by Lisa Bork
He massaged my breast. “Mmmm.” He nuzzled my neck and started to move downwards.
I shoved his shoulder again. “Ray, I need to talk to you about Danny.”
He lifted his head. “What’s he done now?”
“Nothing.”
Ray dropped back onto his pillow. “Then why wake me up? I’m tired.”
By the time I finished whispering to him, he wasn’t tired anymore. In fact, he jumped out of bed, showered, and pulled on his uniform.
“I’m going to have another talk with Danny’s father and the bartender at The Cat’s Meow.”
“It’s only five a.m., Ray. I’m sure the bartender’s not there. He just went home a few hours ago.”
“I’ve got his home address.”
I’m sure the guy would be thrilled to have Ray wake him minutes into his R.E.M. sleep.
Then I started to worry Danny’s information sharing would make his father angry with him. “Can you keep Danny out of it? I don’t want his father to feel betrayed.”
Ray pressed his lips to mine. “Don’t worry. One thing I’m sure about with this case is Danny’s father loves him. I doubt anything can change that.”
“What else are you sure about?”
“That we have a dismembered dead woman floating around somewhere.”
Ray worked the next three days, interviewing everyone connected to The Cat’s Meow, the car dealership, and Danny’s father, of course, who exercised his right to remain silent. In conjunction with the State Police and the next county, Ray’s department combed the area surrounding The Cat’s Meow and Josie Montalvo’s apartment, looking for her body. They found nothing.
The bartender at The Cat’s Meow, however, did confirm that Danny’s father had spoken at length to Josie Montalvo Saturday night, the last night she reported to work. His impression was the conversation had been intense, but not violent, although he had no idea what they talked about.
In the meantime, Ray left Danny at home with me and the instruction not to watch television. He hid the stolen Nintendo DS.
I felt like I was the one being punished. I didn’t know what to do with a twelve-year-old. After two days of washing windows, cupboards, baseboards, and anything else I could think of as well as sorting out old clothes and accumulated magazines and mail, all the easy jobs were done in our tiny two-bedroom bungalow. I couldn’t bear the thought of stripping and waxing the wood floor even though it needed TLC.
We played Monopoly. Danny won twice. We played Scrabble. I won, by a landslide. Danny refused to play again. We played crazy eights. The game lasted two hours. Then I needed to get out of the house.
So I took advantage of the library’s Sunday hours and let Danny roam the stacks.
Fifteen minutes later, he asked if he could check out some movies. I knew the movies wouldn’t go over with Ray.
“Didn’t you find any books that interest you?”
“No.”
“What about this?” I pulled a Hardy Boys book off the shelf.
He curled his lip.
I took offense. I’d loved the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew as a child. I tried not to snarl at him. “What are you interested in?”
“Cars.”
Couldn’t fault him for that.
I asked the librarian for books about cars. She led us to the non-fiction area. Danny agreed to read books about racing and race car drivers. I breathed a sigh of relief and took him home.
While Danny read, I hid in the closet we called an office and surfed the Internet for more Caterhams as well as individuals interested in purchasing a Ferrari. I felt certain the Ferrari would sell someday, but to someone who hadn’t heard of its history. Since our town loved to gossip, only an out-of-towner might not hear. I say “might” because those gossip vine tendrils can grow for miles.
The phone rang around five o’clock.
“The butterflies are so pretty.”
“Erica? Where are you?”
“See the blue one?”
Panic clamped onto my heart and gave it a painful squeeze. “Erica, answer me. Where are you?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice sounded hoarse. “Mom, where are we?”
I gripped the phone tighter. Erica had never addressed our mother within my hearing, not since Mom died, of course. “Erica, are you home?”
“No-o-o-o.”
“Are you in a house?”
“It’s dark.”
“Are you sitting down?”
“Lying.”
“On a bed?”
“Cold. Where are my clothes?”
My hand shook. The phone struck my temple. She hadn’t gotten her medication fast enough. She was either hallucinating or talking in her sleep. She’d been known at times to walk, talk, and chew gum while asleep. No one could say she wasn’t a woman of many talents. “Is there a window?”
“Y-e-e-s.”
“Okay, Erica, get up and go to the window. Look outside and tell me what you see.”
“Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“My wrist is stuck.”
“On what?”
“Ahhh …”
Clearly, she was stumped. “Okay, Erica, hold on.”
I ran from the office into the living room and grabbed my purse, fumbling for my cell phone with one hand. I hit speed dial for Ray’s cell.
Danny watched me from the couch, his brow furrowed.
I turned my back to him.
“Yes, Darlin’?”
“Ray, Erica called me from this number.” I checked the caller readout and repeated the incoming phone number to him. “She doesn’t know where she is. She’s completely out of it.”
I could hear him keying into a computer, looking for the address to go with the number.
“Keep her on the phone. I’m on my way.”
I clicked my cell phone shut. “Erica, honey, Ray is coming to get you. Just sit tight.”
Nothing. “Erica? Erica? ERICA?”
All I got in response was a dial tone.
____
Ray called twenty minutes later. “It’s a motel room. She’s not here. There’s no sign of her. The desk clerk says he didn’t see her, but four different guys checked in today. Glen Burton, Maurice Boor, Richard Scott, and Mickey Dean.”
“Mickey Dean’s is a restaurant.”
“I know. The names may all be aliases.”
I didn’t think so. “Is Boor spelled B-o-o-r?”
“Yes.”
“Erica went to high school with a Maury Boor. He used to put notes in her locker all the time. He freaked her out, always calling and asking her on dates.”
“I don’t know him.”
I pulled the phone book out of a drawer and thumbed through it. Maurice Boor wasn’t listed, nor anyone else with the same name. Just my luck, his family had moved away. “I think he was a year younger than Erica, so six years younger than us.”
“What does he look like?”
“I haven’t seen him in years. In high school, he was short and scrawny with dark hair and horn-rimmed glasses. Sort of geeky.” I would have to dig out Erica’s old yearbooks to find his picture.
“The desk clerk couldn’t remember which guy was which, but he said two of them were dark-haired, one balding, one with a gray ponytail. All of them were taller than him, and he’s around five-eight.”
Maybe Maury had a growth spurt after high school. “Are any of them in their rooms?”
“No. This is an hourly sort of motel, Darlin’. It’s about a mile from The Cat’s Meow. They draw their regular crowd.”
“Can you go see if she’s there?”
“No. I’m supposed to be looking for a one-armed woman, Jolene. I cannot chase your sister around town.”
“Ray, Erica was talking about butterflies. She spoke to Mom like she was in the room with her. She’s not well.”
“She hasn’t been well for a long time. There’s no sign of any foul play here, or any kind of play. I don’t know why she
called you, but I have to get back to work. I’ll check and see if Maurice Boor has any priors.”
I couldn’t believe he hung up on me. I resisted the temptation to slam the phone on the receiver over and over again only because of Danny’s watchful eyes.
While it was true Erica had been sick for years and known to disappear for days at a time with men, her hallucinations usually involved someone being after her, making her afraid to leave home. She lost several jobs because she failed to show up for work, too afraid to drive there for fear someone would be in the back seat of her car waiting to attack her. I’d never really thought of her conversations with our mother as hallucinations, since Erica never said she saw Mom or heard Mom’s voice. She just quoted her, which I’d interpreted as Erica trying to garner support for her own ideas by attributing them to Mom. After today, I wasn’t so sure.
I tried to convince myself that, like so often in the past, I had no real cause for concern about Erica’s safety. But Erica had a thing for butterflies. She coveted their short life span. And images of the severed arm lying in the ice chest kept pushing their way into my mind. We might have a psycho killer running loose in our county, one who preyed on women from The Cat’s Meow. Erica had recently become one of those women. While not a dancer, she had been there the other night, offering herself to men in the bar. Had one of them decided to take her up on her offer? Was he keeping her against her will? I couldn’t sit idly by and wait to find out, not when she’d called me in distress.
I glanced at Danny, who tried to avert his eyes back to his book before I caught him watching me. “Are you hungry?”
“Yeah.”
“How about pizza?”
“Okay.”
“Get your coat and shoes. We’re going out.”
____
I pulled the Lexus into the parking lot of The Lincoln House, the restaurant and bar where Erica worked. Erica’s car sat in the far corner of the lot. My heart rejoiced. Could she have shown up for work?
Danny studied the picture of Abraham Lincoln in the lobby of the log cabin restaurant while I scanned the bar. I didn’t see Erica, but the place was full.
The hostess seated us near the fieldstone fireplace. When the waitress arrived, I ordered sodas and sent Danny to get his pizza from the salad bar. I hustled into the barroom and caught the bartender’s eye.
“Hey, Jolene. Did you and Ray come in for dinner?” Bernie, the bartender and half-owner, went to high school with us. He was a star on our high school football team, but his renowned brawn had since aged into paunch.
“Ray’s at work. I brought our new foster child, Danny. He’s twelve.”
Bernie swiped a towel over the bar. “I got a twelve-year-old. Jacob. Maybe they’ll be in the same class.”
“That would be nice. Is Erica working tonight?”
He folded the towel in his hands and looked at it. “She’s off tonight. She was here last night.” He didn’t sound too happy about it.
“Her car’s in the parking lot.”
His gaze remained trained on the towel. “I noticed.”
“Do you know if she went home with someone last night?”
He frowned. “Not for sure. She walked out with a new guy.”
“An employee?”
“A customer. He’s been in a couple times this month.”
“Do you know his name?”
“No. He’s quiet. Not really her type.”
“What do you mean?”
He gave his nose a nervous swipe. “Your sister likes excitement. Lately she’s been spoiling for a fight.”
“In what way?”
“She’s irritable. She’s jumpy. She gets mad if things don’t go her way. I had to sit her down the other day and tell her that she needs to sweeten up or she’s outta here.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. I thought she was doing well here.”
He brought his gaze to meet mine. “She was, Jolene. She was. I knew her record when I hired her, and I warned her then. She did fine for a while, but the last few months …” He trailed off and avoided my eyes again.
“What about them?”
“To be honest, since you lost your baby, she’s been different.”
I shouldn’t have felt surprised. Erica did shoot a man the day before we surrendered Noelle. Surely that had affected her, whether she admitted to it or not. “Different in what way?”
“It’s like she’s desperate for attention.” He washed a few glasses in the sink under the bar. “I think she misses you.”
“Misses me?”
“Yeah. She talked about you and the baby all the time. Then suddenly she didn’t have anything to talk about anymore. I’d ask her how you were doing and she didn’t know.”
Guilt washed over me. I’d neglected my sister, my surrogate child. Erica needed support, and I hadn’t been there to give it to her. “What does this guy she walked out with look like?”
“Dark hair. Maybe six foot. Okay looking, for a guy.”
“If he comes in again, can you call me?”
Bernie stopped drying the glass in his hand. “What for?”
“I don’t know where Erica is, and she’s been off her medicine. I need to find her and make sure she’s all right.”
“Sure. Sure. If he comes in, I’ll call you. And if Erica comes in, I’ll let you know, too.” He leaned closer. “I gotta tell you, though, if she doesn’t come in for her next shift, she’s through.”
“Fair enough.” If that happened, I would pay Erica’s bills just like always.
After thanking Bernie, I rejoined Danny at the table. He had four slices of pizza stacked on a plate with a side of heavily buttered bread. No vegetables.
I let it go. “I’m going to grab a piece of pizza and some salad. Then we need to go to Erica’s apartment, okay?”
Danny nodded, his cheeks bulging with pizza.
____
Erica lived in the apartment I’d leased when Ray and I separated four years ago. He and I’d been unable to come to terms over his desire to have a baby and my desire to avoid perpetuating my bloodline’s mental health issues. When Noelle fell into our arms and Ray and I reconciled after three years, we bought the bungalow, and Erica had moved into this old Victorian on Wells Street. She lived in the first floor apartment, and the landlord lived on the second floor. This time of year, the landlord was most likely holed up in a hunting lodge somewhere with his old war buddies. The entire house was dark when we pulled into the driveway.
I rang the bell then used my key. The apartment smelled musty. Danny followed me in and waited while I turned on the lights.
“Wow. Cool.” The dozens of fake butterflies dangling on fishing line from the ceiling captured Danny’s attention immediately. “She likes butterflies.”
I nodded. My fears grew.
The kitchen was clean and orderly. No one had cooked here in days, maybe months. Her bed was made, her clothes hung. Her suitcases remained tucked under the bed. Erica wasn’t here, and I couldn’t find a clue as to where she might be.
I tried to find her yearbooks, but failed. I’d have to go by my dim memories of Maury Boor for now.
I shut off the lights and led Danny out to the driveway again. “Danny, I need to go to The Cat’s Meow. Would you mind staying in the car while I go inside?”
He shrugged.
“Will you promise to stay in the locked car and wait for me? I don’t want to come out and find you missing again like at Dr. Albert’s office.”
He gazed at the floor. “I promise.” He lifted his head. “Do you think Erica is at The Cat’s Meow?”
I slid into the car and started the engine as he scrambled into the back seat. “I don’t know. She was there the other night. She was at a motel near there this afternoon. I just have to ask if they’ve seen her.” With any luck Briana Engle, Gumby’s wife, would be there to answer my questions. I didn’t feel like sidling up to anyone else in the place.
I backed out and headed out of town
.
“What’s wrong with Erica?”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s weird.”
“She is not weird.” I glanced at Danny in the rearview mirror but couldn’t make out his features in the dark. “Why do think she’s weird?”
“I don’t know. She’s just different.”
I had to give him that. Erica was different. When depressed, she was unapproachable. But with the right medication and phase of the moon, she was exuberant, charming, outgoing, and talkative. These days, she seemed dark and restless, a precursor in the past to hospitalization. Her heavy drinking was new. She’d stayed away from alcohol in the past because of her medications. I mentally kicked myself for not paying more attention to her. I’d fooled myself into believing her days in the psychiatric center were over.
But Danny didn’t know Erica was different from the usual. He meant she was different from everybody else, and not in a good way.
I couldn’t decide if he was very intuitive or just becoming a bigot like his father.
Either way, my number one priority was to find my sister.
Sunday night at The Cat’s Meow didn’t draw a full house, judging from the parking lot. Only a dozen cars sat in it, surrounded by the dead cornstalks that looked on like sentinels. In one vehicle, a couple was steaming up the windows. I parked as far from them as possible and crossed my fingers Danny wouldn’t notice them.
I turned around to look him in the eye. “Now remember, you promised to stay in the car. Do not get out. Do not unlock the doors. Do not speak to anyone. Okay?”
“Okay.” Again, I heard the “yeah, right, lady” in his voice. I knew my fears for his safety far exceeded his confidence in his ability to care for himself.
I ran across the muddy parking lot and opened the front door. A bouncer sat alone in the foyer.
“You got ID?”
I pulled out my driver’s license, flattered he thought I might be underage.
He looked at my picture. I had long hair when it was taken several years ago. “You were hot.” He handed it back to me.
In an instant, I felt old and ugly, two things only amplified by the interior of the strip club.
At first, the loud music and disco lights stunned me. It took several seconds for my eyes to adjust. Then I spotted the dancer gyrating on the stage with a G string, feather boa, and pasties, sporting boobs the size of cannonballs. I felt shortchanged, overdressed, and embarrassed for her and me.