“Actually,” I told him, “I’m a private investigator.”
“Really? Char didn’t mention that.” He smiled again. “You see, news travels fast in Fallowfield, especially when it comes to strangers.”
Being the stranger in question, I didn’t like that fact at all. But I was determined to make the most of it. “I’m interested in news. Old news, to be precise. Do you have back copies of the Examiner on microfilm?”
“No, there’s no room in our budget for that. We’ve kept actual copies of the paper, though, since 1833. They’re in the basement. I’ll show you.”
I followed Calvin down a set of sweeping marble steps, across the deserted children’s area, and through a door marked STAFF ONLY. Behind it was a long, skinny room built of concrete and claustrophobia. Cardboard file box after cardboard file box gathered dust on industrial-gray shelves the length and breadth of the place. My guide led me to one shelf in particular, grabbed a box positioned high above my head, and pulled it down for me. The dates on the end of it corresponded perfectly to the year Pamela had been attacked and died.
“You’ll find everything you want to know in here,” Calvin said, “and then some.”
I swallowed hard, afraid he might be right. “How do you know I want the information in this box?”
“Because,” he said, not unkindly, “you’re Adam’s friend.”
The librarian left me alone then, with old newspapers and the past.
I lifted the top from the container, was met by the acrid scent of harsh ink and stale newsprint. If the Fallowfield Public Library didn’t come up with the funds to preserve these papers on microfilm soon, they and every word on their broad pages would be lost to time and chemistry. But as I sifted through edition after edition, I began to believe that that might be a good thing.
The papers were arranged in chronological order. And since Pamela had died in the spring, it didn’t take me long to find the first disturbing headline. Much too soon, there it was, on the front page of the April 9 issue.
Local Girl Sexually Assaulted
At 7:23 A.M., sheriff’s deputies responded to a call at a location off Hawthorn Road, where a teenage boy reported finding his younger sister in the creek bed bordering Barrett Orchards and the farm of Marty Wentz. The girl had sustained numerous abrasions and contusions. Her nightgown had been removed from her and has not been recovered. She was transported to Fallowfield Memorial Hospital, where she was treated and released. Sheriff Bowker states his investigation is ongoing.
Pamela Wentz hadn’t been named as the victim, of course—at least, not in this initial report. But the rest of the facts were there. And despite the dispassionate language the reporter had used, my stomach ached as I read them.
But Pamela’s name wasn’t withheld forever. Three days later, on April 12, the Examiner announced Pamela Wentz, age fourteen, had been found hanging by the neck in a barn behind her family’s farmhouse shortly after dawn. The coroner ruled her death a suicide—and cited her April 9 rape as a possible motivator.
This unleashed a maelstrom of stories chronicling the community’s shock and outrage. Weepy high school girls, who couldn’t profess to being actual friends with Pamela before her death, recounted sweet remembrances of the freshman. Upright citizens ranted about kids’ coursing hormones, heavy underage drinking, overprivileged teen athletes, and inattentive parents. And someone in the Sheriff’s Office was credited with leaking a list of boys who’d been brought in for questioning about Pamela’s assault.
The paper printed them all.
And I saw Barrett’s name in black and white.
The paper’s secret source wasn’t afraid to say why he’d made the list. DNA testing was still in the early stages of development back then, but according to the reporter’s informant, a saliva sample had been lifted from Pamela’s mouth. It had matched Barrett’s DNA perfectly.
And that revelation twisted me into knots.
Then, in the April 15 edition, there was this little gem, published as an anonymous letter to the Examiner’s editor:
Dear Editor:
When are the people of this town going to wise up? What will it take before we see justice done? Does another Fallowfield girl have to get hurt? Adam Barrett may be the grandson of two so-called pillars of this community, but he wasn’t born here, he wasn’t raised here, and everyone knows things like this didn’t happen before he came here. The sheriff keeps pulling him in for questioning. It’s time we the people demand Sheriff Bowker step up to the plate and lock this boy away.
But Barrett was never arrested. And in a news conference on April 21, the sheriff cautioned citizens against jumping to conclusions. That didn’t stop the good people of Fallowfield from taking matters into their own hands, however.
On May Day, the paper reported, an angry mob marched on the Barretts’ place after dark. Some carried flashlights. Others carried torches. Those folks touched off a blaze in a corncrib. And set fire to the house itself.
The family lived to tell about it, but Neville Barrett—who I took to be Barrett’s grandfather—had been treated for smoke inhalation. Elise and Miranda were treated for shock. The fire chief was quoted as saying the property damage was relatively minor—but I figured that was a matter of perspective.
In any case, I found I couldn’t stomach reading any more after that.
I packed the papers away and, upstairs, searched out Calvin Mead at his post behind the circulation desk. He was repairing the spine of a book that had seen better days. Keeping my voice low so as not to disturb a pair of little of old ladies fingering an encyclopedia at a reading table, I thanked him for his help.
“Did you find what you were looking for?” he asked.
“Some of it,” I said, “but not all of it.”
He nodded, plucked a business card from an ornate brass holder alongside a stack of books.
“These are our hours.” He offered the card to me. “And you know where we are if you need more assistance.”
I muttered more thanks, shoved the card in my pocket, and left.
By the time I turned into Miranda Barrett’s driveway, the sun had dipped behind the cheery scarecrow standing in the midst of his straw bales. But if the cars parked outside the combination greenhouse/gift shop were anything to go by, Barrett’s grandmother was still doing a brisk business even this late in the day. And after all I’d read about the townspeople storming her home like angry villagers in some sick American Gothic/Frankenstein mash-up over twenty years ago, I was glad to see some of them made no bones about contributing to her livelihood now.
Steering clear of the congestion in front of the barn, I parked by the garage on a patch of bare earth. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to cut the engine. Briefly, I considered sneaking into the house, snagging my suitcase, and hightailing it back to Washington without another word to anyone bearing the last name of Barrett.
But I wasn’t a quitter.
And I wasn’t a coward.
I’d face Barrett and whatever the truth might be. So I got out of my car. And that’s when I spied Barrett himself, elbows propped on the rail outside the garage’s second-story apartment. He didn’t hail me or offer any kind of hello. But in my heart of hearts, I knew: Adam Barrett was waiting to talk to me.
Chapter 7
Well aware that Barrett was watching my every move, I crossed the lawn, turning a cold shoulder to the chilly evening breeze that blew in from the orchard. The wind didn’t seem to bother him, however, as he descended the stairs to meet me. Maybe the faded jean jacket he wore over his ratty flannel shirt was warmer than it looked—or maybe he was liquored up again and the booze had made him numb.
When I drew near, Barrett took a seat on one of the steps. He slid to one side of the tread, leaving plenty of room for me to sit beside him. But I couldn’t quite bring myself to do that.
“You were gone a long time,” he said.
“I had things to do.”
He nodded.
&
nbsp; Silence, as taut as a telegraph wire, stretched between us.
“What did Luke Rittenhaus have to say to you and Eric Wentz?” I asked.
“He cited Eric for discharging a firearm within town limits. He also swears he’ll arrest me if I go near Eric again. Not that that will stop me.”
“Barrett…” Frustration had me sinking onto the step beside him. But I was very careful not to touch him. “I know you came up here because Vance McCabe told you Eric was suicidal. But today, waving that shotgun around, he didn’t look suicidal to me.”
“He had it bad in Afghanistan. And he never got over what happened to Pamela. None of us have.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s in danger of killing himself.”
“The statistics aren’t in his favor. And Vance says—”
“Vance has a drug problem. And based on your recent behavior, I haven’t been so sure it hasn’t rubbed off on you.”
Barrett didn’t reply.
Irritated, I couldn’t look at him anymore. Because if I did, I’d yell at him. Or I’d cry. And neither kind of outburst would fix this situation. So I scowled at my shoes, beautiful handmade oxfords crafted by a grateful client from cocoa-colored patent leather and inset with peacock velvet vamps. But beside my right foot was Barrett’s left, clad in an old combat boot too run down to wear with his uniform any longer. And that was exactly how I felt: run down.
He said, “I didn’t want you to stay. I knew if you stayed, you’d hear bad news about me.”
“I’m a PI,” I mumbled, “and a security specialist. I hear lots of bad news. All the time. About everything and everybody.”
“Well, you heard about Pamela, so now you know. She’s dead because of me.”
I could barely breathe, barely ask, “What do you mean because of you?”
But Barrett shook his head. “Jamie, it’s complicated.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“I can’t. Don’t you get that? I can’t talk to you about this!”
“Oh, I get it.” Anger flashed through me like heat lightning. It propelled me to my feet. “You can fuck me. But you can’t confide in me.”
And there it was. The real reason I was so upset. In words that were rude and raw.
Because in that instant I realized I’d inadvertently lied when I’d told everyone in Fallowfield that Barrett and I were only friends. I’d accidentally lied to myself, too. I wasn’t in New York merely because his grandmother had asked me to come. I wasn’t here because Barrett had had my back when I’d come under fire, either. No, I was here because last Tuesday night, with Barrett, in my guest bedroom, I’d been ready to be as close to another human being as I knew how. In short, I’d trusted him completely. Not just physically but emotionally, too. And it turned out, Barrett might be profoundly unworthy of my trust—and even if he wasn’t, he sure as hell didn’t trust me in return.
But right then, sitting with me behind his grandma’s house, Barrett looked me in the eye.
His voice was diamond hard as he said, “I wasn’t going to fuck you the other night, and I’m not going to fuck you now.”
Anything I might’ve said in reply got stuck in the back of my throat. There was no comeback to Barrett’s statement. Because I’d tipped my hand in a game I didn’t even know we were playing.
My face hot with embarrassment, I thundered down the remaining steps. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. Go into the house, for a start.
But I didn’t get very far. Because Barrett followed me. He seized my wrist.
It was the wrist I’d broken earlier in the autumn when my father, the senator, had maneuvered me into working for him. I’d almost met my death thanks to him. But Barrett had refused to let me face that danger alone.
He said, “Pamela came to me in the barn one April night. She was a virgin, Jamie, and she didn’t want to be. She told me that in no uncertain terms.”
Past his shoulder, I could see the barn, all red and rough-hewn. I didn’t want to think of him there. Not with anyone—and especially not with a fourteen-year-old girl.
Barrett let go of my hand. “She told me she was in love with me. Not a crush. Not lust. Love, she said. She’d snuck out of her parents’ house and cut across the fields because she knew I’d be alone, doing my chores. She was barefoot. In her nightgown. It was some dark red, silky thing. It clung to her because of the dew. She slipped her fingers under the straps of it, dropped it to the ground. She wasn’t wearing a stitch under it.”
Anxiety formed a black hole in the pit of my stomach and drew every ounce of my strength into it.
“Did you, ah, take her up on her offer?”
“No. She was a girl, Jamie, younger than my kid sister. She should’ve been playing with Barbies. I was a couple weeks away from my eighteenth birthday. I had plans to go to college and become an army officer. I was a man and I knew it.”
“So what did you do?”
“I scooped up her nightgown and threw it at her. I told her to put it on. Then I got the hell out of there.”
“You left her. In the barn.”
“Yes.”
But Barrett hesitated.
“And no,” he said.
Fear, like a hot spike, pierced me. “No?”
“I was halfway out the door when she told me she understood. She said if we’d met at a different time in our lives, we might’ve had a chance. Right then, she seemed more grown-up than anyone I’d ever known. I thought, wow, the guy who falls for her someday will be one lucky fellow. I hoped she knew that. I wanted her to know it. So I…I kissed her. Just once. On the mouth. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“Oh, Adam. I’m sorry.”
And I was. I was sorry he felt so bad for a girl who’d tried desperately to be a woman. I felt sorry for her, too.
At thirty-eight, I was a long way from fourteen. Still, I could remember the sensation of youth. The feeling of power, that my body was strong and svelte and maybe even sexy. The disgust in realizing some men looked at me as an object. And the frustration that some regarded me as a childlike nonentity no matter how I saw myself.
Pamela would’ve felt all these things and more.
“She…she took the kiss as encouragement,” Barrett admitted. “I set her straight and she got upset. I offered to drive her home, but she ran out of the barn crying.”
Barrett scrubbed a shaking hand along his scruffy jaw. “I should’ve gone after her, Jamie, but to tell you the truth, I was glad she left. I told myself it was a ten-minute walk through the old orchard and across her dad’s lower pasture to her place. She’d be fine. I mean, she wasn’t lost in a dark alley somewhere. I figured, what could happen in a meadow in ten minutes?”
I didn’t speak.
We both knew the answer to that one.
“Eric didn’t find her until dawn,” Barrett said. “Some sick son of a bitch had stripped her, left her out there in the cold….”
“And the sheriff ran you in for questioning.”
Barrett nodded.
He didn’t have to tell me the next part. I’d read about it in the newspaper. They’d found his DNA on her mouth, cultured from a bit of saliva left behind from that ill-advised kiss. It had been at the dawn of DNA testing and every police department had been keen to use the new technique—not that they’d always known what to do with the results. Some members of the community had interpreted them as proof of Barrett’s guilt, however. And some—namely Eric—apparently still did today.
But I didn’t believe Barrett had attacked Pamela.
Unless I missed my guess, Sheriff Bowker hadn’t believed Barrett was guilty, either. After all, he’d run in nearly every male student at Fallowfield High School. And he’d never brought charges against any of them.
“You weren’t arrested,” I reminded Barrett.
“Maybe I should’ve been. She killed herself because of what happened when I let her walk home alone. It destroyed her. It destroyed Eric, too. Vance says he’s hit bottom since he go
t home from Afghanistan.”
“Eric’s not your responsibility.”
Barrett didn’t reply to me.
Because he didn’t agree with me.
And that’s when I knew. To fulfill my obligation to Barrett’s grandmother, to settle the score Eric kept against Barrett, and to bring Barrett some measure of peace, I needed to do one thing. I needed to find out who had raped Pamela Wentz over twenty years ago.
So that was what I intended to do.
Chapter 8
The next day dawned much too early, but I was ready for it. I’d spent a restless night in a chair at the window of Elise’s girlhood bedroom, keeping watch over the door to Barrett’s little apartment. Maybe I would’ve slept in the bed had I been able to extract a promise from Barrett that he’d leave well enough alone. But any connection we’d forged while he’d told me about his final encounter with Eric’s sister evaporated when I tried to tell him what to do. In return, he’d insisted I leave Fallowfield, and that didn’t help. By the time I marched toward his grandmother’s house, we were both fed up with each other—and I was more determined than ever to learn exactly what had happened to Pamela Wentz.
After a quick morning shower and a quiet ransacking of my suitcase, I tiptoed down the stairs in my stocking feet, carrying my oxfords so as not to wake Barrett’s grandmother. The fourth step from the bottom creaked under the ball of my foot despite my best efforts. And popped like a shot fired from a kid’s cap gun.
“There’s coffee,” Mrs. Barrett called from the back of the house, “or I can make tea.”
I found her in her kitchen, bustling between the range and refrigerator as if she were a Norman Rockwell illustration come to life. The room was cozy with the scents of bacon and real butter, and before I could stop myself, I pictured Barrett bounding into the room as a teenager, eager for his breakfast. Every American youngster should begin his day in such a way, though few did, and if Barrett had, I was glad for it.
At Mrs. Barrett’s bidding, I slid into a Windsor chair at her round oak table and pulled a cloth napkin into my lap. The blue and white willowware dotting the tablecloth was completely charming. I poured a cup of coffee as she directed and took a sip of the juice in my glass. It was apple. And I supposed, given that the Barrett clan had made their living from the fruit for generations now, I shouldn’t have expected any other kind.
The Kill Box Page 6