumors swirling around the well-known ladies’ man, rumors that hint at a possible romantic involvement between the aging Lothario and the young starlet? “Ridiculous,” Cindy Carver scoffs succinctly. “They just met that morning.” Does she give any credence to the speculation that Michael Kinsolving might somehow be involved in her daughter’s disappearance? “I can’t imagine …” she begins, her voice breaking.
Immediately, her mother and sister, both of whom are staying with Cindy until Julia comes home, rush to her side, smoothing several wayward hairs away from her face, wrapping her in their protective embrace. Families, I marvel, as I show myself to the door, anxious to get home to my daughter and her three-year-old brother. Already I picture their wondrous smiles as I walk through the door, their eager arms extended to welcome me home. How lucky I am, I think, aching to hold my babies in my arms. Tonight, when I tuck them into their beds, I will ask them to say a little prayer for Julia.
And one for her mother as well.
TWENTY
ON Saturday morning, another girl was reported missing.
Like Julia, she was described as tall, blond, and beautiful, although the photograph that ran on the front page of all four major Toronto papers revealed a slight cast in her left eye that made her appear slightly cross-eyed. Her name was Sally Hanson, and she was three years older than Julia, and maybe ten pounds heavier. Since her graduation from Queen’s University two years earlier, she’d been working in the editorial department of Toronto Life magazine, and according to the hastily assembled remarks from a number of her coworkers, she was outgoing and popular.
Like Julia, Sally Hanson had recently broken up with her boyfriend, whom police were reportedly most anxious to contact. Apparently he’d taken off on his motorcycle around the same time Sally’s worried parents were letting themselves into their daughter’s empty apartment.
Like Julia, Sally had disappeared on a Thursday, and like Julia, Sally was a movie buff, having planned her vacation to coincide with the film festival. She’d bought thirty coupons and, according to her mother, she’d been looking forward to seeing three films a day, every day, for the ten days of the festival’s duration. Among those films for which she had tickets was Michael Kinsolving’s highly anticipated new movie, Lost.
And yet, police were downplaying the speculation that there was any connection between the two disappearances. “We have no reason at all to suspect these two cases are related,” someone named Lieutenant Petersen was quoted as saying. The Globe and the Post largely echoed that sentiment, while the Star printed a lengthy article comparing and contrasting the lives of the two young women and the events leading up to their disappearances. Only the Sun asked the obvious question: SERIAL KILLER STALKING TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL? it queried in headline type.
“Don’t read that garbage,” Leigh said, wresting the tabloid from Cindy’s hands.
“Hey, give that back.” Cindy jumped up from her seat at the kitchen table and reclaimed the paper before her sister could stuff it into the trash container under the sink.
“Really, Cindy. What’s the point?” Leigh assumed their mother’s once-familiar stance, legs spread shoulder-length apart, hands on her hips, chin lowered, eyes raised, as if she were peering up over the top of a pair of reading glasses. She was wearing an unflattering, sky blue track suit that flattened her bosom and widened her hips, and a matching blue headband that pulled her eyebrows into her forehead and made her look vaguely deranged.
“The point is I want to read it,” Cindy said.
“What for? It’ll only upset you.”
Cindy shrugged. What else is new? the shrug said.
“It’s all just speculation anyway,” Leigh told her.
“I know that.”
“I’m sure that if the police thought there was any connection between the two cases, they’d say so.”
Cindy stared at her sister, trying to digest Leigh’s latest pronouncement. When had Julia lost her humanity, become merely a “case”?
The phone rang.
“I’ll get it.” Leigh was instantly at the phone. “Hello?” Immediately her face darkened. “Who is this?”
“Who is it?” Cindy echoed.
“You sick fuck!” Leigh slammed the phone into its carriage.
“Who was that?” Cindy asked, more amused than alarmed by her sister’s outburst. “Who was that?” she asked again, although she already knew the answer.
“What difference does it make? They’re all the same.”
“What’d this one say?”
“The usual crap.”
“Such as?”
“I have your daughter. I’m going to cut her up into little pieces. Yada, yada.”
Cindy shook her head, amazed, though no longer surprised, by the cruelty of others. The police had warned her about all the twisted minds out there, the perverts who feasted on other people’s suffering, who wallowed in their misery. Hang up, they’d told her. Better still, don’t answer your phone. Sometimes Cindy heeded their advice. Other times, she didn’t.
Ten minutes later, the phone rang again.
“I’ll get it,” Cindy said, this time beating her sister to the phone.
“Honestly, Cindy, you almost knocked me down.”
“Hello,” Cindy said.
“Hi, yourself,” the voice answered.
The voice was both husky and light, soothing and creepy, alien and familiar. An obvious attempt at disguise. Why? Was it someone she knew?
“Who is this?”
“Have you seen the morning papers?”
“Who is this?” Cindy repeated.
“They think Julia might be the victim of a serial killer.”
“Who is it?”
Leigh asked impatiently. “What’s he saying?”
“It would serve her right,” the voice continued. “Your daughter’s a slut, Cindy. She’s nothing but a cheap whore.”
A sharp cry suddenly stabbed at the air, tore through the phone wires, pierced Cindy’s ear.
“My God,” Cindy said, feeling her face drain of blood as she identified the sound.
“For heaven’s sake, Cindy,” Leigh said, “hang up the damn phone.”
Cindy held her breath, listened for the sound again. It didn’t come, but it didn’t matter. Cindy knew exactly what it was.
The sound of a baby crying.
“Faith?” Cindy whispered.
The phone went dead.
In the next second, Cindy was out of the kitchen and at her front door, Leigh following right behind.
“Where are you going? What are you doing?” her sister shouted after her, as Cindy ran down the steps and cut through the bushes into her neighbor’s front yard.
Cindy felt Leigh’s hand on her arm, tried shaking it away, but Leigh’s fingers were like stubborn vines, refusing to be severed with a simple shrug. “Let go,” Cindy hissed between tightly gritted teeth as she yanked her arm away.
“Cindy!” she heard Leigh shout as she raced up the front steps of the Sellick home, not looking back.
The door opened just as Cindy reached the top step. “Cindy!” Faith exclaimed, clearly surprised to see her. She closed the door behind her and adjusted the green corduroy Snuggly at her breasts. Inside it, Kyle was sleeping soundly, his eyes tightly closed, his lips sucking contentedly at his pacifier. “What’s happened? Has there been any news?”
“Did you just call me?” Cindy asked.
“What?”
“Did you just call me?”
“Call you? No. Why?”
“You didn’t just phone me?”
“What’s going on?” Faith glanced past Cindy to Leigh, who was now standing at the bottom of the stairs.
Leigh lifted her hands into the air, as if to say, You tell me.
“Somebody just phoned my house. I heard a baby crying in the background.”
“Well, no wonder you thought it was me.” Faith smiled, tenderly stroking the top of her baby’s head. “It wasn’t Kyle. Believe it or not, he’s been sleeping like an angel all morning. I really think we’ve turned a corner. Are you okay? You don’t look so hot.”
“Come on, Cindy,” Leigh was saying. “We’ll let the police handle it.”
“The police?” Faith asked.
“They’re tapping the phone.”
“The police are tapping your phone? Why?”
“We’ve been getting a lot of crank calls,” Leigh explained. “Which wouldn’t happen so often,” she continued, reaching for Cindy’s hand, “if my sister would get Caller ID.” She guided Cindy down the stairs toward the sidewalk. “We’ll take the long way home, if you don’t mind.”
“I’m sorry I yanked your arm like that,” Cindy said.
“Don’t give it another thought.”
“SHE ALMOST BROKE my arm, she yanked it so hard,” Leigh told her mother as soon as she returned from walking the dog.
“You yanked your sister’s arm?” their mother asked Cindy incredulously, following the dog into the kitchen. “Hmm, what smells so good?”
“I’m making a lemon cake,” Leigh said.
“You shouldn’t fight with your sister,” her mother said with a shake of her head. “Honestly, I can’t leave you girls alone for a minute.”
The phone rang.
“Don’t answer it,” Leigh instructed.
“Maybe it’s Julia,” Cindy said hopefully.
“This wouldn’t happen if you had Caller ID,” her mother said.
Cindy picked up the phone, braced herself for the worst.
It was Meg. “How’re you doing?” Her voice sounded rushed, as if she were talking while running. Which, of course, was exactly what she was doing, Cindy realized, picturing Meg racing along Bloor Street, trying to get from one movie to the next as quickly as she could, desperate not to miss anything. The festival had been up and running for two days now, and although neither Meg nor Trish had so much as mentioned the festival, Cindy knew they were going without her.
Life goes on, she understood, wishing she could press a button, freeze time as easily as she could freeze an image on her television screen.
She knew she shouldn’t judge Meg and Trish harshly. Her friends couldn’t be expected to drop everything, abandon all their plans, put their lives on hold, because of something that didn’t directly concern them. She shouldn’t resent them for enjoying themselves, for laughing, for forgetting about her for hours at a stretch. She shouldn’t, she thought. But she did.
“I read in the paper about that other missing girl,” Meg said, as a car honked in the background. “What do the police really think?”
Cindy shook her head, said nothing.
“Look, you must be going stir-crazy over there. Why don’t you come to a movie with us?”
“A movie?”
“I know it sounds frivolous, and I don’t mean to sound insensitive. I just think it might be a good idea for you to get out of the house for a while, get some fresh air, get away from your mother, take your mind off everything.”
“You think it’s that easy?”
Meg sighed the sigh of the deliberately misunderstood. “Of course it’s not that easy. I didn’t mean to imply.…”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Will you think about it?”
“Sure,” Cindy said, although she had no intention of doing so.
“Call me on my cell. I’ll keep it on all day.”
Cindy smiled, recalling how enraged festival patrons got whenever anyone’s cell phone rang during a screening.
“I love you,” Meg said.
“I love you too.”
Her mother and sister were staring at her from across the room, their bodies tensed to take action at the first sign of distress. Ever since Cindy had fainted, their eyes were on constant vigil, never allowing her far out of their reach. She wondered whether anyone would ever look at her the way they used to—without pity, without sadness, without fear.
Cindy shook her head, trying to rid her brain of such depressing thoughts. Meg was right—she was going stir-crazy. She needed air.
“I’m going upstairs to shower,” her mother said. “Why don’t you lie down for a while?”
“Because I’m not tired,” Cindy said.
“You’re sure?” Leigh asked as their mother left the room.
Cindy sank into one of the kitchen chairs, watched as her sister began preparing the icing for the cake. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
“I know.”
“Have you spoken to Warren today?”
“Of course.”
“I’m sure he’s wondering when you’re coming home.”
“He’s fine. He’ll be over later.”
Cindy nodded. “Is everything all right?”
“What do you mean?”
“Between the two of you?”
“Of course it’s all right,” Leigh said. “Why wouldn’t it be all right?”
“I don’t know. I’m just asking.”
“Everything’s fine.”
“Good.”
“Warren’s a good man. Not the most exciting man in the world, maybe. Not like Tom.…”
“Thank goodness.”
“But he’s sweet and he’s decent, and he’d never cheat on me.”
“I didn’t mean to imply.…”
“I don’t understand why you’d ask me something like that.”
“I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t mean.…”
“It’s just this damn wedding. You know. People get tense.”
“I’m sure.”
“It’s a huge expense, and we’re not getting any help from the groom’s parents. I’ve told you.”
“Yes.”
“So
there’s bound to be tension. Especially now, with Julia missing, and everything so up in the air.”
“I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry for. We’re fine.”
“Good.”
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” Cindy said, walking briskly to the front door, trying to sort out in her mind what had just happened.
“Check who it is before you open the door,” Leigh called after her.
It was the police. Cindy held her breath as she tried reading the expressions on their faces.
“Can we come in?” Detective Bartolli asked.
“Oh God.” Cindy fell back into the house, covered her mouth with her hand, as Leigh rushed to her side.
“What’s happened?” Leigh asked, as Cindy struggled to stay upright.
“It’s all right,” Detective Gill assured the two women quickly. “We’ve just come to fill you in on what’s been happening.”
“Julia …?”
“There’s nothing new.”
“Can we come in?” Detective Bartolli asked again as Elvis bounded down the stairs to jump against his thighs.
Cindy led the two men into the living room, motioned for them to sit down. Above her head, Cindy could hear the water from the shower running through the pipes.
“I assume you’ve heard about the Hanson girl,” Detective Gill stated as he lowered himself onto one of the tan leather sofas.
“Do you think there’s any connection?” Cindy asked.
“We have no reason at this time to assume the two incidents are related,” came the automatic response from Detective Bartolli.
“But you think there’s a chance?”
“It’s a possibility,” Detective Gill admitted. “We’re looking into it.”
“How exactly are you doing that?” Leigh asked.
The detectives exchanged glances, ignored the question. “We’ve had several conversations with Sean Banack,” Detective Bartolli said.
“And?”
“We’re still checking out his alibi for last Thursday. Unfortunately, because we don’t know the exact time your daughter disappeared …”
“We know it was between eleven-fifteen and four-thirty,” Cindy said.