The head was rolled onto one side, saving me from seeing the other, and I was looking at it upside down, from the scalp. Two hands and two feet were collected in a baggie and tied in its hair. It looked like Detective Hugh Marsland would not be returning to claim his badge. No beach bunnies for him. No cozy fireside dinners with his wife, either. My bloody nose seemed suddenly trivial.
“Sara, grab hold of me and make like a choo-choo train, but walk right behind me so you can’t see a thing.”
“What’s going on? I don’t like to be blind.”
Listen for the important questions, and answer them honestly. “Honey, you remember the headless guy yesterday? We found the rest of him.”
“I know. I saw.”
“I don’t want you to look at it again. It’s awful. We’re heading for the bathroom, little caboose, so I can clean up my face, and then I think we’re going to spend another afternoon at the police station.” I edged her around the conference table and toward the door.
“Oh, no,” babbled the chair. “He’s going to kill me. I’m next in line. Somebody save me.” And then he collapsed in the middle of the doorway, completely blocking our exit.
CHAPTER 23
Dear Nora:
How right you were! I should have trusted you more. I do love your attorney. As soon as my divorce is finalized, we’ll be announcing our engagement. Instead of a ring, he gave me my own housekeeping company. Please say you’ll come to the wedding.
Formerly Worked to the Bone
By the time we got home, it was late afternoon. My Nana had arrived at Mama and Daddy’s, as had all of our unwrapped presents and enough clothes to get each of us through several days. I felt increasingly edgy about being here. There wasn’t a burglar alarm, and Ironweed was a small town. We wouldn’t be hard to track down.
“We ought to go to a hotel. In Columbus.”
“Maybe so,” Lance agreed.
But Mama wouldn’t hear of it. “Honey, you’re better off than if you’d joined up with those witness protection people.” Drew’s people were needed elsewhere tonight, and we were left with the federal agents. Even though there were only two of them, my mother had total faith in Trudy and Darnell.
And then there was Natasha. For the first time since she had joined us, she was wearing makeup, not the heavy, overdone stuff I’d seen her in at our first meeting many moons ago, but bright colors in moderate amounts. And instead of black, the eye shadow and lipstick were paired with a pastel top and flowery shorts, because Mama kept the kitchen unholy hot. “I wish you a Merry Christmas, I’m going home, home, home, home,” she sang. “They’re springing Granddad from the retread hospital, and I’m going home in a week.”
“Retread? What?” We had barely achieved some kind of normalcy in our house with our three children. Now one of them was leaving?
“Retread. It’s what he calls rehab. Like fixing the tread on a car, only . . . yeah, you get it,” she explained. Then she added, as if maybe I’d missed her point, “He’s getting out next Wednesday if everything goes right this coming week.”
Sara wrapped her arms around Natasha. “I’m going to miss you!”
“Me, too!” Tasha said at once, as if this portion of the equation hadn’t occurred to her. It seemed we had inadvertently dampened her good humor. “But,” she knelt beside Sara and beckoned for William. “Remember. We talked about this. Sleepovers, movie nights, and you can come swimming whenever you want to in the summer.”
“You have a burglar alarm!” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself.
Natasha understood at once. “You’re brilliant! I could go home now.”
“Noel, our house is safe,” said Mama.
“No,” said Lance. “It isn’t.”
“And,” Mama overrode him, “We have more than enough room for all of you.” There, at least, she had us. She and Daddy lived in a vast old mansion that had once been a funeral home. When we got married, they had boarded not only Lance and me, but also Nana, my sister and her husband, their four children, and ultimately Natasha.
“I want it to be,” said Lance. “We love it here. But if we hadn’t had an alarm to go with our federal escort, we could still have been in trouble last night. Stan has space and an alarm.”
Mama ignored him. “Plus, we have a tree up here, and all of your presents and my presents, and your sister is coming down in a couple of days.” My mother crossed her arms. “If you’re going, I’m coming along, and so is all our stuff. I guarantee everyone else will stay where I land.”
“Don’t be absurd, Mama.”
“You can’t go without me, Lenore.” Daddy sounded outraged.
“See?”
“Not you, too, Daddy.”
“Now you hold on!” said Nana.
“Finally! Someone with sense.”
“You’re not leaving me here all by myself.” She sounded as plaintive and grouchy as Sara had earlier. “I came over here expressly to get the dibs on your escapades, and you will not get away from me until I hear every word of what happened yesterday, last night, and this morning.”
“Nana . . . you can’t . . . would all of you stop and think! We have no idea how long this is going to drag on, and Stan does not need to come home to a madhouse. Everybody forget it. We’re staying here.”
“That’s better,” said Nana. Lance and I exchanged resigned shrugs. Daddy reclaimed William and they returned to the morning’s imaginary pruning. Lance went along to supervise. Sara trailed after Mama to go feed the dogs.
Natasha and I were left alone. “Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to get your hopes up.”
“The madhouse would probably be better,” she mumbled. “The two of us rattling around up there are going to be mighty lonely.”
“What about . . . oh. Gert can’t leave yet.”
“You mean won’t leave.” Her ebullience had completely disintegrated.
“Sweetheart.” I wished I could hug her.
“She could come home, Noel. The absolutely worst part is that she’s determined to mope and waste in the stupid nursing home. She’s not very old, and she’s not even very sick anymore. But Granddad said it’s like . . . like she’s lost the will to live. The doctors are all out of ideas, and even her favorite nurse can’t think of anything. Granddad’s all out of ideas. She thinks it’s all her fault, and I know exactly why she does, because I always think the same thing myself.”
“What same thing?”
Natasha looked out at me from her made-up face and didn’t say a word.
“I’m sorry, honey, you don’t have to answer.”
“It’s okay. My shrink says I ought to get it out there and make myself believe it isn’t true. I’m starting to agree with him. I guess I thought you would know.”
“No. I’m sorry, Tash. You and I have been through some similar things, but this is one I can’t touch.” I had ended the abusive relationship with Lance’s younger brother only when Alex nearly beat me to death. Memories of that time in my life could only help me so far in connecting with my foster daughter.
“See, as long as I believe it’s my fault, then it can’t be Mom’s. And then I won’t be mad at her.”
“Man. I should have seen that.” I wanted to hug her. I wanted to wrap my arms around Natasha and hold her as close as I had held Sara earlier. But this sister didn’t want for holding. My arm around her shoulder at the poetry slam had been a huge step forward. Natasha would come to me if she wanted physical contact. “Does Gert know you’re fighting with the same things as her?”
“I don’t want to dump on Gran.”
“You might be able to give her some perspective. You’ve always been close to her, haven’t you?”
“Even when we hardly ever got to see them, Gran and Granddad were like my sun and moon. It was always peaceful out here in the country. When I was with Mom and Terry, there was . . . I don’t know exactly how to explain it . . . an edgy feeling. I thought I liked it when I was a kid. I ne
ver knew what was coming next, and life felt like one big adventure after another. And then . . . I guess when I found out how the adventure got funded, things weren’t so good anymore. There were six of us girls around the same age, and I wanted to impress the others so much. I acted tough, like I didn’t care, or like I thought it was as great as they did. But behind their backs, I was begging to get out. I know those girls hate me now, wherever they are.
“I kept hoping Mom would come around, like I could change her mind, and then she’d save us both. But she never did. And I wonder now, what if I’d argued with her a little harder? What if I hadn’t pretended to like it when I was with the other girls? What if . . .”
“What if you could have changed her.” It wasn’t a question. This, I did know. “I used to blame the alcoholism, instead of Alex. I thought if I could change him, he’d stop hurting me. It was always inherent in me to make him different. It doesn’t work that way.”
“I know. But it’s hard to accept when you’re brainwashed . . . or when you’ve brainwashed yourself.”
“Honey, Gary brainwashed you.”
“I don’t mean me. I think that’s what Gran’s doing. Brainwashing herself. It’s like she’s all of a sudden admitting Mom’s dead, and everything else is collapsing around her.”
“Listen, tomorrow, you’ve got to go to school. You’re already going to be buried under makeup work from missing two days. But after school, I want to take you in to the . . . what does Stan call it? Retread home? And let you visit with Gert.”
I could not save Hugh Marsland. And I couldn’t erase the look of horror from Drew’s eyes when he walked out of the conference room earlier after seeing his old partner’s desiccated head. But I could help here. I understood the isolation of depression, and so did Natasha. “Your Gran needs to know she’s not alone.”
Nana stumped back, impatient for news. “Is Gertrude stuck in the home your mother stuffed me away in when I broke my hip?”
“Yes, Nana.”
“They do okay for the body, I guess. I’m back up and running, and it hasn’t even been a full year since I got out. But they don’t do much for the mind except tell you to stop feeling sorry for yourself. Your granddad needs to get her a better psychiatrist or psychologist than whatever they’re giving her in there.”
“He does?” Natasha’s daze was lifting, returning hope making her straighten her back. “He can make that happen. I can make that happen. He can buy that.”
“Now come on. I want to know what happened to that poor man at your center.”
“We’re coming.” I shook my head at Nana’s retreating back. “We aren’t going to get your Gran home next week. But we’re not going to up and leave her in there to fester.”
“Thanks, Noel.”
“Come on, let’s go see if we can convince my mama to order pizza instead of cooking for this crew.”
Less than an hour later, I was thoroughly enmeshed in parent mode, and Nana was brooding on the sofa. I had promised her a long talk after the twins were in bed. The pizza delivery car pulled up behind our van in Mama’s driveway. Sara, who had been watching from the window, called out, “Pizza for me-e!” and dashed for the door.
“Not so fast.” Lance intercepted her. “Grownups answering the doors, yes?”
“Right.” Her face fell. This wasn’t merely a reminder she was seven and we were a fair bit older. It was a reminder we would only be sure it was the pizza guy on the other side of the door when he handed Lance a hot square box and departed with a tip.
In the living room, William shouted, “No! No, no, no!” He ran at me, flapping madly, jumping up and down when he reached me. “No, no, no, no, no!”
“Easy, easy.” I got down on his level to show him I was listening, and I tried to catch the hands. Pointless, as he needed that stimulation to calm himself, but completely automatic on my part.
He pulled them loose and shook them harder. “Circles!” He finally howled. “No circles!”
No circles. “No pizza?” Pizza was round. William hated round. “We’re making you a waffle, remember?”
“No, no, no! No circles. No dots.”
“Do you see the police car?”
Lance was talking to the delivery guy. “We already paid by credit card.”
“Sorry. Should have checked the receipt. I don’t usually do deliveries. I’m supposed to be a cook. But we’re down a manager and Robby’s been filling in for him.”
William persisted. “Circle dot cars are bad cars.”
“Isn’t he a little young?” Lance was making small talk now, when he should have been bringing in the food. But he had a point. Our pizza was almost always brought by the teenage Robby, who was perennially late, but always friendly. And he did seem awfully young to sub for a manager.
“No circle dots!”
“Yeah, but Merle, our manager, had kind of taken him under his wing. And the Gibsons have been out of touch ever since we upgraded the technology. Robby’s the only one who knows how to do practically everything.”
“I didn’t know Merle worked for the Marine.”
“You know him? Merle Evans?”
“How many Merles do we have in this town? He volunteers at the sanctuary. What’s up with Merle? Sick?”
“No call, no show. I think he’s sleeping something off in Columbus.”
“Really? He always seemed responsible to me.”
“Yeah. When he isn’t drinking. But get him on a bender? Different story.”
The driver left, and William pounded on my hips. “No! No!”
Circle dot cars. “That car?” He had been watching at the window with Sara. With some effort, because he struggled, I took him back there and pointed. Abstract concepts like “that” were hard for him. But he was a visual kid. He used a tablet at school and had a specialized chart with images depicting words. The Marine’s delivery car backed down the drive, and for a moment, the magnet on its door rolled into view.
“Circle dots,” Will shrieked. “Circle dot cars are bad cars.” The magnet had the Marine’s logo, that scuba diver holding the outsized pepperoni pizza. From the right angle, it looked nothing like a pizza at all but like a wavy, polka-dotted oval. Circle dots. Pizzas were circles. The weird oval might be a circle. Pepperoni might be dots. But so might be police lights. Though Drew’s people had gone, a parked cruiser remained on the curb, and it was illuminated in the departing vehicle’s headlights.
William was going to start screaming soon, and then he’d be gone for half an hour or more. “William,” I said, looking for, and not finding, something to calm him down. I couldn’t ask him the obvious question; it was too abstract. What are circle dot cars? Why are they bad? I tried to think of familiar vocabulary words. “William . . . was that car,” I pointed again to the retreating vehicle. “Did that car see you under the Dumpster?”
He cocked his head. “Cars can’t see,” he told me, bewilderment momentarily overcoming his hysteria.
Damn. “Was that car . . . did you ride in that car?”
“The day we went to town!”
I didn’t know what to make of it. Those were the final words of his favorite book, We had fun in there and everywhere the day we went to town. He liked that book. Loved it. But he didn’t sound happy now. He sounded intense, desperate, and on the verge of a meltdown. The exhaustion was hitting him hard.
“You rode in the circle dot car the day you went to town.”
“The day we went to town, I did not have fun. Circle dot cars are bad cars!” And then he broke and threw himself into my arms, sobbing.
Later, when he was calm on the couch, I made another phone call. “Natalie,” I said, “you told me one time you felt like you still owed these kids something.”
“Y-e-ess. Noel, we’re doing baths . . .”
“This will only take a minute, I swear, and it’s the most important thing in the world.”
“If . . . yes . . . but . . .”
“Can you remember w
hat you saw driving home from the pizza place the day William was taken?”
“He wasn’t taken, Noel. I forgot him. My memory is all screwed up.”
“Humor me.” Humor the authorities who don’t think you forgot him. “Assume, for the sake of argument, you do remember clearly. Think about what you saw. Do you remember anything funky in the rearview mirror when you pulled out of the pizza place?”
“Noel, I can’t . . . I don’t remember anything at all about the rearview mirror. All I remember is we were blocking the pizza guy getting out of the Marine, and he zoomed around us as soon as we got out of the parking lot.”
“I . . . thanks.”
“Did that help? Because I left Adam with two toddlers in the bathtub, and . . .”
“It helped. Thanks. One more thing, and I swear I’ll let you go. Did William always hate circles, or was it only after he . . . went missing?”
“It started about then, I guess. It’s relatively recent.”
After we’d hung up, I asked Trudy, “What do you think?”
“Could be,” said Trudy. “Or it could be the cruiser, or nothing. He might have seen a pizza car when he got picked up. We interviewed both drivers working at the time. We can go back over them. I’ll look into it more tomorrow.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“I may not have an answer.”
“Why are you and Darnell still here?” I had asked her this before. She had always been evasive. Although a slightly wider circle of people knew their real roles, Trudy and Darnell were still working largely undercover. “If the June bust took care of your job, why are you still hanging around at the center pretending to be a grad student?”
“Not everything fits yet, Noel. This isn’t the movies where there’s a perfect slot for every tab, and I don’t expect to fully understand all of it ever. But there’s still too much unaccounted for. I want those bastards we arrested to spend a long time in prison. I don’t want a single one of them to get out on a technicality.
“I’ll tell you three things. One: Gary’s organization apparently had patchy records, at best, even though everything Natasha has said leads me to think her cousin was meticulous. She believes he had a journal, and I can’t find it. It’s one thing to bust a guy for owning child pornography. It’s another to catch him for distributing it. I don’t think we’ve sorted out all the distributors from the owners yet, and I think Gary had lists of which were which.
The Case of the Red-Handed Rhesus (A Rue and Lakeland Mystery) Page 23